I can’t help but think of Monty Python’s Flying Circus when I hear that phrase! It probably doesn’t help that I went and saw the stage show ‘Spamalot’ at the start of December, and I have all those silly songs buzzing in my head most of the time! (And yes I went souvineer shopping at ‘Ye Olde Rippey Offey Shop’ at the theatre and got myself a ‘You’ve got Grail’ tshirt, and a badge that says ‘I fart in your general direction’. I am a hopeless case I’m afraid!!)

But I digress.

This is meant to be a post about some cards I made, while I should have been wrapping presents for Christmas. I had stamped some images from the Summer Mini Catalogue set, Big Blooms, when I borrowed it from Yvonne (in November :”> ). I used my Bold Brights markers, and used the direct to rubber technique to ink up some of the images - so I had to follow on and use cardstock from the Bold Brights range too.

Well they are certainly bright! After using the muted cranberry and brocade blue for Christmas, these nearly burnt my retina’s out!!

**Warning** apply sunglasses now :-S

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And…

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The colours are Green Galore, Only Orange, Yoyo Yellow and Pink Passion. I’ve also used Tangerine and Green Apple Grosgrain on one. The sentiments are both from Warm Words, and I used a marker to ink up with as I don’t have the Pink Passion inkpad. Yet. I have cleverly used the small oval punch on the ‘giggle’ card, to cover up where I initially stamped the sentiment, and messed it up royally. But you’d never know huh! Oh, well except I just told you, but it’s just between you and I OK??

I’ve also done a double layout using the Big Blooms set, which started off as a CASE of the picture frame on Page 8 of the Stampin’ Up!® Summer Mini Catalogue and grew from there. I can’t think of a good title for the pages though, and haven’t settled on the journalling either, so that one will have to wait!

I love Christmas! Especially watching the kids tear open their presents in the morning, desperate to find the traditional chocolate coins Santa seems to give them every year. (Yep it’s the breakfast they can get for themselves tee hee) The ‘oooohs’ and ‘aaaahs’ and ‘oh I wanted one of those, give it to me’, ‘no it’s mine’, ‘mine’, ‘mine’ ah well, you get the drift. After the chocolate coins, they have a choice of froot loops or cocopops for breakfast :”> (might as well continue as we began) and the opening of packages involving lots of wire ties and plastic stringy bits and tapes, all designed to drive what sanity is left to us, right out the window. That’s what it’s all about huh.

I actually got around to making some Christmas cards this year. Only 25, which was well short of what I needed, but I have yet to find a way to distort time and space and create a few more hours in the day for all the things I really would like to get done. Maybe in time for next year.

These are the same design, but in two different colourways - using the Holiday Thyme designer series papers from Stampin’ Up! The colours here are Brocade Blue with the snowflake paper, white grosgrain ribbon and navy organza. The image is from Crazy for Christmas - I stamped a long line of these, coloured them and then punched along the line with the tag punch - very quick!

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And the same thing in Cranberry Crisp, burgundy grosgrain and olive organza…

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That ‘Merry Wishes’ stamp along the right hand edge of the cards is from one of our upcoming Sale-A-Bration sets - keep your eyes open for more info about this - it starts on January 1st.

Then there were the multitude of teacher’s gifts to create as well… I used Marelle’s idea for the little triangular pouches. They are stamped with the jumbo Stampin’ Around wheel, watercolour vine, in old olive, and the small flower is from Dream Come True, and is stamped in Cranberry Crisp. Oh that’s confetti cream cardstock too. Inside is a cello bag full of Pascal’s Columbines. =P~ OK so my belly was also full of Pascal’s Columbines at the end of this exercise . The bigger bags at the back held Columbines and a little note pad holder thing, which I confess I didn’t make, but was really cute! They’re bagalopes, made from huge A5 envelopes.

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Apologies for the quality of the photo’s but my darling husband has fiddled with the settings on my camera… grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well, Polar Express is nearly finished so I’d best be off - I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy 2008, filled with stampy goodness! :-*

I’ve just had my first taste of a Greek Orthodox wedding - and I’m exhausted!

In spite of the groom reassuring us that the ceremony would be half English and half Greek, the only bits David and I understood were the couples names, ‘amen’ and ‘in the name of the father….’ dotted through the entirely Greek ceremony! Thank goodness there were some gorgeous little girls handing out booklets that explained what was going on, or we would have been completely lost! Then there was a 40 minute queue to get to the bride and groom to offer congratulations before we left the church. As you can imagine, it takes a while for 400 people to do that!

There were a few hours between the end of the ceremony and the reception, so we took off to Highpoint City, and did a bit of shopping for Christmas, and tried on some nice perfume as well. (The last time I bought perfume was in 1999 on the way back from our wedding in Vanuatu, so perhaps it’s time to update??) My feet were KILLING me by then - but I looked darn good so I was NOT taking my shoes off. I suffered for fashion.

Mmmmmm back at the reception and there was Bailey’s on ice doing the rounds, which was delicious on a hot hot day, plus finger foods. Once we were seated and the bridal party was introduced and seated, the feast began. And it just kept coming and coming! There was bread with olive tapenade and tomato/onion type mixture (there is most likely an official name for this, but I have no idea what it is), a huge antipasto platter, king prawns with seafood sauce for starters, crumbed calamari on a bed of seafood risotto or beef ravioli for entree, steak with mushroom sauce or chicken florentine for main, then came a massive fruit platter, followed by our desert plates, which had three deserts each on them - a creme brulee, strawberry mousse and chocolate icecream to die for. It tasted like it had Frangelico in it, you know, like Ferrero Rocher balls. Drrooooool. Plus coffee and chocolate hearts of course.

With all that food, there is no wonder there’s so much DANCING at a greek wedding! Otherwise we’d all have been the size of a house by the end of the day! The band seemed to go for an hour, but only played about four songs LOL! It was a shame my head was right in front of a speaker, but everyone seemed to have a wonderful time, doing some mysterious set of steps that everyone but me knew. Alas. It is always the way. Dancing and I have never really gotten it together.

The speeches were all in Greek too, but I assume they were nice - no wait, the groom said his in English which WAS nice, and his father told the MC to tell us all on table 36, ‘Thankyou for coming to celebrate Ross’ wedding’ in English. Tee hee!

Oh! And the bonbonierre (I think that’s how it’s spelt) was a gorgeous wine topper in silver, with a heart on top - and not forgetting the sugared almonds as well

I’m so tired now though, I’m going to make another cup of tea, and continue plodding along tidying up the house, which is sooo not Better Homes & Gardens at the moment. And I KNOW that’s usually when someone drops in! :O

Just when I thought all of our friends and relatives were finally hitched, another one comes along! Ross is David’s mate from AEONS ago, when they both worked at Wormald Security waaay back in 1993. And yes, he’s finally tying the knot! His future wife is absolutely lovely, and pretty stunning to boot, so apart from the prewedding jitters I think he’s wrapt!

The big day is tomorrow, December 2nd, just an intimate affair, a mere 400 of their closest friends and relations.

This is the card I’ve just finished, using one of our Level One hostess sets, Blooming with Happiness. I stamped onto vellum with versamark, then embossed with White embossing powder. I coloured on the back with markers, and then applied some glitter with a 2 way glue pen. The colours are Pretty In Pink and Sage Shadow.  That ricrac is from our new Summer Mini catalogue, from the Flirty range. Just love it! I’ve also used Simply Said for the hearts, and written on them with the white gel pen.

Next to the card is the gift voucher holder which matches the card perfectly. We are giving them a Harvey Norman gift voucher, but they are SO boring - at least this makes it coordinate LOL!

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It’s not very romantic, so please ignore our rusty old gate, and the bird poo on the fence!

I’ve gotten a fake spray on tan for the occasion, and I’m looking decidedly Chocolate Chip at this point - I am hoping for a mellowing of colour overnight. Close to Cocoa would be nice!