Life is short. Break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that makes you smile. We're not quantified; there's no chart of desire. When the roaring flames of your heart have burned down to embers, may you find that you have married your best friend. [Steven Tyler]

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

'Tis the Season

Can you believe that it's December already and the countdown to Christmas is well and truly underway in our house.

We are currently having the annual fight with the pre-lit Christmas tree.... well, it wouldn't be the same without the week long battle to get all 1200 bulbs working would it?

The lounge was all freshly decorated and cleaned last week and was looking pretty tidy until the trees (yes, there's three of them for the downstairs) and all the boxes of decorations were hauled down from the loft....




......and we ended up with this mess! On the table, under the table, in carrier bags, boxes and plastic sacks piled up all over the floor of the dining room. Well, there's one good thing achieved by all this - the loft is pretty empty. LOL

We started to assemble the main tree for the lounge last weekend and found that half the lights on the second layer up were out. I removed every bulb that was off and tested it.... five times (and that's a lot of bulbs) only to find it was a wiring problem. To cut a long story short, we've found a way around it and the tree is now assembled and ready to start the dressing stage.

The weather here in the North East is causing havoc. I can remember winters when I was little where the snow was so deep that it came over the top of my wellies and I always ended up with painful, itchy Chilblains. But over the years, the winter weather has changed some and we don't seem to get the depth of snow we used too... until now. I went out to clean the snow off the bird table today to put out some food for our feathered visitors and this is what I found......


It was cleaned off on Monday to put their food out and this is what's fallen since then. I just had to get a ruler and stick it in the snow to see how deep it was. I say was because that was earlier today and we've had even more since then with it forecast to continue overnight and throughout tomorrow.

OK that's enough for now about decorating and the snow, I will be updating my progress with the Christmas preparations as the days go on and taking daily photographs of whatever I'm up to for my '31 Days of Christmas' journal that I'm doing again this year. More about that in another post.

I'm really sad that the weather has caused the Graphicus Open Days planned for Friday and Saturday this week to be cancelled. I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to seeing everyone and to the fun and festivities we had planned, not to mention playing with some of the fantastic new products that have arrived from the USA this week. However, we are not going to be completely defeated by this white fluffy stuff that makes staying vertical almost impossible and driving, well.... the less said about that, the better. We still intend to have some fun on Friday and there will be some very special offers, great products and some interactive fun to be had if you keep an eye on the Graphicus blog and on Twitter on the day. My lips are sealed but I can tell you this, you won't want to miss out!

I'm going to leave you with some of my Christmas tags and artwork and will be back soon with the next installment of Lynn's December Life.







This selection of tags were made during my Vintage Christmas Tag workshop a couple of weeks ago. We had a really good time getting inky and glittery and we could have carried on playing long past the scheduled finishing time. In fact, the ladies who came to play were encouraging me to leave them overnight in the studio at Graphicus so that they could continue to play and make more tags. I actually believe that they may have been serious!


If you have any questions about the techniques or products used in the tag artwork, leave a comment here on the blog and I'll do my best to answer your queries.

Happy Christmas Crafting!

6 comments:

craftimamma said...

Too right we were serious Lynn!!! It was a fabulous workshop and I've never known any workshop fly like that one did. I'm really hoping I get time to make some more tags for my little showcase Christmas Tree.

Your dining room looks like my lounge when our decorations and trees are being sorted out and I'm hoping to start them this weekend although the outside lights are going to have to wait. Like you we have about 2 ft of snow surrounding us (few pics posted on my blog tonight)so I don't think climbing up and down ladders would be a good idea.

Look forward to being part of your preparations via your updates.

Hugs
Lesley Xx

veronica said...

gorgeous tags Lynn - have just got those Sir Tim embossing folders, but not had a chance to try them out yet, so thanks for the ideas!
Keep warm, hope you don't have too much more snow - I know it is seasonal, but have had enough of it now, and we haven't been half as badly afected as you up north.
Looking forward to the updates - what does Diesel think of the snow?

judith@poppy cottage said...

Of course we would have stayed Lynn, we were having so much fun at your workshop! The time just flew by, and the tags are so beautiful, we just wanted to keep making more of them! I can't believe how much snow you all have up there, we are getting off very lightly where we are, although we have had a light dusting this morning, but it's hardly worth a mention. Looking forward to seeing your decorations going up, and all of your preparations. Keep warm, Judith xx

erasercarver said...

Oh my goodness - look at all those decorations! I'm afraid we never put ours up until Christmas Eve - but then that's a lovely little tradition we have in itself :)

Loving all your gorgeous tags and looking forward to seeing more of your 31 Days :)

ikki said...

Hi Lynn, I completed by tag but couldn't avoid the "tizz". Now having seen these fab picturs, I wish, oh I do wish, I lived closer so I could attend your workshops. Inspiring tagging! ikki

InkyArtitude said...

Thank you for all the wonderful comments. I'm so pleased those of you who were able to come to the tag workshop enjoyed it, I certainly had fun and truth be told, I'd have happily 'tagged' along all night.

Veronica: Diesel doesn't seem to mind the snow, he skips around happily in it and always manages to come in with a little mound of snow on his nose. I'm more wary or it though when I have him on a lead out walking... if he sees a cat I don't 'stand' a chance! Te he.