You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Mad Tea Party", which is to say "anything goes"!  I'm embarrassed to say that the holiday craziness has meant that I had no time to make anything this time, but I thought I'd share a family heirloom with you.  When I was up in the attic searching for the Christmas lights I came across this old family photo album.  The text is a little small in these photos, but if you click on them you can see a better view.

I must take this over to my mother and see if she knows anything about who these people are or who compiled the album - I'll let you know if I find out anything interesting! :)  Obviously this is a genuine family heirloom containing photos of my real ancestors, so you could never hope to copy it, but if you wanted to create something similar, I've drawn up a list of the type of things that you could, perhaps, use.

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

There is no challenge over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge today, just warm holiday wishes from all the design team, along with some wonderful holiday inspiration (and a fantastic disount offer, see the end of this post)!

In my house, anyone who comes over while the Christmas tree is up has to bring an ornament with them to hang on it.  It's a strict rule, and I don't care what they bring as long as they bring something!  Every year when I decorate the tree, with each of those ornaments I get to remember who brought it and when, what we were doing and how lucky I am to have them in my life.  Speaking of ornaments, I just finished trimming my tree (later than I had planned!)  Here's a quick photo I took of it.

Obviously it's only right that I give them something too so I make bags of fruit and nut chocolate bark to give in return.  It's easy to make and comes in handy for stocking fillers and teachers or hostess gifts.  For the best results, chocolate needs to be tempered (a complicated process involving heating, cooling, heating again and candy thermometers), which is too much work in my book, but it does stop the chocolate getting that white "bloom".  The Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, shared a much easier method of tempering, which I have used below.

Fruit and Nut Chocolate Bark

Ingredients

• Equal quantities of 2 types of chocolate (I used 150g bars of milk and white to make 3 bags like the one shown in the photo)
• Dried fruits and nuts for sprinkling (I used 50g of whole hazelnuts and 50g of mixed dried fruit this time but you can use whatever you like, dried cranberries, candied peel, walnuts, pecans, it's all good)

Method

1. Keeping your two kinds of chocolate separate chop finely and melt 2/3 of each, either in bowls over simmering water or in the microwave (30 second bursts, stirring after each one until it's melted).
2. Add the remaining 1/3 of the chopped chocolate to each melted batch, stirring until it's all dissolved (this is how the tempering is achieved).
3. Pour the first chocolate onto a cookie sheet lined with baking paper and spread out fairly thinly (the bigger you make your "pool" of chocolate, the more space to sprinkle on fruit and nuts later.
4. Pour the second batch of chocolate onto the first, spreading out to the same size.
5. Sprinkle on as much fruit and nuts as you like, giving it all a gentle press to make sure it sticks to the chocolate.  If you're using large items like brazi nuts or dried apricots, chop them a little first.
6. Chill in the refrigerator until cool and hardened.
7. Cut or break into random shards, place into pretty food-safe bags and tie with ribbon (my bow was cut from the Retro Grunge paper stash).

That's it from me this Christmas!  I hope you all have a cosy and peaceful Christmas with friends and loved ones, filled with good food, fond memories and lots of fun!

Simon Says Stamp are offering you a fantastic Christmas gift - a 40% discount on clearance items, just use the code CLEAR40 at the checkout until December 31st!



Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!

It's a Cracker!

The theme over on the Simon Says Stamp and Show Challenge is "Gift-spiration".  I'm sure many of us are busy right now either buying gifts or wrapping them, so it's the perfect time of year for this kind of inspiration!

Years before I started papercrafting as a hobby I always let my creative side run wild for Christmas.  As a small child I would buy lengths of ribbon that would adhere to itself if you licked it  (I know, I know, saliva, ewww, but this was back in the day when we didn't think we'd die if we ate a potato chip that was a day past it's use by date, or using bows that had been licked!).  I'd spend hours cutting it into lengths of 3 or 4 inches and then make loops from them to make my own bows, as well as supplying the rest of the family with bows for their gifts.  Of course, I'm so ancient that this was in the days when you couldn't buy ready made bows in the shops, so my services were always in demand!

This year I have a few small gifts to give to various people and I thought that rather than wrap them conventionally I would make Christmas crackers to put them in.  In our family we put the crackers on the tree, then take one for each person at Christmas dinner and put it with their place setting.  During the meal we pull our crackers, share the cheesy jokes and gifts they contain, and (of course) wear our paper hats while we eat dinner.

There are lots of sources online for cracker jokes so I downloaded and printed some out.  Back in the 30s and 40s when money was tight, folks would often make their own crackers and fold hats from newspaper to put inside them.  I wanted to echo that style so I made hats using stamps from Tim Holtz's Classics #6 set to reproduce the newspaper feel.  My crackers were cut on the Cricut using the Dear Mr Claus collage set - I love the vintage holiday goodness of these designs!

FREEBIE ALERT - I'm including download links for the templates so you can cut your own if you wish to!

Supplies I used included:

InLinkz.com

If you would like to try making some of these yourself, I've included links to the template for the cracker in SVG, DXF and PNG form.

Please remember you are only allowed to download these files for your own use and can not share them or distribute them to others in any form. I spend a great deal of time creating my designs, please respect the terms under which they are shared.

These files may not be uploaded to a group, forum or website for sale or redistribution, or shared among individuals. They are expressly for the personal use of each person that downloads them from this blog.

There are 3 versions:

• An SVG version which can be imported into the Sure Cuts a Lot, Ecal or Make the Cut program and then cut out on any of the machines supported by SCAL, Ecal and Make the Cut.
• A DXF version which is Craft Robo friendly, and ready to be imported into your Robomaster software (I'm not a Robo user, so if there are any problems with this, please let me know!)
• A PNG version which can be printed from a graphics program or Word, then cut out with scissors.

Simply click on the appropriate button below to download the file!

If you make anything using one of the templates, please post a link to it here so that others can be inspired by how you've used them!

Files © dan99crafter@gmail.com 2012

Our ever-generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp is offering a $50 gift voucher as the prize again this week, just make something for the challenge and you could the winner! The winner will be chosen at random from those who enter the challenge, so why not give it a try? At the very least why not head over to the Challenge Blog to see how the other members of the design team have interpreted this weeks theme! :)

Don't forget, Simon Says Stamp have a great Facebook page too!  Check them out here!