my ramblings

RAK winners and some Christmas projects

Thank you ladies for sharing your Christmas traditions in my last post. I've loved reading what everyone does for Christmas... there are lots of different festive activities, but we all seem to enjoy this time with family and friends.

Not a lot to share from me this time. I've been making these little Christmas cards with Maya Road ribbon and felt, sewn onto small cards.

I had a couple of projects in the latest Scrapbooking Memories. First one is the layout below using Piggy Tales papers, Maya Road sheer letters and Autumn Leaves stamps.

 

The second project in SM was a card using Urban Lily Oh So Merry paper and a stamp from Autumn Leaves.

 

The gingerbread for the gingerbread houses has been made. I did share my recipe last year... Robyn S who left me a comment reminded me of this fact. Thanks Robyn. The recipe can be found HERE, along with the icing to hold the house together. The Nordicware Gingerbread House Mold which I use to make the pieces for the house can be found at Alfresco Emporium.

Now, onto the RAK winners of the little Maya Road people keychains (drawn randomly, in no particular order)....

Trace G: "My favorite tradition is driving an hour and a half to go find the perfect Christmas tree and then cut it down ourselves. The day also includes a sleigh ride, hot chocolate, and some cookies. Those reindeer are beyond adorable.
Happy holidays"

Julia: "My favourite tradition is decorating our Christmas tree while watching Carols by Candlelight and all singing along at the top of our voices."

Robyn S: "I love everything about Christmas. I now make gingerbread thanks to your gingerbread recipe you posted last year. This is a tradition I am starting. Thank you, love you blog."

Yvette: "Our favourite tradition is having the kid's photo taken with Santa. Not such a big deal, except the *children* involved are now 23, 20 and nearly 17! We are off to see the big fella tomorrow night and the kids are so excited!"

Thanks again to everyone who left me a comment.

Hope you're all having a festive week.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona

x

graduation and other things, including a RAK

Emily's year 6 graduation dinner was held the other night. A lot of work went into the coordination of this night. There was a decorating committee, a food committee, a 'security' committee and even a cupcake committee. The school hall was transformed into a fabulous venue for the kids. The theme of the evening was 'Reach for the Stars', so we did out best to make it as starry as possible. Here's the hall when we'd finished decorating...

I made the centre pieces for the tables. They were terracotta pots painted black with silver glitter on them. The pots were filled with sand to hold the mini balloons, then black crepe paper was crumpled on the top to hide the sand.

The cupcakes looked fantastic. Fondant starry shapes were placed on top of the iced cakes.

Emily looked beautiful. She was soooo excited about the evening.

All the kids had a fantastic night. Their only complaint... their evening was too short. I think they could have kept dancing for another couple of hours!

With the graduation dinner behind us now, it's time to relax... not. Christmas shopping was officially started on Tuesday, still quite a bit to do there. And we still have to make our gingerbread houses, which I'll be starting very soon.

I made these ribbon baubles yesterday for a few friends. They are clear plastic baubles which I found in my local art store (and have also seen them at Spotlight). I've bought them in past years and filled them with lollies for kids Christmas gifts, but this year I thought they'd look pretty with ribbon in them. There's also a sneak of some new ribbons coming the Ribbons Galore very soon.

 

Our latest design team project for Maya Road was to create a winter project. I don't really have many snowy photos in my album (in fact I only have a few photos of snow from my Europe trip in the 1990's). So I used the Maya Road Sheer Snowflake album to create these little guys: They'll be back later in 2008 after their publication.

The backs were covered with Urban Lily Oh So Merry papers and stamped with the new Maya Road Postcard clear stamps.

I have written out the instructions to create these little guys for your personal use: ETA: the instructions have been removed as the reindeers have been accected for publication.

Download fiona carters reindeer decorations.pdf (US letter size format)

Download fiona carters reindeer decorations.pdf (A4 size format)

And lastly, I think we have enough time for a very quick RAK before Christmas. I have some of these little sets from Maya Road which I'd like to send you.

Leave a comment before Sunday telling me your favourite holiday tradition (or just leave your name in a comment), and I'll put the names in a hat and pick a few out.

That's about all for this week. Hope you're all having a great week.

Bye for now.

Fiona

x

Santa earned his money on Friday.

Twelve months ago... Emily reluctantly sat on Santa's knee having the traditional Carter girls Santa photo with little sister Phoebe. After the photo session she asked how many more years did she have to have a photo taken with Santa.

I suggested that next year it might be fun to have a Santa photo with all her school friends. They would be in year 6, very close to leaving school and it would be a fun photo for them all to have.

Usually Emily has a little memory problem. She never remembers when I ask her to put her shoes away. She never remembers to help with the dishes when I ask her. She never remembers to clean the bunny hutch when asked. So imagine my surprise when two week's ago, she actually remembers my suggestion from a year ago, and starts arranging her friends for a Santa photo shoot.

So last Friday was the planned day. I volunteered to "help". After school the girls caught the bus up to Chatswood. I met them at the bus stop and escorted them to Santa.

I'm not sure if Santa was pleased or frightened at the sight of these nine 11 & 12 year old girls appearing in front of him.

They cuddled him, he asked what they all wanted for Christmas. Then they asked him what he wanted to Christmas, and he said a song. With that the girls burst into song "we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas". Their song filled Westfield, people were looking over from the food hall above to see where the beautiful singing was coming from.

Finally they were arranged around Santa. A couple of really nice photos were taken. The photographer asked if the girls should look at the photos. Why not? I thought.

What happened next I was unprepared for. Not everyone was happy with their photo. Now these girls all get along very well, they are very respectful of each other. So it was suggested another photo should be taken, because everyone should be happy with their photo.

Back to Santa they went, and another photo was taken. They checked it. Another one was taken....

....and then another....

...and another...

About 8 photos were taken. That's about six times poor Santa had to cuddled and sat upon by these girls. He remained VERY jovial through the whole experience. This Santa obviously received top grades at Santa School.

Finally a photo was acceptable. It was printed nine times, the girls waved Santa good bye, happy with their photo folder and Santa goodie bag.

It was worth the effort. A fantastic memory captured for many years to come.

Hope you're having a festive week!

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona

x

very random ramblings

I feel the silly season is here. Not much spare time at the moment for blogging. There's lots going on in the Carter household and many end of year activities at the girls' school. Christmas shopping hasn't started yet, although I've seen a few Christmas "wish lists" around the house.

I'm busy making table decorations for Emily's graduation dinner coming up soon (will post photos when I have some). Emily has just over 2 weeks left of primary school. She is so excited about starting high school next year, which is great.

There have been quite a few "proud mummy moments" lately. Here's a few:

Yesterday we attended Presentation Day for the girls' school. Both girls received awards. First up was Phoebe who received the Academic Book Award for her class. After the ceremony she was allowed to choose a book and have her certificate placed on the inside cover.

And Emily received the Public Speaking Debating Award for the school. She was so excited. She speaks beautifully and can speak in front of an audience with ease, which is such a fantastic skill to have. We now lovingly refer to it at home as the Argument Award, something she's particularly good at, and obviously a requirement for debaters :-)

A few weeks back, Phoebe ran in the State Relay Carnival out at Homebush. She was part of the Under 10's 4 x 100m relay team for her Little Athletics club. They ran well, finished third in their heat, but missed going onto the final. She was happy to be out there and part of the action. That's her below just starting her run.

We were up at Hawks on the weekend. The weather wasn't great, but it was so nice to be away for a few days. Not much photographic evidence that we were there apart from these photos of the girls.

{mental note for next time, remind Phoebe to remove white socks before we take photos}

We've been visited by a few kookaburras in our back yard recently. There seems to be more around than in recent years. I took this photo while standing in my kitchen, looking through the shutters. He sat on our clothes line for ages (we think he was stalking the bunnies!). It's so nice to hear them too, laughing away so close to the city.

Are you still with me?

Paper Salon has released some new collections recently. Visit the Paper Salon blog to see lots of creations from the DT. I've created a few things with the new papers.

Above layout and the book cover below use the KN Sorbet papers. Some Maya Road products have also been used, the scalloped rick rack on the layout, and the chipboard letters painted with Ranger Distress Crackle paint. Paper Salon has also released Alphabet Rub-ons which are on the book below too. They are a really good quality and are easy to apply.

The next three layouts use papers and letter stickers from the Glad Rags collection.

I should mention that here in Australia, Paper Salon is distruted by Bumble Bee Crafts.

These are a few Christmas cards made as part of my latest on line class. The patterns and instructions are included in the class, and I've used Paper Salon papers again, this time it's the Christmas range, Ornamental Holiday.

 

And keep checking the Maya Road Design Team blog for lots of new projects.

That's about all for now. Thanks for visiting and reading my blog.

Hope you all have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona

x

Christmas scrapbooking class

My latest on-line class is now open. This class focuses on creating a double page, multi photo layout with a Christmas traditions theme, as well as a bonus step by step for creating some fun Christmas cards. For more details please visit my website.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you're having a great week.

Cheers

Fiona

x

Maya Road birdies and that Distress Crackle Paint

I have received a few emails about the Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint from Ranger since my post with the Maya Road birthday tag. I've had trouble finding a good selection of these in Australia until last night, when I read Karen's Scrapping Kupboard's update.

KSK now has the full range (that's 24 colours) of the Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint available.

I have some Maya Road projects which I made for our DT October challenge (and all the DT member's projects are on the Maya Road DT blog).

The first two Christmas ornaments use chipboard pages from the MR Round Coaster Chipboard book. I've covered the pages (front and back) with Urban Lily Oh So Merry 'Frost' paper, (which I noticed KSK has in store as well, while I was there). The little birdies and branches are from the MR Birds of a Feather Chipboard set, which I've painted. The idea of these two tags/ornaments is that you can write your message on the back of the tag, the it can be hung on the Christmas tree afterwards.

This one uses the Aged Mahogany Distress Crackle Paint. I have painted the bird first with a fuchsia acrylic paint, then once dry, painted the crackle paint over the top and left it to do it's magic.

And a few more tree decorations using the Maya Road birdies and also some birds from the MR Birds Chipboard Key chain.

Above birdie uses Weathered Wood Crackle Paint (left), and right is the Aged Mahogany again.

Hootie the owl, above left has been painted with Shabby Shutters Crackle Paint, and right is the Weathered Wood again.

The little birdie above was painted with a red acrylic paint first, and I've painted over the top with some Tattered Rose Distress Crackle Paint.

Well, that's about all for today. Have a great day everyone.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Fiona x

another card challenge for World Card Making Day

There's another card challenge over at the Paper Salon World Card Making Day Blog. Create a card or tag for the holiday season, post it online and enter over at the blog. Easy!

Have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x