Apologies...

...to all my regular blog readers, I don't think I've ever been quite so poor at keeping my blog updated, but I've been away from home since last weekend and having a great christmas with my folks. I haven't got any scrapping supplies to play with so I haven't created for a while either, but the good news is that I now have so many ideas I think I will be having a creative spurt when I get back home and making a few pages.

So, what did I get for christmas then??? Lots of lovely goodies in fact, far more than I deserve but they included several CDs, the Beatles film Help! and Disney's Jungle Book on DVD, loads of slipper socks and some VERY cool slipper boots which I will have to take a picture of later because they make me look like a Yeti, some very funky makeup all from my favourite range, Benefit (including a gorgeous make up bag to keep it all in from my sis). And a new guillotine for cutting up all my scrapbook papers from Ed. So I'm very pleased.

I'm in that wierd after christmas mood now where I've still got quite a few days holiday left but noone is really sure what to do with themselves. Its not like the Summer when you go out to enjoy the weather. So I guess I may end up down the high street to spend my xmas money...

Some christmas pages...

Ok, so I've been woefully poor at updating my blog and keeping up with my christmas journal, but I plan to do some catching up over the weekend and get back on track. Its just been such a busy last week of school and I've had meals out and parties to go to, as well as feeling ill midweek too! Anyway, here are a few christmas themed pages I did for the Papermaze blog to share with you now. They all use the new Basic Grey Figgy Pudding themed paper and chipboard shapes, as well as Autumn Leaves stamps.

Apologies for the poor pictures - I had to scan these because there is never any natural light good enough to take pictures without the flash at the moment, but having only a regular scanner means its difficult to stitch the bits together without getting at least a little bit of the layout cut off! I especially love the first of the layouts, about my cat Alfie who was a christmas present one year and who only lived to be about 18 months. She had a bit of a tragic life, having cat leukaemia from a young age and being sick often, she was then run over outside our house one night. However, she was totally adored and a beautiful little girl so it was good to make a layout about my fond memories of her. The other two layouts are about me and my brother and sister when we were young - one about christmas morning, the other about a winter outing to the Thames Barrier and Greenwich Park.

Check out the Papermaze blog, Scrap Paper Scissors for lots more inspiration!

Catching up...again!

A slap on the wrist to me for not blogging more often but unfortunately life has been manic and got in the way of scrapping. Not this afternoon though, Ed was off to the football so I caught up with three pages!

The first is about Christmas past. I really do enjoy christmas, but it will never be the same as when I was little and I really did believe in Father Christmas! The season was magical then and seemed to last forever.

The second page is about the rules of opening presents in our house. This page is not overly creative but it really makes me laugh - its amazing how things change over time! My brother went from being the first up to the last out of bed in a very short space of time. Such is the way with teenage boys...

Finally the third page, which is Friday's, is about Christmas music and a real testament to my 80s childhood - I don't really go in for carols but a good christmas pop tune really gets me going and there were a lot around in the 70s and 80s!

I plan to get today's and tomorrow's pages done in the afternoon tomorrow but we shall see. At least I am nearly up to date again. I'm looking forward to tonight as me and Ed are going out for a meal together on our own for the first time in ages, I can't wait!

My Christmas Tree

So I'm a day late with my page again, but this time I have good reason - last night we put up all our christmas decorations including our tree! So the prompt was very appropriately timed but I just didn't get a chance in the evening to actually make my page about it. Instead, I put it together at my crop this evening, and I really like it. It took me ages to take a photo of the bauble - I hate using the flash but my hand isn't steady enough without so the majority of photos came out blurred - this one was ok though, and I think it looks great against the red and green background of the page.

I was thrilled to get my sub copy of Scrapbook Inspirations this week and see my Best of British layouts in there, it finally feels like I really won. And just to top it off, I got into the Reader's Gallery this month too with my layout 'A very Moving Day'. So watch out for them if you buy the magazine. I haven't read the rest yet due to being far too busy but I can't wait to sit down at the weekend and have a good look through.

Thank God for an easy page!

Christmas journalling has been proving difficult to fit in amongst all the other business in the run up to christmas, but today's easy page on gift wrap didn't require much thought and was fairly easy to put together. Unfortunately there appears to be a little bit of a bubble in the paper but hopefully this will go down as the glue dries (in the manner of wallpaper!). I had to draw over the bird stamp as he didn't come out too well on the wrapping paper - I will probably try and write over the words too if I can do it without it looking too messy. Its no great shakes in the creative stakes but I'm up to date again and that is whats important to me at the moment. A big thanks to all the lovely ladies who are leaving comments - it really helps to motivate me to get my pages done and I've 'met' some really creative people through it - your journals (and blogs!)are great too guys.

Apparently my winning pages in the Scrapbook Inspiratons Best of British competition are in this months magazine - trust me to not have received my subscription yet but I can't wait to see them - it'll be the first time my layouts are in print...

Up to date again!

Its been a bit of a messy evening, I'm covered in ink, but at least I'm up to date with my journal again! Yesterday's page was about Christmas sights. We haven't exactly gone completely festive yet (though we did go and buy some decorations today!) but there are a few signs of Christmas around the place, so I took a few photos and made them really small to include on the page. This is probably my least favourite yet unfortunately but its done anyway.

The second page is about Christmas traditions - we have loads of little ones in our family, some old, some current, which I've listed on the page, making a feature of the beautiful bird adorning one corner of the Basic Grey paper.

Its been another really busy weekend - I don't ever feel like I have enough time to recover from the week gone by before another one begins! Only two weeks to go now though...

Oh dear, I've fallen behind!

Yesterday, when I should have been getting my page done, I was joined for the evening by my sister up from London and my friend Corey down from Manchester. So admidst the reunion, scrapping kind of went out of the window, so I didn't get my page on to-do lists done till this afternoon. Its kind of timely, as me and my sister spent most of the day in Brum getting our christmas shopping done. I am now thoroughly tired and stressed, but going out for a meal this evening which should hopefully cheer me up! So here is my page, with a list of all the things I need to get done before christmas. Its just a little bit worrying...

My plan is to get today's prompt out of the way tomorrow, so that should be two in one day, then I'll be back up to date. So check in tomorrow afternoon if you fancy a look!

A memory of christmas past...

I can't quite believe I got this entry done today - I was seeing parents of my form members all day and didn't get home till after 7, and then I could hardly motivate myself to get in the shower, let alone scrap! However, I read what Shimelle said about people giving in around the 6th day and didn't want to be one of the guilty ones! Sure, my life is very busy right now but I've got a spare half hour to craft in every day and I'm going to make use of it. So here is my entry about good and bad christmas memories. I decided to use two envelopes to house my memories and kept the rest of the page fairly simple - its not exactly innovative but the best I could manage in my current state of mind!

The good memory card reads: My childhood christmases have left me with so many happy memories - the decorations, the advent calendars, the school nativity, the excitement of going to bed on christmas eve and waking to find santa had eaten his mince pie and sherry!

The bad memory reads: The worst memory I have of Christmas was when I was 21 and me and Ed broke up for a short time. I was a total misery for the whole holiday - my poor family didn't know what to do with me!

Hopefully tomorrow I will be a bit more relaxed when creating my journal page!

Advent Calendars

Today's prompt for our Christmas journals was about the tradition of advent calendars - a tradition I have solidly adhered to even as an adult! If you can't still enjoy a bit of christmas fun at 25, then its a sad state of affairs! I suppose one day I will stop having one but I do love getting to open the little door each day and of course getting a little chocolate fix first thing in the morning. They really do represent the start of the christmas season to me and once I start opening the doors, I want to get on with putting up christmas decs and writing cards too. This year I left it quite late to buy one and ended up going round the shops on the first of December trying to find advent calendars for me, my sister and Ed! I did eventually find some nativity advent calendars in Marks and Spencers, and the little pictures of my page are taken from the inner doors of the days I have already opened.

I've got a busy day tomorrow meeting the parents of all my form group - I really like the kids in my form so I think it shouldn't be a terrible day, but it will be tiring and my voice always goes after so much talking! I'll be looking forward to making my page at the end of the day, lets hope I can fit it all in...

My perfect christmas...

Here is day 4 of my christmas journal and today we had to write about our 'perfect' christmas. Now I have to admit that this one phased me a bit - I have always enjoyed christmas so much that I can't imagine bettering it! So I just came up with some of the favourite bits from my christmas day and made a little list of them on the page (apologies, the scan appears to have cut a bit off the top of the page but you get the idea!). The picture is acutally taken from the Next online catalogue, but it looks like my ideal christmas decorations so I thought I would use it!


I've got a really busy few days at work coming up but I'm hoping I will keep up with the journal - I'm not finding it a chore at the moment, I'm really enjoying it so lets hope it stays that way. I'm so amazed by some of the gorgeous artwork that is being produced at the forum - its really inspirational and I'm glad that Shimelle came up with the forum as a new way to share, I've spent a lot more time getting involved in the class because of it.

Christmas Cards

So the next page in our Christmas journals had to be about our plans for christmas cards this year. Now I admit that in the past I have tried to make christmas cards for various people, but it is so time consuming and I never feel happy with the final product (being a bit of a perfectionist). I never manage to make enough for everybody either. So this year I plan on buying my cards - far less stressful that way! I will try and make a couple of special cards but thats about it.

I didn't have any of last year's cards available, haven't yet received any and haven't bought any to send so today's page was promising to be problematic! However, I decided to use some little envelopes I had bought for storing card sorts (those who teach will know what these are!) and used them as page embellishments to try and meet Shimelle's challenge. Its not my favourite page so far but it fits fairly nicely into the overall look so I won't worry too much about it.

We have been suffering from a complete lack of internet, tv and phone this evening as Virgin Media collapsed in Coventry. I'm finally back online though, and realising how much I depend on modern technology in my evening!

I'm up to date!

I got home this afternoon after a great weekend at mum and dad's and managed to catch up on the journal prompts. And here are my offerings...

The page for the first day of December is the manifesto page - where I explain what I am doing and why I am doing it. I altered Shimelle's manifesto a bit to suit me and my page size - I don't want it to get too cluttered!

The second page is about Christmas weather - I decided to write about the British obsession with a 'white christmas' despite the fact that we only ever seem to get snow in January or February (though we did get a light dusting last week here in the Midlands!). I love this page, I'm a bit of a fan of blue but rarely use it on my pages but it worked so well with this wintery theme.

I'm looking forward to seeing what prompt Shimelle has for us tomorrow...

Withdrawal symptoms...

I am suffering badly. Its not quite got to cold sweats and the shakes or anything. But my scrapping supplies are at my house in Coventry. And I'm at my parent's house in South London. Now don't get me wrong, I'm having a fab time with my mum and dad and had a really lovely meal in an Italian restaurant this evening (which I think was actually better than the food we had in Italy this Summer!). I bought a few christmas presents. I've had a few glasses of red wine. I'm happy. But I can't get on with the first page of my Christmas journal, and I am chomping at the bit to start after seeing all the gorgeous pages over at the class forum. If you haven't started this class yet, there's still time. And you SO should get involved. Making a page a day is hard work, but its also so much fun! And you get such a unique record of a time in your life which would otherwise go by and get forgotton. So get on over to www.shimelle.com and get signed up. And I'll see you at the forum...