A few bits and bobs...

First off, can I tell you how much I love my new Cricut Expression? It is fabarooney, it behaves itself, it does exactly what I tell it to, it looks neat sitting on my work bench, I love the 'click' when you close up the lid and it's little clunky noises when you press its buttons. In general it is fantastic and I am so pleased that I spent this months ISA savings money on buying it!!

I have some cards to share too, now the weather in my little part of the UK is pretty gruesome at the moment - think dark through the day so that we have our lights on all day, rain, rain and even more rain and add in a little bit of fog and mist as well as being very cold and you can understand why my photographs are not of the highest quality. My back is still not fixed either so I can't really bend over to line up my camera (it's mending, but not mended yet).

I used up left over bits and pieces for this card with a little fairy that came from a kids craft CD I bought at a book fair.

This card is my favourite at the moment and I don't really want to give it away but it's for an order. I used up some ancient K&Co paper that I've had for a couple of years as well as a digital piece from the Funky Junky Christmas kit. I used my Cricut for the star, scroll (love this shape) and tag, lots of inking and my black pen for fake stitching on everything.

This is the first card made with my new Sugar Nellies stamps. I think he is so sweet - I can see him being used on many a Christmas card this year!

I wanted to share my Christmas hanging banner too although the photographs aren't any good really but we did the best we could, hopefully we'll get better weather at the weekend and I can retake them.

I used a bunch of wooden hearts that I bought at the Art from the Heart stand back at the Harrogate show a while ago, covered them with a lovely thick Christmas text paper that I found in my cupboard (I'm sure I don't buy half of the stuff that I find in my cupboards - I wonder if I have a little stash shopping elf like in the Elves and the Shoemaker?), added a load of chalk ink and sanding and then painted some chipboard letters and attacked them with walnut ink, chalk ink, sanding and some rather lovely crackle accents. Have you noticed my rather fantastic Matalan snowman who sneaked into the picture. He's back in the corner of the living room now, waiting for December 1st so that he can begin to decorate our home.

Lastly, if you are in or around Harrogate this weekend, why not call to the International Exhibition halls and visit my friend Kim and the Fat Quarters shop. They've started to sell the Melly and Me patterns (the pattern I use for my fabric bunnies) and she's just lovely :)