Christmas Cheer!

Well we had a lovely Christmas Day (allowing for the fact that both Mr Eiglas and I were not, and are still not, well) and all the family arrived at one point or another. It was a particular success on the present front with none of the presents being either duplicate or lame!

We have an understanding in our family. We each have a Christmas list featuring everything from a chocolate bar to a Porche so all coveted items are listed but no price-range and no indications are there so the surprise isn't spoilt.

The baby, Ada, was amazingly well-behaved and enjoyed herself thoroughly, ripping open mountains of prezzies and holding court with a motley collection of adoring adults.

Ada loves Pluto

...and with Dolly's feeding stuff.....

....and opening more prezzies!

The Eiglas Clan!

Our beautiful daughter Bev cooked dinner, with the assistance of the lovely Antony, and it was really, really delicious! A total triumph! Bev's only 25, not particularly domesticated and has never cooked Christmas dinner before. In fact, she rarely cooks at all, having a good cook in Antony to hand. But it was lovely!

She did Turkey, Lamb, roast parsnips, carrots and two different roast potatoes, carrot& swede, sprouts with pancetta and the creamiest mashed potato I have ever tasted!

Two different gravies, pigs in blankets and two different stuffings completed the main course. Starters was brown toast with two different pates and afters were provided by our number two son Michael and his girlfriend Raechel who brought all home-made produce - carrot cake, yule log and berry jelly (which was made form scratch, not Rowntrees) and they were all gorgeous but my fave was the jelly - very juicy and thirst-quenching on my sore throat!

I really hope you had as good a time as we did. It was only family and it was quiet - no partying or fighting - just the way we like it!

Lovely!

Hugs,

Ei

x

C.R.A.F.T 30 - Reindeer Template Card

This week at C.R.A.F.T the theme is 'Free For All', which is a description of my house at the moment!

Between the deccies, the pressies, the wrapping paper, the craft-stuff, the Christmas card making stuff and an 18 month old granddaughter trying to cuddle an 18 year old cat whilst an on heat Bichon Frise awaits an opportunity to mount either of them and me with a lurgi, it's a madhouse!

I didn't think I'd make it this year - I'm usually well-ahead of the game at this time of the year, but I'm afraid there's a certain charming young lady who, although perfection in herself, has stopped my crafting gallop decidedly!

This week her Mama has been doing her preps for Christmas. She's had her hair done, her various important little places plucked, waxed, threaded and tweezered. She's been exfoliated, moisturized, teased and moulded into a vision of scrummy Mummy perfection whilst yours truly is dessicating and generally ageing by the nanosecond! I've no idea where my mirror compact is, let alone have an idea what my eyebrows look like! I'm covered in ink, glitter and glue, my nails are broken and stained and I have milk soaking into my top, just above my left boob, but ya know what? Ada is happy and enjoying her crafting and can use felt-tip pens and 'real' scissors not to mention the weaker of my paper punches and on a foray into TKMaxx, preferred the paper punch of a Scottie Dog to a teddy bear - how cool is that?! My gorgeous daughter is naturally beautiful but I'm very happy swapping pampering with quality brainwash time with my fabulous and very cool granddaughter!

My effort for this week is a steal from a card I saw at my friend's house years ago. I thought it was very cute and so here's my version of it. If I knew the origins of it, I'd credit them but I'm afraid she didn't know either!

The reindeer is a very simple shape which folds at the shoulder and head and the blanket folds back to reveal your greeting.

You can leave it plain at the back or face it with another piece of card but as the shoulder-fold bends the back 'forward' you'll need to decorate at least that bit. Even better, use double-sided card! I just didn't have any ds card of the right colour so I stuck the first reindeer shape to another piece of tan card and cut round it.

I used a bit of wool for the forlock and red glitter paper for the antlers.

I've made a black line template for it so if anyone wants it just leave a comment and I'll forward it to you.

I think it would be easy enough to change the head and feet to represent lots of different animals too!

Hope you like him!

Hugs,

Ei

x

Three Cards of Non-Traditional Colours

A Spoonful of Sugar want us to use Non-traditional colours this week so I have a bronze and ice blue card......

..........an orange and chocolate card.......

.................and a pink and lime card.........

...so take yer pick!! LOL!

The bronze and ice-blue card has a Magenta stamped image which I matted onto bronze stardream card.

The chocolate orange card has an image of Santa which I think is an Anita's stamp and on a further stardream card in champagne.

The pink and lime card is mainly Bazzil and Sizzix!

Thanks for looking!

Hugs,

Ei

x

Monique.....

....is Mo Manning's angel and I think she's pretty special! Coloured with Copics and matted onto gold barked mirri card the onto a texted vellum and mounded onto an A5 card.I may tak eanother phot tomorrow in the daylight as ths one's not so good!

Hugs,

Ei

x

Snowman Kiss

Challenge 20 over on Incy Wincy has a green & red theme and just by coincidence I have indeed made a card with a....red and green theme! How good is that?

I would say they suit each other!
Well, back to the cutting mat.....!

Hugs,

Ei

x.

Blue Sparkle Santa

Sophisticats 13 have a fab challenge this week requiring 'Snowflakes & Sparkle' which I have on this card. I've also used this week's sketch from Sketch & Stash and think they suit each other really well!

Sketch & Stash also want a little info on the stash used!

The background paper was a freebie about two or three years ago in Scrapbook Inspirations and I've never got around to using it!

The glitter card is from DCWV and is having it's first airing this Christmas alhtough I've had it well over twelve months - same goes for the blue peel-off greeting. That was in a bundle from C&C a good three years ago - how can you tell I don't use peel-offs very often!!

Hope you like it!

Hugs,

Ei

x

It's Prizegiving Day at C.R.A.F.T !!

Here's a copy of the e-mail I sent to Claire, the boss over at C.R.A.F.T this evening!

Hi Claire!

I've done the mammoth task of going through every entrant and comm for the last two weeks and visited every blog and tested every link!
It was a very difficult and carefully thought out decision but all in all I think Doreen made me laugh the most - the woman's crackers! So she's first place for my digis.
However, it was not a straight-forward decision and I AM a Libran, so I also want to give Craft-Princess some digis !!
Jacqueline (Jack-in-the-box) definitely deserves the Candy for managing to follow and link despite not having a blog! LOL!
I have an extra two awards, however.
I have a set of photopolymer stamps for the lovely Neon Rainbow for her delightful meanderings and an extra-special award for Rozzy, for being the only entrant to actually do everything I asked exactly correctly, including technique suggestion, a logo and linking! LOL! She was the exception that I managed not to confuse!

I enjoyed, totally, visiting everyone's blogs (...and I did visit them all despite not leaving comms on all of them due to lack of time...) and consider myself privileged to be in the midst of so much talent! I wish I had more candy to give! Perhaps some more digi's later on.....!

So, If I could have everyone's addresses, cyber and terrestrial, I'll pack up all the little prizes!
If it makes life easier, you can just copy and paste this e-mail into the blog!
Hugs,
Ei
X

PS I just got my new PC today and I haven't even put it up yet because I was doing my duty first! LOL!

...so we have our winners!

Congratulations one and all!

I've already despatched the digis to the peeps I have e-mail addresses for and am just awaiting address details for the rest.

Hope you all enjoy your booty and I look forward to seeing your creations!

Hugs,

Ei

x

C.R.A.F.T 28 DT - Happy Christmas Birthday

This week over at C.R.A.F.T, the theme is 'A Christmas Birthday'.

My cousin's birthday is on Christmas Day and it's always driven her mad that everything is Christmas themed and many times peeps have said 'I just got you the one big pressie...' when it's not been any posher than a normal present!

But I couldn't just use a plain birthday card for this demo card - that's not the brief! I hope my cousin forgives me.....!

Plain white cardstock scored, folded and added to to make my usual 21cm square card. Papermania's Home for Christmas range provided the backing paperand the rest of the stuff from stash.

It's a Mo Manning image and is coloured in Copics then mounted on lipstick red pearlescent paper and then onto green Astralux. The green nat I created by using a Nestie to draw around to make a mat bigger than the Nesties available.

The flowers are cheap spray from Wilko and the branch punchies are from Martha Stewart.

Hope you like it!

Hugs,

Ei

x

Winter Twins

For my 'Making Cards For Christmas' thread over on Trimcraft, last week's winner Cardmaker has chosen a theme of traditional 'red, green and gold plus some flowers' for her theme this week.

Every week the winner receives one of my digistamps as a prize and this week the prize is 'Winter Boy' which is the boy in this image below. In this image he's seen with his twin sister and they've been having fun with a sled!

It's a very simple composition using a text background from DCWV (...I think...!) and flowers & ribbon from stash.

The image is coloured with Copics - of course!

Hope you like it!

Hugs,

Ei

x