Christmas Melee

Well I'm still not entirely sure why I braved the big shopping centre this morning (probably because I had to as I can't think of any other reason!) being the last Saturday before Christmas almost everyone in a 20km radius also felt the need to go there............I'm not sure if it's because I am getting older and crankier or just society is changing, but people are so rude this time of year. Honestly I'm not sure if it's the heat or just that Christmas seems to bring out the worst in people instead of the best?

Whilst I was out DS got to help put up and decorate our Christmas tree, so he is in raptures over that and keeps wrapping everything in sight up in pieces of paper and reams or sticky tape to put under it (I don't think he'll have much Lego left by Christmas Day as it'll all be wrapped up under the tree - we don't tend to put the presents under the tree until after he goes to bed on Christmas Eve as it's just too tempting for a 3yo to have enticing gifts left out and not be able to open them).

Stamping wise I have two things to share with you, one was done recently as a swap and I wanted to try something new as I had seen this tutorial online by Jan Tink and I wanted to see how challenging it was. Turns out it was pretty simple! I used one of the stamp sets from the new summer catalogue Hello Again, but I didn't have the circle sissors (yet!) so I didn't get the double circle effect on the front which I think would have made it look better, but never mind I can always re-make it later!  You can see inside the card - the Retro Remix wheel is so nice - I did see it coloured individually with markers and then wheeled on a blog recently and the overall effect was stunning, although no doubt time consuming - I've added it to my to try list!

Last night I was also playing around with some left over bits from my I Wish Simply Scrappin' kit, after making my I Wish album and came up with this 6"x6" of my DS first Christmas - did I mention he loves opening presents!!!

Can you tell I am still getting used to scrapbooking and am working my way up to doing 12"x12" layouts....but more on that another post. Am I the only one with a to do/try list that is a million miles long or is it just a sign of being creative, I have never yet been able to truly understand people who say they are bored *grin*

Yesterday also saw me making more fruit leather in our food dehydrator, basically it's just a case of blending up cooked apple, passionfruit from our garden (those are the black bits), a drained tin of peaches ($2 on sale for 850g Australian grown fruit) and then spreading it over the sheets and drying it down.

With the PV panels the electricity cost of this is negligible and the entire ingredients and power etc costs approximately $10 per kg of dried fruit - a bit cheaper and healthier than the store bought $4 for 90g and most of it is wheat/maze bulking agents and only has 25-30% real fruit - mine is 99% real fruit and 1% sugar. I've also used strawberries from the garden, bananas and basically whatever left over fruit or fruit that is cheap that is around, although I do find having about 40% apple gievs it a nice smooth texture. The sheets are taken off the dryer, rolled into logs and wrapped in plastic film (if anyone can think of an alternative to plastic for this please let me know!) and stored in an airtight container for up to 6 weeks - although rarely does it make 3 weeks in our house......