It's a Creative World

Food glorious food

Hi everyone

Dolly here.

I am guessing a lot of you are in the final run up to the big day itself.

There are so many aspects to Christmas - the religious celebration, the carols, the cards, the presents, family and friends and ... of course ... food.

I am not the world's best cook ... by any stretch ... but food is such a part of the festivities that it does need to feature for me.

When you are recording your Christmas, record the food too. Remember to take some photos of your cooking preaparations, of the finished dishes, of the family enjoying the meal.

I have some ideas which may inspire you ... all about food.

When you can, take time to think about the lighting so the food looks mouth-wateringly good, just like it did on the day.

 

Last year we had one of Marks and Spencers special golden Christmas puddings - and it looked spectacular. I just HAD to record it.

 

 

 

It came with it's own cold dust so I wanted glittered letters - just Thickers with gold embossing powder.

 

 

I don't always remember, but try and take a photo of the feast just about to begin. I love the look of pride on Rob's face as he presents the carved turkey to us all.

 

 

and don't forget those all important preparations. Get someone to snap you at work.This was making the Christmas cake.

 

I hope you will enjoy scrapping as well as eating your Christma food this year.

Wishing you all the blessings of the season.

Dolly xxx

Easy Christmas cards

Hi Debbie here with a quick Christmas card. I work in an infant's school and when I had been playing around with my home made gelli plate I thought it could really work well for making Christmas cards. There are 60 to be done so cards need to be child friendly and not too complicated.

I used poster paints working with the children, the effect is not as good as acrylic paint but you still can make patterns etc.

The nice thing about using the gelli plate is that each print is different.

 

The instructions I used for the gelli plate are here

Once the tree is completed you just need to add sequins or glitter to finish it off.

The children loved the texture of the gelli plate and it is something I would like to use again with them.

Debbie x

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Reindeer food

I was talking to a friend about fundraising at a Christmas Fayre and she told me about "Reindeer Food".

This is the verse she gave me:

Sprinkle on the lawn at night.

The moon will make it sparkle bright.

Santa's reindeer fly and roam.

This will guide them to your home.

Basically it's a mixture of porridge oats and glitter, I used 80% oats and 20% glitter.  (If you prefer you can use sugar sprinkles rather than the glitter.)

I then mixed it up :

My friend had made some organza bags and used French seams, so the glitter didn't fall through, however as I'd used ultra fine glitter it came through the material, so we put the organza bags in small card bags along with a copy of the verse.

Here they are ready for the Fayre:

thanks for dropping by Lynne x

12 days of Christmas Pop Up Tree Card

Hi everyone!  Lisa here with a looks-hard-but-is-deceptively-easy Christmas card.  I'm sooooo obsessed with my diecut machine (okay, machines) and I'm extra-obsessed with all things Sizzix.  Several years ago I got a large Sizzix die that makes a pop-up tree to go inside a card.  At the time, pop-ups were rare but I didn't see the specialness of the die, I just liked it so I got it. I haven't really used the die since that season though, so I've a few this year. I'm thinking this is going to be next year's Christmas card, it's that easy and fun.

My card cover was pretty easy, too.  Just die cuts and some stamping.  And yes I used paint for the reindeer. I can't find a metallic ink pad that really works.

And here's the inside. Excuse my nails and my frog in these photos, it wouldn't stay open on its own 'cause of the weight of all the cardstock.

 

Looks hard, don't it? It's seriously just diecutting a bunch of pieces and sliding the tabs into the slots.  Easy peasy!

 

 

Here's a better look at the full card when it's open.  I thought of adding some presents on the skirt under the tree, but I actually thought that looked too cluttered.  The tree is kinda better on its own.

I kept trying to capture the shimmery nature of the cardstock I used in ny photos, but it didn't really come out.

There are TONS of popup dies available from Sizzix now.  Be sure to check them out and create some fun card of your own.  Thanks for looking and happy crafting.  And Merry Christmas!  --Lisa Bedigian

12 days of Christmas - I love you just the way you are

Hello, Eleanor here for a chat and to share a beautiful card.

When you eat at the house of a friend, and your host makes a delicious dish, you ask for the recipe, right? And when you make the tasty dish which you so enjoyed, you try to make it exactly as the recipe instructs, because you enjoyed every mouthful, right?

Sometimes, it's perfectly right and proper to follow a recipe to the letter, as you want the finished result to replicate the version you ate, or in my case the one you saw and fell in love with. What I'm trying to say is that it's not always necessary to tweak, or change up, or 'make it your own'. Especially when the original artist has been kind and generous enough to share a video tutorial, as is the case with my project today.

So, thank you so much Julie Ebersole, over at the classroom  I loved this project from the moment I saw it, the wood veneer, and the delicate deer die, and I didn't want to change a thing, although I had no wee wooden snowflakes, so used a dinky fir tree punch instead.

These majestic animals are right outside my bedroom window, look right in at me, and never cease to awe me.

Here's my card, as nearly like Julie's as I could manage, bar a snowflake:

If someone has shared their work in the hope that others will like it and try it, then don't be afraid to copy, nobody will condemn you (well, nobody that matters) after all, why on earth do we spend hours looking at beautiful creations online? So that we can go to our desks and create something entirely different? Um, no. Not in this house anyway. The most important things are not to pass it off as your own, or try to profit from it. If you can, give credit, although it's not always easy to track down the original artist/creator.

What you learn in the replication of the work of another will take you forward - a technique or a new (to you) style, which you will then use in other ways, once you have the courage to step out of your comfort zone.

Pass it on. Oh, and we're back again soon with another project to share (COPYING ALLOWED!)

x

12 days of Christmas - There's a journal in the house!

Hi everyone

Dolly here.

I am a huge fan of Journal Your Christmas and I think this year is my eigth year and so it always a challenge to try and do something different.

I love Christmas and can happily find things to document every year, but I do enjoy a twist on the theme.

In February last year my mothin in law gave me an old Yankee Candle box. Everyone who knows me knows I am a sucker for old boxes. This was so cute I knew straight away I wanted to use it for my Journal Your Christmas this year and I knew it meant I could journal all about Christmas in our home - our decorations. 

This was the box at the start of the process - good and sturdy but it had to be covered as it was too bright for me and had printing all over the back.

 

 

 

I took it apart and covered it

 

 

The photo behind the plastic at the front is a photo of the door to my dolls' house. Yes, of course my dolls' house is decorated for Christmas!

 

 

The box was a piece of cake to cover but the roof was an absolute nightmare and has many many flaws. However I have tried to convince myself the flaws just add to the whimsical homemade feel. I haven't QUITE convinced myself!

 

 

and this is the journal inside.

 

 

I have said it before ... and no doubt I will say it many more times ... don't throw boxes away. They are the perfect thing to re-use for all sorts of creative projects.

 

Enjoy your Christmas crafting, whatever form it takes x

12 days of Christmas - Santaleles

Hello, Eleanor back again, with another creative day of Christmas..

The post title refers to the order of plants to which Mistletoe belongs, funnily enough. The origin of the name mistletoe is uncertain, but may come from German, Mist for dung, and Tang for branch, as this parasitic plant's seeds can be spread in birds' droppings, and the plant itself attaches to tree branches and absorbs water and food from them. 

My mistletoe today is on a card, using a delicate little die cut wreath, with tiny little flatback pearls, and a brick wall embossing folder:

I secured the wreath just at the top, as I liked it hanging lightly:

No sentiment, is it needed? What do you think?

See you again soon.

x

12 days of Christmas-Homespun Cards

Hi Dolly here

There is still time to make Christmas cards and I have a quick tip that will save you time and money.

You can make really simple cards just by using up some scraps ... and I KNOW you all have scraps lying around.

 

I love kraft for homespun Christmas cards.

Use some plain white cardstock and run it trhough an embossing folder just to give a bit of detail.

For this card I used tiny scraps of printed kraft cardstock/paper.

Cutting them into small strips of decreasing sizes makes a very funky Christmas tree.I used foam pads to give a bit of dimension.

I added more scraps for a border at the bottom and even used scraps for the sentiment at the side.

Finish it off with some twine bows.

 

I made a dozen of these as a quick production line ... I cut all the strips and then it was a piece of cake to assemble them all.

Quick, cheap and effective.

12 days of Christmas-Gingerbread

Hi one and all, hope you are enjoying these 12 Days of Christmas posts.  For me Christmas isn't quite Christmas without a gingerbread recipe.  The smell of gingerbread cooking really sums up the warm scents of Christmas.  A few years ago I was inspired to create a new family tradition and take on the task of creating a gingerbread masterpiece.  We happened across a recipe which I can tell you works a treat.  It's from the BBC Good Food site and it really is a fabulous little recipe and comes complete with a house template. 

We decided in our infinite wisdom to create some mini versions of the house as a mid-meal challenge for our Christmas guests.  You know that feeling after starter and main course when you can't quite face the prospect of pudding.  Scaling down the template using a scanner we created lots of little houses and as a 'larger' challenge for ourselves we set too adding to the original house to create a church.  This is what we got as a result.

I can categorically tell you that the house has never been so quiet on Christmas day, you could literally hear a pin drop as all our guests sat adding sweeties and icing to their miniature creations.  The houses were obviously baked in advance and assembled so all they had to do was have the fun of adding the decorations. 

The little houses decorated by guests made a fabulous little town and in turn a great Christmas picture and everyone left at the end of the day with their own little house, which I'm told was enjoyed and eaten through the Christmas period. 

So if you fancy doing a bit of baking why not consider giving this a go.  Even if you don't fancy the scale of this creating a simple little gingerbread house with your children or grand children really is magical and they love love love to decorate it.

Now I will warn you that making yourself this sort of challenge may not be for the faint hearted - why?  Well because we got a little carried away and bought an online gingerbread template to use for subsequent years.  

So here we have the following years Castle complete with a jelly baby army

And then the leaning clock tower, which did make it through Christmas (just).

So if you fancy doing something a little different this Christmas why not try your hand at a little three dimensional baking creations, catch ya later.

Virginia 

 

 

12 days of Christmas - Quick and simple cards

Hi Dolly here

If you have a lot of cards to make, there is nothing wrong in keeping it simple.

These three cards were so quick and simple to make and yet it still means lots of people can have a handmade card for Christmas.

 

The first is simply  using three die cut and embossed Christmas Trees mounted on cream card stitched to Kraft cardstock.

The fact it is stitched just adds that little bit of extra detail and it is quick and simple to do. Faux stitching would work as well.

 

I made several of each design and they were completed in just over an hour.

 

This next one sticks with the Kraft theme I have had for so many of my projects this Christmas. I used the same tree die and this time the extra detail came from another die - a fence.

 

If you want quite a few, get a little production line going. Die cut all your trees, stamp all your sentiments and then you just have to assemble.

 

The final card didn't use a die at all, just a simple handcut tree (thank goodness Christmas trees are just so darned easy)

 

Handmade cards in a flash ... so put aside an hour and turn your hands to homespun mass production.