Wrapping up Christmas

I am sure that most of your have finished your shopping and now have the wrapping up to do. Now I will confess that I do not really enjoy this part of present giving but I do appreciate how special presents look when they are well wrapped. I really wanted to find some gingerbread men wrapping paper to wrap my husband's pressies in and I searched everywhere with no success. I then remembered my fab gingerbread man stamp which I bought recently and made several cards with. I had a eureka moment in bed one night when I thought....I could make my own gingerbread men wrap and tags.

If you have not seen him in my previous post here he is. I decided that he would look great stamped in brown ink on brown paper. I simply used brown parcel paper which I keep anyway for posting.
The really good thing about making your own paper is that you can cut the paper to size before inking it.

I cut each piece of paper out roughly to size and then had fun stamping in a random pattern over the whole sheet of parcel paper. I stamped on the shiny side using a die based ink so that it dried instantly.

Here are some of the parcels all wrapped up.

I then wondered how to make the tags and decided that in keeping with the parcel paper that I would buy standard brown parcel tags from W.H.Smiths.

Using Versamark ink I stamped the image onto my brown tags and then used gold embossing powder to raise the image.

I do love the effect. I decided to make lots of different tags so I got busy embossing.

Here are my embossed designs. I then added embellies to some of them.

I then wrapped up Hbs pressies and finished them off with some fab Gingerbread people ribbon I had in my stash.
It was then time to hide them under the tree.







and here they are under the tree ready for Christmas morning.....only 5 days left now!

Obviously today's card for my challenges will be gingerbread themed using the same sweet stamp I bought.

Both my sentiment tags are Lili of the Valley with some added glitter. The holly leaves are hand cut with my holly punch as is the snowflake. The foil ornament is a Marianne die. I added some festive real bells with the ribbon.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Ladybug Crafts Ink anything goes my new stash here is my fab gingerbread man stamp (even though he is old from Ebay!)
Simon Says Stamp Merry Christmas
Crafts and Me Bumper Christmas Challenge
Paper Shelter #93 Anything goes
Divas by Design #66 anything goes
Whimsy crafts Anything goes Christmas #54
ABC Christmas Y is for your favourite die/punch again my holly punch is my favourite at this time of the year.
Really Reasonable Ribbon anything goes #62
Joanna Sheen with love at Christmas
Party Time Tuesday Photo inspiration, gold/green/red #99
Holly Jolly Vintage christmas
Hooked on Crafts Christmas
Papertake Weekly Pic of the Year - favourite challenge mine is that from 11 Sept called "things that make you go awwwwww"
Top Tip Tuesdays anything goes #92
Cute Card Thursday Eat , drink and be merry #248
Papercrafting Journey anything goes
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge anything goes #103


Also The Ribbon Girl are hosting a Christmas giveaway, do pop on over and join the fun.

I hope you are singing along to some Christmas tunes as you wrap your parcels. I went off to deliver my parcels to my parents today and then tomorrow is my last day at work until 2 January. I am so looking forward to a lovely break. Take care everyone and thanks for stopping by, it's great to see you here and read your lovely comments,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x

Christmas is coming

Well here we are in mid November with only 38 days to go until my favourite day of the year. Yes Christmas this year seems to have appeared again in no time at all. My Mum and I enjoyed our annual visit to Harrods to see their Christmas department, which is always such a joy. This year was no exception and I actually remembered my camera. Last year I had to make do with my phone for photos. I also took some photos of the amazing food hall which I will share in another post soon,

This enormous Harrods Bear was standing at the entrance to the Christmas department, he was taller than me and was a huge (literally) talking point.

We try to visit first thing in the morning before the crowds arrive. The displays are always breath taking. All the decorations are set out in "themes". Now this year I am really "into" gingerbread men and as my Mum always buys me a new decoration we went looking for a gingerbread man.

There was a whole "candy" selection and we found so many lovely things to choose from.

There were lots of gingerbread men (and women ;0) to choose from

and the festive displays were so delightful. I love this one with the Harrods logo. So which one did I chose.......

Here he is...don't you think he looks so real. He is made from a fimo type resin but I think he looks edible. The "sugar" even glistens! I can't wait to hang him on my tree in December.
Here are a few more shots from the Christmas department.

Now I have been looking for a fun gingerbread stamp for ages and have not been successful. I found a lovely PMX stamp by searching Google images only to find that it has long been discontinued. The ones that appear on Ebay seemed to be reaching ridiculous prices. However a couple of weeks ago I found one as a Buy it Now on Ebay.com and even with the shipping charge from the USA if was half the price of the ones being sold here. I was delighted  when it arrived.

Here he is, a wood mounted stamp which nowadays is quite a rare way to buy stamps. He has such a happy smile and I had a play with him last weekend, trying 4 different cards. I tried colouring him on white card stock and also just stamping him onto  Kraft card. For one of the cards I even tried cutting him out.


Would you like to see my cards....I have made a little sneak peek collage...

My card challenge creation today is one of these cards and it is this little fellow.

He was coloured with Promarkers and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils. He has a sweet little  red heart gem in his middle. I "made" scrabble pieces from a download by the very generous Fuzzimo He has some amazing freebies. Do try his embosser he designed, it is such fun.
I added some festive die cuts and a punched snowflake. The tag is LOTV and the small square stamp is Whimsy.  This card is already sold but I do have another in my Etsy shop here and I also have a few more to make for orders.




I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;
Paper Crafting Journey anything goes
Craft room Challenge Punches and die cuts
Whimsy Card Challenge 3rd and final entry Traditional Christmas colours
Divas By Design Anything Goes #61
My Mum's Craft Shop Winter wonderland #84
Joanna Sheen Cold and Frosty I also had the exciting news this morning that I won their blog candy ;0)
Stamping with the Dragon So cute
Forever Friends Monthly challenge anything goes
Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challege Use something more than 6 months old #99 Well the stamp I bought is so old it is retired but also my faithful snowflake punch, which I use again and again is at least 3 years old.
Penny Black and More any die will do my die is the lovely snowflakes by Memory Box

It has been a pretty dark damp day here but tomorrow is forecast to be cold and bright. Today went t o a little Frost Fayre being held in Wimbledon. I really enjoy Christmas Fayres and try to visit a few as you can often buy such unique presents and little stocking fillers. There is also a Cath Kidston in Wimbledon so I popped  my head in there too. Everywhere is beginning to look very festive and there are already a lot of Christmas shoppers out and about. Have a lovely weekend everyone and for those who enjoy Strictly .............keep dancing...we are learning a new Samba at the moments...such a fun dance ;0)

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x