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Thanks so much to everyone who sent in a comment for my blogiversay giveaway - I’m so sorry it took me this long to get organised!  I would like to announce that the winner of the vintage wallpaper pack is… Vicki from Turkey Feathers.  Please send me your address Vicki so I can mail your pack out to you.

 

Here are the “Pretty Paper Packs” that I made up - of course, one is off to Vicki and the others will be going to my market stall.  If you would like one, please let me know in the comments.  They are US$10.  They may also appear at my online store soon too.

Look at what my friend Jess made, after hearing some ideas at my recent Brindabella session on op shop refashioning:

 

She took an op shop singlet top and sewed up the bottom, then added trim and decorations and now she has a shopping bag!  The bag even folds up into the denim pocket!  Go Jess! 

Well, Christmas is over for another 363 days. I hope it was wonderful for you - I had a great time with family and friends. It’s so great watching the kids get into the fun and games of the silly season.

We spent Christmas Day at my parents’ house, along with my sister and her family, my brother and some cousins so there were 12 of us all up I think. There were presents given and received, great food and lots of bottles of wine to drink, soduku and books to read, Boules in the garden (very funny with a dog chasing the balls, children running around and slightly drunk adults trying their best) and nanna naps for some.

Late in the afternoon the adults had a game of Monopoly and it was such fun. Jack came up during the game to sit on my lap and have a look and he was really interested. He wanted to play but we thought he was still a little too young (5) so he just watched keenly. Growing up, we were one of those families that always played games - Monopoly, Yahtzee, Scrabble, Boggle, Mastermind, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit, Sale of the Century, Pictionary and more.

There were four kids in my family so it was fun and cheap entertainment for all! Paul and I regularly play Backgammon and Scrabble once the kids are in bed so the tradition continues.

We told Jack he wasn’t quite old enough but we would teach him soon. The very next day he was nagging and nagging to play so Paul and I had a game with him and he was really good at it! He had watched and learned and we hardly had to explain anything! We were so proud of him. Of course it’s great for teaching about maths and money, saving and becoming a real estate mogul.

He was such a good sport, only crying once right at the end when he lost almost all his money at once and his Dad got it all. He recovered fast though. I loved it when he got a “Get out of Jail Free” card - he thought it was the coolest thing! I ended up getting done by Jack and then a while later, Jack lost it to his Dad.

On the Christmas crafting front, all the presents that I made were very well received. You will have to check out the last four or so posts if you haven’t seen them yet.

I haven’t shown you the pics of the minibooks I made. These were a bit last minute, mostly because I didn’t realise how long they would take to put together!

I ended up making six all up, for various people and it was a lot of work in just two days. That’s two entire days, with hardly a break. It was too much - I will know to allocate more time next time!

Anyway they turned out really well. Here is a small sample of the mini books.

I used Maya Road binders - three ring binders and two tab binders. They both had their good and bad points in terms of putting them together but they turned out great.

I didn’t end up doing much embellishing once they were assembled as I was pretty spent by the end of it. Next time I would love to have more time to go crazy with embellishments - journalling, rubons, doodling at least.

I quite liked the pared down look though - it really let the photos speak for themselves and of course the papers weren’t that quiet either!

I used papers from Scenic Route Paper Co, American Crafts and EK Success. Rubons were gorgeous and were from My Mind’s Eye. I used loads of Mod Podge to glue the photos and papers to the books and my scalpel got a good workout, trimming paper and photo edges.

A couple more covers. The covers use red gaffa tape to bind them and give a bit of colour punch. I love red - maybe you’ve noticed that already?

And I also used a photo album to make a little book for my 10 year old neice who lives interstate so we only see her a few times a year.

It is filled with photos of her cousins.

This one was quick to put together but ended up looking great!

Here is an example of another minibook from Tia Bennett if you would like more inspiration and instructions:

This one inspired me a lot - now I know how to do these there may be some more minibooks in my future…

I probably won’t be blogging for a couple of weeks as I’m off to visit family and friends in Victoria. Paul and I will be leaving the kids with his parents (near Bendigo) for New Year’s while we catch a train in to Melbourne to see Carl Cox and others play at Sunshine People! Can’t wait.

Happy New Year to you all.

“Marble Magnets?”  you say.  “Is anybody STILL making those!”  Yes well I know to all us crafty bloggers, the marble magnet craze was so long ago but I for one just never got around to it.  

And let me tell you, there are lots of people out there who still think this is a cool idea.  Hey, it’s quick and easy, cheap and fun and they look good.  Not to mention they are practical too.  So a few people on my Christmas list will be getting a set of these and they will love them.  So there. 

 

I will have a few sets left over which I will put in my shop soon, if anybody is interested.

 

There is a great tutorial over at notmartha if you would like to make some too. 

I have been meaning to make the kids a Christmas Countdown Calendar for a couple of years now and this year I finally did it! Some people call them Advent Calendars.

First I bought a whole stack of matchboxes and emptied the matches all out into a container. Then I chose four scrapbooking papers with a Christmas theme and measured what I needed. I used some great papers from Scenic Route Paper Company and I cut each piece to be 15 x 5 cm (this leaves a little overlap to join). Then I ran the papers through my Xyron:

I stuck all the papers on and suddenly… it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Of course you need to number them - from 1 to 24. For the numbers, I just did something up on the computer and then cut them out and stuck them to the boxes. Don’t they look pretty?

Then I decided to really go crazy and I quickly drew a Christmas tree (it is a little wonky, but I am pretending that I meant it to be like that) and painted it with acrylic paints. When it was dry I also painted a clear glitter onto the red tinsel for a bit of sparkly fun. I put lollies into the matchboxes, stuck them on and added some red ricrac to hang it to the wall. Now we will open one box each day in the lead up til Christmas and there will be a little treat in each one.

There were two very excited people who thought their mum was wonderful!

We also put our Christmas tree up today. I made Jack put a t-shirt on before I took the photos this time! It was hot today!

HO HO HO!