Last post

I do believe I have finally uploaded the last of my Christmas cards for 2017

This last batch of four completes the collection

This first one is for my lovely friend Paulien in the Netherlands

This next card I made for one of Neil's ex-work colleagues and his partner

This bright and funky card is for Paulien's daughter Ashley

And finally, last, but by no means least is the cute card for a lovely young lady I met a couple of years ago, she came to help me in the shop as part of a work placement scheme

She's a real sweetheart and was such a help in the last few months of me running the shop, she wouldn't mind me saying that she has not had an easy life and yet she was so cheerful and willing to do all she could to make the shop and classes run smoothly for me

So, thankyou Shelley, I hope you and your beautiful boy Daniel have a wonderful christmas and a much happier 2018

And that's it for christmas crafting this year

I was much more organised than I have ever been before ( the benefits of retirement !) but  I have high hopes of being even more efficient next year. My aim is to complete all the card making and handmade gifts by the end of November ( I know there are several of you rolling your eyes as you read this, you all know me so well, but if I don't set a target there is no hope of me getting finished at all !)

I will be back tomorrow with a birthday card I made for a very special friend

Love and high hopes

Tracey

xxx

And Christmas resumes

Good evening

I have another batch of Christmas cards to share with you tonight

I bought a lovely 8" paper pad from the Range last year and these Vintage style papers have been a joy to work with

The Christmas tree stamp is by Stampin' Up and the little wooden reindeer was bought in The Works last year

I seem to have amassed a great deal of DL sized envelopes so tried to use a few up this year

The house die below is an old Spellbinders die, the poinsettias are Marianne, sentiment is Stampin' Up and the trees were made using deckle edged scissors as I didn't have dies small enough for these trees

This next lamppost is a Tim Holtz die, sentiment is once again Stampin' Up

I thought I was almost through sharing all my christmas cards, but checking my camera tonight I still have a fair few to blog. I hope I am not boring everyone with them

I am not sure I will be able to keep this blogging pace up once all the christmas crafts have been shared, but I must admit to having found my crafting mojo lately, so, who knows, maybe next year will be more creative

So, what do you do when you lose your mojo, hit a wall, lack inspiration

Here's 5 ideas to kickstart your creative flow

1. Use the internet for inspiration, join sites that post photos of the crafts you enjoy

I love 

Pinterest

Scrapbook.com

UK Scrappers

2. Connect with other bloggers, create a reading list on your preferred device of creative bloggers whose style makes you want to reach for your supplies

3. Reorganise your crafting space and supplies. Oftentimes, just reacquainting yourself with your bits and bobs is enough to spur you into action, have your favourite colours and styles to hand and make your crafting space comfortable and easy to use

4. Join a class or club. Sharing ideas with your fellow members and taking a course can help you to think outside your creative box, trying new techniques and sharing them with others is inspiration itself. My favourite part of running my classes when I had the shop was "show and tell", I loved it when class members brought in their makes from home and know they inspired me as well as all the other class members

5. If all else fails GO SHOPPING ! Treat yourself to a new piece of equipment, a magazine or a book of ideas. Something as simple and as inexpensive as a beautiful sheet of patterned paper, some pretty ribbon or a new die is often enough to create a little spark of creativity 

Hangin' around the christmas tree ...........

As promised here are the five wall - hangings I made for my friends at work

It was my way of saying thankyou for a lovely year of friendship, support and lots of laughs

This first one is for Sue

I chose colours to match her decor at home

Sue adores green, so I thought I would be safe with this one

The poinsettia is a Marianne die

The ovals are Stampin' Up

Ivy punch is Woodware, as is the small daisy

Small flower is Stampin' Up as are both sheets of the green paper ( stripes and trees)

This next one is for Margaret who likes bright fun colours

Punches as before

Little wooden christmas trees are from a couple of years ago and were bought in The Works

This next one was for my neighbours Mary and Colin

I made this silver snowflake hanging for Gillian at work

Most of the snowflakes were die cuts my lovely friend back in Healing gave me - thanks Trish

And finally this last one was for Janice, who mans the till and has endless patience with me when I try to use it

Another Marianne die for the branches, glitter paper and bauble punch from Stampin' Up

And in case anyone is wondering, the actual circles for the hangings are upcycled from old CD's

The CD's are covered in patterned paper ( I use a Pritt Stick to attach the paper ), once the glue is dry, cut around the CD with your craft knife, then repeat for the back

The holes required for threading the twine/ribbon to hang are made using my trusty Cropodile

I will be back tomorrow with another batch of  Christmas cards 

Love and friendship

Tracey

xxx

Batch baking

I like all of the cards that I create to be slightly different, unique

At christmas time when there is a call for many more cards than in any other month of the year,  I find it much easier, and speedier too,  to mass produce

Therefore, I sketch out several designs and then create little groups of those designs, slightly altering the embellishments, the colours or the positioning of the main elements

I call this my batch baked christmas cards 

Here is one of my 'batches' - I made five of this particular

design

I used a variation of dies from all the main companies

The stunning silver glitter card is from Stampin' Up

As the design only required small pieces of patterned paper, I was able to use many of my scraps up and still get a lovely detailed layered look

I also seem to have amassed lots of die-cut sentiments. I usually prefer to stamp all the greetings,  but, when I looked through them it seemed a shame to just store them away (hoard !) for another year, so I made an extra effort to find homes for them this year

In other news :

It was my last day at 'work' this morning and as Christmas and New Year falls on mondays I won't be back for another three weeks

I will really miss my monday mornings at the the shop, we always have lots to talk about and generally end up in fits of giggles at some point or other

I made all the girls on my shift a little christmas wall hanging this year, so I will be back tomorrow to share photos of those 

Until then

Love and batch baking

Tracey

xxx

Crackers, cards and cats

 Good evening

I hope everyone is enjoying their run up to Christmas and not getting too stressed

I am loving the family being home, Amy and Ben arrived yesterday, so the house is full, and happy

I made these cute little crackers for my neighbours doggies, they have some little festive dog biscuits in them

And I made some of these gift card holders for the kids, I copied a design that my good friend Linda shared, she made me one and the bottom held chocolates, in my version I added a lip balm to each one and all the kids gift vouchers fit onto the slot at the top

Thankyou for the inspiration Linda

Finally I have a cute photo to share

The pets are all spoiled for humans to snuggle with at the moment

Sox couldn't wait to get on Rob's knee so perched herself atop his shoulder

They are so going to miss them when they have all gone back to uni

Love and christmas kisses

Tracey

xxx

It's starting to look like Christmas

The trimmings are up, the shopping is done and one of the kids is back from uni. Robbie arrived home yesterday and Amy and Ben will be here in a couple of days. Robbie has been thrown in at the deep end and is doing a 13 hour shift today back at the Rashleigh, with many more shifts on the rota for whilst he is home

Most of the christmas cards are finished now

Thanks to lots of inspiration from my lovely and very talented friends Linda and Jan

This following card is inspired by Linda and uses all Stampin' Up products

And these lovely little 'tree' cards are inspired by Jan, I made thirteen in total and had quite a production line going, I have a little paper forest in my house at the moment.

This following card is the card I made with Jan

I think I have finally found my mojo at long last, I was beginning to think I had left it back in Grimsby with all my crafting buddies. But I have had loads of fun creating these christmas cards, let's hope it lasts into the new year. I would dearly love to get back into scrapbooking - I have hundreds of photos to play with !

Will be back soon with the remainder of my christmas cards and maybe a couple of other little projects to share too

Love and little christmas trees

Tracey

xxx