My Favourite Creations for 2012

Thought I would go through all the photos of crafty creations I have taken this year.  I have picked my favourite item I made for each month of 2012 to share with you today the last day of 2012.  I was surprised at how varied my crafting was. I really thought that I had only done cards.  Not sure where I am heading in 2013 as I have my fingers crossed that I will pick up a little more work.  So won't have the time to blog or create as often.  Maybe I will have to work on a project a month and a couple of cards for birthdays.

Wishing you all the best for 2013 and hope your dreams come true.

Chocolate Chip Biscuits in a Jar gift

At Christmas I like to try and give my close friends that I have known since school a little something that I have made myself.  I have seen the biscuits (cookies) in a jar for a while now and always thought they were such fun.  So now was my chance to make mine.  I bought some fruit preserving jars then simply layered up the dry ingredients.

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup m&ms
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Tie a little ribbon around and create a label.  Tadah! a very eye-catching present.  We ended up making another two.  One for our daughter's friend's family and one for us. 

This photos shows the recipe I have attached to the top.  Which reads as follows:-

Preheat oven to 180 C. 

Stir dry ingredients in a large bowl and add:

1/2 cup butter,(almost melted) 

1 slightly beaten egg 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 Combine thoroughly. 

Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls, and

Bake for 10 minutes.

Hope you are enjoying the end of your Christmas day on the other side of the world.  My family and I had a lovely day here.  Lots of fun, food and laughter.  Well my present helped provide a lot of laughter.  My wonderful hubby gave me a Kinect for our Xbox.  So we played lots of different sports yesterday, I think the funniest was the grid iron game.  I had problems throwing the ball and then turning into the receiver and having to run.  Boxing Day today.....no plans other than relaxing in front of TV, a game or two on the Kinect and driving our daughter to the shops with her friends so they can tackle the Boxing Day sales.    Have a great day everyone.

Handmade Christmas Cards from Friends

What better way to share a Christmas post than with the remainder of the handmade Christmas cards I was lucky enough to receive this year.   This lovely gold and sparkly creation is from Beth over at Huggies Crafts.  It is so stunning and eyecatching in real life.

My friend Gloria decided to give a few of us little notebooks this year instead of Christmas card.  Mine is pretty in pink.

This wonderful creation came from my friend Atlas of Craftmad. Atlas has cleverly stamped the lovely vine image onto acetate.  The sentiment is stamped on to the white card stock.  I love the way she has attached the ribbon too.

I feel very special to have this card in my possession as this is the card that Susan made for our Unstampabelles Christmas Challenge.  Susan is one of the wonderful DT members that helps me out with all the challenges.  You can see this card here at Unstampabelles or here on Susan's blog Time to Play.

This card is simply so effective....my photo does not show all the lovely Kindy Glitz that Cathy has used.  Cathy is another Craftmad friend and also a very helpful DT member of Unstampabelles.  Here is Cathy's blog Cathy's Creative Corner.

Last but by no means least this cheery card comes from Mandy who is half of the team that created Craftmad.  A forum that has kept me busily crafting for the last 6 years. :-)

Wishing all a fantastic Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Merry Christmas everyone.  I wish you a wonderful time however you are able to spend it.  My brother and his family are visiting in the morning so we have the joy of seeing three young children under ten open presents.  Then they are off visiting.  My Mum and Dad are also coming out and staying the day.  Enjoying lunch and airconditioning with us. :-)

These are cards I sent out to some of the lovely people I have gotten to know online over time.  Yes, I would have liked to send one to everyone on of you who visit but that is just not possible.  So here is a photo for you and thanks for visiting me this year.  As my nickname online is Merry I was looking for a digi stamp that higlighted the word Merry.  When I saw this at Beccy's Place I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.  I cased this card from Michele at Whimsical Creations.  I coloured the image with my Copic Pens, metallic pen for some of the ribbons and added Kindy Glitz for a bit of sparkle.  Ran the entire white card stock through my Swiss Dots embossing folder.

These cards just show a couple different styles of colouring. 

Coloured ribbon with metallic pen and red flowers with copics.

Coloured ribbon with my Copics

Well that is me for a couple of days although I will have some projects scheduled.

Take care and Merry Christmas.

Christmas Cake 2012

Our 16yo daughter was busy yesterday decorating the Christmas cake for us this year.  I think the older she gets the messier she gets.  Although the older she gets the better at cleaning up after herself she is.  As you can see by the photo our daughter had a wonderful time.  We both discovered to create brown icing you use equal amounts of red, blue and yellow (yep, google).  This tradition started 5 years ago when our daughter was 11yo.  

The end product....a plum pudding.

Previous Years Cakes

2011 - daughter was 15yo

2010 we were away on holidays so no cake.

2009 - daughter was 13yo

2008 daughter was 12yo

2007 when it all started and daughter was 11yo

Christmas Card from my friend Helen

Isn't this just the sweetest image.  This a Mo Manning image coloured by my good friend Helen.  Stampin Up papers and cardstock have also been used.  I love how Helen has just turned up the top and bottom edges of the double sided design paper.  Something I have added to my 'to do' list.

Friday is here again and glad to say I am still here even though it is the 21st December. :-)  Presents are all sorted, cards are mailed that are going to get mailed.  Just have to organise a little food.  All the family is home so life is good. :-)  Thanks for visiting.

Unstampabelles Half Way Creation

Morning everyone, time to share something I created.  I made this card for the Unstampabelles Half Way Post.  Our Challenge #18 this month is nice and easy Christmas (without stamps or digs).  I have been checking out Pinterest, tried to stay away from that site for as long as I could but it is so much fun checking out all those wonderful ideas on there.  I was after a quick Christmas card that I could do to send out to a couple more friends and came across this card that was pinned in Pinterest originally created by Germanstamper.  Liked it that much I have cased it.  The original card has stamped strings and bows attaching the button baubles.  I have hand drawn mine as I don't own such a stamp, also added a Christmas sentiment sticker.

I have another three cards ready to go.

I hope you will join in the fun of our challenge.  There is a great prize up for grabs from Beth who is one of our Design Team members.

I would like to add this card to the following challenges:

Unstampabelles - #18 Christmas (No Stamps or Digis)

Make it Monday - Always Anything Goes

Inspire Me Fridays - #89 Always Anything Goes

Challenges 4 Everybody - #9 Always Anything Goes

Christmas Card from my friend Helene

I received this Christmas Card from my friend Helene.  We both worked together down in Sydney many years ago and then a year or two after we moved to the Cairns area Helene and her husband moved here to be with their son and DIL.  We now live on the opposite sides of Cairns so visiting is less frequent but I am heading over that way today for a catch up and coffee.  I really like the little tree ornaments Helene has used on this great card.

I will also be doing a little (lot) of Christmas shopping.  For some reason I thought I had more time until Christmas Day......although I knew it was next week.  I still thought there was more time. lol  I do keep asking out daughter to stop removing those numbers off the advent calendars but she just won't help and give me an extra day or two.  Hope everyone is having fun getting all the Christmas items ready.

Thanks for visiting, have a great day.

Christmas Card from Annmaree

I received this great Christmas Card from Annmaree of Emu Creations.

A person I have come to know through blogland then Craftmad and was part of the Unstampabelles team for a bit.  I always admire Annmaree's takes on card sketches.  On this Christmas Card I really like how she has used the Washi Tape.  The back has a strip of special Washi Tape along the bottom edge. The tape says 'For You'.

Thanks for thinking of me Annmaree. :-)

Christmas Card from Kaye

I received this lovely card from the wonderful Kaye who I have gotten to know through Craftmad and fingers crossed will meet in person at the end of 2013.  If you visit Kaye's blog here - Crafty Kaye's Room and scroll down just a little you will spy my card on her blog and also a lot of other terrific creations using Spellbinder dies, altered clipboard, scrap pages.

Wishing you all a terrific Monday.

Christmas Card from my Aunt

Now isn't this one cool guy, I wouldn't mind attending this Christmas party. :-)

Today I am sharing the card that my Aunt sent to us this year.  3D Paper Tole or Decoupage is very new to her as in the past she has done paper punching cards only.  My Aunt is very new to cardmaking she is in her early 70's and only started about five years ago.  A lot of gentle persuading by my Mum when they visit and one of her friends in the Bundaberg (QLD) area supplies her with crafting goodies.

Another week is coming to an end and only 11 days until Christmas.  I can't not know how many days are left until Christmas as there are three advent calendars in this house.  For some reason this is the one thing that our teenage daughter remembers to do each day. :-)  Have a great day everyone.

Niece's Christmas Card

Hi everyone, yes I have finally found time for a blog post or rather came up with an idea of what to post.  It's just that the couple of things I have been making are for people that tend to visit my blog.  I hate spoiling surprises.  I was looking at the lovely Christmas cards that we had received in the mail and on Tuesday we had received five cards and all five were handmade.  So I thought since these wonderful people have taken the time to create these cards I would share them with you on my blog.

We received this lovely card from our 11yo niece who lives down in Medowie, NSW.  She has had a wonderful time with her stickers and this card is a great example of items we like to see entered into our current Unstampabelles challenge.  Details here.

I will be back tomorrow with another terrific card.

Thanks for visiting.

" i " Trivia

Sorry no cards to share today although was busy making some on the weekend.  If I share though I know I will spoil the surprise for some people as they visit my blog.

So instead I have a little trivia to share.

Hubby and I were chatting about things and in conversation he asked what the name is for the dot above the ' i '.  He was sure it had a name.  I was thinking it is just part of the 'i'  so of course had to google.  Can you believe it it does have a name the dot is called a 'tittle'.

tit·tle  (ttl) n. 1. A small diacritic mark, such as an accent, vowel mark, or dot over an i. 2. The tiniest bit; an iota.

Cockatoo, snake and omelette

Hi everyone, no crafts from me today so thought I would share some of the wonderful photos my husband has been taking.  The Sulphur Crested Cockatoo's have been flying around our place lately.  Some the trees must have fruit or seed on them that they like.  I have covered my lemons and oranges as they are green and just at the stage that a cockatoo likes.  This is a link if you would like more info on these birds.

This is my husband favourite challenge capturing these birds in flight.

The surprise that was found when the Christmas Tree box was removed by our daughter earlier this week.  So glad I was at work.  Apparently this is an Amesthystine Python or Scrub Python known to be Australia's largest snake.  This link tells you more information.  One bit of info it shares is that it has a recorded length of 8.5 metres....which was found near Gordonvale.  Guess where we live.  Apparently, this guy was only about 1 metre long.

He really did not like all the attention and did just keep moving to find somewhere where people couldn't see him.

He was still in the cupboard when I returned home from work and hubby says come and have a look.  Not my thing but I followed.  As we were walking outside hubby says I am not sure where the snake is now so I wait outside the shed, watching through the door, about 5 metres away until hubby locates the snake.  Snake is not happy and on the move again he slithers up on to an old BBQ plate that had a folded tarp sitting on top.  My hero husband, as there is no way I was going any where near that snake, grabbed a shovel and slid it under the BBQ plate and carried plate, snake and tarp way up our backyard.  Put it on the ground and then encouraged the snake to head in a direction opposite to our house.  Me, I was back on our back verandah about 20 metres away.  Occasionally the snake would let hubby know he was not too happy about the direction that he was told to go and hubby would let out a noise which made me one step closer to the door of the house. lol

Thought I had better finish with a nice photo.  Apparently, this is the 'perfect' omelette.  Yes, cooked by hubby.  I must say it does look very Yum.

Well another week comes to an end and that it for blog posts for me until Monday.  I hope to catch up on what everyone has been doing over the weekend.  Wishing you a good weekend.

Apron Card Thank You

Hi everyone, this is another project that has been keeping me busy but having fun at the same time.  The P&C of our school wanted to say thank you to the ladies that work in our school tuckshop and asked me to make a card for them.  I thought this was the perfect opportunity to have a go at an apron card.  I have used the tutorial that is here at Whiff of Joy.

I had just bought a pack of Stampin Up (SU) Twitterpated design paper and thought it was perfect for aprons.  The green apron I have used papers from the Stampin Up Designer Series range.  The base of the card is SU Wild Wasbi.  Oh yes, I used my SU Simply Scored tool again for all the folds on these cards.  We added a couple of chocolates to the inside pockets.

These little concertina pockets are such fun to make and wonderfully easy.  I will keep them in mind for other cards I do in the future when I just need a little something extra when giving them to people.

I decided to make little Thank You pennants to add to each of the pockets.

That is me for today, thanks for visiting.