First Few pages

I know I've been a bad blogger and I haven't updated you with my Christmas journal pages so I thought I better put that right and show you some pages! I just seem to be so busy lately trying to get things done before Christmas and having Christmas card orders. Anyway I have been trying to keep my journal up to date and I haven't done too bad so far, I have got a busy week this week though! Here are pages 0-4 as I didn't want to overload you all at once! First page I like to do and introduction page.

Day 1: Advent this is my Advent calendar for this year, every year my mum gets my some small choccies as my advent calendar so I decorate the box and number the chocolates!!! 

I just noticed that a small star is on the photo in this photo, don't know how that got there!

I'm only using the front of the page this year and left the backs of the previous pages blank.

 Day 2: Had to be about the weather the icy weather we have had and we had a fresh bit of snow that morning.

 Day 3: Poinsettias, every year we have to get my Nan one as she loves them but we don't really like them that much!! 

 Day 4: was our annual mince pie make we made about 50 to put in the freezer ready for the festive season! This year we brought a new Christmas tree shape cutter for the tops as well as the normal star we use!

 This page was on one of my transparencies.

 I'm loving my little tags for the number of each page, they look great. I'm using all different Thicker numbers, the ones that you get in a pack and rarely use!

That all the pages for now but I will back with more soon! I hope you like how my journals looking, I'm quite pleased with it but there are always some pages you don't like as much as the rest!

This weeks challenge at The Studio was to make a Christmas thank you card, here's the one I made using the lovely October Afternoon!

 Better go and get on with some of these jobs I've got to do!

Hope you had a good weekend.

Thanks for looking as always! xx

Start of my Christmas Journal 2010!

 I'm back with as promised the start of my Christmas journal! I'll show you the prep and foundation pages I did for it today, I haven't finished the covers for it yet and I haven't photographed the first few pages yet but I will do soon! I still need to catch up a bit with it too!
These are the journaling cards I made for my Christmas journal, I just used scraps of Christmas papers I had left over from last years journal and some white card.

Here are the fountain pages of my journal, I have done it in 6x8'', all the pages are different with different shapes, sizes and some are plain card stock, some are patterned paper...

...and some are transparencies that I made them myself with a bit of acetate, stamps and ink! I'm quite pleased with how them turned out!

Each page has a small tag on the bottom half of the page, this is where the numbers will go, they are in a different position from the last and next page so you should be able to see the edge of the ones that are to come. I haven't added the number yet as I wanted to be able to move some of the pages if I wanted to, to make it fit better with my photo etc.

I also added, along with other items, these handmade embellishments to my shop, they are great to use in your Christmas journals, I'll definitely be using them in mine!

So that's all of my journal prep so far, the finished pages will follow!

The challenge for this Sunday at The Studio was to make a layout without a title, not something I usually do but it is good when you can't think of a title for a photo like I could with this one!

The photo is of my brother and sister-in-law just before they had my nephew, I king of used the heart for my title and made a bit more of my journaling to fill the space the title should of filled! Not a very good photo of it, it's hard to take photos of layout when there's snow on the ground isn't it?! The snow is mostly gone here now though which is a same, it's just left a lot of ice! Here's a close up!

At The Studio for the month of December, as well as the normal challenges some of the DT and some guest designers are doing 'Quick and Easy Christmas Projects' so make sure you check them out as theres and great ideas. There will be one from me a bit closer to Christmas too!

Hope you've all enjoyed your weekend. Catch you later! 

Thanks for looking! xx 

Zebra Print

I didn't do that must scrapping last week and the scrapping I did do was DT stuff so can't show you just yet! I was trying to get some jobs done and get some new things sorted for my shop but more on that later!

I had a very busy weekend as my sister, Claire and brother-in-law, Andy were down for the weekend to celebrate my sister's 30th Birthday, which was a couple of weeks ago now but she was away so this was the first time we had to celebrate it as a family. I had been thinking for a while what cake to make her and in the end I went with Zebra print icing!! She has just come back from safari in Africa and saw loads of animals so I thought it might go down well!

I also made this little elephant out of icing to go on the top.

Claire loved it! We had a lovely family meal and a slice of cake and some bubbly for afters!

This is the card I made for her, just some random Thickers, (great way to use odd letters up!) and some punched stars but she loved this too!

We had a lovely weekend. We got a light covering of snow of Friday evening and it is still about now I keep wishing for more! We did get a few flutters today but not that much, need more I love snow it makes everything look so pretty.

The challenge for The Studio this week was  'It's our Sunday sketch challenge this week! I've created a sketch for you, and the challenge along with it is to use a monochromatic colour scheme'.

We had a lovely sketch to use but I did find the monochromatic bit quite difficult as I like using lots of different colours in my layouts but i did my best with a lot of blue!

I'm added some new embellishment to my shop tomorrow, not in a kit form but something a bit different so make sure to check them out tomorrow, I would love to see you in the shop!

I can't believe it's December tomorrow already, I'm not as ready for it as I hoped! I haven't done too bad through as my journals ready and waiting to be filled. I will be back with a post about that soon and maybe a couple of pages from it too!

Hope your enjoying the snow where you are, keep warm! xx

Precocious Paper

Friday was my second Designer Friday for Precocious Paper. Amanda and I had 2 projects each up on Tessa's blog. I made these two layouts for it using Tessa gorgeous flowers. The first one is a photo from when we went to the arboretum for our family picnic last month. It's a gorgeous old tree and the sunlight was shining through it and making it glow.

 I used lots of mist on this one and one of Tessa lovely sewing pattern flowers, these flowers are go useful they go with anything and look great at the same time!

 This second one is of my cupcakes when I was trying out two tone pink icing. i used one of Tessa's Cupcake Poppies on here as it went so well with the theme!!

 It's also Sunday again today so another challenge went up on The Studio blog. this weeks challenge was 'Have you started (or finished) your Christmas shopping? This week your challenge is to scrapbook about shopping! Maybe you'll scrap your shopping list, pictures of your favourite purchases or journal about how much you detest heading to the supermarket.' So I decided to go with Christmas shopping as we went this week not that we got anything but I love seeing all the Christmas windows and all the decorations and gifts and the Christmas lights too! I especially love going Christmas shopping in Bath so it's such a pretty city and all the decorations make it even more pretty and it makes you feel full of Christmas cheer, can you tell I love Christmas!!! I think they must of thought I was a bit strange taking a photo of their shop window but it had to be done, the things we do for scrapping eh?!  Go and check out what the other great DT members did.

 And it just so happens that this layout features another sew pattern flower!! I've been enjoying doing a bit of Christmas scrapping, I used lots of detail on this one.

You must go and check out all the new Christmas items Tessa's just added to her shop too, they are all gorgeous!

I've spent time this weekend putting my Christmas journal together, I'm just using bits and pieces of Christmas paper that I had left from other Christmas journals, cards and scrapping! It's a mix of different size pages too, I'm pleased with how it's turning out though! Need to get some scrapping done this week as I've got challenges etc, needing to be done and I want to leave time for my journal in December!

Hope you've enjoyed your weekend whatever you got up too!

Thanks for looking xx

Christmas Come Early

I thought I would share with you a couple of layouts I made with my Christmas kit from my shop it's called 'Traditional Cheer' Here's the kit:

It's full of Christmas embellishments in traditional red, green and gold. I used lots from the kit for this first one. I used the sequin waste to mist over, it's good as a mask as the mist just wipes off it! I ruffled the red crepe paper and used a piece of the gold crepe paper for the back of it.

I painted the chipboard gingerbread man in red and when gave him some detail in white paint. I used the festive cord, put a bow in it and threaded 2 of the pins through it. I also used my handmade flower embellishment, 2 felt stars a felt snowflake and one of the festive words!

The next one is of my dog Jack, he loves Christmas for the wrapping paper, he waits until you open a present and then takes the paper and rips it up!

I used the red happy Christmas ribbon, the felt snowflakes and another one of my handmade embellishments.

I had fun ripping up Christmas papers and using white paint!

There is even another Christmas kit due in the shop tomorrow!

Back with more soon xx

Lucky

It's Sunday again so time for another challenge to inspire you over at The Studio! This weeks challenge is we want you to think about how lucky you are! Do you consider yourself 'lucky'? What is your idea of luck? Create a project about YOU and what being lucky means in your eyes.

Here's the layout I created for it:

I don't know if I lucky or not but I'm blessed with lots of good things in my life and that's lucky enough for me! I had fun  with this one, I splattered  the card stock with some pink paint and then layered up! I didn't mind where anything went I just stuck it on I folded most of my paper strips and then embellished it with some lace and trim, buttons, bling and a few cross stitches.

And it just so happens it's my big sister's 30th Birthday today, she's currently on holiday in Africa so I must say a big Happy Birthday Claire, I'm lucky to have a sister like you!  Looking forward to the celebrations in a couple of weeks time, what cake am I going to make?!

 The next one was the first one I did after not doing anything last week so it felt good to do it, I didn't know if I could still scrap after a week off!!! My nephew Rowan being a pop star, he loves singing, maybe he gets it from his auntie!!

 I love these bright colours on black. Look at those sparkly stars!!

 The third one I need to show you was my layout for winning the sketch on Sarah's Cards, I got to join in with the DT this month by creating a example of the next sketch. I used my favourite manufacturers again October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket!
I received my parcel of my free goodies from them this week so I'm lucky to have some lovely new papers to play with, I will take a photo and show you when the weather improves!

Aren't I lucky to have a very photogenic nephew that I get to look after and spend time with every week?!

So I'm very lucky at the moment!!

I have more layouts to share that I can't show you quite yet so I'm be back again soon.

Thanks for popping in and leaving your lovely comments! xx

Bang

Yesterday's challenge at The Studio was to make a layout about friendship but it had a twist you can not use any patterned paper! Here's the layout I made for it:

I had to scrap these lovely photos of my nephew, Rowan and his best friend, they are adorable with each other, Rowan loves to give his friend, Alexa kisses!! I used some paint and patterned material instead! I cut the butterflies out of cardstock and drew a swirly pattern on them with a white pen, you can't see it that well here but it catches the light.

 Friday night we went to see some fireworks with Rowan, he was so excited! It was a real shame it rained the whole time we were there though. We were pleased when the fireworks finally started so we could go home after them! Rowan did manage to stay awake just long enough to see them, he didn't mind the bangs at all but he was fast asleep by the time we got back to the car!!

 The firework were great though, got some great photos!

I didn't really do much last week I just had one of those weeks where I didn't feel like doing anything so hopefully this week will be better as I need to get creating again!

While I'm here I must say a very Happy Birthday to my lovely friend Beki, hope you having a great day Beks!

Hopefully I'll be back soon with what I create! Thanks for looking! xx