Journal your Christmas

As we are having a snow day here I thought that I might do a bit more of my Christmas Photo Journal.I think you will find that most of the titles are self explanatory! They are super quick to do as I am still managing to keep them very simple.

A shot of the tree from my hall. We never use the front door so I would never view the tree from this angle but I saw a similiar shot on Linda's blog....so I pinched the idea!

Loved the pattern on the ceiling that my star made.

Now this was a new technique to try, where you cover the lens with black card and punch a hole in it. Then you take your photo and all the tree lights end up the shape of the hole you have punched! I had a snowflake shaped hole in mine.

For once Minnie was most obliging and posed beautifully. Might use this as my Christmas card next year.

Another chance to practise bokeh but this time I took a pic of this cute mouse that was a gift from a work colleague.

This beautiful star is made from Dartington crystal and is one of 6 decorations that came from my Mum. I remember as a child, going with Mum to buy these; we chose 2 stars, 2 angels and 2.....well my family call them ducks but I have always thought of them as partridge. Now Mum only has a small tree she has given them to me and they go on every, single year to provide sparkle.

This is a new decoration this year. I couldn't resist the simplicity of it and I bought 4!

Last for this batch; my freezer packed up just before Christmas so we had to eat up lots of frozen fruit. Katy made a "Gooseberry Gloop" pie, using blackcurrants. I don't know the real name for it but the recipe came from my Dad and is topped with marzipan strips. Mmmmmm!

Christmas Journal

For the last four years I have taken part in  Shimelle class called Journal Your Christmas. Inevitably I end up terribly behind and somewhat stressed so this year I decided to just take part in her photo prompt version.I figured I would be able to at least take a photo of my Christmas in 2012!
Well I managed it although not necessarily on the correct days and I have now printed the pictures ready to scrap them into a journal. I really want this to be a quick, no stress exercise so I have just a few supplies and one font for all the titles. I have a lovely book from Seawhite to do it in and finally I have made a start.
Here are the first 2 pages....

The titles are the photo prompts for the days and I have just added some journalling to explain the photo.
"My hands have been kept busy this year making lotsof my gifts. I have knitted and crocheted for several people"

A Tree (not your own). "Trees always start going up in public buildingsway before we even think about ours. We went to a concert in Brighton where we saw this first one of the year up close".

...and a bit more.

When Jasper and Eliza were in Year Six, after SATS, they worked on a project to build an electric kit car. The finale of all this is a Grand Prix in which they compete against other schools. I can't remember now where they finished, no doubt they will tell me, but they did get a trophy of some sort!

Tricky one to scrapbook this because of all the colours in the pics. The school production was "Joseph". Eliza was a narrator and had a lot of solo singing and Jasper was Potiphar. Jess made the Dreamcoat and I made Jaspers outfit!

As part of our A-Z year (which we didn't finish, we only got to O I think) we went in K week to fly a kite. Previously we had been to a kite show in Seaford and bought a cheap kite, shaped like a seagull so we were trying to get this flying. All attempts were pretty unsuccessful. However, Ken dug an old PeterPowell Stunt Kite out of the garage (yes you DO remember those from the 70's!) and that flew really well! In the end, we just got some lovely photos!

Some Scrapbooking

As I have said, I have been very creative these holidays, but lot of what I have been making I can't show just yet! So I thought you might like to see some scrapbooking. Some of these LOs were done month or two ago but have been waiting to be finished off with either a title or a bit of journalling. About two evenings ago I sat down and decided to do just that as I creep on through the photos from 2010 still.

This first one is of the Batucada at Heathfield Carnival and also the primary school where I work. I helped to run a Carnival Club where the children made this withy sun, a shark and some fish to hold.

This is my lot on Pevensey Beach last summer. Funny that, I don't remember last summer being nice enough for the beach...

More of our life!

I really caught the patchwork bug last year and after the Guides trip to the V&A I was finally brave enough to do a project that had been in the planning for many, many years. Since my children were old enough to wear denim I have saved ALL of the denim they have worn over the years with the idea of making it into a quilt. Last year I did it and if you have been a follower for a while you will have seen that I made two. Well this is the page about making those two "memory" quilts.

The title needed to be a bit special so I used glimmer mist to colour some card that I punched into 1" squares that I then added the letters to. Took HOURS but I love the end result.

Guide Camp last year at an amazing site in Seaford called Sealarks. Really quiet and secluded and we had great weather (it was June). For once there is actually a pic of me too!

And last in this batch is the Scout's Annual Soap Box Derby. Buxted Scouts have won this for the last 4 or 5 years but sadly, this year they were beaten into second place! They did however win the Constructors Award.

Scrapbooking.

Still trying to catch up with scrapping 2010. I did these LOs at Gilly'se a couple of weekends ago but just needed to finish them off. This hippy style one is about the houseboats in Shoreham....

...and this was Jess's 17th birthday. She opted for cupcakes this year.

This one is about the big Thinking Day celebration Weald Division had at the Brighton Centre for our Centenary year. Eliza got to carry the colour for our unit in the final parade.

And finally another Guide trip, to London and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Scrapbooking

Yup I am blogging twice in one day! I am sure you are getting used to my spasmodic entries! And it's half term soon so you might get more....although I am off to Edinburgh then....another story! Anyway in my child free day I decided to scrapbook some more. I would have finished another LO but I am waiting for Jess to bring me home a coffee cup from Costa...she has only worked THREE times without remembering! I digress....the first LO is unusually a single one, for my title page for 2010.

And then Jasper and Eliza on their WWII day at school. I deliberately gave Jasper a "short back and sides" hairstyle and made Eliza look really young with her plaits! Bless 'em...can you imagine them being evacuated?
Not quite sure what's going on with my scrapbooking....getting rather geometric these days! My goodness me, before I know it I will be like my friend Helly, She does white, plain and NO pattern for her scrapbooking! SOOOO not me, just TOO tasteful!

Some Scrapbooking.

Yes it's been a while but I am now beginning to scrap my photos from 2010. So This LO is from January and guess what? We had snow! We all went to build a snowman that we named Derek!

This LO is also January last year. Jasper wanted to have a go at tying flies and my friend e-mailed me these pics of him doing just that with her Dad.

He wouldn't let me have a real fly so I just found this feather and wrapped the end with wire and thread. Well it looks a bit like his!

Bit more 2009

Nearly there now with 2009! Another snow LO and yes, I KNOW it looks like "Cops-a-daisy" but it is meant to be "Oops...". Quite pleased with this one!

But not too sure about this one...I had just a few nice pics of Christmas Day and as ever none of the colours matched so finding paper was really hard! I like the design etc but I wonder if it needs a bit more something? And I don't know whether to add a title/journaling and if so, where and how!
Yesterday I finally went to visit Burns Cabin! And I did some creating too which I will show tomorrow if I get a mo to finish it tonight. I am a bit snowed under with soap-wrapping at the moment....

Scrapbook of 2009 ...still!

Just a very quick entry today. A very bad photo of a DLO for my scrapbook of 2009 which is nearing the end now! I would like to get this finished over the summer holidays and maybe start on 2010! Although I still have to scrap my sister's wedding pictures...and it is her first wedding anniversary tomorrow!

More of 2009 scrapbook

Now this just isn't seasonal is it? Especially with the lovely weather we have been having lately! But as you can tell, I am nearing the end of my 2009 scrapbook and this was the huge snowfall we had that all managed to disappear about 2 days before Christmas! It really is not easy getting paper to go with wintery, snowy photos at this time of year! But in the Winter I hadn't got the pictures printed! Still this is what I came up with, after a scrapbooking desert! It shows Jasper sledging down a hill near us and having a rather spectacular crash!
There will be more snowy pics to follow but meanwhile I am in the middle of a week from hell....more later.

Another page...

A nice change for me. Not Guides or girls but for once I get the chance to do a boy page! I really enjoy these as they tend to be few and far between with 3 daughters! Even whole family events tend to end up pink-ish! This is Jasper doing a Mountain Bike Challenge with the Scouts.