Peppermint Hot Chocolate

One of my favourite experiences of this Christmas period was when my dear friend took me out for a birthday lunch at Taste in East Gosford.  It has become one of my favourite cafe's of late and the Peppermint Hot Chocolate was very Christmas-sy AND to die for.

If you are in the area be sure to drop in there and enjoy the great food and lovely staff.
Cheers

Cute Christmas Packaging

I love wrapping gifts..............I even volunteer to do it for my Mum.  Just so I can have fun making them pretty.

HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

Skinnygirl Cosmo for Christmas

Merry Christmas to me!!  Thank you Bethany for bringing it to Australia!

Cheers!!!!

Dressing up Christmas Packaging

I love all those little bags you get from the cute jewellery stores and gift stores.  They are usually made from sturdy cardstock and make a great base for 'dressing up' your Christmas gifts (and I LOVE that I am recycling!).  Here is what I started out with:

And here is what will go to the recipient for Christmas, so easy:

Thanks for stopping by

Christmas Packaging & Presents

Back with some more of the gifts we have given out lately.  I love looking at other peoples blogs and seeing what fun and exciting ideas others have, so I wanted to share with you some of the fun things we have given out lately. This was the gift we made up for our school Principal, it was full of fun mint things like Mint Slice biscuits, Mint Dove Chocolate, a Mint Pattie and a Peppermint Crisp amongst other things.

Then I took a little poem my friend found online somewhere (on some clever person's blog no doubt!) and altered it a little so that it suited our Principal rather than a teacher.

It reads:


Thanks for your commit "mint"
to our school.
Thanks for your encourage "mint"
to all our children.
Thanks for your involve "mint"
and dedication.
Thanks for your invest "mint"
of time and energy to make school 
such a great place to be.
Thank for helping to create
a nice environ "mint"
for our children to learn and grow.
Everything you have done this year
has really "mint" a lot to our family.


Thank you and Merry Christmas


And then of course we can't forget the office ladies at our school.  They are awesome, they put up with me making last minute payments, replacing lost forms and generally answering my questions when I have no idea what is supposed to be going on (boys are terrible at bringing information home!).  They each received a monogrammed mug with a candy cane choc heart inside.  Thanks ladies!

Ok, am off to look at more fun ideas on the web.  Maybe I need to start getting ideas for the next occasion???  I can't believe that this one is nearly over.  Believe me the sleeps are being counted excitedly.

Gifts Across the Seas

I was excited this week to send off one of my Etsy Shop card kits all the way to the USA as a gift for someone.  What a nice way to purchase a surprise gift for your friends or family.  I popped this in the post a few days ago with a big smile, thinking of the recipient receiving it unexpectedly.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you are enjoying your Christmas lead-up.
Cheers

Candy Cane Hearts and more!

These last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of school finishing, birthday parties and other fun celebrations.  I have been busy making and wrapping Christmas gifts for the wonderful teachers at our great school and thought that I would share them with you today.  Between three kids they have five teachers so it was simple but fun all the way round.

Cute serviette holders with red and white serviettes to plonk straight down on their Christmas tables.

Handmade goodies in cute little boxes.

These included white chocolate coated oreos and white rocky road with dried cranberries, dried blueberries and pistachios.  Then drizzled with dark chocolate.

And then some candy cane hearts.  I found these in a few places online and just loved the idea.  And they were super simple.  Just lay out two candy canes into hearts.

Fill gap with melted chocolate and then add spinkles.

Ta Da!!

We are going to make more of these this week of holidays before Christmas Day.  We might try some little candy canes this time.  

I will be back to share some more gifts and packaging fun in the next few days.

Cheers

Bleach stamping class

Thank you to those ladies that attended my last class for the year at Catchy Crafts yesterday.  It was a lovely day having some fun with using household bleach for stamping.  Here are the cards we made.

My next class at Catchy Crafts is on Monday 16th January at 10.30am.  I hope to see you there.

Cheers
Alex

My Childhood Mini Book Pages

Sorry for my absence over the last few weeks but I am sure you can relate when I say "Slow Down Life!!!!".

Life has been a whirlwind and in that time I also had to go without my computer for nearly a week, YES - A WEEK!!!  It was like I had my arms chopped off!!!  But here I am again and I hope to find time to update here regularly over the festive season.

Today I want to share with you (as per my promise to my class attendees! - better late than never they say) my pages from the last Mini Book workshop I took at Catchy Crafts.  This was made with the Bo Bunny Etc range, which I love!  The sheets of stickers and papers make a mini book so easy to create.

Eeeeek!  Some of these photos are so funny.  And very cringe-worthy!  But these poor old photos were yellowing with age in one of those old 'stick em in' albums from the 70's.  So I rescued them, scanned them and fixed them up as best I could with Photoshop.  It was a fun album to make and I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into 'My Childhood'

Cheers

Fun with Bleach Stamping

I had fun creating some class samples for my bleach stamping class coming up next month at Catchy Crafts.  Wanna see a peek?

I had so much fun with this household product and can't wait to have fun with my class mates.  This workshop will be on Monday 12th December at 10.30am.  Call Catchy Crafts to book a spot, would love to see you there.

Cheers,

Love the Misty Mornings

This last couple of weeks I have loved waking up to the gorgeous misty mornings.

I dragged my camera out the other morning and took a few snaps.  Love this spiderweb!

Graphic 45 Curtain Call Flower

Made this yesterday.........

......for my December class at Catchy Crafts.

December 7th @ 10.30am
Call to book - 9477 4401

Would love to have you join me!

U Make me Happy

...............dear friend.

Unity Goodness

I placed an order with Unity Stamps the other day so that I could get my hands on some gorgeous Unity goodness!!  (Take a look at that bike would you!)  And guess what?  I ordered some spares.....................sooooooo, if you would like some for yourself then be sure to check out my Etsy store as I have added them over there.

Check them out HERE

Cheers

Busy, busy, busy

I know I have been MIA for the last couple of weeks but I have been busy creating.  Just not so much with paper.  Wanna see what I have been up to?  Well, with Halloween at the end of last month I got inspiration from the internet to get 'food creative' and made these goodies.

Screaming Strawberries

Look a whole choir!!

And Ghost Biscuits

Then the other night I had some people over and decided it was about time I gave Cakepops a go.  They were delicious and super easy to make.  I used a standard vanilla cake mix, which you then crumble.  Whip 100g cream cheese with 1 cup icing sugar with a beater then add cake crumbs and mix.  Shape into balls, refridgerate for a few hours then attach to stick and dip in chocolate.  Love them, gonna try some different flavours for Christmas which is at my house this year.  So I will be creative with food a little more hopefully.   Here are my cakepops:

Thanks for dropping by