FAVOURITE FIVE CHRISTMAS CREATIONS I'VE MADE IN 2013

I've just seen a blog post here about the favourite 5 Christmas makes made in 2013, so thought that I would join in the challenge.

For me, my top make has to be my Christmas bauble wreath, which in real life looks stunning, and is something that will hopefully last for many years:

I'd like to enter my wreath into the current Crafting for all Seasons Challenge -  anything Christmas, but a card.

In terms of cards it has to be these three:

and finally the snowman with bells image, that I used on a number of this year's Christmas Cards:

My overall favourite card of the year I made though has to be this one, that was made for a colleague at work's partner Tony, who is a huge Dr Who fan, and for whom Ian couldn't find an appropriate card at the time.  Queue being asked to make a card, and a few ideas of what it should include.  This is the masterpiece that I created (!).  Tony was apparently thrilled with it, and it was the only one that was allowed on the bookcase, and not the window sil on the day, and the only one that he has kept!

I love doing newspaper style cards, and now I've done a few, and have templates set up, this one took a couple of hours from start to finish.  All the images came from 'google' and all I did was cut out the tardis 3 times and layered them up using foam pads.  I tried to make a darlik badge using an image and glossy accents, and was thrilled with the results.

PHOTOS OF CHRISTMAS MAKES/GIFTS THIS YEAR

Not having lots of time to do and make the things I wanted to, I did manage to make a door wreath from baubles for my front door.

I bought the baubles a couple of years ago in the sales, but never got around to doing anything with them, so one Saturday afternoon, I did sit down and made a wreath:

I am so please with how it came out, and the fact that it is made from a wire coat hanger, some Christmas baubles and a piece of ribbon.  I watched lots of youtube videos to find out how they were made.  I didn't really like using the hot glue gun much, and things got in a bit of a mess, but overall considering it only took about 1 1/2 hours I think I did a good job.  If I made another then there are a couple of things I'd do differently - have a slightly thicker wire coat hanger, so that the shape keeps a bit better, and not put too much hot glue on to each bauble so it come through the top attachment of the bauble.  Hopefully this wreath will adorn my front door for many years to come.

Here is the 'Emergency Car Kit' I made for my friends son, who passed his driving car this year, and has now got his own car:

I've got a similar one in the boot of my car, as you never know when any of it may come in handy.  The things I added to the box were screenwash, de-icer spray, and an ice scraper.  First aid kit, tourch, penknive, tissues, chewing gum, emergency foil blanker, whistle, notebook and pen, and just before wrapping it, a bag of sweets.

Overall it cost about £12 to make, and I hope it comes in useful for Josh one day.   He really liked it so it was worth doing.

Here is the card I made him for his 17th birthday, when I knew he was going to be starting to have driving lessons.  I really couldn't find any images that I liked for the card, so resorted to using an image off google images, that looked a bit like Josh!  The map is taken from an atlas that is our home town, and the 'L' plates were just made on the computer.

I really can't take the credit for making these, as they were shop bought, but when I saw them in B&M in Stoke back in November, I bought 4 as presents for friends.  They were £1.99 each, but I reckon they look far more than that once you take them off the card board backing, and wrap them in tissue paper.

Haven't seen any of the people that I bought them for yet, so not sure if they thought I had made them.  One day I will have the time and a steady hand, to make something like this.

I forgot to taken and photos of the snowman soup I made, but managed to make 15 as small gifts and about 50 ES mints, which I used foil stickers from Hobbycraft to decorate them:

ALMOST THE END OF THE YEAR...

time for me to blog some of the Christmas cards I made this year.  In all I made 63 for Christmas, but over the year, I have made 169! 

The majority of the Christmas cards were all very similar, in that I individually coloured each digi stamp using different colour ways, but the same basic design.  The images are all bugaboo stamps, which I find so easy to colour - the thicker black outline is very forgiving when colouring in!  I started off with every intention of making all my Christmas cards by the end of August this year, and although I did start last January, I got lazy, and never really went back to them throughout the year.  Hence, me rushing to get them finished at the beginning of December to get them posted.

Here are the first 3 I made for my 'boys':

I'd like to enter my Husbands card into the current Bugaboo Challenge - Favourite Christmas song - Santa Baby.

All images were coloured with promarkers, and the papers were some Christmas ones, that I got when I first started card making seriously about 7 years ago.  The sentiment on my husband's card was done on the computer, and the others were the craftwork card ones I had left over from making my main cards.  Iv'e added a few stickles to different parts of these 3 cards.

Here are a selection of the other 60 cards I made.  I think I did about 6 of each design, but lost the will to live after making 45, so ended up making the cards a bit simpler by only having the image, matted at an angle on the card:

Apart from the pink backing paper, all the other papers I designed on the computer, and just changed the colour, to suit the image colouring.  Really pleased with how they eventually all came out, but cross with myself for not finishing them off earlier in the year.  Sentiments are from Craftworks Cards, and the embossing folder was just a snowflake one I have had for a while.

As I was making my cards into mid December, I had no real time to make any gifts this year which was always my intention, but I did manage to make a bauble wreath for my front door, and also a emergency car box for a friends son, to keep in the boot of his car - photos to follow tomorrow, the usual ES mints and snowman soups were made but that was in in terms of my crafty makes for presents this year.  Must do better next!