Going on Holiday

Well - this is it.

Christmas is just around the corner and it is now time for us to begin our journey south. The car is (mostly) packed, the presents half wrapped (well, half bought), and we are ready for a big old kiwi holiday.

If you live somewhere south of here (ie. Invercargill) it would be nice to catch up maybe...?

Christmas wishes to you all and may you be blessed abundantly with good things!

The Wedding - in Pictures.

And maybe a few words too:

I met Hannah. She really is real and just as I imagined - only a little taller.

It was a picnic wedding - lots of very cool picnic baskets with yummy food inside.

The weather was great ... and so hot! The juice box was frozen to keep things cool.

My favourite part - chocolate and strawberries.

Oh and did I mention it was hot!

That Christmas Magic

I caught a glimpse of Christmas Magic at my house last night. I guess it was really a 'had to be there' moment cause I certainly couldn't take a picture of it, although I tried.

You see I've been reading blogs and getting pictures in my mind of beautifully decorated houses, halls decked in all the Christmas trimmings etc. Well, at my house we have kept it low key - there just didn't seem like much point when we are going away next week. I've put up a small tree, kinda in the corner and out of the way. It has a couple of presents under it - my secret santa ones from my Scrapbook Essentials Secret Santa and a couple from our neighbour across the street.

Anyway - last night as I turned out the lights to go to bed I found the Christmas Tree lights were on so I bent down to unplug them and caught a glimpse of Christmas Magic under the tree. I guess it was just the way the lights were shining and the presents were glowing under the tree - it just looked magical and reminded me of that Christmas Wonder feeling I had as a kid.

Jessi and I made these today for her Kindy Christmas party. It was so cute when we started decorating them and she said 'Hey Mummy those red lollies look just like cherries!' Well isn't that a good thing! Inspired from the girls at Scrap of Faith of course. They were very well received at Kindy but unfortunately the left over ones that I had saved for tomorrow have all mysteriously had their 'cherries' removed.

Needing more hours...

in the day. I was up till 1 last night making a Christmas gift for a friend.
This was for Tara who looks after Jessi on Thursday mornings for an hour while I teach RE. Inside the bag is a pocket for the notebook and a matching pen. Not my best sewing effort but I know what to change for next time if I should ever make another one.

The RE team met for breakfast this morning. It was nice to sit and chat and I only ate fruit and yoghurt - the greasy sausage, bacon and eggs didn't even tempt me!

I've also sewed up three swimming bags for three little girl cousins - just gotta figure out how to make them different so they can tell them apart.

Oh and the fiskars news... I'm officially a Fiskars ambassador for NZ! Sounds flash aye. Still a little surreal that my name is in a list with some very cool NZ scrappers:

Andrea Senn

Beverley Warwick

Donna Meuli

Evana Willis

Jo Burney

Lesley Cooper

Lianne Gray

Thanks for asking me Trina. I get to play with Fiskars stuff at home and occasionally at Spotlight too - I think it's called demonstrating but doing something I love with tools that I love has gotta be more like playing than work right?

Jessi just looked outside and said "Hey I can't see out there it's all silvery" ... thats a pretty good description of fog I'd say! Might need to scrap a page about the Wellington fog we live in.

Cards

Feeling rather pleased with myself cos today I mailed out 20 handmade cards. Usually I think about making cards but never get around to it and end up sending nothing.

The design is not mine - I was lacking in inspiration until I found these cards by Zina Wright. The first five were a little different and then I settled into a production routine and they ended up looking like this:

Each one a messy, doodley, handmade original - just the way I've been feeling lately. No time for straight lines and perfect measuring. Which is probably why I haven't done any real scrapbooking lately. Which also means I totally missed the Up2Scrap submission deadline - nevermind, there's always next time.

I have a few more handmade gifts to make for Christmas - some scrapping related like finishing off mini album type things, a clipboard etc and some sewing related - not telling what those are!

I tried taking photos of our tree today - might have to try again sometime as this was the only decent photo!

Weekend Fun.

Teddies in bed. I got this idea off the SOF forum. Just the perfect thing for Charlize's birthday party today. I knew she had asked for a pink teddy cake so I thought these would match well. The SOF girls are great at these kinds of ideas. The current cupcake ideas are very cool too.

And here are three of the girls at today's party. Charlize is on the right - a big four year old now. Jessi (in the middle) has an unfortunate scratch right under her nose - makes for an interesting look in photos. Maya - on the left has 2 1/2 year old twin sisters. They were so cute and both the same and I had lots of fun taking their photos.

And this one is from this morning at the Sunday School breakup. Is it an unwritten rule that when dressing up as a Bible character one must always wear a tea towel on the head? Anyway - the two girls looked cute together.

And it was confirmed that Alexander is very much like his father in yet another way... The youth group did this very powerful drama this morning and a little after the knife and the fake blood I noticed that Alexander was very white and he leaned over to say he was going to be sick. It turns out he thought it was real and was very concerned for Amanda who played the part of the girl. I had to get Amanda to show him her arms afterwards before the colour returned to his face.

Oh and I found this on Melissa Goodsell's blog, thought it would be fun to do - and interesting to see everyone's answers.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Um both! If I'm using a gift bag it's for a very special present and it will usually be wrapped as well. I just bought some very cool red, white and silver striped paper.
2. Real tree or artificial? Depends on what we are doing for Christmas. This year it's just a little fake one cos we are going away. Last year it was a nice big real one complete with that fresh Christmas tree smell.
3. When do you put up the tree? Sometime before Christmas day. I was real early this year - I had it up on Tuesday. (4th Dec)
4. When do you take the tree down? When we get around to it sometime after new years. This year I suppose it will still be up when we get back from our holiday in mid January.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? A doll that cries and sucks it's thumb.
7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Yep - a couple actually. The characters keep moving around this year...
8. Hardest person to buy for? My brother
9. Easiest person to buy for? Myself...or maybe my sister and my kids.
10. Worst Christmas Gift you ever received? I'm sure I've been given a few odd things over the years but I like them all anyway because I appreciate the people that gave them.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Definitely mail - can't email a handmade card.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Polar Express
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I try to put a few things away during the year but start for real sometime in December after all the breakups/end of year activities that I'm involved in organising.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Um - sometimes maybe a box of chocolates that I don't want to eat. And this year we were just given a bottle of wine and cause we don't generally drink wine I will probably wrap it up and give it to someone who will enjoy it more.
15. Favorite things to eat at Christmas? The sweet stuff! White Christmas, Chocolate balls, Pavlova ...
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Depends on the tree - this year it's coloured flower shaped ones.
17. Favorite Christmas song? The Servant King or maybe Mary's Boy Child.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Traveling this year, last year we stayed at home.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph. Of course I can - I know how to use google!
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Usually a star but it's just been replaced by the peg angel Rebekah made at Rally on Thursday.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning. When I was growing up we had to wait for Dad to finish milking the cows and then have a wash and then have his breakfast. Now we just have to do breakfast first.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Maybe not annoying but more sad ... that Christmas has become so commercialised and people don't stop to think about the real reason behind Christmas.
23. What is the “silliest” family tradition you do, or miss doing? I guess that would be the one wedge of pavlova that is left without cream cause my brother doesn't do cream.
24. Ugliest Christmas Decoration ever invented? Can't think of one actually.
25. Which looks best, theme trees or homey trees? I love the look of a theme tree, I probably don't have the patience to decorate one and given that the kids decorated ours this year - it's very homey looking. They pulled out all their favourite decorations which happened to be all the things they've made at playgroup over the years.
26. Gingerbread or sugar cookies? Sugar Cookies.
27. Do you like Fruitcake? Not particularly - but I'll eat it anyway.

And two scrappy things you may be interested in if you find you have an abundance of time leading up to Christmas and all ...

Prima has put out a design team call and they had the word 'internationals' in there.

And fiskars has a competition on at the moment with an amazingly generous prize. All this:

Grand prize winner will receive the complete Heidi Grace Designs "Jolly & Bright" collection, complete Cloud9 Design "Christmas is..." collection, a Fiskars Portable Rotary Trimmer, Fingertip Craft Knife, Compact Stamp Press, "Tis The Season" Clear Stamps, Tool Taxi, "Don't Leave me Hanging" Extra Large Squeeze Punch and 1/4" "Round the Corner" Squeeze Punch.

Three honorable mention winners will receive a Squeeze Punch of their choice of design and size.

... for making a holiday card and uploading it to their gallery. That's gotta be worth entering!

Since I last wrote...

Jessi's ballet concerts went well. Before the third one on Sunday afternoon she got the grizzles and I wasn't even sure she'd go on stage but she did, and she did well and even did the cutest little curtsy at the end. She was in the youngest pre-school group and when they came out in their little animal costumes there was a ripple of ohhhh's throughout the audience - they were so cute!

I was playing with my camera during the concert - trying out the different settings, challenging myself to get in focus photos not using the flash from my seat near the back of the theatre ... until a rather annoyed voice said 'no camera's please!' So I put it away until Jessi came out then I sneaked another few photos. I have lots of dressing room photos - spot the scrapbooking Mum!

She's the one in the middle with both arms in the air. And after the last concert - while we waited for a ride home Jessi practiced her photography skills.

Pretty good for a three year old - atleast I'm in focus!

On Monday at playgroup we had a visit from Old McDonalds farm. Another 'spot the scrapbooking Mum' moment....


Not so much crafty stuff happening this week. Apart from a few Christmas cards, tree decorations for playgroup, gift boxes for CRE, peg angels for Rally ... stuff that just happens without me remembering to take a photo.

Creating stuff.

Well, life seems to have returned to a more normal pace this week - maybe I'm just more relaxed and just taking it as it comes.

I've even had time to be a little creative - Christmas presents in mind. I got the sewing machine out yesterday. I even changed the needle cos it was blunt from only sewing paper for the last year or so. Needed to get the iron out too - had to blow the dust off it! And as a really telling sign of how often it comes out ... Jessi came along and said "Mummy what are you doing?" Then I had to answer a million questions about the 'ironer.'


I've been playing a bit over at Scrapbook Outlet with their Christmas Gala festivities. I love how challenges create deadlines to get stuff done by, then I can tick them off my list of things I was meaning to get done at some point anyway.

This is my little box I wrote the instructions for in the SE kit a couple of months ago. Just used Christmas paper this time and jazzed up the bow a bit and added glitter cause Lara's challenge was to use two types of things that sparkle.


These little gift bags were for one of Trina's challenges. I opened up my Queen and Co fontastics purse to get the template - and yes, I bought the fontastics because of the cute packaging - the letters were just a bonus!


So now I have three little packages ready to fill with something small and yummy for teachers/coaches gifts.

And my friend and I have been playing with jewelry a bit. Mostly for Chrissie presents but maybe to sell as well. She has lots of these black cord necklaces and I've been coming up with ideas to make them look cool. Just wish I had more time to play around with some more ideas.


Love getting stuff done and being creative at the same time. Speaking of which - the kids are in bed, I've gotta go make something...