Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year !!!

Well didn't December go quickly !!! Every year I say I will have all my Christmas cards made, addressed and stamped ready for posting on 1st December .... and every year I fail, with many catching the last posting day !! However, I have a plan in place for 2011 ........ watch this space !

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Here is a picture of some of my Thetford Stampers 10 group enjoying their Christmas meal. Unfortunately not everyone could be there and of course we had the lovely Janet taking the photo. A lovely evening was had by all and the food was terrific.

Hopefully everyone has survived the bad snow falls and had an enjoyable Christmas with their families. David and I have just returned from Manchester having taken David's 83yr old Auntie back from her fortnight Christmas holiday in Norfolk. I must admit he was a real treasure, spending Christmas Eve putting together the new storeage units for my craft room !! DIY is not his strongest talent ..... hence the additional shelves that I put up, with some 'supervision' of course. He did admit that the only reason he did it then was because the delivery arrived at lunchtime on Christmas Eve and was filling our hall so no-one could move. Well, they did promise delivery before Christmas.

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So as we all prepare to see the New Year in, may I wish you all a very Happy New Year with lots of crafting !!

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Catch up again very soon.

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Sandra

HOW MUCH SNOW HAVE YOU STILL GOT ??

Well much as I love to see the countryside all white, it's now gradually disappearing. I should have been at the Stamp With Us day on Saturday near Crawley but unfortuantely the weather prevented us going - the thought of being stuck down there or on the motorway. Natalie reported 14" of snow and I know some areas were even worse.

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Being disappointed that my weekend didn't go as planned, at least I have something to look forward to tomorrow. Another day off work - this time to wait in for a delivery. My craftroom walls will not expand any further and so I have decided to invest in some wonderful new storage. If any of you have bought craft magazines lately, you may have seen full page adverts for crafts4storage and the Really Useful Boxes. The units themselves count as 'furniture' and therefore on a 21 day delivery, however the boxes themselves should be delivered tomorrow so I can start filling them and get organised. The units should be here by Christmas so I can get everything put away before the festivities begin in the Roberts' household. How's that for starting the Spring cleaning early !!

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Today I have put up some more shelving, the sort where you can adjust the height easily. Where I thought I could only get two shelves, I can now get another one so back to Focus this week when I pop into Thetford to get my hair cut.

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It's all so exciting as I love my craft room but so desperately needed that extra storage space. I was so pleased when Stampin' Up! introduced Clear Mount stamp sets in the NEW catalogue in October. This is a not only a great cost saving but more importantly so much lighter and smaller to store. Many of my customers prefer them as they can see where to place their images without using a Stamp-A-Ma-Jig.

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Every year I aim to have all my Christmas preparation finished by 1st December but somehow it just never happens. Oh well there's always next year. Back to writing Christmas cards and sticking on stamps ready for posting.

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Bye for now, keep safe and warm.

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Sandra

1st DAY OF CHRISTMAS

Well, here we are on the 1st December and Christmas is approaching all too fast. I still have so much to do.

Firstly, a big thank you to all those who ventured out in the snowy conditions on Saturday to attend our Christmas Jingle workshop at the Anglian Sports & Social club with Angie and myself. Whilst the journey in was a little scary, I was pleased we had wonderful sunshine all day with no further snow fall, and hope you all got home safely.

With half of a Simply Scrappin' Christmas Jingle kit, plus some extras, there were 24 samples on display and attendees were able to use their materials plus additional stamps, punches etc to make whichever designs they chose and also to vary as they wished. Here are a few of samples :-

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In addition to this, our class had a CD calendar to make and decorate. This was a project that Angie and myself completed when we attended a 'Stamp With Us' weekend earlier in the year. Apologies no picture but I need to find my sample which is buried in my overflowing craft room. I have ordered some new storage and will hopefully be starting to re-organise soon, so will keep you updated in another blog post later. Will add photo as soon as I find. Weather permitting, we are off to another 'Stamp With Us' day on Saturday, so pop back here next week to see what we got up to.

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Secondly, I would like to share the birthday card I made for Julie and Sarah who both had birthdays last week. I have seen this flower created by several different people but this is a slight twist on a variation.

My December Workshop is Bury St Edmunds is a further Punchart class, learning how to make fun creatures with punches but also alternative ways to use those punches that you may not have thought of. This will be completely different projects to a similar class earlier this year.

If you are interested in attending on Saturday 11th December, 10am-4pm at the Moreton Hall Community Centre in Bury, please give me a call on 07806 616704 to reserve the last few spaces. I look forward to you joining us.

Please keep safe and warm in this snowy weather.

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Sandra