Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all! May you receive the gifts of love, joy and peace.


And my last 3D star of the year goes on top of the tree.

Advent 24

Twas the night before Christmas . . . 


Silent night, Holy night!

Advent 23 - Stars

Today's message on the back is "Go outside and look at the stars".

Advent 22 - Peace

Wishing you all peace!

Advent 21

Today the tree has only 4 spots left to go.


This card I mixed the Hero Arts stamp with a couple of the stickers from the Christmas set. 

Guest Designer at Lily Pad

I'm so happy to have the opportunity to be a guest designer at Lily Pad today. I made a number of cards, varying techniques with the same stamp, and shapes with the same stamp, plus a fun bonus card.


Here's a sneak peak . . . 

Click here to go look!

And if you're just arrived for the first time, I'm busy with my advent calendar starting here.

Advent 20 - An angel.

Only 5 days to go! Hallelujah!
The felt angel is from Hero Arts.

Advent 19

Still Christmas shopping today !


Baubles stamp and punch from Stampin' Up.

Advent 18 - Glittery Trees

Our family will all be under the same roof today! Wonderful.


I came across these glittery trees at my local tiny "Rayon D'Or" (Golden Ray) shop. Three sweet, helpful sisters run the shop where I find little treasures like these, and lots of ribbon!

Advent 17

Playing catch-up with my kids today . . . talking, eating litchis off the tree in the garden, "gateau piment" at 4pm (Isn't it amazing how our sense of home is so linked to our food!), a visit to Meme. The precious moments of the Christmas season.


Today I used a Hero Arts Poinsettia with love sticker. A row of gold Liquid Pearls across the top. Loved getting the tip of tapping the card to "flatten" the points - you can see that I forgot to do the ones at the bottom of the card.

Advent 16 - Starry Journey

One more sleep and I get my eldest daughter back! She'll need defrosting coming from Scotland. 


Today I'm using a stamp that must be close on 16 years old . . . the Mary on Donkey led by Joseph silhouette from Stamp Africa! The journey is being made!

Amazing Stamp cutouts

I wanted to make another cutout tab card, but wanted to try with different stamps. I started with this one - the dogwood from Club Scrap.

It's lovely, but to cut out the tab was very difficult and I had to mount an extra flower to cover some rough edges. Then I had a lightbulb moment . . . hey - I have the new Hero Arts Antique Flowers and Butterflies stamp and die cut set. That will cut it out for me! Like butter! So crisp and clean.

So much fun, I had to make a set 

I coloured them with Prisma crayons. 
The set then needed a folder so that I could give it as a gift.

Advent 15

We're having our book club Christmas dinner tonight . . . looking forward to the fun, laughter, sharing and feasting!


Today I used the Hero Arts felt holly, trimming a punched out circle. The gold ribbon is bought locally and is gorgeous - has a great shimmer to it!

OLW73 Peace

Loved the theme of peace for this week's OLW73 challenge! And I didn't want to do another Christmas card, so I used my Inkadinkado inchie set, which also came with the sentiments.

Advent 14 - Peace

I am just so thankful for the deluge yesterday . . . we are still under serious water restrictions. My garden is smiling. It came with thunder and lightening and a resultant 5 hour power failure, but that is a small price to pay! 

I have always loved this dove from Hero Arts. I stamped on blue cardstock and coloured with Prisma White. Used Colorbox baby blue to stamp the Peace so that it was soft and peaceful.

Advent 13 and tropical snow puffs

More tropical alternatives . . . no snow, but white puffs of bouganvillas!

And Hero Arts felt JOY for today, with the snowflake sticker!

Advent 12

Almost halfway!

I love this Reindeer stamp from Hero Arts. And adding stickles to the flourishes and antlers! 

Advent 11

Each card for the Advent tree has a note on the back, with the deed of the day. Today's is "Pray for a friend who lives far away".

In my mail box this morning, was this wonderful link from Kyria about The Twelve Prayers of Christmas. We can write out prayers and present them as gifts. It's struck a chord in me.

Advent 10 and Baubles

I have been making Christmas Baubles this past week. I started with patterned paper, then one night while lying in bed, I had this picture of Shari Carroll's wonderful button Christmas tree in neutral shades, floating in my head. Anyone else design while in bed?

So I thought, why not stamp 5 different designs in neutral brown! Using 4 of Hero Arts stamps and one from South Africa and Hero Arts Soft Brown shadow ink, I came up with this:

Sorry I couldn't get a shot of the entire bauble hanging - my arms weren't long enough to get far back enough!


And my advent card for today . . . 

Advent 9

I had such a wonderful day today. Got so much accomplished on my to-do list. Sunshine and beauty around. Here's our red flowers for Christmas . . . Amaryllis . . . no poinsettias in this heat!

Paper piecing for the tree, with distress background spritzed with perfect pearls and stamped and embossed stars.

Advent : Days 1 to 8

This has been a long time in the coming . . . 
. . . started last year, but never completed. 


But now we go through the days . . . 
. . . counting, preparing, waiting 
               for the coming of a baby,
            a king,
                   the greatest gift.


I'm late in posting, so it's a catch up of 8 days.



After making an Advent set for my mother-in-love 2 years ago, I wanted one for myself. (In fact, that was my first blog post! See here for the completed one) This time I thought I would change from the rectangle to making a tree.


When I made the tree, starting at the top with one card space, I added one card to each row, so in the end there are 28 card spaces. This works out great as Advent usually runs from the 4th Sunday before Christmas, making it anywhere between 22 - 28 days.


As the Christmas Countdown paper pack (Stampin Up) only had 25 days, I created 3 cards with no numbers :


. . . Countdown
. . . Rejoice
  and
. . . Christmas - What's it all about


To make up the cards, I used all and any of my Christmas stash from the Countdown pack, Christmas stamps from all different suppliers (Hero Arts, Inkadinkado, Club Scrap, Biblical Impressions, Embossing Arts & Co, Clarity Stamps, amongst others), distress inks, diecuts (Fabscraps and local craft shops), Stickles, Liquid Pearls, Glossy Accents, Poinsettia flowers (Hero Arts and others), pearls and gems and ribbons. I had got this far last year, so you may have seen these before.

I just had to get that reindeer - dog stamp as it reminded me of my dog, Snoopy. It's coloured to match his colouring. He keeps us entertained by his antics and crazy ways of sleeping.

I will be posting a new Advent card each day.

Anything goes!

For the Simon Says "Anything Goes" and Star challenge, you get more of the 3D star. Can't get enough of it! Stamped the Hero Arts magical background with Versamark ink and dry brushed Gold Perfect Pearls. I used the new Hero Arts Blush dots and gems for bling - and entered the Bit of Bling at Less is More too.