Happy Christmas!

I hope everyone is enjoying a Merry Christmas with family and friends and I wish you every happiness for 2011.

 

(image courtesy of Tammy Tutterow)

See you in the new year! 

ATC Christmas Greetings.......

For all my best scrapbook buddies, Ive made my annual 20 ATC Christmas Cards, which were sent out last week.  For those that don't know, ATC stands for Artist Trading Cards, and are little bits of miniature art, 3.5"x2.5" in size.

Each of the cards were made by cutting white watercolour cardstock, blending the edges with distress ink, then inking the edges.  They were then all stamped with the little holly swag three or four times.  The stocking and Merry Christmas stamp was then added.

Each stamped image was 'antique' watercoloured and the 'merry Christmas' was shadow watercoloured.  Hanging 'ribbon' hand drawn in.  Berries were added to the swag with ruby perfect pearls which were then drenched in glamour dust whilst still wet.  Lastly a diamond was added to the 'i'.  I then mounted each little card onto coloured cardstock.

Hope you like them!
enjoy!

mini greetings.......

Over at DHE I joined in a Christmas card swap with a few others miniaturists, and I thought it would be nice to include a little something for each of them that they could (if they wanted!) use in their dolls houses.  I know that these have now arrived so I can post a picture of them here.

They are little mini shabby chic door hangers.

and to give you an idea of how small they are, heres some photos of them beside a penny!

Each of them was cut out of wood, then drilled in the corners.  I then painted and shabbied them up, strung them with wire, beads and punches and then stamped the sentiment.

My first foraying into mini-ing.  Hope you like them!

Enjoy!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new followers.........

Muriel of Le Coffre D'Emilie who makes the most gorgeous shabby chic teddies and rabbits and miniatures - lovely!

Rachel of Miniature Maid a fellow DHE member

and my mum - Jill who has finally had a look at what Im up to!!  Thanks Mum!  xx

 Enjoy!

Canvas

Ive spent the morning working on a canvas for my Neice Sam to give to her grandmother as a christmas present, and thought you'd like to see the results.

Its the biggest canvas Ive worked on, usually they are around 12" square.  I used K&Co Madeleine papers and accessories, and Prima bling and flowers.  The heart and leaf punch are from Martha Stewart.  The photos are of Sam's daughter Rachel at her wedding this year to Perry - all the bridesmaids were dressed in white as well as the bride, and they looked fabulous.

Enjoy!

Welcome!

Welcome to my new followers!

Syliva - Sylvia has transformed some lovely shabby chic furniture - beautiful!
Christine Christine has some lovely tips and tutorials - check out her patchworked bed with hot water bottle - fab
Karen & Kevin Karen & Kevin are miniaturists and Harley Davidson fans so we have lots in common! check out their beautiful tudor home....(Miniature of course!)
Chrisseys Minis
Lucky Little Finger
Mini Babies
If any of you would like to send me a link Ill update my blog

Enjoy!

First Miniing........

Ive been doing a little bit of mini-ing since breaking my ankle, this is the first ever mini-ing I have created and although I can already see theres a few bits wrong with it, overall Im pleased.  Its sitting on my mantlepiece and will probably stay there for christmas.

The vignette is 6"x8" and was totally inspired by Casey of Casey's Miniatures who has a fabulous blog and always gives such good information when she creates something - so big thankyou Casey.

Its made out of mountboard, freehand drawn onto some graph paper and then cut out.  I covered it in Precious Basic Grey - from the Dasher and Prancer series - I never use my Basic Grey ha ha!!!

The little chair and teddy bear I won in auction from Bear Cabin Miniatures - It was made by Julia and all the proceeds went to Children in Need.  Julia makes some beautiful bits and I was really chuffed to win it and I think it looks fab in my christmas room!

The little mirror was a present from Sharon at the Scrapbook Lady, I punched out tiny holly leaves and made a groove in each one with a pokey tool, and then they were indiviually glued into place, added a few bead berries and a little hand made bow and christmas mirror finished.

I needed something for the left hand wall so made a little shelf last night out of lolly sticks, coffee stirrers and cocktails sticks, and the little hanging sign was made last week, and Ill post more about that next week ;-)

I bought a fiber optic tree from ebay, and decorated it with lights, tinsel and little baubles. I made a little barrel to put it in out of SEI paper and a border punch.

I made the little Christmas card hanger out of thin silk ribbon, one of my new mini-ing friends Margaret who lives in Canada sent me the Christmas cards which were perfect for the vignette - so big thank you Margaret.

The little table as a working Tiffany lamp, mince tarts and a glass for santa's brandy - no milk in this house - ha ha!!

Ive still got to add a rug Im currently embroidering - not sure If it will be finished by this christmas lol, and perhaps something for the top of the shelving.

enjoy!!

Christmas Cards.......

A long post today - sorry!!

Every year I make our immediate family something different as a Christmas card - in previous years Ive made mini albums of photos, or scrapbook banners etc.  This year Ive made them little altered bird houses filled with chocolates!  Once for each of them decorated in the style (hopefully!) of their own Christmas decorations.  A sort of 'Merry Christmas from our house to yours'

 

I bought the little houses in the summmer from the pound shop - they were hideous, painted in pink or lilac with loads of flowers all over them,

Before pictures

 

The little roofs were held in place by the string hanger, but could be removed for putting bird seed inside.  A few coats of paint inside and outside and then a little altered art and they have been transformed into something completely different!!  and only a £1 each.....

(thats apart from the Basic Grey, K&Co & SEI patterned papers, tags, ribbon, Prima flowers, Prima & Basic Grey bling, chipboard elements, epoxy elements, wire fibres, wire foliage, rub-ons, stickers, paint, distress inks, stickles, perfect pearls, hermi fix, silicone gel, glue dots, foam squares, + 3 tins of roses chocolates for the filling, so really really cheap!  ha ha!!!)

however, with the exception of the chocolates, I had everything else in my stash!!

The roofs were punched onto white card stock using the large doily lace punch from Martha Stewart and then each lower edge was coloured with distress inks and then layered onto the roof, they then had stickles piped along each lower edge on top of the distress inks.  This is the punch used

Martha Stewart Doily Lace Punch

Anyways, Ive made 7 in total - heres the closeups!

Mums

Lindas

My brothers

Kev's Three Brothers

Ours

Filled with chocolate

Enjoy!

Baby its cold outside!.............

because of the snow and the non existent heating in the hall, we are postponing the Christmas party at Romford Scrapaholics for a week - hopefully the hall will be a little warmer on the 13th Dec (actually I have it in my diary for both the 6th and the 13th.......!).  Im hoping to be back on my feet by then as well........fingers crossed!

Here's a photo I took yesterday from my back door of the icicles on the garage.   Some of them were over a foot long!

Because its so cold, the girls haven't been going out much, but as I had the back door open, Lizzy decided to have a look around and I managed to get a couple of photos of her - very difficult as she's quite defiant and wont look at you when you call her with a camera in your hand!! 

Anyways, keep warm!