Project Life - December 2012

So here our my pages for December.  Products used Studio Calico December 2012 kit, and Shimelle Christmas 2012 kit.

Starting with a lovely cobweb covered in frost, a visit to the ballet

Dressing the tree, collection James Christmas present and my handmade gifts to my friends from Preston

Having lunch with my crop friends and going out with some school mums

visit to the Bull, new Christmas ornment, and a visit to the German market in Birmingham

Then for the Christmas week, I used a different page protector - 6x4 horizontal - 

My little family christmas meal, my birthday

Part of the Christmas table, James new bike, and James and his cousins on Christmas day.

Then what we got up to over the Christmas period,

And for the final page I did a page for James birthday

Some hidden journalling on the tags - the red snowflake is a coaster that I fold in Wilkinson.

So that's it for my 2012 Project Life albums - which covers two albums.  Now I'm onto 2013 hoping the the process will be quicker this year - using the Studio Calico Project Life Kit.

The snow finally arrived

So it finally arrived, and has usual it was lovely for the first day then I wanted it all gone, but for the first day I did manage to get out and take some photos.  Some of the photos were taken with my iPhone, so not 100% but I wanted to capture the moment/event rather than get the perfect photo.

This was the view at about 7.30 on Friday morning from my front door, just a light dusting.

I was able to write the date in the snow

Take a pic of my owl

Then about 1 hour later it began to snow very heavily, and has a true scrapper, I needed some photos in the snow.  All the schools around and about were open, so no kids around.

Kids playground

By the time I'd got down to the park it was blizzard like conditions, so some of the photos are very hazy

So I made my way back home, this is my street 

I went into my garden to measure the snow fall - 3inches and still falling.

Then the schools decided to close, mid morning - so after lunch we had the customary snowball fight and sledging down the neighbours drive.

By 2pm this was the view out the front 

And the snow now measured 5inches.

Then on Saturday, we decided to have a walk around The Botanical Gardens, we managed to get the car out with the help of some neighbours and surprisingly the main road were really clear.

Botanical Gardens

I hope you have all enjoyed the snow over the past few days and taken load of photos.

Bye for now.

December Journal 2012

I've finally finished my December Journal.  I'm calling it December Journal because its a combination of December Daily and Journal your Christmas - so throughout the albums there are things I did on certains day and others just what happened during December.

I've used a Simple Stories - SN@P album and the variety of page protectors that comes with it.

This is how thick it is.

This is a selection of the pages -I got this cut file from 2peas,

Each year Jon writes an letter to his Godmother, so I copied in and enclosed in this envelope.

 I made some handmade gifts, so I added a photo of them as well 

as well as this handmade gift tag that Julie made for me.

Then there was shopping at Merry Hill, seeing the various Christmas decorations they have around.

How James insisted that he was helping me with the cake.

Christmas Day

James 15th Birthday

And my final page - a very simple one with a cameo die cut.

I still can't believe that I managed to finish this album this year, let alone finish it before the end of January.

Thanks for stopping by.

1st crop of the Year ...

and all I managed was one layout, but I didn't stress and just went with the flow.  It had started as a scraplift, from here

When ever I get a new book or magazine I sit down and go through it and add post-it notes to the pages that interest me.

Anyway, I started with the idea of using my Studio Calico frames, as in this layout and was happily going along doing a straight forward 'lift', but I wasn't feeling it (isn't this s strange saying - lol x)

And this is how it ended, completely different but still using the frames.

Then I sat down with this photo in front of me, and just stopped, and talked, laughed and still nothing came to me. I was sitting next to Julie and she did a layout, using some wood veneer produced.  Anyway, when I came home I wanted even more crafting inspiration so I checked out a couple of video over at 2peas here, and came across this one  where she show you this process.  So I came up with this 

And this is the close-up of the embellishments.  I stamped over the wood veneer and inked the edges of the frame.

I even managed to include 2 frame on the page, more wood veneer, stamps, clips

and a flair badge

I have also finished my December Journal, which I will blog later in the week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy New Year

I hope you are all survived festive season and had a fab time.

I spent my Christmas and New Years in Derbyshire at my MIL cottage, surrounded by family and the lovely countryside.  The only draw back was for the most part one or another of us was ill, I managed to stay OK until New Years Eve, which was unfortunate as it was James birthday, but more on that later.

So I though I would share a few photos.  A few of them are collaged has I've used them in my Journal Your Christmas (JYC) and PL pages.  Apologies for the photo heavy post.


22nd - We visited the German Market on the last day.

23rd - we had our own family Christmas meal

24th - I was awake bright and early - lol x

After opening some present we went for a walk - which was great has we were the only ones in the gardens.

I got a lovely Ragley bag for my birthday from my friend, Julie

James opening Christmas presents

I made the Christmas cake and with James's help we decorated.

I had a lovely walk around the village, 

An afternoon in Bakewell

A trip to a lovely sweet shop - it is full of jars of old fashioned sweets - the only problem is deciding which ones to have.

A walk around the grounds of Chatsworth

and one up close to the many sheep

I even managed to see one of the herds of deers  I couldn't get has close I would have liked  ( this is another reason why I need a better zoom lens - oh has my DH says learn how to use the one I have - lol x)

31st - Celebrated James birthday - opening presents in the bedroom

I was due to go for a walk with my boys but wasn't feeling well so went to bed to watch this

felt better after a rest, then it was time for James birthday tea with his young cousins


Sparkler numbers instead of candles

James loved it. 

Garden visitors = my MIL has a large garden and it lovely to see the many different birds visiting each day.

When I got back home, I was completely floored with the bug, I did nothings but sneeze and cough for a couple of days, but thankfully it didn't last long.

So that was my Christmas week, now that I'm back I've nearly completed my JYC album and hoping to finish my PL December pages soon.

Happy New Year to you all.

Thanks for stopping by x