Project Life - December 2013

Here are my December pages,


Visiting the German Market with James;

We queued up for ages to get our photo taken with the Coca-Cola trunk; out for a meal with friends; hairdressers visit.

Spending time with my cousin, enjoying a Chinese takeaway; decorating the tree; making our Christmas cake.

Lunch and Shopping with the girls in Solihull

Phone Santa to tell him I've been good !

We had a lovely meal at ASK Italian

School concet; a visit to the Ballet;

I even did some stitching;

Watching Nelson Mandela funeral; James writing his Christmas card; 2nd visit to see The Hunger Games; getting what I thought was one new tyre - turned out I needed all 4; going to see Thriller Live.

James decorating our Christmas cake; going to the top of the Birmingham Library on my birthday.

Christmas Day, didn't take many photos of they day.

This made me laugh - James and his uncle zoned out with their iPads.

Spending some time in Derbyshire over the holidays; celebrating James 16th birthday with the family.

That completes my 2013 Project Life albums, due to adding extra pages protectors, and loads of extra photos my pages spans over 3 albums.

I now need to start on my 2014 albums but try and do a much more simple version, perhaps following the original idea of doing Project Life.

Thanks for stopping by.

Project Life - November 2013

I've finally caught up with my 2013 album, and now need to start on my 2014 which I'm going to simplify it has much as I can.

Here are my November pages:

The changing colour of the leaves on the trees; starting to get milk delivered; NEC Craft show.

Seeing the Hunger Games - Catching Fire on my own; meal out with friends, James meeting a local DJ who open the Christmas Fayre

I wanted to included more photos of the Christmas Fayre that I had organised so came up with this idea of using a 6x4 folder card and making into a small flip -out booklet, fastening it in place with washi tape.

I had a lovely weekend away in Coventry at the Scrap Retreat, organised by Tracie Hudson (I still need to finish the classes !!!)

I added another flip-out card to include some smaller photos of the little church at the back of the hotel.

A few views around the hotel and my room.

Morag was able to do a little photo shoot with Sam, Sheena and me

I had a trip up North to spend some time with my girlies, and recharge - this was the first time in ages that I could have moved back to Preston and left Birmingham behind.  I was able to sit down and talk and get things put back into perspective and even though I was only there for the weekend it was definitively just where I needed to be.

James 1st School (yes I know it first is spelt wrong - only just noticed it when I uploaded; visiting my mum's grave; out in Manchester.

Out in Manchester

I organised a 2nd visit to the Harry Potter Studio Tour to see the tour in the Snow, and the day didn't disappoint.

Love this photo of us all in the flying car.

Finding Daniel Radcliffes wand box and messing around in the shop with the sorting hat.

 I will be back shortly with my December 2013 pages.

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Return to the Collection 2014 - Part 2

A few weeks ago I posted about an on-line workshop that Shimelle was running here, well I've managed to get some more of the layouts completely, I still need to add the journalling to some, something I find hard to do straight away.  Photos are all from our Harry Potter Studio Tour last year.

This one was an additional one that I put together using the same collection. and some of the basis ideas that was shared in the workshop.

In my clear out of my craft room I came across these crochet flowers that my friend Nicki made and they worked perfectly for this layout.

I've really loved this workshop and I've managed to keep on track, all the layouts are basic but they are done.

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Guest Blogger - 12 Months in View

I was asked by Bernice to do a blog post about how I used up my scraps to make date embellishments for my December Daily, the post can be found here,

Please hop over to see the full post.

Thank you.

Shimelle's Return to the Collection 2014

Yes, I've done it again enrolled onto a scrapbooking workshop, this one was to find out how to use a complete paper collection something that I struggle to do.  I can use one or two of the papers then think 'what do I do with the rest', so I enrolled and it has been worth it.

So my paper collection I decided to use was Maggie Holmes Flea Market, which I got from TK Maxx for £8.00 - bargain.  This collection was just the papers, so I had none of the Flea Market range of embellishments, which I was OK with has I'm trying to tidy my craft room and have come across loads of embellishments that I wanted to use.

I decided to use some of the many photos I had from my visit to Harry Potter Studio Tour with James early last year.


(Apologies for the photos, taken with my iPhone and uploaded in the evening.)

When I decided to use this large floral paper, I couldn't see how it worked, but I'm happy with it.

This one is a 12x12 with an additional divided page protector holding more photos.

I'm really enjoying this workshop and its has made me sit down and do some layouts that I've been planning to do for a while.  I've followed the format for these as instructed but I know that when I have more time I will be able to adapt some of the designs for other layouts.  I glad that I will have at least 6 layouts to add to our Harry Potter Album.

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Another Layout

Yes, I'm back again with a layout, I'm in the process of de-stashing - not sure whether this is correct word - lol - but you get what I'm doing and have split most of my papers down into colour ways instead of leaving them as a collection.

I had this photo of James on my desk for another layout I was planning to do before Christmas, and decided to stop what I was doing - because sorting my room is going to be an on going project, and put this layout together.

I must admit I found getting the papers together a lot easier than I would have thought, I know all these colours are brown / boy tones but it made putting it together quicker.  I'm hoping has the weeks go by and I get more of my room sorted I will be able to do more layouts.

I die cuts some gears using a nestibilites gear set.

and a die cut from my Silhouette Cameo.

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Old Little Word - Focus Layout

I managed to do this layout the other day, I wanted to do a layout that had my 'one little word' (olw) as the subject.  So this is it.

The camera stencil is by Prima

and this one is a Tim Holtz stencil, which is called - 'Eye Chart' which is all about staying focus.

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