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I'm not a birdy person at all - as anyone who's seen me go pale at the sight of a feather will let you know but I really love these little stylised birds from CraftWork Cards..

I made this card to go in the latest parcel sent out to Afghanistan and was very pleased to find that you can colour in the lovely pearlised paper with my promarkers.  You can also colour in their card candy if you have the patience of a saint. I chose to colour in the background and leave the birdie plain.  the card blank is a patterned one from a DCWV stack.

Sis has now confirmed she's got it so I can post it on here.  Even better she says that the minstrels I sent out survived the journey and haven't melt.  In her own words "they are, alas, no more!"

Let's play a new game - "what card fold is this?"

I've been searching for a card using the fold I saw at harrogate but to no avail.  I'd really like to reference it in my tutorial post but have no idea what it is called.

So after much searching I've mocked one up to see if anyone knows what they are called.

To be fair, it's a tough challenge because this looks nothng like them - they had beautiful big letters in each fold spelling out "Xmas" and "Baby" and a beautiful background.  But this is the best I could do in an attempt to stop myself going insane looking for them.
Anyone???

WOYWW + Tutorial (of a fashion!) - Lollipop 3d card

I've had a couple of requests for instructions on how to make my "special Christmas Card".  I can't claim the idea is 100% mine - I saw some cards at the Papercraft show in harrogate that had loads of folds on the front to carry a message so it looks 3d and it kind of got me thinkig about making lollipop flowers to go in a fold.  Then, the idea progressed to Christmas.

The cards I've made so far have been with prefolded tri-fold cards from my trusty home bargains - where else! but when I came to try and do these instructions I realised I had no more left in white.  What a shame - I'll have to go back and have another look around ;-).  So I've tried it with a piece of white A4 card and it kind of works.  So here goes

First up - score your card into thirds ^^^

And fold

Then score and fold the front third in half so it looks like this  ^^^^^^^^

To make the snowy hillside I drew free-hand, and then cut a piece of white card - this was an A5 pece of white card and is the off-cut from the first Christmas card I made - see there's no wastage in this household!

I'll come back to this later but it's a good idea to offer it up to your card at this stage to make sure it fits.

Now, this is the bit I fear I'll struggle to explain - put a piece of DST on either side of the fold 2/3 of the way down the page.  Like this ^^^^^^

Make your Christmas trees by sticking a cut tree onto a lollipop stick.  I use DS and stirrers bottowed from CostaCoffee (well I pay enough for my daily hot choc!)

Oopsy - I forgot to stick the backing sheet snowy sky on! 
Now squeeze together the two pieces of DST to hold your lollipop sticks in place

And now for a bit of squeeze and tease - oo-er missus
Basically just bend the card until it stand up right

Then add on the front - I double embossed front with sowflaks and swiss dots on the cuttlebug and the die cut is embossed with Christmas stars.

I'm thinking with this one that I'll put a star on a wire at the top but I can't find my cutters so I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Please let me know if there is anything that I haven't made clear and I'll try and add it in.

If you like this idea please use it - I'd really like it if you could link back to this thread though

Ooh and before I forget, I remembered to do my first WOYWW - thanks for the reminder Carmen

Hmm - any chance of chance of a 'how to kepp your dek tidy' tutorial?  Anyone???

My "Special" Christmas Card

Ok ok I know all Christmas cards are special but I like to make an extra-special card for my Granny as I know how much she enjoys putting her cards out, counting them and showing them to her visitors.

You may remember that I recently made a thank you card using lollipop flowers and I said back then that I wanted to have a go at making a Christmas card the same way.  I've finally got around to it and was so pleased with the result that I had to take it into work just to show it off (I really don't know how they put up with me sometimes!)

So hear it is.  Base card is a trifold with the front double embossed with snowflakes and swiss dots.    I did both because it looked too stark with just one so the snowflakes are underneath with swiss dots on top as they are easier to match as I had to emboss in stages.  The die-cut "Christmas" was from Di's die-cuts and has been embossed with cuttlebug snowflakes.
The "snowballs" across the top of the hills are from a roll of wrapping ribbon tfrom Home Bargains (of course).  The lollipops were 'borrowed' from Costa Coffee because the top of the die-cut Christmas trees was too thin for a standard lollipop stick.  Background is black glitter paper (does anyone know where I can pick up some more without having to pay a fortune for p&p) with a glitter star.

I'm planning on making 2 or 3 more of these for close relatives and friends (just as long as I can find that glitter paper!)

In the town where I was born.......

Another scrapbook page to send out to Helmand to attempt to brighten my poor sister's days. 
The whole family (minus her) went to Gran Canaria at half term and this picture is of her hubby and boys (+ my boy) getting ready to go on the Yellow Submarine in Puerto De Mogan.

I had big plans for this - was going to attempt to recreate the beatles yellow submarine in collage but decided that might be a step too far.
Not sure what make the background paper is - I got it in a stash swap over on crafty place - but the pattern reminded me of waves.  The letters and fish are all cut out on my trusty cuttlebug - some in paper, some in foam to give a bit of texture.
Finally, I've aded a bit of glossy accents to pick out the waves.

School Christmas Fair

Packs of Magnetic Pegs.  I had these at £1.25 for 3

Dr Who Notepads £1.25 each.  I sold most of these and got the pictures from my desk calendar at work.  The notepads worked out at 5p each and the pens/pencils were around 8p each.  All paper from existing stash

All 3 of these ones sold before they even made it to the sale!

Both Sold

I tried to make a few masculine type notepads but they didn't sell so well.  Lesson learned!

All these girly ones sold though.

Again, the girly ones sold - the car one's didn't.  Lucky for me I have lots of boys in my family that I can give them to!  The pad with the largere flowere on the front was made using the front page of the my MME Bllom and Grow Packs - you know - the one with the barcode on. 

Sold a few Christmas cards too.

Some more notebooks that have found a new-home

Apologies for the messiness of this post.  _ I think blogger must be having a bad afternoon.  Either that or its a bit over-excited about the new Dr Who episode this evening (much as I am) it would only agree to me posting pics if it also posted the picture of the Dr Who notebooks on each occasion so I've had a lot of deleting to do!