Missing presumed getting fat.

   MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE !!
 No, i'm not really sad enough to be on here today, it's a scheduled post. Thanks to all of you for following my blog and for all the lovely comments. Hope you've all had plenty of stash off  Father Christmas. Enjoy your feasting and i'll be back soon. xxx

Aren't you glad i got rid of that awful snowman,lol.

50th Birthday Card.

How are we all today then, all done and dusted?  I've completely finished with the shopping , everything wrapped and ready to go. The ham is simmering on the stove, my little balti dishes are wafting Christmas spice everywhere. I'm just taking a little break from blitzing the flat. I don't know why because it will look like a bomb has hit it half way through Christmas morning anyway,lol.
 I had an order for a birthday card, such a pleasant change from all the Christmas stuff i've been churning out. The chocolate factory is now closed,lol.

I love this stamp because it lends itself to a bit of paperpiecing, and she can have a new frock every time i stamp her. It is by Art Impressions Not the least expensive at nearly £15 but i've used it loads. Finished with a few flowers and some leaves with my X Cut punch. The brads in the flower centers are papermania.
 Time to carry on with the chores now as i'm working tomorrow, woe betide Speedy if he messes it up while i'm out. Only working until 3 0'clock, then a couple of festive drinks on the way home. The sleigh will be having it's final outing and is loaded with smutty and respectable goodies.
Enjoy your Christmases.    ( I was still at target weight this morning but i'm going to totally go off the rails for the next 2 weeks).    See you soon.  xxx

" That card" again and a catasrtophe.

Evening all. What a day had yesterday. I was glad to get to work for a rest,lol.
My boss is a bit bah humbug about Christmas, or at least he pretends to be. I don't think he'd be too chuffed if  mum and dad said OK we'll cancel it then, no pressies this year. I thought i'd recycle a card design i used a couple of weeks back and make a version of  it for him.

His name is Patrick but everyone calls him Pasta. Hopefully it might raise a glimmer of a smile,lol. Another case of having to take the pic in electric light because suddenly it was dark.I had been too preoccupied to notice the light fading. My heating went off, my bathroom and kitchen sink pipes were frozen all day, and i wrapped about 70 stocking filler gifts. Hubby came home to " fiddle" with the heating and one of the pipes spewed water every where. Of course the pipe was in a cupboard full of junk which had to be pulled out fast. Managed to stop it and get the heating back on but the engineer is coming out tomorrow as the pipework has been done wrong. Glad we are renting as we would cop for the bill otherwise. And most of the contents of the cupboard is now in the bin where it belongs.
Things can only get better................................

The best aroma ever.

You know when you supposed to be gift wrapping card making etc and you suddenly find yourself blog hopping and finding yourself getting further and further away from home and loving it? Well i found this site called Stone Gable. It is written by a lady who does lots of entertaining with lots of menus and table settings. The post which particularly interested me was this one.

This is a pic from Stone Gable blog. and HERE  is the link for this Christmas pot pourri Recipe. As Yvonne says don't leave this unattended on a hob. Remember a few years ago it was the in thing to have balti dishes on stands with tea lights underneath like these.

I used to work at Culpeper the Herbalist and we used to sell these Balti dishes. We also used to sell a "bestseller Christmas spice oil" and this recipe gives an exact replica of that aroma before the present owner messed about with it. It is simmering away on my coffee table now and it takes me back. It is gorgeous. The best substitute if you have no simmering dish is to wrap the ingredients in some kitchen towel and stuff behind a radiator. Or bring to a simmer on the stove and switch off. So Christmassey, nothing like the stuff you get in shops in the form of candles and "oils". Omit the star anise if you have to, it wont make a huge difference. Thank you so much Yvonne. xx

Another digi freebie.

What a horrible day it was yesterday. I was so glad i went out on Wednesday and finished (?) my Christmas shopping. So i stayed in and churned out another load of bags of chocolate t*ts and reindeer s**t for when i take the sleigh out on Saturday.
I also made my last few cards which is a massive relief. Here's the one i made for the 2 mums using a free digital frame from HERE. It is part of a set.

I had actually written them and a couple of others and put them in envelopes before i realised i hadn't taken any pics. It was dark so i had to use my craft lamp which isn't ideal for photos, it doesn't look as stark in the flesh. The mice and the greeting are both Penny Black. The holly was made with an X Cut Botanicals punch. I coloured some pearls with my promarkers for the berries. It doesn't show in the picture but i've added a bit of chalk around the frame.
Time to get myself off to work now, thanks fo looking.  Di.xx ( PS, Sorry i haven't been commenting on peoples blogs much this week as time is short but i'll be a better blogging buddy when i've got everything sorted.xx).

Target weight 9st 2lb. Today's weight 9st 2lb, only by the skin of my teeth though. I imagine it's going to go up quite a bit from now until January but at least i know i can get it off again.

Another Meljens Freebie.

What would i do without these freebies. Frankly i'm bored with my existing Christmas stamps and when i got an order for 6 cards i was so glad of these freebies. I've printed sheets of these and others from Meljens ready to colour for next year.

This holly stamp can be found at Meljens HERE. So handy and so easy to colour. Thank you Melissa.

2 cards made in next to no time in the little time i've got. I've been making choc gifts until they come out of my ears, i didn't expect people to be wanting them on such a scale, lesson learned for next year,lol. In the meantime my sleigh has been out Saturday and last night. A friend of ours won a meal for 2 in a raffle at a local pub and gave it to us for Christmas and we went last night. We were a bit apprehensive as it is a pub we don't normally go to but i must admit it's improved somewhat since we last went and we enjoyed our meal.
There is light at the end of the tunnel with the Christmas shopping and the wrapping is getting done. Poor Speedy is going on Sunday morning to do his annual shopping for one person......bless....... i feel so sorry for him,....NOT !

Chutney Gift.

Real quickie post and a quickie gift as i need to get wrapping up and writing my cards( pet hate). There is absolutely nothing crafty or skillful going on with this one. Just an idea for jazzing up a couple of jars of chutney.

Just a bit of cello, a bit of ribbon and a tag. Cheap stocking filler, as Gordon Ramsay would say, "done".
 Right, ...........off to wrap.    Thanks for stopping by.   Di.xx

Meljens freebie snowman.

I've got an order for 6 personalised Christmas cards. It didn't fill me with glee but i've managed to get them done over the last two days. I've kept them fairly simple with my SOS layouts and some free digi stamps from Meljens Designs. The first is a snowman which can be found HERE. I downloaded it then added the greeting.

This one's for a little boy of 4. I love this snowman so much i've printed out 6 sheets of 6 images, plus a few other designs, and am in the process of colouring them all ready for next year (yes, next year) while i'm still aware of what it's like not to be prepared for last minute requests. I think the paper is either Dovecraft or Papermania. It's quite old and i've lost the cover.

I added some stickles and a bit of 3d glaze to the carrot. I had to photograph them all last night in electric light as i have to take them into work today. 

Target weight, 9st 2lb. Todays weight, 9st 2lb. Stop right there missus !!. This cold weather has been making me want to eat roast dinners and such like,lol.  I could easily blame the staff night out last saturday but thats not all of it.

Off my Trolley !!

Just a quickie post. Yes it's the silly season again and this is what happens in Chester every year 2 weeks before Christmas. My sleigh comes out !!

Yes, i know i'm barkin' mad. Always have been, always will be. In fact i hope i'm really eccentric when i'm old, lol. My sleigh is all ready for it's debut on Saturday , it goes to all the dimly lit pubs after i finish work and people are asking where it is already. A couple of days before Christmas and Christmas eve i always have a few little gifts in there for anyone who i take a shine to. There will be a bit of Christmas smut in there this year along with the good clean stuff. The lights are battery operated and i always use rechargeable but they last about 4 hours. Marvelous darlings.......................

Pink Christmas Card.

Back to the Christmas cards for a few days as i've had a few orders.

This one's going to Canada for a little girl and the request was for either penguins or polar bears.I trawled Google images for about an hour looking for line drawings before i remembered i had this stamp. It's by Inca Stamps. The gingham paper paper is from a forever friends pad and the other is by Papermania. I finished it with a few peel offs and some ice stickles which always looks blue in my photos. This was done in the electric light which makes it worse.
I managed to get out and do a bit more Christmas shopping today. If i can get a bit more tomorrow i'll feel a lot better. I don't drive so the biggest problem is carrying it. There's no way i'm going shopping with Speedy in tow either,lol.

Hot choc gifts.

Hello everyone, how are you today then? There's a bit of a heatwave going on here in Chester, it's 4 degrees above freezing !
We had our staff party last night and a good time was had by all. I think i'm going to have to sit on the fat step for the rest of the week after all the food and drink. Never mind, it was well worth it.

I've made some stocking fillers for young lads. Never easy to please are they. I like the snowman soup gifts everyone makes this time of year but i think a young lad might think them a bit too girly so this is what i came up with.

The boxes are are 3" wide, 2" deep, and 3" high, and the cup stamp is by Inkadinkado. I used bown ink to stamp them out , then used the same ink to ink the edges. The tag stamp is from a Papermania clear set.

The cello bags are the size used for 4"x6" cards. I have put a Cadbury's drinking chocolate sachet at the back and a Maltesers and a Galaxy one at the front with a candy cane and folded the spare bit of bag to the back. The mini marshmallows were from Tesco's baking section and are in pretzel bags from Hobbycraft but you could use the bags for tall slim cards. I secured the ribbon with a bit of double sided tape at the bottom of the box to stop it slipping off. Well, they've got 2 chances. They can like 'em or lump 'em, lol.
 I'm going to do a bit of colouring now while there's still some nice bright natural light.  See you soon. xx

Well chuffed with this one.

I decided to be very brave yesterday and slide my way into town to do a bit of festive shopping. It was actually OK once i was out of the side roads. I ambled around for ages looking for bloke stuff but gave up for now as i don't want to fall into the "toiletries" trap again. I decided to think a bit harder and try again next week. I managed to get a few things for the girls though. I'd already bought our new daughter in law a massive cookery book and decided some herbs and spices might be a nice addition. I bought Tesco's own brand as i like the square jars and they are just as good as the more expensive ones. I got home and had a play and how cool is this?

I didn't want to wrap them up just as they were so i made a box base. A bit of a faff getting the measurements right but then it was a doddle.The box is made from a 12" x12" DCWV glitter card stack, A4 was too narrow.I placed the jars in position and measured the width and the length, then added an inch and a half on each side for the depth,(I used a bit of wallpaper to work it out on). I stuck a piece of heavyweight card into the base for extra strength.The cost of the herbs and spices was £4.15. I used to work for Culpeper The Herbalist before they changed all their packaging and all the gift sets were hand done by us girlies. We used to use shrink wrap and a heat gun and we were at it all day around Christmas. We used to tell people we were the best female wrap artists in the country,lol.

They changed to factory packed sets and they looked awful, the stuff was rolling around in the boxes. The whole place went downhill so i left , but not without a souvenir half roll of redundant cellophane,and a few basic skills in how to make a few bits and bobs into a gift set. Now i've taken a trip down memory lane i'll probably spend the rest of the year looking for "gift set" stuff.
 It's ok to show pressies on here as the only person who looks is my sister so i won't be spoiling any surprises.
I must admit I cheated and drafted this post last night as i knew it was a long one.
Thanks for visiting. xx

Target weight 9st 2lb, todays weight 9st 1lb.