Request

A couple of weeks ago I did a guest post on Shimelle’s blog and I have since had some requests for the Hot Choc label.

I tweaked the design slightly so that it says “Divine” instead of ” Louise’s” making it a lot more useable !

Hope that this ticks all the boxes for you. Download it HERE

craving normality ?

I have to say I am, just a teeny weeny little bit.

I adore the lack of routine that the school holidays bring but the trade off is the “lack of alone time” especially at this time of year as everyone is off school and work over the festive season.

I am still diligently working on my DD album and have enjoyed this project enormously although next year I am definitely going to pre prep more of my pages and create more of a frame work to stick to, I left too many variables for me to effectively complete these pages on a daily basis.

I will be posting my final pages on here over the next month.

lots of creative things happening, including more of my card designs appearing in Papercraft Inspirations I am also going to be contributing some of my printable designs over on the UK Scrappers Forum

As I can’t post without a photo here is a layout I did a while ago but haven’t shared.

This is my current favourite layout because of the special memory it captures.

16, 17 and 18th DD entries

Apart from our second snowfall of the month we haven’t been up to much since Friday, the boys finished school and work for the holidays, a few chores got done, a little more shopping and a lot of lounging around watching films and avoiding going outside.

I completed another three entries for my DD album and I am feeling really quite happy with the results, on the whole, I had a bit of a creative lull on Friday and although I wanted to start it over as I wasn’t happy with Friday’s entry, I decided to “give myself a break” and left it alone !

I used my white Christmas poinsettia for the inspiration on this page.

Friday was the last day of term, the two library tickets have a comment on them written by each of the boys about what they enjoyed on that day.

This entry is all about the second snowfall and staying inside in the warm.

Guess where I am today ?

HERE – Shimelle’s Blog

I was honoured to be asked to do a guest post for Shimelle while she is off jetting around the world. Five ways with printables can be seen in its entirety over on Shim’s blog here

The printable for the card is available on my freebies page.

Slow news day

Apart from this being the second post today, it is a very slow news day today and I don’t think it will be any more exciting tomorrow, so my DD entries are going to reflect that.

Yestersday’s entry was all about the B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L Christmas log my eldest son created in cookery class at school.

This page is definitely not complete, it needs the date adding and I have left the backside of the day before’s page blank, I may add something that I have saved from the multitude of christmas magazines I have looked at this season or I may add another photo, but until I decide it is staying blank.

I am trying to vary the photo backgrounds, hopefully to hold your interest and definitely to stop the whole process becoming a chore for me, this is my Christmas poinsettia, I was particularly thrilled to find a large white variety in Ikea and I bought the cute bucket there too, all for less than six quid !!

Hey I think I just gave myself the story for my next slow news day !!

DD entry for the 14th

The entry for today is another straightforward design, transparency with a date circle and an arrow highlighting the date on the transparency. On the back side of the transparency I used a kraft tag from a t shirt to journal on, I like that you can see the design on one side of the tag through the transparency and the journaling is on the other side.

(the large ‘F’ is a plastic cd divider/organiser which I have inserted into the pocket that contains the Christmas cd from yesterday’s entry. ‘F’ is for our surname)

The full page photo is of my youngest trying out skateboard tricks on the drive with the Christmas lights on in the background.

I’m on a roll

That scares me, something else is most likely not getting done if I am managing to keep up with my DD entries, actually I have only managed to do the 13th, I am working on the 14th and today’s entry as we speak !

this one is another simple page I used some number paper on the back of the photo from the 12th and highlighted the date with a black card circle and a couple of stick on letters, then I printed out the 12 days of christmas for the 1/2 page and backed it with some music paper, next I printed out our car christmas cd song list and printed it onto manuscript paper, adding letter stickers down the side and a luggage tag on the 1/2 page explaining about the boys favourite song.

I have also attached a copy of the cd to the back of the black page, because I can !

Hope you like and feel free to comment.

Sit down before you pass out . . .

I HAVE DONE SOME DECEMBER DAILY ENTRIES !! { Yes I am shouting that }

Warning photo heavy post today

I am so pleased with myself for getting them done, not so happy with some of the finished pages but I needed to stop procrastinating and get them done.

So without further ado here are days 8 thru 12

I am now going to be concentrating on getting days 1-7 completed, hopefully one current page and one of week ones pages each day.

Day 8 was a three layer page, not intentionally it just worked out that way and it was a great one to do, from the accidental photo of my first born to the subject matter, his birthday.

click on the photo to see it larger.

Day 9 was uber-simple
I went to see my youngest in his school christmas play.

Day 10 was all about putting up the outdoor lights, which was a totally solo venture this year.

Day 11 We did the indoor decorations, well the tree was a joint effort.
I also decided that the back of the page from the previous day didn’t necessarily have to be utilised, I am not being too persnickety about the blank pages, I may fill them up with extra photos at a later date.

Day 12, pretty self explanatory a little story about my smallest son’s favourite Christmas decoration.

Please feel free to leave a comment.

Back to it

OK I dug myself out from a pile of work and deadlines to find that I then needed to dig myself out from under another pile, laundry and housework, all done now, well kind of.

Have done about half of my Christmas shopping, I will be finishing it on Monday next week, my goal is to get it done before the kids break up from school, then wrap it all the following Monday. I usually end up wrapping all the gifts on the 23rd or even the 24th and I hate that, it may be seasonal but it is rushed and stresses me out and they look shoddy when I do that.

We are late putting up our decs this year, we normally have them all up by now so I am going to remedy that today and tomorrow too as well as catching up on my DD album, I have done lots on it but not one single page is complete yet , mainly due to me running out of printer ink in the photo printer and not having time to go and get any ! C’est la vie !
Anyhoo, I bought some late yesterday afternoon and managed to score another couple of Christmas Gifts too.
So I spent some time last night printing photos that I have taken since the 1st of December, this morning I am hoping to get some pages finished and some more put together.

I am enjoying getting inspiration from all the other December Daily albums and those taking part in Shimelle’s JYC. My particular favourites are Molly Irwin, only 2008 and 2009 available to see, like me she hasn’t posted any photos of this years album yet, I also like Wilna Furstenberg’s it is so jam packed with “stuff” the complete opposite of the way I create, but definitely inspiring.

OK so I HATE blog posts without a photo so here is one I took at the weekend at our local shopping centre.

Taken looking down onto the Christmas tree and the hanging decorations from the third floor.

Walking in a winter wonderland

Well we are down here in suburban Essex. three or four inches of snow yesterday and the same again overnight, I love the snow and waking up to a “white over” but its no good if you have anything to do like work, school, food shopping etc.

Its great fodder for the JYC or December Daily projects though, got my eldest Son, whose school is closed, to take this photo for me this morning.

I am aiming for one photo a day no matter what.

My snowy boots