Christmas Calling ♥

hello dearhearts, I'm currently away in Coventry on a little holiday to visit my family before Christmas. We're a little later across than usual this year and unfortunately the weather has decided to turn particularly vile for the time of year. If you live in the UK then chances are you've already experienced the delightful barrage of wind and rain we've been getting this week, along with a possible side of severe flooding and coastal damage, as Storm Desmond batters the country.

back on the Island, there has been some of the worst flood damage the island has ever seen, I hope that all my friends and family back home stay safe through these storms!

anyway, on with post I suppose...

There are now only 20 days until Xmas 2015, and I stupidly just remembered that I STILL haven't shared this years Christmas card designs with you all!

this is yet further proof that I am a forgetful eejit and I know that I've probably left it too late but I'm going to show you the cards anyway.

2015 Christmas Card Designs

So this year, instead of Christmas candy Sugar Skulls, I went for something a little more kitsch, so we have festive flamingo cards + Christmas cactus cards! Because if you can't be a little wacky and unusual at Christmas time, when can you?!

Christmas Cactus on pink polka dots

each design was created specifically for the cards, they were both ideas that I'd been playing around with for a while. I knew that I wanted to draw a Cactus and a Flamingo, it wasn't until I started adding Christmas stuff that I realised they'd probably make cute cards.

Festive Flamingo on blue stripes

they're very bright and vibrant, the designs are happy and although admittedly not very traditional, still plenty festive and fun. As per usual I've been sending them out as my own personal Xmas cards to family and friends, but they're available to buy via my Etsy and Depop shops, should you take a fancy to them yourselves.

the back of the cards

The cards are A6 sized (105x148mm) 100% professionally printed in the UK on 300gsm trucard, a lovely sturdy card stock with a light satin coating on the outside while the inside is blank and left uncoated, making it easier for you to write your own message in a fancy gold gel pen, felt-tip, fountain pen or a biro, whichever you prefer! + each card comes safely sealed in a cello bag, with a kraft paper envelope.



As if the cards aren't Christmassy enough, I also have some super cute Christmas glitter brooches available! there are 6 festive shades of glitter fabric + 3 cute charms to choose from

Christmas Glitter Brooches

These brooches are super sparkly but the best thing about them is that the glitter fabric DOES NOT SHED GLITTER!!! Which is perfect because if you're anything like me then you're one of those people that somehow ends up with glitter everywhere! Well, that won't happen with one of these. You can show your appreciation for all things festive AND sparkly without finding glitter embedded on your cheeks and eyelids three days later. All brooches are available to buy HERE

sparkly and fun

You're probably wondering why I'm bothering to offer any of these things if I'm away on holiday... BUT although it's true that the brooches won't ship until December 10th, I brought a big stack of the Christmas cards away with me so I will happily post them out to you while I'm in England.

aren't I considerate?!


Also, if you're in the UK then you might know that today is Small Business Saturday, which for those of you unfamiliar with it... "Small Business Saturday UK is a grass-roots campaign which exists to support, promote and inspire small businesses, on the first Saturday in December, and beyond"

 that means that today is the PERFECT day to go out (or stay in) and support a Small British Business. Regardless of where you live, there will be plenty of local or national businesses that you can support in person or online.

If you want a suggestion, then allow me to present my own Etsy Shop as a possible candidate for your generous patronage, in an utterly shameless plug ^_^

I'm also giving away a free Sugar Skull circle sticker with EVERY order placed today in my Etsy and Depop shops

anyway on that note I'll shut up for now.

so until next time, cheerio!

deck the halls?!

Hello chums, thanks for stopping by, don't be put off by the title of today's post but I have to warn you, if you're a bit of a Grinch or total Ebenezer Scrooge then you're probably not going to enjoy the rest of the blog...

Unless you've been living under a rock (or staunchly ignoring any and all traces of the festive cheer quietly brewing in virtually every shop) then you might have noticed that Christmas is on the way again at last! Now it's no secret on this blog that I am a HUGE fan of all things festive and Christmassy, I've blogged about my love of Xmas in the past many times (see here if you're interested).

Love it or loathe it, I don't think you can really ignore it! It might still be a bit early for me to get away with putting up my Christmas tree or breaking out the light up earrings but I figured it was as good a time as any for a festive themed blog post!

Now I know most people don't like seeing Christmas stuff this time of year (only 45 days to go...) but I get so excited when places start filling up with festive goods and playing Christmas songs! And well... I DON'T THINK IT'S TOO EARLY!!! Why?! because I LOVE Christmas of course!

Do you know who else loves Christmas? Well i'll give you a clue, their names begin with 'A' and 'I' and they love to dress up!

That's right, little Aalish and Illiam also can't wait for Christmas!

 So today they tried on all of their new festive costumes while I warbled along to Santa Baby and cleared away all the scraps of card from the Christmas clothes sheet.

Although technically it's actually a Nollick Ghennal sheet! In case you couldn't guess, 'Nollick Ghennal' means Merry Christmas in Manx Gaelic, so once again this sheet will be sold exclusively in Sweet Ginger Emporium in Ramsey here on the Isle of Man. 

the A3 sheet has a set of nice Christmas outfits for both Aalish and Illiam to try on, including a jolly snowman + a festively decorated tree

there's even a Rudolph the Reindeer mask to go with any of the costumes

 + the sheet also has a bunch of fun accessories to go with the outfits

and just like the Hop-Tu-Naa/Halloween sheet all of the clothes are interchangeable to fit both paper dolls meaning each of them can have a go at being Santa or one of his Elf helpers

are you feeling Christmassy yet? If you are then that's BRILLIANT! There's no shame in getting into the spirit of things because Christmas is such a fun time of year isn't it!

It is without a doubt my favourite time of the year, and not for the reason you might be thinking (namely PRESENTS!) but because I just LOVE all of the cheer everywhere, the decorations, the lights, all the glitter, the music, the carols, beautifully wrapped gifts, advent calendars and all of that special Christmas magic and joy that fills the air.

that's my mum Joy holding a lovely festive pillow with her name on it! You see I'm not from a very religious family so for me Christmas is more a time that heralds the arrival of my favourite season and an opportunity to buy or make lovely things to give to my friends and family. I just adore giving presents!
 
Although this year will probably be my most frugal Christmas since reaching adulthood (arguable really considering what a big kid I am!) but what with my no longer having a job + being unable to work at the moment this lack of income means I won't be able to spoil my loved ones quite as much this year.

Despite this, I've still been excitedly gathering gifts for them all (albeit on a much tighter budget than previous years). For a while I worried that this might put a damper on things for me this year, there have been times in the past when i've been in such a low mood come December that I haven't even bothered to put up any decorations (meaning my parents never bothered decorating the house either) but this year i'm determined to make the most of the situation and conjure up as much festive cheer as I can. If that means oodles of lopsided homemade gifts then so be it!

I visited the Christmas Shop at Tynwald earlier this week with my mum and my nephew Josh (over for a few days visiting from Coventry) and I think seeing all of the decorations and gifts and lovely tress really started to get me into the spirit of things! 

 don't worry, I'm not about to tinsel bomb the house or pull on my Christmas jumper (not just yet anyway) but i'm beginning to feel the warm fuzzy glow of the approaching holidays, hence why I wanted to share Aalish and Illiam's new clothes with you all today. 

So I'm going to make Christmas 2014 a fun one, even if I don't have the funds for all the fabulous frivolities I usually get at this time of year. Homemade cupcakes and gingerbread for EVERYONE!

and on that note, i'll sign off for this evening. I'm popping out the Cinema to see 'Interstellar' because i'm a big sci-fi geek and I love movies!

so until next time, a very merry toodle-ooh to you and you and you...

Little Lego Christmas Tree ★

so... dudes and dudettes, the time has come at last for me to reveal just what it is that i've been working on for the past few weeks...

are you ready?!

Tah- dah...

that's right folks... i've spent the past 3 weeks designing and building a Lego Christmas Tree!

you see, THIS is why i couldn't tell you what i was building and what colour the Lego was!

so shall i explain it all..

i shall indeed!

about 3 weeks ago i got a message on Twitter asking if i'd be willing to help on a project for Isle of Man Advertising (you can find out all about them HERE - IOM Advertising)

so i gave them my email address then a message came through asking if i knew anyone that would be interested in helping to build a Lego Christmas Tree...

so i volunteered!

i worked with Carroll and Martin to come up with a design and a build plan so big thanks to them for all their help throughout the project (and for putting up with my tantrums)

so after a few meetings at their offices they got the lovely Katie to cart a big box of Lego (1900 bricks) up to me at college and i got to work...

so thank you to Katie as well for delivering it to me

so after a good few hours playing and messing around with the Lego, this was the first EVER design i came up with

the problem was, they all liked my design but they didn't think i'd be able to build it with the bricks supplied!

i got really upset but at the end of the day it was up to them so i had a go at building the one from the designs they'd sent with the Lego

it was impossible to build!!!! 

those are the plans in the background behind the mini model tree, it was just crazy! i could not build it!

and i used to have to do things like this all the time during the IB at my last school!

it made no difference, i couldn't build it

so...

i was allowed to have another go at MY design

so after many emails and photos going back and forth we finally settled on THIS design

so last Friday, before i went away to Coventry, Carroll from IOM Advertising came up to college to collect me + the lego and i re-built it all at their offices in Douglas

then obviously i went to Coventry and Birmingham for a few days (SUPER DUPER trip by the way!)

and on Thursday morning i got up at 3:30am (yikes) to travel to Birmingham airport for my flight back to the IoM.

i landed at 9:25am, Carroll arrived at 9:30am with the Lego and that was that

she helped me unpack it all and we tried to work out how the plinths would work but then she had to go back to the offices

it was her birthday as well! so Carroll, Happy Birthday again for Thursday xX

then it was down to me to get it all built in time (no pressure!!!)

it was SUCH a long day! i literally spent the whole day sat on the floor by my plinths (big thanks to Bill at College for supplying them) building up the tree and moving bits about

this is how it looked early on in the day... a lot like a Pagoda with 7 tiers

eventually (at around 5:30pm) it was FINALLY finished! and we ended up with one big 5 tier tree and two mini ones

also, big thanks to the little boy and his mother that stopped to help me build the 'fence' around the bottom of the tree at about 4pm x

and big thanks to Rosemary Walters from Save the Children who kept popping by to make sure i was still awake and to see if i needed anything, thank you x

and that's it, my little tree is finished at last!

it's been a hectic few weeks i can tell you, 

i've had to keep it all on the hush hush for the past few weeks but the grand opening of the Festival was last night so... now i'm allowed to tell you all!

i took my friend Charlotte (check out her blog here - Loretta Jane's Vintage Boutique) along last night to look at all the trees

every year at Ronaldsway Airport at the Isle of Man, they hold this 'Festival of Trees' to help raise money for 'Save the Children'

local schools and businesses take part and enter trees into the festival and members of the public can vote for their favourite trees and post donations to the charity

it's a great event and always draws a lot of people to the airport to see all the trees.

there are 23 trees in all this year and i have to say, there are some really fun trees dotted about the place.

like the 'Manx Farmers Union' one, entirely made of Manx produce, totally genius

and the Manx Museum's 'i-museum' tree, covered in CD's, vintage film slides, photos and cameras

you can see the King William's College (my old school) entry as well in the background. the one with the little green and silver trees.

the KWC Chapel Choir were also at the Festival opening singing lots of lovely Carols. i couldn't get a photo but they all looked fab in their Choir robes + it was lovely to hear the Choir again after so long

the Lieutenant Governor's wife, Lady Haddacks was there as well to help open the festival.

it was a really festive atmosphere with lots of mince pies, Manx fudge and wine on hand to make people feel merry.

there were some unusual 'trees' there as well, like the Manx Landscapes 'Pottering around' entry

and the Victoria House Nursery entry, it was so beautiful though, and such a clever idea

it was a great evening and all the trees looked great

i'm proud to have been involved in the Festival this year and to have worked on the Lego Tree for 'Alliance and Leicester' (our tag line for the Lego Tree was 'Building for the Future' how AWESOME is that! love it)

it was a lot of work but it was nice to do something different for a change and i'm glad i got the opportunity to do so. 

so all that's left for me to do is ask all you fellow Manxies out there to pop down to the airport and get donating (and to VOTE for my Tree if you'd be so kind...) 

and if you're flying in or out of the IoM anytime soon, don't forget to go and have a skeet at all the trees

thanks x

* * *

in other news...

well there isn't really any other news actually!

i'm so tired from all the Lego times i haven't really been up to much else!

i've a few new Pin-up Girl illustrations to finish so hopefully they'll be ready for my next post

until then

that's all folks...

◕‿◕ ★ xX

Grazie molto e arrivederci

(that's thank you and goodbye in Italian, L'italia è un paese meraviglioso, grazie, mia amico x)