Well school’s back in for term two and I feel as though my feet are touching the ground again for the first time in a long time!

I will need to get my blogging back on track again now as there has been a lot of stampin’ a-happenin’ ’round these parts, but today I had to pop in and show you some little pieces of delight that landed in my mailbox today.

A happy mail-day for me usually involves no mail at all, as that means there are no utility or other such companies requiring the attention of my credit card, but today, not only did I NOT have mail of the window-fronted variety, but two, yes TWO hand stamped cards addressed to me!

This first beautiful creation is from Amanda and Danielle, the two girls who set up the Just Add Ink challenge blog that I am honoured to be on the design team for.

If you have had the chance to visit JAI at all, you would have to agree that the girls do an amazing job of putting together inspiring challenges and fabulous articles.

If you haven’t visited yet, then I highly recommend that you take a moment to pop on over.  The next challenge is due up tomorrow and the variety of DT projects for this one is mind-blowing….

Then there was this…..

My sweet friend and fellow stamper SJ (aka Sarah Jane Kalé) sent me this stunning work of cardmanship (!!) and the beautiful design of the card was overshadowed only slightly by the gorgeous words on the inside.

To think that I only know these wonderful chicks because of my involvement in Stampin’ Up! is one of the main reasons that I love what I do so very much.

Thank you sweet friends for being so thoughtful in thinking of me and making my day

Ok, so we’re still walking in that park, but this time I have company!

Janny is my gorgeous sister-in-law and one of my favourite people in the world.  She’s the sister I never had and I couldn’t have scored a better sister-in-law even if I had gone out and hand-picked Tim’s brother’s wife myself

Janny is the one who introduced me to the wonders of scrapbooking a good many years ago when we thought all that it involved was a triangle and a strip of patterned paper and some photo’s.

And we were mesmerised then!

Janny is also one heck of an amazing stamper and earlier in the year (after no less than three years of nudging and prodding on my behalf) she joined my team of Stampin’ Up! demonstrators.

Of course she is wonderful at it, loves it to bits and wonders why it took her so long.

Janny, sweetie-pie, we all do….!

Here’s an example of the gorgeous stuff she makes – a gift she gave me earlier in the year to thank me for encouraging her to give demonstrating a go…

To the left is a bundle of yummy smelling soap from Lush that I still haven’t had the heart to unwrap, but it sits on my display shelf in my craft room here looking all pretty and still smelling delicious, so I figure it can stay wrapped!

The card features one of Janny’s specialties – exquisite cutting out…

She has the patience and scissor-dexterity of nobody else I know and it amazes me every time I see one of her cards or scrapbooking layouts featuring her awesome cutting.

Janny recently started a blog where she shares her beautiful stamping with the world.  You can visit her —>HERE<— and leave her some comment love

I still have a couple of things to share featuring Spring Mini stuff and I’m going to see if I can get them up here by the end of the day.

I make no promises, but I do have a clean house, no washing and a tidy craft room (thank Nanny!!), so you never know your luck…!

For those following the recent Christmas saga and debate of sorts going on around here, you may have spied a challenge thrown down to my handsome fella Tim by Karen in the comments section yesterday….

If you want to go back to the beginning of the story, start here, then read the four or so posts following that and you will soon be up to speed.

Well I mentioned the idea to Tim yesterday, to which he replied “I can do that”, then proceeded to spend the evening at the computer doing nothing of the sort.

I suspect that it was always part of his plan to go about his little challenge uninterrupted, and as it turns out, he waited until I was in bed, then set about cutting and sticking and punching and assembling and glittering until he came up with the following that was perched atop my craft desk this morning…

Here’s a different angle so you can fully appreciate the 3D-ness of his little tree…

You will notice that he went straight for the Glorious Green, if you don’t mind! There is also the added detail of some cotton wool ’snow’ and glittery star.

He walked into the room this morning, spied his little tree on the shelf where I was photographing it and announced “it feels so Christmassy in here!”

I feel as if I have been beaten at my own game!  Perhaps I should pay more attention in those karate practise sessions so that we can re-level this little playing field here…