It's been a long, long time since I've updated my blog, mainly because I couldn't remember my password but also because I've been pretty fed up with crafts... and addicted to Carcassonne, which has stolen a good part of the time I'd usually spend stamping and distressing stuff.

Anyway, it's almost Christmas, which ironically is my favourite season, although I'm always on the edge of losing my nerves and my sanity when it comes to Christmas preparations...

Here goes...

As always I like to wrap my gifts in brown packaging paper. This year's twist is stamping and embossing it. Here's the first layer with snowflakes and clear embossing powder:

And IMO, I should have kept to this, everything after this looks like crap. Here I decided to add another layer with gold embellishments:

And as if this wasn't bad enough, I stamped some smaller snowflakes to the mix with Vintage Photo Distress Ink:

And a good three hours later I had enough paper to wrap exactly one gift (If you're already tired of my self-pity, please don't continue... it get's worse)

By this time it's painfully obvious that the brown paper I purchased from Tiimari isn't nearly as good as the stuff you get from the postal office. It's totally see-through, so I had to wrap the gift twice! Also the tape I also bought from Tiimari is crap. It keeps tearing before hitting the dispenser's edge and the roll doesn't stay in the dispenser that came with it but sort of wanders off. My recommendation: do not - under any circumstances - use materials bought from Tiimari, you'll only get a crappy result!

I hope Pihla, who's god-mother I am, can appreciate the trouble that went in to wrapping her gift, no way does the packaging look worth the effort! :) Anyway, I think the Barbapapa inside the wrap is of the wrong size. I was supposed to get the biggest size available and I bought the biggest they had in BR, but visiting CityMarket the same evening, I realised there's an even bigger one out there. Oh crap! (Anyone counted how many times I've used the word crap in this post? I'm thinking several...)

Doing the Christmas cleaning is what really pisses me off. The flat is pretty much in an unlivable conditions due to the fact that I'm almost never here and no else seems to lift their finger.  So there's a lot to do!!!

Decorating-wise I've managed to do something. Or in this first case Janne has:

I bought a star yesterday 'cause my acrylic glass hearts have gone MIA. I thought setting it up would be a walk in the park, but judged by the dirty words coming from Janne's mouth, I'd say I was wrong... The cord was way too short and he had to weld it together with another one. But I have my star now, yei! And thanks Janne...

The autumn wreath converted into a Christmas wreath with very little trouble though:

And then I filled this glass box whit all the ornaments that are of the wrong colour to go to the tree (Which I haven't got just yet...). It has our initials in it; Enna, Janne and Ebba:

-> Now I'm off to making some more wrapping paper, see 'ya!