Christmas Journal 7th, 8th and 9th!

Catching up now! I DID the pages on time...well almost...but I haven't had a moment to put the pics on! Day 7 was a day for making lists of what still needed doing. Mmmmm quite a lot!

Day 8 was about taking my camera everywhere and taking photos of the preparations that are already going on for Christmas around me. I have to confess I didn't take the pics on that day, they came from a collection I had been taking of shop windows etc in the previous few days!

Final catch up page for now. Brief was to write about the traditions that you have in your family. I think the pic is probably a bit small for you to read them but once you start to think about it I was suprised just how many we have that I am sure may not apply to lots of other families!

Off to cook some jacket spuds to go with Coronation Turkey for tea now and get ready to see the New Year in! I would like to say a big thank you to all you kind people who make the effort to drop by and leave such lovely comments, even when my blogging is so intermittant!
Happy New Year to you all and your families. May 2010 be a fantastic year for you all.

Next CJ Entry

For once I am actually ahead of myself! This CJ entry isn't due to be done until Jan 15th! However I woke up this morning with a really good idea pinging round my brain! The stamp was a rather lovely open wooden door and frame and it just made me think of "Alice In Wonderland". You know the bit where she is in the hallway and she finds the tiny door. Then she drinks the potion to make herself small enough to fit through.....

Rather spookily my sub copy of Craft Stamper arrived yesterday too with a great tutorial on image transfer. Now I have tried this technique several times in different ways and have yet to be successful! So today I found some pics of Alice on the net and armed with the article away I went! Well I can report that FINALLY I got it to work using acrylic paint!

The doorway just HAD to be shrunk in shrink plastic which I then coloured with distress inks. I was going to paint the view but my art skills are minimal and I thought it would spoil it, especially as there is a fantastic hand-painted entry in the CJ already!

For the BG I tried another new technique on my waiting list; stamping in gesso. I painted it thickly over the acrylic paint (used for the transfer remember!!) and stamped with a flourish. Once it was dry I overstamped the same flourish in green. I am quite pleased with the subtle image which shows up better IRL!

Right, that done I am off to catch up with my Christmas Journal......only 2 days behind so I will post some more pics of that when I get a mo!

CJ Entry

Yes it's been a while, but life and that event that happens each year in December have taken over rather! I have been crafting away merrily, just not blogging it as I haven't had the time so there will probably be a series of catch up entries now! I am also trying to keep up with doing Journal Your Christmas and not suceeding very well!
Ok so here is the first entry in a new CJ that I am in and started in November. This is Alisons CJ and she had a cobweb stamp. I have to say that I was feeling rather anti-housework when I did this, having just done the Christmas clean-down and waged my own personal war against the mounting tide of cobwebbage in my house!

I started with turquoise core-dinations card that I embossed and then sanded (to get the 50's styley spots) I wanted a bit of gingham about the thing so I painted with gesso and acrylic paint. I then collaged 50's images that I had stamped or printed and/or hand coloured. I ended with the cobweb over all the household appliances and the text from my stash.
Well off it went and I hope she likes it!
Can I just now wish everyone a very Merry Christmas; please all stay safe and warm and have a lovely time!

Days 5 and 6

Ooo sorry dodgy photes today! But using the flash just "whited" everything out"! Ok Day 5 is about out Advent traditions. Behind doors 5,4,3,and 2 are photoes of the fabric advent calendar we are using this year and journalling is behind door 1! The calendar was made by my Mum and I fill it with pressies for the children who take it in turns to open the pockets!

Day 6 is about two memories; one good,one not so good. Well my lows aren't really that low so I just journalled about how sometimes my OH has to work on CHristmas Day and how we deal with it. My high is Christmas in 1997 when EVERYONE came here for dinner.....

Day 4

Day four was all about the Perfect Christmas; this year I decided to think about how much time we spend striving for perfection. The journalling reads;
"What does make a perfect Christmas? Is there such a thing? Should we worry so much about whether our mince pies are homemade or shop ones; whether we sent a card to everyone who sent us one; whether our tree is decked in the latest colour trend?
Or should we focus on the REAL Christmas? Being able to spend time with loved ones; being thankful that we are safe and warm and fed? Maybe we shouldn't strive for perfect...just good enough..."
On the tiny pull out tags are things that the family said made their Christmas perfect!

This was just 3 Sissix snowflakes cut and layered together.

Day 3

The third entry in my journal is about cards. We reflected on how many we send, what sort, do we make them etc. My page is 8x8 but with an inch to the side to put into an American Crafts album without plastic page protectors. I decided that I want pockets and tags and you can't do them in plastic pockets! Today we also received our first Christmas card through the post. So I chopped the top strip off the envelope! The journalling is on a tag that you can just see poking out of the brown envie! The rest is bits and bobs that I have collected together in one place to dip into as I go through the days. I have tried to keep them all togther so I can just create the pages in and hour or so. Tonight I was distracted by the TV so it seems to have taken me aaaages for such a simple page!

My new project!

Well I haven't blogged for a bit..busy as usual! But I have been crafting, scrapbooking and cards etc! This is my latest project (as you can see from my side bar).... Journal Your Christmas. Once again I get daily prompts with ideas of how I can journal important things about my Christmases. I managed to complete it last year so I am optimistic that I will do this year too.....I hope!
Page 1 is my ideas about the project; what I hope to achieve, why I want to do it etc!

Last years book was done in red and green mostly so this year I went for a different colour scheme. Page 2 is about Christmas weather. Well as you all know, we are currently suffering with excessive rain and wetness so I REALLY didn't want to journal about that! Besides I think that last year I moaned about how Christmas is usually grey and dull! So I found a picture of what we SHOULD wake up to on Christmas morning; this is the view from my bedroom window, but in February this year!
Do pop in tomorrow to see how I get on!!!

On the4th Day of Christmas...

...Four Calling Birds! This template was from a pattern Sid sent me to make a 3D bird, (I think HE got it from Gail!!) but I thought it would look fine in 2D. I cut them out and then used a stamp and black Stazon to stamp on the plain green and red cotton.

The rest is pretty much as before; machine stitched legs and feet, felt beaks and hand stitched notes, adding matt black beads.
So my next challenge is 5 Gold Rings.....I think I have the seed of an idea but this will be a tricky one. I am also starting to think about Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas which starts on Dec 1st....

My Blog Award....finally!

And this is it from Burnice.

So now five unknown or little known facts about me then...

1. I have an O-Level in Latin

2. My middle name is Margaret (OMG I have NEVER admitted THAT!!!)

3. I have been in two armed bank robberies; one as a witness and one as a hostage

4. When I was a child I was on TV on Jim'll Fix it.......(but only as a person sitting on the bean bags on the side of the stage)

5. I own a Blue Peter Badge!

My New CJ!

Yeay!! I am off on a new CJ journey! I love love LOVE CJs, especially the ones I have done on UKStampers where we send a stamp round with it. So here is mine....a PaperArtsy squiggly heart stamp is what I have chosen to send!

I made little envies (from an old copy of Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales) and added a tag in each. For my entry I found some anatomical heart drawings on the net and printed them off to add to the envie and tag. The quote says "Be still my beating heart" but I couldn't find out where that came from!

I stamped the heart on a burnt coke can (heated in the flame on the gas cooker....makes it go a groovy colour) then went over the squiggles with an embossing tool to indent them slightly.

This is the whole book...unbound for now as I will do it with the BIA when it comes home!
So off it goes on it's journey and I will see it in 12 months! Can't wait!

Now I have been lucky enough to receive a blog award from my pal Burnice...

...but I can't work out how to get it up so please just bear with me and I will show it to you in a day or so when I work it out!!!

On the 3rd Day of Christmas....

These are my Three French Hens! Or maybe they are just one three-headed hen! I am not quite sure! Still I assure you they are meant to be loosely based on a French breed called a Copper Maran (at least I think it is!).

Not very good photoes I am afraid but I was determined to blog as I haven't for so long! I just don't seem too have had two minutes to create ANYTHING, let alone blog it! Anyway back to my hens; They are made from scraps of black velvet (the sleeves off a ball gown from the charity shop), orange slub silk and red poly cotton with felt feet and corn! I added a sequin for the eye and stitched the beak.
Now I need to do 4 Calling Birds.....

The 2nd day of Christmas...

As usual I started this weekly challenge a week late so THIS week we should have been on the 2nd day.... So now I have caught up as the next challenge starts on Sunday! Here are my Two Turtle Doves.

Same BG as before...I think I will stick with this one all through to give some continuity between the pieces; but the doves are ivory velvet. I stamped the wings with copper Brilliance ink ( not sure if it is meant to work on fabric but it seems to have done!)

The leaves and branches are from scraps of felt and fabric that I have about (!) and then I machine doodled the skinny branches! Just a few red glass beads which I think give it a little lift and done!

Now I look at the 2 side by side I am wondering whether I should have done some work into the sky or whether I like the space..... I have also started to think about whether I will actually do 7 swans and 12 Lords when the time comes or just show 1 or 2 of them.

I would also like to add a big thank you for all your good wishes! I am feeling heaps better now but get tired quite quickly! Just a shame it had to be in the holidays.

New Weekly Challenge

So now the tag challenge is all finished over at UK Stampers, there is a new weekly challenge. Well MOST people have finished their tags, I still have to catch up, but I will and planned to this week until swine flu hit! Well after 4 days of doing nothing I am very bored but not terribly energetic so I decided to craft in the hope that it will make me tired so I can sleep tonight.
So the new challenge is to fill the 12 weeks (yes that's all it is!!!) until Christmas! It is on a 10x10 size base. I decided to go with fabric for this challenge. So I haven't stamped on this first one...hope that will be ok!!

The base is a piece of plain blue cotton, mounted on very stiff interfacing. I then cut random green leaves and stitched them on just along the spine of the leaf. The partridge was cut from felt first and then I applied two different fabrics onto that. I stitched feathers on top of that. Those very clever country sorts will spot they are pheasant and not partridge feathers!!!

The pear is a lightly padded scrap of slub silk, again mounted on felt. Then I stitched the whole lot together and there you go; a Partridge in a Pear Tree!

Apologies!

Sorry to those of you who pop in regularly! I was planning to post lots of lovely new stuff on here, what with it being half term and me having a lot more free time. But I have been struck down by the dreaded swine flu. Now those of you who know me, know what a cynic I am, and as always, I thought swine flu was just a souped up idea to justify all the training medical staff have been given over the last few years in preparation for a pandemic. Well let me tell you that I am utterly ashamed of my cynicism now....Those of you that have ever had flu, well think back and multiply it by about 20. There were times yesterday when I really thought I was going to have to be taken off in an ambulance and I began to lose the power of rational thought. Now in the cold light of another day (and several doses of tamiflu later) I know that it was just the high temperature making me think strange things!
Today I feel a lot better but so, so weak. All I can manage is making the odd cuppa and then I need to lie down on the sofa. So all my creative plans have had to go on hold.....

So I have had my come-uppance! From now on I will be sympathetic to people with swine flu.....but only if it's REALLY swine flu!

Some more Scrapbooking...

Another entry for my 2009 Scrapbook. This one shows my son being invested as a Scout. A few weeks after he was invested he was presented with his Scouting International Friendship Partnership Award along with several other boys.

He and a friend arranged a "bagging" session at the local supermarket, raising over £300 for Kenya Street Scouts. This amount was then presented to a representative from their group so that the Kenyan Troop can buy goats to help support themselves. Definately a "Proud Mummy Moment" this one!

Gift Book

I am sure you will remember the book I made a few days ago for the dedication of a friend's baby son. The photos arrived really quickly so tonight I put them in the book! This was a particularly lovely stained glass window in the church...

I have included these just to give you an idea of how the book was laid out. Now obviously it is a bit difficult for me to post clear images because they are other people's children and I can only work out how to do an overall blur rather than a focused blur for faces! But I hope you can still see enough.

So I shall give it to them tomorrow..better late than never!