Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! And, a BIG THANK YOU!!

Hi everyone,

Well, Christmas is over for another year, roll on 2009! I sincerely hope all my visitors have been enjoying a happy and safe holiday season, and that the year ahead brings you all lots of luck and good times. I have returned from a few days away at my parent's property, and now have a week to catch up on some neglected things, like posting here for one! My two children are spending the week with Grandma and Grandpa in the country, so it's child free as a bonus!! We're planning some interior painting, wish us luck!

I'd also like to send a huge THANK YOU to my Secret Santa from the Elite Stampers team, of which I am a part. I haven't worked out yet who you are, despite quite a bit of browsing blogs for clues. I was thoroughly and indecently spoiled by my Secret Santa, and I love everything you chose for me :D Thanks again!! Visitors, please feel free to leave a comment with a hint if you recognise the gorgeous card included with my goodies shown in the picture with this post! I really do love being part of such a great team, the friends I have made over the last 15 months are many and wonderful without exception! The sense of cameraderie and community spirit is a very uplifting and positive experience, I just love being an SU demonstrator!!

A forest of tiny treats!

Thanks very much to Jayne Mercer for the idea for these little treats, which she made in a different version for her team members attending our retreat this year. My kids were very taken with them, and I decided to put a Christmas spin on them and use them for my son's classmates this year. I guess they are either lollipop flowerpots or topiary trees, depending on your point of view. I used last year's Holiday Thyme designer series papers, available this year in a different colourway as Wintergreen. The double sided papers lend themselves beautifully to the folding technique, and the punches for the tops are quick and easy. You can either use up small scraps, or alternatively, there is almost zero waste when cutting from a 12x12 sheet, which makes 12 lollipop trees.

Here's the method:

Cut a 12x12 sheet into 2 6x12" pieces, and then cut the 6x12" pieces into 2 inch strips, each 6 inches long.

Score from each end at 3/4" and 2 1/2", giving you four score lines.

Decide which is the facing side of the paper and fold back the 3/4" flaps to show the reverse.

Pinch these folded edges together and fold the strip in half - this will make a crease at the bottom which falls between the 2 score lines.

Using scissors or your trimmer, cut a wedge from the bottom fold slanting out to the bottom of the folded flaps at the top, to create a flowerpot shape.

Use your 1/16" hole punch to pierce through all layers at one side of the top folded section, and secure with a brad

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Insert your lollipop, and then secure the other side with the punch and brad again.

For the topper you could use several punches depending on what you have on hand, or even hand-cut some triangle shapes for Christmas trees. But, the scallop circle punch I have used here is quick and easy, and layers nicely with the 1 3/8 and 1 1/4" circles.

Stamp your desired image onto cardstock and use the 1 1/4" punch to cut out, 2 per tree. Layer this onto a 1 3/8" circle, and then attach these to the scallop circles. Here I used the snowflake circle from "Season of Joy" - gone now from the Spring mini, hope it will return in April (please?)

To attach the scallops to the stick, I found that foam tape was ideal. Cut 2 small lengths and position them with a small gap in between, enough to wedge the stick into. This allows the 2 sides of the scallop to stick well, without the thickness of the stick causing problems.

I finished the trees with a stamped tag and ribbon, and they were done! The kids were happy, or so I am led to believe!

Some OTP fun with Teacher's gifts

I had several teachers to create thankyou gifts for this year, as my son has two classroom teachers, and has also participated in Learning Assistance for reading and Reading Recovery programmes. Here is a sample of what I created to thank them for their mammoth efforts in helping him achieve his best.

I made some mini Christmas fruit cakes in a Baba cake tin (they look like a mega muffin pan with tubes in the centre, or a baby ring tin) with the mixture that won't fit inside my smaller round cake tin. Nice and easy, they take just 50 minutes to cook, and the finished cakes sit nicely in a large muffin case. I wrapped them in cello and added a topper made from Confetti Cream cardstock, punched and embossed using the delightful Labels 1 set of Nestabilities. I have stamped them with a sneak preview of an upcoming set... And that's all I'm going to say about that, except that I think it is going to be on LOTS of wishlists!!!

Then I chose some of my most favourite patterned papers (other than the SU DSPs of course!) - Basic Grey Blush - Devotion. Kind of apt really, given the handful that is my firstborn child!! and used these to decorate a Heaven Hot Chocolate tin (sadly, this delectable treat has disappeared from supermarket shelves, sob!) You can't really see from this picture, but I used Baroque Motifs background stamp to stamp the lid, and added a chipboard monogram of the teacher's initial. I used the flower motif to stamp the scallop circle in the flower centre. I experimented a little here, using a Colorbox Queue chalk ink as the base (because it matched the dusty opaque pink I was wanting), then I used the Stampin' Write Marker "thumping" technique over the top of the pigment ink, with my Ruby Red marker. Nice!!
Thumping is a method of adding touches of colour by lightly dabbing over the top of a base colour with a second of third colour, to get a sort of mottled or marbled effect. I've used it with dye inks before, but not pigment ink as a base, so now I can't wait for more colours in the Stampin' Up! Craft inks so I can match away to my heart's content, and have the lovely opacity that pigment inks add!! I trimmed the tin with vanilla taffeta ribbon and added a rhinestone brad to the centre of the flower. Inside, the tin is full of erasers. Yes, pencil erasers! Covered in small pieces of Blush range papers to match the tin. From my time in the classroom doing reading groups, I knew that LOTS and LOTS of erasers are a very good thing! I also added a small stamp for the teacher to use for her marking.

Finally, I made a matching series of cards, this is one of them. It uses Ruby Red cardstock as a base, and the Scallop Border punch from the Summer Mini along the bottom edge. This is underlayed with a strip of Confetti Cream to show off the scallops. A strip of Blush Devotion is also matted with Confetti Cream. I added a tie of Vanilla Taffeta ribbon, and used the Square Scallop punch to punch a stamp from the "Say it with Scallops" set. I matted this with a slightly larger nesting square scallop punch by EK Success, who make our lovely SU punches for us.

off to do some vacuuming....