The White House....

Today we went to see this house which is entirely covered in white decorations and is in-aid of a very sick little girl. I was totally in awe of their hard work and the stunning department store sized decorations. A seven foot Santa being pulled by 2 husky dogs and Santa is holding the reins and thats just for starters!!


This photo doesn't do her justice, in real life the detailing is incredible.

My personal favourite is this Art Deco type frosty figure.


Georgia put some money in the Charity tin and made a wish for the poorly children to have a happy christmas...I was trying not to cry behind her. The not so mean Snow Queen and her Mum couldn't resist a pose too!!


Love and sweet wishes

Ruth xxx

DDA Catch Up

I have filled my cut down ATC pages with photos from Georgias school play on one side and photos from The Carols by Candlelight service on the other.

Sunday 14th December is a photo of Helenas Box .
This is a spare Christmas card that I gave to most of my friends and family. I absolutely love these colours and I saw a gorgeous tree in these colours so now I am thinking of adding a bit of powder blue to ours next year!!! Very Laura Ashley don't you think? I taped the sides to create a pocket for holding maybe one or two of the kids little school cards.
Monday 15th georgia was off school with Christmas-itis and I bought her this Ginger bread Snowman. I love these colours so much she let me photograph it before she ate it!I had to use some Cosmo Cricket papers for the background as they rock too!! Little miss also kindly donated a snowman badge that she'd received from a classmate.

I found these vintage baubles yesterday and couldn't resist them. I just need a cool pot to display them in.

I have been hand-making presents for what feels like forever, these smellly candles are for the girls at work and I put their names onto a bauble instead of a tag.

The teachers received these Gingerbread stars today in cellophane bags to have with their morning tea!!

So I guess my next few pages will be documenting these photos and the fact that Ben took his first steps on his own yesterday!!

Love and Curling Ribbon

Ruth xxx

Day 5 of my DDA Ben and Santa at Georgias school Christmas Fete.


Day 6 was spent at a birthday party and I forgot my memory card!! Why do they call them memory cards when I am more than likely to not remember?

Day 10: Georgias nativity play she was an angel and a leader of the small children from around the world. She took baby Jesus a Rugby ball from New Zealand!! Got some great little photos to put into my chopped up ATC holder.

Day 12: I cleaned the house in preparation for a weekend of visitors.

I made this box to hold some gift vouchers for Helenas' birthday present.

It didn't photograph very well late at night but you can see I used my new jewellery making skills at last to do the links for the beads and crystal on the bottom.

We had to cancel our weekend of visitors because Ben and I are full of a nasty head cold. So its love and hot chocolate from us. xxx

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas....

DDA Tuesday 9th December
My parcel has been posted at last, I still missed the deadline for the last post but the postie reassures me it is only a guideline. Phew what a relief !!

My central lap folds back to reveal the contents of the box. (Don't read this you lot!!)

This page is then exposed with these sweet Victorian girls reading letters. Melissa Frances papers again and some gold rub-on alphabets from Tescos.

A certain TV advert keeps on playing this song "It's beginning to look alot like Christmas" every 5 minutes but Georgia and I don't mind because we just sing along. We think another week of it and Ben will be joining in too!!

Love and mince-pies Ruth xxx

More vintage hearts......

Two more hearts t0 g0 with the last pair. The top one is my sister Sarah wearing her finest Melissa Frances crown and the bottom one is me!!

1, 2, 3 everybody say ahhhhhh.....
I have backed these two with these cute nursery type Melissa Frances papers to vary them from the last two.

I am hoping that the recipient will hang them up each year she can't get home for Christmas so her family will still be there with her on Christmas Day!!

TFL xxx

December daily album page 2 and 4

I can't believe we are up to the seventh already and I have only done 2 pages. I am struggling with photos at the moment and five million other christmas and crafting committments!!



Day 2: I wrote a little poem about how it has snowed recently and how I get so excited at the thought of snow on Christmas morning.

Day 4: Is my cake straight out of the oven. I love these doilies that I found they are laser cut and very intricate, just perfect for a cake page!!

The little envelope has a small copy of my recipe and the journaling tells about my yearly quest for the perfect recipe and how this year I have added dark chocolate to my recipe in the hope my cake will be richer inside.

I am enjoying looking at everyone elses pages and making new friends on the way. This is such fun. Thankyou to the kind strangers (new aquaintances) who are leaving such lovely comments.

TFL xxx

Pumpkins and Christmas pages....what a combination. I'm either too early for one or too late for the other!

It might be cold and frosty but at last the sun is shining. "YAY "So today Rebel and I ventured outside to take some proper photos of my projects. Although I do apologise for the long shadows on them!!


I have added some numbers to my DDA pages, using a variety of fonts and chipboards, and have put the stickled felt tree on the front for now. There is no point putting the ribbon on the rings as I don't know how bulky the book will be when it's finished.

My finished page for the Crafting in Style November sketch challenge is of Ben in his Halloween Costume. I have also used Liz Webers sketch to host this months sketch challenge on The Paperparadise Forum although I can't see any players yet.......


The photos were taken a couple of weeks after halloween, but hey that's artistic liscensing for you and bad English weather prevented me on the 31st!!

I can't deny I struggled with this multi-pic layout but at least it's done. Melissa Frances papers and some punching, painting and distressing. .

Basic Grey letters painted and glazed. The tiny felt circles are from a car boot sale. I think they were for doll making?
These photos were taken in the early morning sun in the woods near my in-laws house and sad but true I did plan them in advance. Why else would I take a halloween costume in my suitcase in November!!
I flicked the larger flower with distress inks as it was a bit bland. I must get some Coffee coloured glimmer mist ASAP
Is this not the most gorgeous blog candy giveaway? Even more inspiring when you see the types of beautiful creations that saltescrap makes with them. Click HERE for your chance to enter. I know I for one would love to win that lot!

Enjoy the sun while it lasts because tomorrow the kids and I have to wrap up warm for a trip to a theme park to see Santa and the forecast is for frost all day!! .....brrrr.....Just like last year when we went!!

TFL xxx

This box came from a set of three from Lidle, they are really strong and covered in a nasty floral paper. So I set about making it nice and christmassy.
The blue snowflake is free with this months cardmaking and papercraft magazine. I only bought it for the freebies!! So if any one wants a mag......!!!

The "Merry Christmas" tag is from my Cosomo Cricket collection and has the "Do you Believe" on the flip side. The tag is removable so it can be displayed into the New Year too.The velvet flowers are Bazzil I think and the medium blue ones are Prima. Pearls from Mark Richards and Prima "Caught in Crystals" for the bling.

I have used my 75p felt Tesco snowflakes again,and think they are quite a good colour match and the little flower centres are from my sweet MIL the florist.

I was quite pleased with it until I saw an advent calendar on Mo9cas blog which has 24 little covered match boxes in it!! Check it out HERE. I may have to rush out and buy those darned little boxes after all!!

Moving onto my December Album....I have found a site that has the cutest Calendars in Swedish but hey who cares!! I am a convert to the saying "God Jul" anyway. Mirabyll has clocks and shapes and journal spots all perfect for overlays and tags for your DDA. Click HERE to download some and don't forget to say thanks to her!!

Did you ever do anything really dumb and I mean really dumb? I bought this 49p thick felt tree from B&Q last night to put on or in my DDA and it was a bit dull and boring so I grabbed my stickles. Now knowing that one was empty I thought seeing as I am going to use a load I'll cut it in half and scrape out the old stuff.

DUH!!!! I cut the wrong one.......the problem with these things is they always feel half empty so I can't tell which is which and they seem to last forever even after I have bought another one!

So I stuck it back in but have a feeling that it'll dry up before I use it next!!

Talking of advent calendars my Sister in Law Helena has set up a new blog to showcase all Handmade Advent Calendars. It is only in its infancy but she already has some great stuff so check it out HERE and put it in your favourites as she will be adding to it all year round.

Tune in again for more mishaps!!!!!!

Love Ruth xxx

Journal your Christmas.....should I be bothered?

Well actually yes I ought to journal my Christmas because my photos never turn out on Xmas day how I expect them to.

When Georgia was 4 they were all blurry because I was ill and I only took 3 photos all day. Last year there were a few photos but they got lost when I hadn't backed them up. So I guess my best chances are to do more journaling and less pictures. Therefore I have joined the ranks of crafters who are falling for the sneaky tricks of Shimelle and Ali and getting us to write our thoughts down on paper!

I know the rules are that you are supposed to make your own album and I have in a way I just didn't use left overs because I'd spend all day trying to colour match and not have enough of the right supplies and it's not my fault I just can't help myself!!! You know I can't do eclectic so don't make me fight it!!

I started with 6 sheets of Cosmo Crickets Christmas Papers 12x12 from Tillys shop and 2 pages of matching tags and journaling sheets.

I cut each page in half and then took off 4 inches, creating 2 pages of 6x8 from each. Being double sided means I can get at least 24 pages into my album and space for more by using the left over strips for pockets and flaps.

So far there is no definite cover just a collection of pages that make the cover. This way you can see onto the next layer, (obviously no photos...and knowing my luck there probably won't be any!!).

The Cosmo Cricket tags are perfect to just add in between the larger pages, and are already printed with journaling ideas on each side.

Using the whole page of the 12x12 has left me with only the tiny bottom strips that you cut off, so I have chopped them up to make pull tags on the edges The leftover 4x6 is turned into a pocket or flipped over sideways and left as a flap and when placed horizontally can host a regular photo or 2 small ones or a sweet sentiment.
I may have nearly run out of Christmas embellishments but at least I still have my masses of co-ordinating alphabets from the QVC TSV in October and they are a perfect match!!
So now I need to make tags for the pockets, put numbers on each page and decorate a few more of them so I'm ready to go in 4 days........eeeeeeekkk!!!!!

Finally I would like to congratulate my friend Stephanie Garbutt who is the British 2008 Winner of Scrapbooker of the year!! Congratulations Stephanie you are so talented and you really deserve this. Please pop over to her blog and leave her a comment I'm sure she will be thrilled.

Ruth xxx