and the third....

...the third special birthday next month is my younger daughter in law's and I showed you before the base card....

well here is how it ended up...

the front of the card....

unfasten the band across the middle and....

lift the first flap and .....

then lift the second flap and....

finally the actual inside of the card....

She makes cards too but she doesn't believe in the saying 'less is more' so I had to make sure I had plenty on the card.  Just as I finished it I realised I hadn't put the 30 on it so made the two pins for the front - hopefully you wouldn't know they were an afterthought.  I can now relax as I have plenty of stock cards for all the other January birthdays.

wow - another post and

the second important card for January is for my darling granddaughter Mya who will be five.  I never have a definate idea in mind when I craft - I just fly by the seat of my pants and it normally comes out fine, this one seems to have anyway....

however I am not at all sure how this next one is going to turn out.  It's for my younger d-i-l and is the third important January card.  I had this idea of wanting a multi fold front to the card with lots of hidden bits - well the base is done and below but where I go from now is in the lap of the gods, anything (or nothing) could materialise so you will just have to watch this space.

third and most important....

...we have three very important members of the family sharing January for their birthdays so I have three very special cards to make.  The first and to me the most important is my beloved Arn's birthday and I managed to sneak a few hours away from him to make this special card....

I wanted to use my favourite style of the moment - SteamPunk - and wanted it to be totally masculine so linked chain through the top decoration instead of beads and made ribbon to thread through from book print.  The two Tim Holtz word charms said it all.  Now all I have to do is make a box to pop it in and hope he likes it.  (He'd better).

secondly look what I've got.....

I ran a Secret Santa/Chanukah Armadillo on the forum I run and look what the Chanukah Armadillo brought me....

I'm afraid I guessed who it was from as she has a style of her own and is always so generous with her time and sharing her talent.  It is stunning and each of the four 'milk cartons' contained a gift.  So a very big thank you to my dear friend *** - I will treasure it forever.  Now I need to work out how to make one and have a go myself - watch this space.

xx

1st of 3 posts

time to catch up with what I have been up to of late.  Firstly a tag for a friend's birthday...

Santa doesn't believe in Bah Humbug

a little pressie for a dear friend who does believe in Bah Humbug - perhaps I can change her mind.

a mish mash of things that

I have forgotten to post of late.....

top box for Arn and the other two for friends.

I'm still tagging...

this tag is for a friend's birthday in the new year.  I struggled - my mojo appears to have gone on his holidays, so now I have a nice tidy craft room and no inclination to craft.  Need to give self a good shake as have to make OH's birthday card next.



The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 8

and so to the last of my 8 Nights of Chanukah Tags.

I'm sorry to have finished and yet happy to see the full set at last.  I'll try and get a photo of them all in situ next week.

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 7

you have probably realised by now that I am going through a range of colours - each one leading into the next. I wasn't sure how I would enjoy the final two colours - today's being gold, not a colour I work with much - but thankfully the first one has turned out fine. Now I just have the final tag to make and will be searching the old grey matter for something apt, but for now here is the seventh night....

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 6

I have to admit this is my favourite so far.

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 5

I used acetate for my top layer on this one.

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 4

another fun one to do, I'm not sure if you can see the Star of David in the top lefthand corner - made from acetate.

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 3

now this one I really enjoyed

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 2

and here is the second night.  I made the miniature Torah Scroll from a  bamboo domino.

The 8 Nights of Chanukah - night 1

I have to say I love the Tim Holtz 12 days of Christmas tags but for obvious reasons the theme is of no interest to me.  Since Tim started these a couple of years ago I have just watched and wished I could somehow adapt them then yesterday it came to me.  I am making 8 tags for the 8 nights of Chanukah and using the style of Tim's tags to influence mine.  So without further ado here is night 1....

hopefully I will have all 8 made ready to display when Chanukah starts sundown on December 20th.

there are an awful lot of Tinkerbells around..

Mya will be 5 in January and wants a Tinkerbell themed party so I have been making her invitations this week.  Right now I am fed up with sTinkerbell as I call her, think she keeps flying across my line of vision.

Ok here are the invitations

and a single invitation where you can see Tinkerbell is actually flying free.  Of course the piece of cream paper at the bottom has just been placed there to block out the telelphone number.

and a close up on sTinkerbell, bless her.  Now just hope Mya approves and even bigger hope is that I have made enough.

A bit of this and a bit of that....

firstly a couple of cards that I made using acetate... I'm quite taken with the effect of these so you can expect more to be arriving this way soon...

then may I introduce the latest member of the crafting world...

little Grace with her first real creations, just love the intense concentration in the first picture - she was removing the backing from small squares of 3d foam, not easy for an adult but she is determined she will manage it and she did.

Then finally for now I decided to get a little bit inky and messy - not too much you understand as I dont like messy...

and I couldn't resist trying my latest Marianne die - an old model T Ford car...

Welcome home...

...to Gilad Shalit.  Your family, friends and Israel never gave up on getting you home safely and after more than 5 long years you are thankfully back where you belong.

Israel showed the world that the life of one young Israeli soldier is worth more than the lives of over a thousand Palestinian terrorists and have brought him home where now may he find peace and time to recover and recuperate.  You are an extremely brave young man and may your life now be filled with nothing but blessings.  Baruch Hashem.

nothing for a month then...

....2 posts in one day.  I have also been working on these recently.  I wanted to make card boxes for 3 of my friends as their Chanukah pressies, of course each box has to be full of cards and there are around 25 cards inside each box so you can understand that I have been a little busy lately.

Box #1

Box #2

and a change of colour for

box #3

Twins and their clothes...

....wow didn't realise I hadn't blogged for over a month - apologies.  The reason being I have been busy making presents for Chanukah.  I love to make most of my Chanukah presents and of course for the girls it had to be dolls and loads of clothes for the dolls. 

We started off with these cute Berenguer dolls - they are only 7 1/2" long.  The baskets will make ideal beds for the babies.

 I then knitted them a bunting each with cute little bonnets to keep their heads warm.

and for going out with their mummies they had to have these cute cotton dresses with pantaloons, hats and shoes

Of course they had to have something to sleep in so a sleeping bag each was next

For Sunday best cute little dresses with cloche hats and matching shrugs and of course little slippers

 for relaxed days they needed hoodies and leggins

and as the weather is turning colder I thought a nice warm winter's outfit to keep them snuggly warm.

now all I need to make is the bedding and a shawl each and they will be complete.  I'll blog those bits when they are finished.  Thats 2 presents down and another 10 to go - oh dear!!!

Our new Friday big girl....

....for the past 4 1/2 years Mya has always spent Fridays with us but now our Friday big girl has started school and Fridays have changed.  We've had Grace on Fridays for nearly 2 1/2 years too and now that big sis has gone to school she has become our Friday big girl.  Her normal request for her lunch is a boiled egg and a bagel, just like her big sister but yesterday she asked for and onion platzel and cheese just like poppa.  The platzel was nearly as big as her but she ploughed her way through it.

Crafty Ribbons Challenge

Over at Crafty Ribbons they have started a challenge blog and here is my card for challenge #1