Recycling

It's been so busy here. Our priest is away for a month over Christmas and the New Year (I didn't think that was allowed!) leaving minor chaos. He's one of those incredible people who keeps 200 balls in the air at any given time, without mentioning to anyone what he's doing - which is fine and admirable when he's here, but a massive waste of everyone's time trying to work out what ought to be happening when he's not around. I think I'm the only person around who minds much. Everyone else just goes with the flow, and if things go wrong they just shrug. I wish I could be like that - I care too much!

Last week I was helping Eileen while she was cleaning the Vestry for the visiting clergy. She found boxes of partially-used candles, all misshapen and melted together. I found some more in the rubbish bin when I went to empty it. Rather than chuck them all out, this pyromaniac here took them home, melted them down, separated all the icky bits and made some new candles to give to our Advent Bible study group. They loved them, and I loved making them - only playing with paper beats the fun of messing about with candle wax. ;-) I may not be paper-crafting, but it takes something drastic to drag me from doing any crafting at all.

There are a couple missing from this photo, and I still have three more to make for Christmas stocking fillers. Aren't they pretty?

I think this qualifies for Stampavie's "make a gift" challenge, and maybe Creative Card Crew's "anything goes" challenge. Let's see!

Mum's birthday

My wonderful Mum, far away in freezing England, is a big fan of all my crafting stuff. She's like my DH: she shows a polite, muted, very British enthusiasm most of the time, then occasionally she gets quite excited about things, so I know she really likes them. My owl book cover got this reaction from her, the colour in particular. Good thing I had some off-cuts left from the Creative Memories papers I'd used, to make a really special birthday card for her.

I just hope it gets there in time, and doesn't get stuck in the snow like most of Britain's deliveries seem to be at the moment. It happens nearly every year - a little bit of snow, and the country throws up its collective hands in panicked submission, and everyone stays at home. Other countries seem to manage. I've never worked out why snow is such a shock to us Brits. Sigh.

Colour Create's challenge this week is "green, grey and white" with the optional extra of "silver or acetate". Stampavie want "snow", House Mouse are requesting a matching envelope, and Simon Says Stamp have given us this sketch:

And here is Mum's birthday card. The Copic-coloured stamps are from House Mouse of course (there are some footprints inside too :-) ) and the border is made from Kanban's Garden Vistas: Autumn Silhouettes which I seem to be using on everything lately. The sentiments are patched together from 3 Lili of the Valley stamps, and the silver card was distressed using my new distressing tool which I swore I would never get - an old emery board did the same thing, surely? Yes it did, but at the expense of my thumbnail every time, so I succumbed - SO much easier! The felt snowflake stickers are from Little Yellow Bicycle, with brads from American Crafts and Stickles Star Dust. The inks are Artnic Evergreen and Encore Silver, and the notes are hand-drawn.

Treat box

A few weeks ago, the corner bookmarks which I made for the September Scrap Whispers blog hop were noticed by my prayer group. They thought they were a wonderful idea, and I offered to make some for them.

I made a set of four for our organist - then gave them to her before I remembered to take photos of them - gah! They were made from the Kraft paper so generously sent to me by Glenda in Tasmania, and some pretty cream and brown Bo Bunny paper with music staves on, all inked in brown. I wanted each to be labelled with the four readings: Old and New Testament, Psalm and Gospel, but I only had scraps of Kraft left so I couldn't run them through the printer, and you're not exactly going to find stamps with those labels on, in your LSS.

I suddenly remembered another tip from Glenda, about using the printer to create "rub-ons". You create your labels on the computer (I used WordArt) and then reverse the image so that the text reads backwards. Print it (normal quality, not best, because that smudges) onto acetate, very carefully lay it wet side down onto the paper, then without moving the acetate, rub over the back of the image using the stick that comes with rub-on kits. It worked! It wasn't as crisp as printing or a rub-on, but the slightly blurred edges looked just right on the inked papers. And of course you can use any colour your printer will print. Yay Glenda!

So I made another batch for another lady in the prayer group, and this time I took pictures.

Creative Card Crew's challenge this fortnight is a different one. They are challenging us to create a treat box or goodie bag. Perfect for giving my bookmarks out in! I used my Silhouette's pillow box cutting file, which I'd never tried before - and it looks fantastic! I'm definitely going to be making more of these. And once I'd got the Silhouette attached, I tried out one of their tags as well. And made a bunch of those. Hehee! This crafty stuff is addictive!

My final creation fits in perfectly with Bizzy Bec's Store Blog challenge which this month is simply Christmas.

And here it is:

 

The paper is Bo Bunny, and the card-stock is by Heidi Grace. The ribbon is from Stampin' Up!