Christmas Weave!!!

Hello at last!!

Thanks so much for all your messages and good wishes, It means a lot to me.

What can I say it's been over a week since I made a card and posted to my blog!!! I'm so sorry but I've just not felt like it at all. My flu symptoms became more like Hay Fever (which I've never had before). We're into Spring here and the weather has been glorious everything in the garden is flowering and the bees are about!

I've got wattle, honeysuckle and wisteria in the garden which are all, or so I'm told by my friends, bad for Hay Fever sufferers!!!! Trust me!

It's been like a mad house for the past couple of weeks. Now Ian's working for three days a week only he's decided to get the house up to scratch. I need for him to get a hobby!!!

He's gradually getting the exterior of the house painted before it gets too hot. Then we've had some men working on a rock retaining wall at the front of the house (so that's sand and cement dust to deal with). They've finished now so the next thing is to get the brush fence fixed up down the side boundary!!!! See what I mean about mad, it's playing havoc with my crafting time!!! Yesterday the temperature reached 29 degrees and guess what - the fire brigade had scheduled a huge back burning operation in our area (not our valley but the next one) the smoke was so thick yesterday afternoon and during the evening I was watching burning embers falling in the back garden!!! They're still at it today I can hear the helicopters now they're water bombing. Oh don't get me wrong I'm all for hazard reduction and I've got my fingers crossed that they will do our valley this year - I have nightmares about what we'd do if a fire came through it's just that my eyes are so sore at the moment and I just want to get back to normal!!!

OK that's it, no more whining from me - I'm sorry I've not posted but I had coloured this little stamp so made a quick card with it today. Dee Marie is hosting a challenge on STV and she wanted to see cards using paper weaving so thanks Dee I haven't done this with paper and thought it might be a fun card to get me started again.

• Stamp JustRite Christmas Treasures
• Ink Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers
• Card GKD PL Heavyweight pure white, Grant Photo Mat Stack green. Bazzill Chocolate, Red, Basic Grey Wassail.
• Embellishment Twine, Four Red Gems by Kaisercraft.

I cut my strips of brown, red and the Wassail card into 1/2 inch strips before weaving them 6 x 6 strips. These were attached to the background green card.

I stamped my image in two steps, first the centre bird and birdhouse was stamped onto pw card using tuxedo black and coloured with Copics. I used a Spellbinders circle die to cut this out and doodled the outline.

The outer circle was loaded with the sentiment and I stamped this onto red card using tuxedo black ink. The two sprigs of Holly were coloured with Copics. I used a larger circle die to cut out beyond the sentiment then changed to the die I used for the bird and birdhouse and cut the inside away.

I attached the red sentiment circle to the woven background using fine foam tabs then the centre was attached with a thicker foam tab to pop it up further.

I tied the twine around the card a few times and finished with a bow. Then just added the four corner gems before attaching the green card to the card base.

I showed Ian when the card was finished and he said not one thing is straight on this card!!!!

He's right of course - I need to work on that!!!

Thanks so much for dropping by I hope you've had a good week end - I'm off to make another card before I make dinner!

See you soon.......