Cancer Support Event Ideas

Hello my wackys how have you lot been?!

Here at the Lilis handmade Crafts household we've been busier than ever, Christmas orders are already coming through, and having only weekends to craft is definitely a bit tight, but we'll manage ;); anyway that's not the reason for this post is it?! Nope definitely not...

 So here it goes, on the coming 26th of October there is currently a campaign here in the UK called Cancer Support Wear it pink, many of us have been affected by this illness or know someone who may or may not be with us that has been affected by it, My hunt for example died with it she had a bowel cancer and unfortunately it spread to fast and she is no longer among us in presence but still in our hearts and minds.

 SO?! You might be asking, right... I would like to propose to everyone and I mean everyone, to make a small gesture to help in funding the researchers to find a way to cure this (I mean a more efficient way), and in order to help with the funding why not make a coffee morning at your work place, or  a Tea party for example.... at the place where I work everyone is going to wear pink and have pink ribbons and I'm thinking about making a cake ( with a pink ribbon topper obviously) and some sweets gift bags or boxes with the ribbon design as well, every penny earned by it will be directly sent to the fund.

Here's some images taken from the Internet to give you some ideas if you're interested, or would actually like to do something that could help so many people that are currently affected by this reality in their lives...

 

 

 

See you soon my lovelies, hope you have a wonderful weekend.

 

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Its been too long...

Hello everyone,

 My God it has definitely been ages since the last time I posted, not for option I might say, but you know how it goes, we all are busy bees in our busy life's... plus I've been on Holidays back home (Portugal) it was a lovely lovely time  bearing in mind that I drove there, yes yes I k now you might be asking yourself, DRIVE/ CAR/ ACROSS THE ATLANTIC and Yes will I reply again....

 I must say it was the most 2 and 1/2 painful days of my life 30h drive yeah you heard me alright 30h on a Dam car sorry for cursing there but by the end of the trip I couldn't even look at the car (sigh)... Geeee ... On the way we stopped several times to eat and freshen up a little bit my oldest princess manged to fall asleep 3 times and wake up and we were still in France .... I was going mental about it so tirening, but it was definitely worth it to see my Nana and my mommy again, plus friends and the rest of the family obviously.

 The weather over there was and still is great, 35 degrees yeahp 35 degrees of pure heat hardly any breeze at all, perfect for the beach, bbq, and going to the pool Yeahp Sure did miss that, I hadn't been there in ages.... MY girls absolutely loved it....

 And because I'm so proud of my little and unfortunately in crises here's some pics of Portugal.

 

Sao Jorge Castel

 

Bairro Alto, Lisbon

 

The Tower of Belem Lisbon

 

Expo 98, Lisbon

 

Sintra Castel

 

Hope that you liked the Photos we are a small country but we are full of happy and friendly people.

Thanks for looking and see you soon with loads of alloween ideas :)

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Food Colouring Nightmare

Hello my wackys how have you been?!! Busy?

 I bet You've been pretty busy, if not with your crafts and you live in the uk Perhaps catching the sun?!! Hummm, yeahp it doesn't come around this areas all that much so when it does you might as well enjoy it, there's no such thing has a summer in the UK I must say, which is a shame really its great to take the kids outside when its warm , blow up a little pool for them to play or simply go for walks on the beach ...

Anyway my food colouring nightmare happened 2 nights ago, when I had an order of 2 cake toppers, yeahp my printer when crazy, not quite sure of whats wrong has it isn't quite working yet, and its actually driving me mad... I suppose I'll have to spend a couple of hours searching the web to see how to fix it.... well that night though I did almost anything I could think off, I cleaned the nozzles I aligned the whole thing, I topped up the cartridges with the food colouring ink and got it all over my hands .... DISASTER.... That's what I thought, how on earth am I going to remove it from my skin?!!!

 I tried rubbing it with washing up liquid it faded lightly but I was still a mess :); my fault really next time I have to remember to use some silicone gloves or something, and then a light flashed on my head,You know What?!! There's a little thing called Internet and there it was "How To Remove Food Colouring From Skin" YEIHHHHH, I was saved ( what a relief has I had places to be on Saturday, I couldn't possibly show up with my hands looking like an abstract painting could I ?! NOP)

So I decided to share the method with all of you even though this is not the only place where you can see it or read about it ;

- first wet your hands and then got get your partners (if you have one) shaving cream or foam, yeahp you heard me shaving foam , I had the same reaction I bet you're having lol ;
- put a walnut sized amount on your hand and rub it like crazy all over your hands for about 3 minutes
- wash it out, and do it all over again
-after that, if there's still some remain of the colouring soak a cotton ball, pad or whatever in vinegar and pass it in the coloured areas it will lift up its remains and voila you'll be safe from being considered a living walking  Picasso painting ....

Hope this helps and see you lot very soon ***

Yeihhhh a Sizzix Eclips machine.... hummmm?!?!!

Hello my wackys how have you lot been?!

Same old same old eih... Yeah I know just how you feel, it is the end of a Sunday here in the UK, in a couple of hours it will be Monday, Yeihhh ( just joking really), another days work...

 Anyway the reason Of this post is to talk about the sizzix eclips machine, I heard so many praises for this little "OK" NOT so little machine, I had so  many high hopes for it I search and read review after review... I must say I am a little bit disappointed, my hubby bought it to me after months of PLease please can we buy this I could make this or that or even this I thought... How stupid could I be, Pathetic, OK so here's the thing I have a manual die cutting machine " the Big Shot" completely love it amazing little thing pros can cut almost anything you could imagine cons small width and the dies are quite costly plus you'll need a good deal of storage for them.... Has I said I love it, so I must admit I reallly reallllllllyyyyy had High expectations for the eclips I mean its electronic cuts 12''x12'' and 12''x24'' IDEAL  I thought; even better the cartridges bring more than one design, are small so don't actually ocupy much space PLUS it has a software where I can actually do whatever designs I wish plug the machine to the computer and voila (ok this one is actually a good one)..... hummmm after getting it and putting it all together, the first blade I used in the machine was crap it was lifting the card and not making clean cuts has it was actually supposed too ( good thing it comes with 2); ok I changed the blade and it now makes clean cuts HURRAY!!I tried the backing board I usually use in my big shot to make my mini albums and I realise I couldn't actually cut the grey backing board, has it was too thick ( a bit like me probably), SO... I discovered the hard way I must say that this little gem is only actually good to cut stuff up to 300 micrograms or gms has you like it, if you use any thicker than this be prepared to make double cut or jamming your sweet machine....

Now onto the cartridges and the handheld remote I'm a complete beginner so I purchased another cartridge the bags boxes and albums one because that's what I wanted the machine for to be honest... it goes in ok a little tricky to remove by hand But if you have the accessory pouch its pretty easy just use the blue bit of the spatula and it will come right of- they have a variety of cartridges with super cool designs and great phrases OK but how the hell can I cut the Box templates instead of the sample that shows on screen ?!!! Humm shall I press this button or that button geeee!!! I discovered I needed to press the FILL button on the remote to cut the box template but that's not what they tell you in the videos is it?! NOP they say just press the ok button to select the image and the press cut ( the scissors image) BOLUX... do you know what happened it just cut the image of the box, not the template to actually make the Dam box  - yes yes I know the instruction manual might say it you say hahaha no it doesn't I know I'm not british but it just says it will cut a bunch of shapes " FILL: takes the selected shape and automatically fills the material with has many as possible. this function can also be used to cut multiple shapes from the queue" WHAT?!!! HUM leaves you wondering doesn't it?! well it sure did me....

Software , well cant really complain much although could be a little bit more user friendly, has I said I'm a complete beginner, and forgive me if I might need to spend much more time on it, but being a mum of 2 , working, cooking & cleaning doesn't leave me much time.

SOOOO, overall if you would like to know if I could go back in time would I buy it?!! Probably not is the answer... Maybe it will become a yes in future when I learn all the tricks to it but for a beginner, I wouldn't recommend, the truth is that it can make beautiful stuff yes I agree but mainly out of card stock or thinner, if you want something thicker you'll need to cut the same shape at least 3 or more times and glue it together ( like to make covers for example)

Sizzix Eclips machine I Give you a 3 out of 5, way to expensive for the materials range that it cuts.

Hope this helps someone out there, that is actually thinking in buying this....

See you lot soon ****

One Chaotic Morning....

Hello my wackys,

I must say today was one really stressful morning, completely my fault and lack of organisation really.... So let me explain, my little girl had a birthday party (2in1 actually) at 12pm (noon) I had all week after work to either buy a present for the b-day girls or make something; but after 10h shifts and cooking dinner baths and putting the girls in bed I felt drained and couldn't really bring myself up to doing nothing at all... RESULT it was Saturday 9am and I still didn't have gifts for the girls it was a costume ( princess) party by the way so on Friday I had to spend a little ££££ to buy 2 princess outfits needless to say I was out of cash for any presents....

 As  I was sayin' it was Saturday 9 am and I decided to make the girls 2 personalised pillows with their favourite characters witch were Hello Kitty, and Mini Mouse, so here I was all ready to start my project; transfer paper in the printer pillow design all done when I noticed my printer ink cartridges actually didn't have any ink at all, SO in a hurry I dressed myself my girls and went to the market shop that refills cartridges, I asked if they were able to refill kodak ones, but guess what  A BIG FAT NO was the answer, so I tried another office supplies store and HUrray finally I had the cartridges, but not without the tantrums from my beautiful and incredibly annoying at times like this children- geeeee.... ok so when I actually got back it was 10.30 am yeahp I was seriously late already....

 Printing done aside I had to cut the pillow shapes Iron it cut the images for both pillows press them and remove backing.... Forget 10.30 it was 30 past eleven by then; The party was suppose to start at 12pm... GOD!!!

Next stage get the girls into the princess dresses, sort out their curly mad hair, putting up with winning, sobbing and God knows what, Sewing up the pillows turning them on the right sides iron them again, fill them up die cut a heart to cover the hole ( used for turning and filling) and VOILA!!!

Now I needed to find proper bags to put them in to give them has gifts, result couldn' find any , had to improvise and use my A4 Cellophane bags....Yes you guessed it I WAS LATE unfortunately...

It was 13pm When we got there the kids were already having their snacks but thankfully hadn't sang happy Birthday and there was still plenty of games for the kids and a BOUNCY CASTLE Yeihhhhhh you may say ( oh noooo!!! I thought, guess what I was so right) My 2 year old wouldn't listen to me or wouldn't even care to be honest it was the longest 1 HOUR of my life .... BUT  hey they loved it they had so much fun running playing bouncing.... I was in such a hurry that I even forgot to take pics of the pillows to post here, BUT I will ask Ker and post it after.... Lets just hope that all my stress was worth it Hopefully they enjoyed their little gift , my  girls surely enjoyed the play time, the good thing is that this doesn't actually happens every day ....

And that's all from me today, for now an incredibly messy and chaotic house awaits me and calls for my services.... see you soon my lovelies 

Pamper Yourself at Home

Hello my sweet wackys,

I know I know its just been too long right....
 Today I'll bring you a couple of tips for you to treat and pamper yourself, cause its never really to much is it?!, in this stressful world nowadays it looks like we don't even have time to breath, we're always in a hurry running around doing this, that and all the rest... It's School Runs, going to work , cooking , cleaning picking them up, kids at each others throats... yeahhh I feel you.... By the time you put that pretty little head on your pillow its just has if there's an off button...

Well then this post is to help all of us that need a little time to ourselves, if you have a partner and kids why not telling them to go to the movies ( fatherly bonding is very important in any child's life), if not leave them with a friend or grandparents, or wait for them to have a little nap so that you can wind down and treat yourself.

FACIAL Care:  

Oily or Acne-Prone Skin:

Egg White Facial
Egg whites tighten the pores and contain proteins that both repair skin and absorb excess oil, making them a powerful tool for dealing with acne. Separate the egg white from the yolk (save the yolk for cooking!). Whisk together the egg white with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice for one minute. The mixture will be messy, so apply it to your clean, dry face over a sink. Keep the mask on for 10 to 15 minutes — start whipping up your favourite dessert with that egg yolk while you wait! Once the mask starts cracking, wash away with warm water.

Green Clay Facial
A green clay facial will attack unwelcome breakouts by extracting impurities from your skin. In a glass bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of green clay powder (available at health stores or online) with water to make a thick paste. Add a few drops of an essential oil of your choice — we like rosemary for relaxing. Apply the paste evenly to clean, dry skin. It should take about 15 minutes for the paste to harden, so while you wait, relax with some music or your favourite book. Once the mask is hard, wash it off with warm water and pat dry.

Avocado Facial Mask
The fatty oils in avocado are great for moisturising dry skin. Mash up half an avocado until creamy. Add 1 tablespoon of honey, a cleaning agent, to the mix. If your skin is irritated, add a bit of plain yogurt for a soothing effect. If your skin is cryin’ for extra moisture, add 1/4 cup of pure virgin olive oil. Once all ingredients are well combined, apply the mixture onto your clean face and neck. Leave on for 15 to 20 minutes. For added relaxation, add a few drops of your favourite essential oil to the mixture before applying.

Dull Skin 

Papaya Mask:

The enzymes in papaya make it a natural exfoliant that fights free radicals, so say goodbye to dullness with this facial ! Peel and remove the seeds of one papaya, then chop it into small pieces. Add 1/4 cup of honey for a natural cleanser. Using a blender or food processor, mix the ingredients until a paste is formed. Apply the paste to clean, dry skin, avoiding the eye area. Leave on for 10 to 15 minutes then splash off with warm water. Wash thoroughly, or the papaya juice could make your face look orange!

A lemon juice mask:

A lemon juice and sea salt facial not only smells delicious, but it’s simple to make and great for rejuvenating skin! combine 1/4 cup of sea salt with lemon juice. It’s up to you whether you want the mixture to be thick or runny, so add lemon juice accordingly. Apply the paste to your clean, dry face, avoiding sensitive areas. Close your eyes and relax for a few minutes while you let the lemon juice slough off dead skin cells, then wash with warm water.

Oatmeal facial ( its not just for eating) :

The uneven edges of oatmeal make it a gentle exfoliant, ideal for sloughing off dead cells to reveal the bright skin underneath. Combine 2 tablespoons of uncooked and unflavoured oatmeal with 1 cup of whole milk in a small pot, heating them until a thick mixture forms. The lactic acid in milk will also remove dead skin cells. Remove from heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil for moisture. Wait until the mixture is warm but not hot then apply to your clean, dry face. Wash off the mask with warm water after 20 to 30 minutes.

BODY Scrubs

Sugar Body Scrub:
1 cup raw brown sugar (this is the chunky kind)

1 cup avocado oil

teaspoon of aloe vera gel

combine all ingredients in a bowl. The oils and other ingredients will dissolve into the sugar.

take a scoop and massage the sugar mixture onto your skin. Leave on and massage for a few minutes.

Rinse and enjoy your soft skin

Sea Salt Body Scrub:
1 cup Epsom salt
1 cup course sea salt
1/2 cup jojoba oil

Gather all your ingredients and measure out the potions you will need.

Incorporate the salts together using a spoon or your hands.

Pour in the jojoba oil along with the drops of essential oil. Smell the scrub as you add the essential oil to determine the desired potency of fragrance.

Mix all ingredients thoroughly with a spoon to ensure that the essential oil is well distributed throughout the mixture. Spoon the finished product into your airtight containers.

Add more oil if the mixture appears to be too dry. Too wet? Then add equal parts of the salts.

Store the scrub in an air-tight container to retain moisture.

Apply the scrub in the hot shower and allow the scrub to rest on your skin for a few minutes before rinsing. Moisturise with a soothing lotion after the shower.

Strawberry Body Scrub:

5 large strawberries (fresh, not frozen)

1/2 tbsp. fresh ginger (finely grated)

1/4 cup olive oil (you may also use canola, grape seed or sweet almond oil as well)

Puree the strawberries to a thin liquid in a blender or food processor.

Combine fresh strawberry puree, ginger and canola oil in a bowl. Using a fork, mix thoroughly.

Add the salt and baking soda once the first three ingredients have been thoroughly combined Make sure that the liquid is completely combined with the solid. The salts need to be thoroughly saturated. Set aside and let sit for an hour.

Check your salt scrub mixture after an hour. There should be about 1/2 inch of oil on the surface, separated from the mixture. If you need to add more oil, do so now. Mix again and set aside.

Add the fragrance if the ingredients are fully combined. Mix gently with a fork.

Spoon the mixture into airtight containers and store in the refrigerator when you're not using it.

Apply the mixture to wet skin and exfoliate in a circular motion. Rinse with warm water and pat dry with a towel.

******* Also if you would like to hydrate your body after shower you can rub in some extra virgin olive oil while you're still wet and then pat dry*******

  Go on people enjoy your day, and most important enjoy yourself ;) 

Welcome baby

Hello my sweet wackys, how have you lot been?!! good I hope

This is just a quick post to show you a card that I've made for sweet Melanie wich was born last Wednesday. For it I used my new sizzix eclipse machine that my sweet hubby bought for me last week, I'm still getting usted to it and had a couple of pressure and speed hicups with it but hopefully with a bit more experimentation and trial and error I'll be able to be up and running in no time, fingers crossed.

Here's the picture of the embossed card I did for her

Materials used :

eclips machine
holiday cartridge
starter rockin cartridge
big shot machine
flowers embossing folder
card stock
pinking shears


Seee you soon ****