Incredible Like You

Hello again, I hope you had a good weekend and a good start of the week. My intention was to blog this yesterday, but what do you know the day ran out with me so here I am a day later. Monday's are always so busy, do you find that? 

Today I am sharing a Birthday Card I made for my lovely friend Alison.

And I turned to the fabulous kit Incredible like You, to help me out. I love, love, love this kit but I needed my card to be a little more special so I choose to beef it up a little to create a larger size. (14.5cm x 14.cm)

The colours in this kit are so pretty, my base is Lovely Lipstick and a layer of Coastal Cabana was added to the edge. I stamped a bit of a background using the coordinating stamp set then I simply cut one of the card bases and adhered to my card base. 

Now, can we please talk a little about this beautiful laser cut top layer? it matches the watercoloured design perfectly. And because of the bold design there really wasn't much more this card needed in order to give it that WOW factor. A few gold splatters with the shimmer paint and a little bow made with the tulle polka dot ribbon was all that it needed.

I hope you enjoyed Ali's card as much as I enjoyed making it.

 Thank you for visiting me and don't forget everything I showcase can be found in my online store.

Much love Monica xx

Be Inspired Blog Hop- Love and Friendship

Hello there,

I bet you was wondering where I disappeared again??? I've taken few weeks off to focus on some health issues but I am back and everything is good again :)

Our Blog Hop theme, with the Be Inspired Team is Love and Friendship and I combined the two. A love card for a true friend,

I was inspired by a scrapbooking layout I noticed on my Insta scrolling and thought *I can turn that sweet idea into a card * !! And here it is, not a bit of stamping on it *shocked* and I've used more dies that I care to count, however I love having crds like these in my display arsenal that show customers various products so I am not sorry at all :)

I have used the Large Letters framelits combined with the new Be Mine Stitched set from the Spring Catalogue and they are divine, spot that cute scalloped stitched edge too - MUCHO LOVE.

Now, can we please take a moment to admire that cute designer paper? It's the Needlepoint Nook on page 39 of the Spring Summer Catalogue and its drool worthy, I m quite smitten and I loved that I got to use most of the patterns of one card.

Check those close-up details, it has texture, thanks to the Subtle embossing folder and dimension thanks to me fussy cutting those sweet little flowers and mounting them onto dimensional pads for a bit extra oomph.

Thank you so much for joining me today and I hope to see you more regularly now that I am back in business. Big hugs don't forget to hop over to the lovely Maike and check out her beautiful project.

Big hugs Monica xx

Janneke de Jong:

Jenny Hall:

Monica Gale: You are here

Maike Beimler:

Cathy Caines:

Carolynn Sander:

Happy New Year - Happy New SALE

Hello and a Very Happy New Year to you ..

It is so exciting to be back at work with a BANG! I start officially on the 7th of January, but I wanted to shout it from the roof tops that starting today, our Biggest Sale of the Year is Live.

And its BIG- your get a FREE gift for every £45 you spend, You can see all of the delights on offer, by clicking on the image below,

Lots of lovely items to choose from, but if you are  thinking of spending anything this Sale a Bration time, I strongly advise that you join me and become a demonstartor . It is by far, the best time to join as the deal is so amazing, you get much more value than at any other time.

Why not, make 2019 the year you will never pay full price for your stamping supplies. I joined in January myself, almost 11 years ago, and honestly I haven't regretted it once. I am here to have a chat if you would like to hear more or have any questions, but the last thing you should feel about the prospect, is scared. So many fear  the word *demonstartor*, the reality is that it can be as simple as joining and enjoying the discount for yourself or running it as the business you want. Literally not more complicated than that.. honest. And even if you find that the busienss side it's not for you, the option to enjoy the discount for yourself is still there. Nothing to lose in my eyes but such a lot to gain, the friendships and fellowship is what would help enrich your life for the better, is what I value most about my journey with Stampin'Up! and I would love for you to experience it for yourself.

There are two options as you can see below (the tote bag is totally divine !!)

Why don't you send me a quick email to have a no pressure chat if you would like to learn more? I would love to help you and welcome you to our fab, friendly team.

And there is more, not only we are kicking off this fab sale campaign today we also have a brand new Spring Catalogue Launch full with delightful new product. I cannot wait to show you some of the new stuff starting next week here on the blog and on my business page.

 CHECK THEM ALL HERE

Have fun browsing and shopping and please remember, if I can be of any help placing an order for you or anything else, just contact me on 01405 862902 or email me.

Much love 

Monica xx

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2018 HOME TOUR

Hello there :),

By the time this post goes live hopefully you will have enjoyed a wonderful dinner, and you are still busy celebrating a wonderful Christmas Day.

 I started this blog post wanting to share my home tour with you all a few weeks ago. I kept adding photos as I grabbed a few minutes here and there, but then I totally ran out of time leading up to the festivities to finish it off and publish it.

So I decided that I would schedule it instead for the evening of Christmas Day in the hope that you might enjoy reading it as you sit down after a full day of celebrating with your nearest and dearest.

So Welcome to our Home this Christmas, grab a drink its picture heavy

The front door got a traditional look again this year, if you are a regular reader you know that we had the porch and front door remodelled last year (you can see our last year tour here ). Unfortunately the beautiful lanterns couldn't be fitted before Christmas ( the builder literally left On Christmas eve) so I jumped at the chance of adding a festive eucalyptus wreath to them this year.

And instead of a wreath for the door, I opted for a fresh pine and holly berry filled pair of ice-skates. It's been a few years since they've made an appearance but I love how they pop on the dark door.

Please, common in :)

As you enter, you catch a glimpse of our hallways tree ahead and to the right is a small cabinet in our porch section which got a little festive attention.

I usually have a red theme in our reception hall but I changed the rug in here this year so I decided to go neutral. 

The small tree is decorated in white and silver mercury glass ornaments. The cute antlers are from Hobbycraft , the stars I made myself out of dry porcelain, burlap ribbon from my SU stash and the tiny snowflakes are 22 years old, I bought them when I first came to the UK. 

And a view of the other side,  faux succulents I bought on my recent trip to US fit in quite happily. I love it when the everyday vignettes I have can be transformed with ease, so I do not have to find home for all these extra things when I decorate for Christmas.  The bird house was a gift from a dear friend years ago, I love using it every year with a few bird ornaments .

And of course. lights !! Little white lights which add a wonderful glow at night time ..

The tree in here was decorated in whites, silver and brown this year. 

This tree is soo glitzy and sparkly in real life. I took a little video of it and posted it on my Facebook Page here if you want to see it, I just love staring at it...

 These two  reindeers along with the lights on this tree are the only things I bought new this year. I usually add a few ornaments decorations to my collection each year, some years I make a load it all depends. And I always buy the bulk of my decorations in the sales after Christmas. 

 The console table got in on the action as well. This is a big, heavy wood piece so a natural decor fits it best.  All the woodland creatures were displayed on top of it amongst some pussy willow branches, and those Ikea trees, which  I've had quite a long time now.  A few sprigs of fresh eucalyptus on the lamps and fairy lights of course , the essential items for a bit of magic.

My Fox is KING this year Hee heee :)

Look who's here??? how cute is my darling Olly Pooh Bear ?? *heart eyes*  Olly is a 4 year old cockapoo and my shadow.. Where I go he goes.

Here's another view of the tree,  as you exit the sitting room so let's head there next :

The tree in this room is HUGE, seriously big but if fits into this corner really well and doesn't make our room feel in any way crowded. We had it five or six years now and so far I have no desire to replace it. Flocked trees are magic, I just love them.  I went for sparkly white, gold and copper this year in here.

The coffee table got a simply makeover and let me tell you this was the picture that I only added this morning after breakfast.

Again I kept as much of my regular items I have on this table as I could, and only added a few festive touches. Some fresh pine from our daily walks and a few sparkly stars. The bowl with bauble houses all of our regular junk ( I keep Olly's comb and brush there, my manicure set, odds and ends we need. I like that I have it all on hand but the baubles hide everything away.

 At the other side of the tree is our drink cabinet, well it started life as a TV cabinet when we first set up house together and when TV's were of a reasonable size, now it houses our drinks and my printer ( haha the reality of it all )

I added simply little green wreaths to my collection of white pots and carried it through to the mantlepiece.

The little white houses are from Hobbycraft and provide the perfect backdrop for my Italian Nativity set. Oh and check out my Aloe Vera plant !!! Doesn't she looks wonderfully Christmassy??

I love that you can catch a glimpse of the hallway tree in the mirror ( and the hoover behind the door, but I'm not looking at that), and if you look really closely there's that pup again snoozing on the other sofa  LOL

The dining room got its Christmas dressing as well. The big sideboard was kept simple as it usually doubles up as a bar or holding bay for
dishes and stuff while we entertain.

This next shot clearly indicates what I mean, here it is piled with presents we received on Christmas Eve.

For the table I placed my collection of Mercury glass single stem bottles and filled with fresh pine and some sparkly branches. They were corralled on a big tray draped with a garland of twinkly lights so that they can be easily moved to set the table. I add thin tapered candles to them for dinners 

And talking about setting the table, this is ours this year. I set it on Christmas Eve late at night after a little soiree, we tend to host our neighbours every Christmas Eve if we can, and it was a truly wonderful evening.

There is no secret that I love miss-matching my decor and I also love to do so with my table setting too. I purchased some vintage Royal Doulton white and blue china this year with a bonus I earned through my business and I loved using them for Christmas for the first time. 

And here's a picture I snapped in the candlelight. Yes a little tree resides here as well :)

 Phew, we made it till the end !!! that is all I have for today, sadly 2018 wasn't the year we got to start work on our extension and the kitchen is in no state to be showed off, but here's hoping 2019 will be the year that will make that happen.
 <3 nbsp="" p="">
Happy Christmas my dear reader it was wonderful to have you here today. Thank you for visiting

Much love Monica and Olly :) 

Be Inspired by Vellum Blog Hop

Hello there lovely reader of mine :)

I hope this finds you well and your week is going great. Its time for me to hop with my talented friends from the Be Inspired Team and tis time its Vellum we are playing with.

Now please don't judge me, while my project definitely uses vellum its not the star of the show but my goodness its cute :

I designed this for my Fall Retreat at the Manor House in October and I loved the cute little sleigh ornaments I made simply out of lolly sticks stained with our gorgeous inks. 

 Alpine Adventure Bundle is such a fabulous duo I think most people overlooked it in the catalogue.  The Vellum was embossed with our new Subtle Dynamic Folder and it really turned that smooth Vellum into something special. If you have them in your stamp room please go and give it a go now to see just how fab it is, if you haven't please go and buy some here :)

Two of these ornaments fitted perfectly into an acetate box, making them a perfect gift for someone this Festive Season. I will have a list of all the products used at the end of this post if you are interest in all the little details. 

I hope you enjoyed my project today now please go and see what the rest of my fab friends have in store for you. You can hop over to Maike whom will be part of the 2019 Artisan Designers Team.. Congratulations sweet Maike !!!

Thank you for joining me, don't forget to use this month's hostess code if you shop in my store. 

Janneke de Jong

Jenny Hall

Monica Gale: You are here !!! So nice to have you :)

Maike Beimler

Cathy Caines

Carolynn Sander

Product List

£38.50	£26.00	£6.50	£4.75	£5.50
£7.50	£6.50

Making Christmas Bright Blog Hop

Hello there,

YAY its time for another hop with the Stamp To Share Team and we are focusing our attention on the Making Christmas Bright bundle from Stampin'Up! 

This set was probably quite overlooked in the catalogue but I have to say its one that's so much fun to create with and a really good stand by to have as it works so well with other Christmas related images and not just Christmas.

I designed this project for  team training in October and made a couple of versions. I am always late with my cards usually at Christmas and I am even worse with tags so this year I am a little ahead.

The tags were simply cut from Crumb Cake card, shaped with the scallop tag punch and a little background stamping was added for a bit of interest. 

Next came the bright bulbs, they were stamped and punched out with the matching punch  sleazy and fast. The colours used we Real Red, Mango Melody and Pool Party . A little sentiment and a few punched branches from the Sprig Punch  quickly brought this project together. 

I hope you liked my easy tags today using the Making Christmas Bright bundle, and I hope you will hop on to check out the next set of goodies created by the fabulous Paula Dobson 

Amy Koenders - USA

Moira McIlroy - France

Monica Gale - UK ( you are here)

Paula Dobson - New Zealand

Rochelle Blok - Australia

Sandi MacIver - Canada

Snowflake Showcase Release

Hello there,
WOW !! Have I got something special to share with you today.

It's a new Product Release with a limited availability, this means you have to have it quick well by the end of this month quick as they will only be available for the month of November. Truly gorgeous stuff. My favourite is by far the Snowflake Showcase.

Truly beautiful set with matching framelits and ripe for tons of creative projects this year. You can find all of the limited edition products in this release HERE in my online store. 

To check them out a bit better watch this video from the Home Office. I have been busy making some projects with it and cannot wait to show them to you in the coming days. <3 nbsp="" p="">

If you need any help please contact me on the details highlighted on the below flyer and don't forget to use this month's hostess code ( find it in the sidebar top right )

See you soon
Much love
Monica