Year in Review with a little giveaway

Good morning, I hope everyone has had a good Christmas and been able to relax a little in the lull until New Year.

I decided to take part in Ellie's Year in Review which also gives me the opportunity to thank everyone for their continued support of my blog. It's been a tough year health wise and your visits and encouragement have meant so much and helped me through some difficult times.

However choosing which cards to share proved even more difficult than I anticipated. So in the end I tried to include something using favourite products and/or companies I am privileged to design for/represent which include Highlight Crafts/Two Red Robins, AALL and Create, Stamp Addicts, Oakwood and Stampendous.

I have also been fortunate to have a number of stamps sets released on Create and Craft this year which was exciting and several of those inspirational quotes are included on my shares today. 

In keeping with Ellie's plans, I have a small prize to give away, a Spellbinders A Lotta Hearts die set....just in time for Valentines maybe! A winner will be randomly selected from the comments on this post.....

Here's my final selection from my 2022 posts and Create and Craft TV work for this year, I've not listed details of products used in each but please do mail me from the link on the sidebar if you would like any specific details....

There are twelve taking part and here's Ellie's full list with links to their blogs so you can check out everyone, 

Bonnie, Brenda, Debbie, Diane, Ellie, Helene, Hilary, Joanne, Melissa. Rachel, Sara, Sue 

Thank you for popping in to take a peek and I wish you all a Happy and Crafty 2023.

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Something amazing in each new day

Morning Peeps, our last theme of the year which will run for two weeks at Allsorts, I am your host and have selected 'CAS' as my theme, one I often struggle with so a challenge to myself as well. Prizes are from, AALL and Create,  Highlight Crafts and Ruth Hamilton Design. 

Above the beautiful Rose from the latest AALL and Create release called Sent with Love, stamped and paper pieced with a snippet inked with Oxides, the same ink used to colour the circle and spritzed with Cadence gold Shake and Gilt. The sentiment is from my Beleive stamp set.

This one uses Papaver Poppies a really beautiful set and I used a piece of masking tape to place the Poppies into a vase which comes from Daisy Elegance, sadly now discontinued but it is still available from a few retailers. The sentiment is from the same set as the one used on the above card. I only realised after editing the photo that the white card used for stamping is a distinctly different shade to the at of the base card, ah well!!

It just leaves me to wish you all a very Happy and Peaceful Christmas season and my thanks for your continued support and inspiration, it always means so much.

 

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Running late

Morning everyone, an apologies to my teamies as this should have been yesterdays post for We Love Stamping and Stamping Sensations. I usually schedule ahead but due to flu last week that didn't happen, then Saturday morning I collapsed in the kitchen, ambulance came but unable to take me to hospital as no new admissions due to pending NHS strikes, so a cobble up of paramedic's and 111........I'll say no more than it's rather like DIY health care.

Prizes this month come from Craft Stash, above my WLS share using AALL and Create stamps and another apology to the guys at A&C as there are no links this time

This one for SS using all Lavinia stamps.

 

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Oh' Christmas Treee

Morning to you all, our new theme at Allsorts is 'A/G with Oh' Christmas Tree option' as selected by Pauline. Our prizes this week are two stamp sets which were very kindle donated by one of my fellow crafters.

I succumbed to the flu that seems to be sweeping the Country (thankfully no red lines!!) and felt pretty rotten all week, the cough is something else, as a result not been near my computer in a few days other than finishing this post so no blogging. I've had every jab on offer but being immune compromised these things knock me for six and take me twice as long to recover.

Above is one of my recent makes for Highlight Crafts using a whole host of their seasonal Two Red Robin dies from A Christmas Eve and the little houses come from A Winter Landscape. There is currently a sale at Highlight with some fabulous offers, A Christmas Eve is currently half price and there's a code on my sidebar for an extra discount if you are tempted.

Above a Winter scene using dies I discovered when having a clear out, I have absolutely no idea of the make, they could be Tattered Lace in which case they are a few years old as I've not been a DT for them for 2/3 years now. The sentiment is from my Christmas Season stamp set.

Here's another using some of the Two Red Robins dies mentioned above plus several more and a couple of my favourite Geese, the triptych design really lends itself to scene building.

Happy weekend all.

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Wonders of Nature in Winter

Like many of us we've had a lot of hard frosts this last week and yesterday at -6 also freezing fog along with the most amazing hoar frost so I had to venture outside into the gardens and take some photos of what to me is yet another example of the wonders of Nature. The cobwebs in particular were sensational so there's a few of those. 

Just as well I did it yesterday as the 'white stuff' arrived in the Fen's overnight and Rosa had her first venture in snow, it seemed to be a bit of shock losing her feet into it as immediately she'd done the necessaries jumped onto a bench by one of the doors with that sad Lab look asking to come back in, the other three just looked at her in confusion, it's old hat to the senior girls.

 

I also have a share for the Snippets Playground, a Christmas Wreath using lots of snippets for the stamped Penny Black Poinsettias which were then die cut, it also has some lights entwined into it but my attempts at a photo of it lit didn't work too well! I do hope there's something warming up in the treehouse and I don't mean just hot chocolate!

Thanks for taking a peek, keep warm.

 

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Let it Snow

Morning Peeps, at Allsorts we are still preparing for Christmas with the theme of 'Let is Snow with an A/G option' as selected by Lolo. 

A rather hurried post, much to my horror this morning I realised all I had written for this post was the first couple of lines and not even uploaded my work. I always schedule well ahead with posts and just add extras closer to posting date if necessary, but for whatever reason this one got missed, yet the next few weeks are finished!

Both of these card are recent DT makes for Oakwood's Create and Craft shows a few weeks ago, above using Stampendous Snow People and Oakwood Snowflake stencil and of course liberal helpings of glitter. The cold snowy feel is quite fitting at the moment as it's been well below zero all week here in the Fens and stayed that way all day a couple of times and looks set to continue.

This one uses Oakwood Perry and Sammy stamp set, a very plain card for me using the large alphabet die set I treated myself to a while back, again glitter and Sammy the Snowman.

Have a good weekend and keep warm.

 

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Chilly together

Morning Peeps, it's the first Sunday of the month which means the start of our new challenges at We Love Stamping and Stamping Sensations where our themes are 'I love....' and A/G with a Winter Wonderland option. Prizes this month are Santoro dies and a scrapbook kit and dies and stamps from our lovely Parton Craftstash, so lots of reasons to join in. 

Penguins just say cold snowy weather to me and my memories of cruising and seeing them in their natural habitat were it was all rather magical, so a bit of a Winter Wonderland. I have used AALL and Create Frosty and Penguin, an alcohol ink background with stamping from Reverse Stars and the little twigs come from Pinecone.

My second share uses all Lavinia stamps, a circle aperture, Oxides to build up the colour and of course lots of glitter. Although using it with Fairies wasn't my intentions when I created this stamp set, I think it goes quite well with a fantasy scene, it's from my Moments set available here and here.

As usual I forgot to share my card for the Card Chain Challenge. Many know I rarely enter challenges as I have failing vision so the only linking I tend to do is for my own challenges but I like to join in this one as the concept is rather different. This is the card I sent to my friend Marianne in Greece, it arrived quite quickly which is more than can be said for the one the previous month posted on 5th October and yet to arrive in Kenya.

Have a good Sunday.

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Festive Magic

Morning to you all, a new theme is starting today at Allsorts and Lynn has selected the theme of  'It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas'. This week we have two prizes of Car-di-o stamp sets.

This year I took a deviation from all stamped Christmas cards after being tempted by this embossing folder, die and stencil collection from Lisa Horton, they are such clever sets with the layering stencils to build up the colours. 

The finished Poinsettia designs were simply layered onto card embossed with a very old Tattered Lace 8x8 folder, the sentiment from my own Magic stamp set available here or Create and Craft, stamped in red Versafine Clair before embossing the background and a little Two Red Robins die.

Hope everyones Christmas preparations are coming along, a bit scary that suddenly we are in December and it's all rather close.

 

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