31 December 2009

Happy Birthday Card

We had a wonderful week of friends visiting and enjoying Christmas, gifts and nice food! 

I’m glad I’m back for another blog posting and specifically on the Friday Sketchers Challenge!

This week’s Friday Sketchers lay out I’m using for a birthday card for a friend of mine.

The week before Christmas my Mom surprised me with a scrapbook paper collection, Just Dreaming 2 by Christy Lyle & Zoe Pearn from My Mind’s Eye.  It was the perfect paper for this special Birthday Card.  I used my sugar Nelly stamp, ‘Make a Wish’ and coloured it in shades to compliment the paper.  I also used Sticker glitter to make it more special. On the left hand side I’ve put ribbon and at the bottom, right hand side I’ve put 4 blue gems.
I’m so looking forward to my friend’s birthday and will try to do a posting on it.
Crafty Greetings 

20 December 2009

Baking Christmas Cookies


This week my mom, the tree little ones (Danika 6yrs, Andrew 4yrs, David 3yrs) and I baked Christmas cookies.

We used Angel, Christmas tree and Star cookie cutters.
We want to hang the Star shaped cookies on our Christmas tree, so we made holes in the stars to threat ribbon through.
This cookie is very hard and crispy.
My dad loves it!

So here is our Cookie recipe:

Ingredients for cookies:
175g butter
300g caster sugar (can be substituted with half fructose and half xylitol – but have to be refined in a food processor, since xylitol has a very coarse texture)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
5 ml vanilla essence
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt
300g plain flour (when substituted with spelt flour use 400g)
For decorations (optional):
coloured icing and small sweets such as silver balls, coloured sugar crystals or Trumps 100’s & 1000’s

1. With an electric mixer, cream the butter until soft. Add the sugar/fructose and xylitol gradually and continue beating until light and fluffy.

2. Using a wooden spoon, slowly mix in the whole egg and the egg yolk. Add the vanilla essence, lemon rind and salt. Stir to mix well.

3. Sieve the flour over the mixture and stir to blend. Gather the dough into a ball, wrap in Glad wrap and chill for 30 minutes (in warm areas it might be longer).

4. Preheat the oven to 190 Deg. C. On a floured surface, roll out until about 6 mm thick.

5. Press out shapes with the cookie cutters.

6. Bake for about 8 minutes until lightly coloured. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely before decorating, if wished, with icing and sweets.

Ingredients for decorating icing:
50 g icing sugar
1 tablespoon lukewarm water
food colouring of your choice

1. Sieve the icing sugar in a mixing bowl.

2. Mix the lukewarm water and food colouring and add to icing sugar. Mix well until smooth.

3. Use a food decorating pen or piping bag to decorate.

Bon appetite!!

Crafty greetings.

17 December 2009

Friday Sketchers Challenge


I did another Friday Sketchers Challenge!

I decided to use the layout to make a Christmas card for a friend of mine.

I used my Sugar Nellie stamp “Santa with Tree” and the paper is a double sided page from “Best Creation Inc”. The finishing touches are pieces of white lace, Christmas ribbon and two small bows.

I hope all your Christmas cards are finish!

Crafty greetings!

16 December 2009

Making Christmas Crackers


We always make crackers for Christmas.
So here is our way of making Christmas crackers:


You need:
Gift wrapping paper, two colors of your choice;
Scissors;
Pinking shears;
Pencil;
Double-sided adhesive tape;
Two inner tubes from rolls of toilet tissue per cracker;
Cracker snaps;
Narrow ribbon to match paper;
A gift to put inside, we used Lindt chocolate balls;
Punchers of your choice.


1. Cut a rectangle 15 cm x 35 cm out of one of your gift wrapping papers.


2. Use pinking shears to trim both ends of the rectangle.


3. Mark both ends 10 cm into the rectangle, where the cracker will be tied between the tubes.


4. Fold on the 10 cm mark.


5. In order to weaken the paper between the tubes (to make pulling easier), we punched flowers on the fold.


6. This is what you aim for.

7. Cut another rectangle 7.5 cm x 15 cm in a different color.


8. Trim both sides of the rectangle with the pinking shears.



9. Fold the rectangle in half and punch stars, hearts or any other shape for decoration.


10. like this.


11. Stick the smaller rectangle in the centre of the big rectangle, for decoration (I used double sided adhesive tape for this).


12. Cut the one toilet roll in half.


13. Stick the three toilet roles with double-sided adhesive tape on the inside of the big rectangle. Place the big toilet roll in the middle.


14. Stick double-sided adhesive tape at the bottom of the big rectangle and wrap the rectangle around the tubes. Use the double-sided adhesive tape to stick the paper firmly in place.


15. Slip the cracker snap inside the tubes.


16. Tie a ribbon on the one side of the cracker, between the centre and side tube.


17. Place a gift or wrapped candy in the cracker at the open side. We used a Lindt chocolate ball.


18. Tie the other end.


19. Curl the ribbons with a scissor.


20. It will look like this


21. And there you go!!

If you have any more questions please feel free to comment and ask me!

10 December 2009

Friday Sketchers Challenge

This week I took part in the Friday sketchers challenge.
It is my grandma’s birthday in December, so I decided to use their layout to make a handmade card for her.

It is an Afrikaans Happy Birthday card.

I used old scrapbook paper; we once bought over the internet. The ‘It’s My Party’ series by ‘Heidi Grace Designs’, but it is no longer available. I used my ‘Sugar Nellie’ stamp ‘A Gift for you’ and my Silhouette cutter to make the oval scallop to paste it on.

One of the reasons I started this blog is to take part in the Friday Sketchers Challenge.

I will be back soon, with more!
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