More journal pages...

I've not stopped journalling, don't worry! I just haven't had a chance to blog my pages yet. I'm not quite caught up - I have two pages to do this evening - but here are four more pages of my journal for your perusal. I'm really enjoying these, they are really quick to make and so bright and funky.

The fifth page in my journal shows my advent calendar this year - Cadbury's Dairy Milk, bought on a two for one offer in Sainsbury's so both me and Ed got one.


Next up we have my Christmas Memories page - probably my least favourite so far - I like the muted colours but didn't really have any appropriately coloured embellishments for the page. The green stickers aren't quite that bright in real life!

Next we have my To Do list page - still way too much on this one unfortunately, Christmas has snuck up on us a bit this year, so I'm hopelessly disorganised :(

Finally there is my sights of Christmas page - the only sight of Christmas around our house so far are the mince pies which we keep buying on a two for one offer from Somerfield! So I snapped a box for my page for the day...

So not quite caught up, but not too far behind either. Things are about to get even busier over the next few days though so not sure whether I'm ever going to be totally up to date with this project...

Christmas Journal 2008 begins...

Having been extraordinarly unprepared for my Christmas Journal this year, not even deciding to do it till the last minute, I finally got up to date this evening with the prompts. I have to admit to not having read the prompts for day three and four - I used last year's pages as a guide! From my experience of last year, I knew I needed to keep things simpler as all the title stamping and handcutting, while it looked great, took forever and stopped me completing the journal. So I decided to stick to some simple techniques for each page which would unite the pages whilst also allowing a little bit of creativity each day.

I stocked up with various shades of Doodlebug Bazzill (which are my favourite Bazzill colours and in my opinion can be made to go with everything!) and also an 8x8 pack of the Fancy Pants Happy Holidays range. I originally intended to do my album in 8x8 again, but having seen some of my friend Laura's pages, decided to go with the slightly different 6x12 which also allowed me to be more economical on the cardstock front! I returned to my trusty Autumn Leaves Rhonna's Christmas swirls stamps from last year, but used subtle shades of ink rather than the black of last year's album. I decided to use various packs of my mounting collection of AC Thickers, as well as my ever-loved Making Memories Tiny Alpha stickers. I grabbed some Scenic Route photo mattes which came in a kit a while back. Finally, I went for a common theme of punched scalloped circles and ovals to carry through the pages.

The first page is the Christmas manifesto - what you hope to achieve in your Christmas album. I wrote my own manifesto for this. I want to make this years album a little bit more 'personal' to the year - last year's album was a more general reflection on Christmas past.


The second page, about Christmas snow, was quite timely as we had half expected to get a flurry of the white stuff today, but it never quite reached down to our part of the country. I did however include a photo that Ed took on his phone of the freak snowfall we had in October this year! There is some hidden journalling behind the photo.

On the third page, about Christmas cards, I decided to include one of the cards I have bought to send out this year. I don't make cards - its just not my forte - but I really loved these ones I spotted in Marks and Spencers a few months ago. They have a lovely contemporary style, as well as being glittery. Perfect!


Finally, my fourth page is about my perfect Christmas celebrations this year. I'm sure in years to come my idea of the perfect Christmas will change dramatically, so I wanted to write down exactly what I would choose to do right now so I can compare it with (hopefully!) future Christmas journals.

So that is me up to date - I bet you can't believe it after my complete lack of scrapping for the last couple of weeks. Lets hope I can keep up over the next few days...

Days

Life continues to be busy, and dark, and cold...but I did have a fab weekend with my sis and her boyfriend Ross, and then on Monday I actually got around to doing some scrapping! Yes, can you believe it? I attempted another 6x12, a size I'm coming to like though it takes a while to get used to it at the start. The photo was taken in May this year on the Southbank and is of me and my mum. We had such a great day, and on my layout I just wanted to record the fact that sometimes its the little things that give you the most happiness. Its made mainly using scraps from the August Cocoa Daisy kit, of which I still have plenty left believe it or not!




In other news, I decided I'm going to try and keep another Christmas journal this year. It will have to be a lot simpler than last year as I just don't have the time to dedicate to it. But I'm kind of missing the excitement that it created last year - it definitley helped to get me into the christmas spirit! I have ordered most of my presents online this year - just my mum's and part of my sister's to get, and then I just have to wait for Ed to finally decide what he wants...