Get your mitts on some fantastic free Vintage Images!

I hope you all had a great Christmas and are still enjoying your holidays. We had a great time here at TheScrapbookStore.ie and have been getting deliveries of new goodies all through the holidays. During January we'll be adding the new Basic Grey Bittersweet to the store and bringing you news of all the new products released at CHA.

If you're a fan of vintage images (and I definately am!) then you'll love the Paper Goods section over at Fairy Davis. It's packed with old images of postcards, children, animals that'll be perfect for cards, scrapbook pages and loads of other crafty projects. And the best news of all is that they're all FREE. Take a look yourself!

Christmas Party Crop - What a fantastic day!!

Thanks to everyone who came along and made the Christmas Party Crop such a fantastic day!
It was great to see so many people there and I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as I did!

Thanks especially to everyone who gave me such lovely gifts and said some really lovely things about how much you enjoy the crops and classes. Although Lainey and I work hard throughout the year preparing classes and organising events, we know that it all wouldn't be possible with you gang supporting us each month and making everything so enjoyable. It's a privilege to know you all and I feel very lucky to have met such lovely women through this fantastic hobby!



We kicked off the day at 10am and everyone grabbed their seats and did some shopping before the tea and mince pies arrived.



For the next 6 hours we cropped, chatted, laughed, ate lunch, munched on LOADS of goodies and had great fun!

Well done to Isobel for organising the Kris Kindle. All of the gifts were fantastic and there were lots of very happy people by the end of the present giving.





There were quite a few birthdays being celebrated as well as Audrey's forthcoming wedding so Lainey organised a gorgeous chocolate cake. We all sang "Happy Birthday" to Linda, Kiki, Marlen, Anne and Julie M and everyone got a chance to blow out the candles!





Then it was time for Audrey's big surprise ...



Carrie had organised a beautiful art piece made up of decorated paper tiles to celebrate the big day. Lots of Audrey's friends created tiles and Carrie put them all together in this fantastic piece!



Huge congrats and good wishes to Audrey and Joe on their big day next Monday 22nd December!!






Here's Isobel, Denise, Elaine and Val looking very festive:

and Siobhan and Jackie:

Shirley and Ali:

Marian, Tracy and Pam:

Elisa, Kiki and Lynn:

Mary and Carrie:

Fiona pretending to do a bit of work LOL!

Anne getting crafty and enjoying the day:

Lisa and Michelle:

Gertie getting into the Christmas spirit:


We gave out some prizes and well done to Lynn, Adrienne, Jillian for winning the beautiful Christmas table arrangements made by my very talented mum! Well done also to the five lucky ladies who won €20.00 vouchers for TheScrapbookstore.ie




A very Happy Christmas and may 2009 bring you all you wish for!!

How to make a Potplant Snowman!

I made some of these for the Castleknock Craft Fair and sold them all :-) I was a little disappointed not to be taking any home with me so I made some more. They look great just peeking out behind the leaves of a Christmas Poinsettia and make a lovely addition to a Christmas gift.



Here's what you need:

3" - 4" Polystyrene Ball
White or cream Tulle
White crepe paper
Silver and crystal/white glitter
Silver, gold or red tinsel (very thin) I got mine in Homebase!
12" x 12" sheet of Christmas patterned paper (I used Basic Grey Wassail, Dasher and Making Memories Fa La La)
Wet Glue (I used Stix2 and Scrappy Glue)
Double sided sticky tape
Wooden BBQ skewer
Foam Brush

Instructions:

Step 1:

Stick your Polystyrene Ball onto the end of a BBQ skewer and cover it with wet glue using a foam brush. Sprinkle with crystal/white glitter and allow to dry.

Step 2: Using a dinner plate as a template cut a circular piece of patterned paper from a 12" x 12" sheet.

Step 3: Cut the circle in half. Each half will make a cone hat i.e. you get two hats from one circle.

Step 4: Wrap the paper around into a cone shape, big enough to sit down a little on the snowmans head but not too far or you won't be able to see his face, and stick with double sided sticky tape.

Step 5: Spread a line of Scrappy Glue/Stix2 PVA along the bottom (wide) end of the cone and attach your tinsel all around.

Step 6: Using Scrappy Glue/Stix2 PVA spread a generous line of glue around the inside (wide) end of the cone and stick firmly to the glittered polystyrene ball.

Step 7: To make the snowman's crepe paper collar. Cut a 12" x 2" strip of white crepe paper and using a needle and white thread (doubled and knotted) make a running stitch along the edge of the strip.

Step 8: When you get to the end of the crepe paper strip cut the thread and make another double knot. Now carefully pull both ends of the thread so that the crepe paper gathers up. Pull it as tight as it can go and tie both ends of the thread to secure and then trim away the excess thread ends. Flatten the collar down with your hands.

This photo shows the different stages of the process.

You should end up with something that looks like this!

Step 9: Now cut a 12" x 3" strip of tulle and do the same thing as you did with the crepe paper and you'll end up with something that looks like this!

Step 10: Spread a thin line of Scrappy Glue along the edge of the crepe paper collar and sprinkle the glue with glitter. You could also use silver Stickles Glue but it takes longer to dry than Scrappy Glue.

Step 11: Thread the crepe collar and then the tulle collar up along the BBQ skewer.

Step 12: Secure the collars with a wrapped around piece of silver tinsel secured with a very generous blob of Scrappy Glue.

Step 13: Finally give your snowman a face! Use brads for the eyes, a piece of gold pipecleaner for the nose (or if you're feeling very creative a nose made from Fimo clay, painted orange) and a black marker to make dots for the mouth.

Then stick your snowman into a pot plant and your gorgeous handmade Christmas gift is all ready!