More Christmassy Stuff...

Another Christmas tree photo in the entry for the 21st of December and journaling about how I was playing with the settings on my camera to get different effects on the photos with the Christmas tree lights.

The page for the 22nd is a vellum page (had some from aaaages ago which I thought I might use up). It features journaling about my niece's 1st birthday which we missed back in November (due to being in different countries!). She came and visited on the 22nd and we gave her the presents then which seemed to make big success.

I'm fancying getting something new for my Cuttlebug. Been feeling like this for a few days now. Any die or embossing folder that you could recommend which you use a lot please? I'd love to hear which are your faves :)

New Class...

Yay it's Friday! :)

The on-line layout class that I mentioned here has now gone live. If you have a few moment spare, please pop over to A Trip Down Memory Lane and take a look. :) It's completely free and even if it's not your style it might just give you some inspiration for something else.

Wishing you all a great weekend!! :)

More Pages...

Still so many pages left to do for my Christmas Journal LOL! So I better keep going. Here's the next double spread in my book:

...I'm journaling about my early Christmas present (iPod Touch - which I love to bits and which you already will know if you read my blog regularly) and then on the right side if just a daytime photo of the unlit Christmas tree.

I nearly fell off my chair yesterday as I got a comment on a previous post by *the* Cathy Zielske herself. Wow - cool :)

Oh and I nearly forgot. Jana - you asked me about the overlays that I'd used in this post and what they were... Good question... *goes off to hunt on my hard drive* Yay, found it! They are by Anna Aspnes and they are called "Magic Sparkle Photo Frames 01" and "Magic Sparkle Photo Frames 02" (Designer Digitals). Hope that helps :)

Cathy's BPS class...

I have gotten a few comments/questions about Cathy Zielske's BPS class that I took..

Anonymous (sorry you didn't leave your name) - no I don't mind at all if you use "my idea" for what to do with the handouts :) Of course not :)

Jana - Yes I totally agree - Cathy's class was the best BPS class I have taken so far. I think what really made it so special was that Cathy was so much part of the class and the way she spent so much time with us on the message boards etc. It does make a huge difference and is very much appreciated by the people taking the class I think :)

This is a double layout done for the class. We were told in advance to have a one page enlargements printed and I was really pleased with how this came out when I used some Ali Edwards digital brushes straight onto the photo. Must do this again some time :)

Happy Day...

Just a quick post to show you this "Happy Day" layout. Yet another one done for the BPS class by Cathy Zielske. It's seriously the best BPS class that I have taken so far, and I really hope she will do another one at one stage as I really miss the weekly handouts etc (it ended back in December).

This was a really quick page where we had actually been supplied with the file to print the "Happy Day" text etc so it was a case of adding the Kraft cardstock to your printer, print the text and then scrap. Quick but still a lot of fun, and very satisfying :)

Thank You...

Here are the next pages in my Christmas journal:

You can see the back side of the page from yesterday (day 18) with a cosy photo of the Christmas food set out on the table. It's a transparency page so you see through to the calendar page below etc.

For the 19th I journaled about my early Christmas present. My very much loved iPod Touch which I use several times a day. We'd planned to buy them (me and Ross bought one each, for each other as such) at the airport on the way to celebrating Christmas in Sweden. But then we decided that maybe that was too big of a gamble (only a few days before Christmas and it could be sold out) so we ordered them from Amazon instead. It's definitely my favourite "gadget" by far and I'm totally in love with all the "apps" (if you have one you know what I'm talking about). I constantly have to remove some as I fill the 9 "pages/screens" allowed LOL!

Before I end for today I'd like to thank "Froggy" for giving me the blog award above. Thank you very much :)

More From My Journal...

These are the next two double spreads from my Christmas journal :)

I'm journaling a lot about the "perfect Christmas present" on the 17th..which present we thought would be the perfect present, and it did indeed turn out like that.

The page for the 18th is a half size transparency page (see the black circles on the right side) with a photo of the Christmas lunch on one side and the evening food on the back side (you will see that next time I take photos and upload).

The Million Holes That I Was Punching...

The million holes that I was punching...well it might not have been exactly a million...but it felt like it. LOL! What was I doing? This:

I had printed all the handouts etc that we got back in Oct-Dec by Cathy Zielske for the "Design Your Life" BPS class. Now these handouts were great. Seriously loved it :) Lots of good tips, layouts and sketches. As I was looking at my pile of printed out handouts, I thought to myself "this class is really like a book". And from that the idea came. To make it into a book. I mean we're talking something like (guessing here) about 150 pages, maybe more I think, look:

So I started punching holes in the pages with my Bind-It-All. And punched and punched. It's a LOT of holes LOL! Then I got some chipboard and cut some covers, found some papers and covered them. And finally I altered a graphic from one of the handouts and printed out as a title/cover for the book. I used red 1 inch o-wires for the binding and that fit perfectly, just. I'm seriously pleased with how this came out (you really don't get the feel for the look and sturdiness etc in the photo) and I can see that I will use and refer to this a lot :)

CHA...

Twice a year it happens. CHA. And soon after the shops are flooded with brand new yummy scrapbooking materials. I'm sure I'm not the only one looking out for sneak peeks on the manufacturer websites...hoping that my favourite companies will bring out some great product lines yet again...right? :)

What are you specifically looking forward to or hoping for at this CHA? Please share with me - I'd love to hear :)

I very much love Sassafras and they have some cool stuff coming out:

Another favourite is Heidi Grace. She's got two new lines as far as I can understand and this one has to be my favourite:

And then we have October Afternoon. Love October Afternoon. Both for stamps and paper. This collection looks "very October Afternoon" (if you know what I mean) and very "me" too...so I'm definitely looking forward to that:

I'm also hoping that Ali Edwards/Technique Tuesday come out with some new stamps...but I have not seen any links around so far. If you have - please share :)

...and I would love to see what Scenic Route might be up to...

Okay I'm off to punch like...a million holes LOL! (Hope to finish and show you tomorrow if I can)

Cute Digital Kits...

First of all - thanks for all the sweet comments on my Christmas journal - I really appreciate it :) I'm still working on it and will make sure I post pictures of all the pages here...I'm sure I'll finish and put up some more in the next week :)

Yesterday afternoon and this morning I have been playing with two gorgeous kits by Kay Miller. I mean, how super cute is this one?

Perfect for anything child related (birthday cards, room decor etc) and very cute for adults too (well at least I couldn't resist it). I just made myself a very much needed bookmark :)

[Supplies: "Jungle Boogie" by Kay Miller]

I've not decided whether to add some ribbon to one end or not yet. I might just leave it like it is...

[Supplies: "Santa And Friends" by Kay Miller]

Trying To Get Back...

I'm still not feeling great today...though maybe I can't expect it to go in 24 hours. And today I have like 0% energy. Not so strange really, but totally, totally frustrating :)

First of all I would like to thank:

Sara - for some great inspiration board links the other day :)

...and...

"Gypsy Chaos" - for sharing your photo organisation ideas :) (by the way, the book you asked about was "Photo Freedom")

Above is yet another spread in my Christmas Journal. Yesterday I spent a long time with a scrap piece of paper and a pen working out the remaining days, what subjects to use, what should go where etc. For some of the pages I also got the time to pick the photos and print them at suitable sizes. So today it feels good that I can finally say that I feel like I do have the Christmas Journal project "under control". That I feel like I have a good overview and have made progress enough to be confident and say that I WILL indeed finish this project :)

It's so nice when it goes from the too-much-to-catch-up-on/stressed/feeling-behind/nearly-giving-up feeling to the I'm-in-control/this-can-be-done/I-know-the-rest-of-the-plan/this-will-be-finished/I-can-do-this feeling :)

Back Tomorrow I Hope...

Not feeling too well today (some kind of evil stomach bug) but I hope to be back blogging again tomorrow. Going to curl up with a good book now and watch the snowflakes falling outside...

The 15th...

Journaling about Christmas Eve on the 15th of December. Two photos showing the "envelope page" that is for the entry of the 15th of December in my Christmas Journal:

As I said, the journaling inside is all about Christmas Eve. In Sweden Christmas Eve is the BIG Christmas day...the day for the special Christmas food, the presents etc. This year was a bit different as we spent it at my brother's rather than my parents' house (like normal) so I journaled a bit about this. How it would be different, who would be there etc. It's all tucked into the envelope.

I'm really enjoying making this journal so far and I'm loving the idea that I started already in my last Christmas Journal with the different page sizes/types - makes it so much more fun to do and interactive to look at :)

Planning, Planning...

At the moment I'm really planning this "inspiration board" idea. Not planning as in "real life" yet, but just toying with ideas in my head. If you have seen any ideas or pictures of great inspiration boards around I'd be very happy if you'd post the link(s) to share please :)

Also, after reading Stacy Julian's book (I can't believe she left a comment for me on that post LOL!), I'm even more planning to somehow organising my photos. Some are in a box at the moment and the rest in envelopes. I just can't quite get my head around if I want to stick with the chronological order of sorting (I don't scrap chronological, neither are my albums sorted that way, but I do find it helps me a lot when I look for a photo because I have a quite good memory of when something was/happened). Or if I should sort it more after "event" (which really speaks to me at the moment). Have you sorted yours? In which way? :)

Let It Snow...

...well I don't actually want it to snow. Or ...maybe I do, come to think of it LOL! I love when it's snowing. So cosy! But anyway, "Let It Snow" is the title of this layout:

I really enjoyed making this one as I had got this super cute wintery October Afternoons paper pad which I'd just been dying to use. This "colour blocking"-type-page, for the BPS class by Cathy Zielske, seemed perfect to use it for. I just love the pinks and blues that have been combined. Really "happy" papers for me :)

At the moment I'm busy with the "Get Organized Be Inspired" BPS class. Week 3. I need to go out and buy myself a binder and some plastic pockets/wallets at the weekend (or "page protectors" as we scrappers know them as!) as I really want to create an "inspiration binder" for general ideas and project plans. Aby Garvey gives some really neat ideas for this in the class.

Also we're learning about inspiration boards (have you got one? I'd love to hear about it please :)) and I'm thinking about re-doing my notice board into one. At the moment it does indeed hold photos and lots of other inspirational things but also a lot of "important notes" (phonenumbers, DT deadlines/assignments etc...you know). I'm thinking I might transfer all these into my calendar and have the board for inspiration only. We'll see. I need to do some more thinking :)

Christmas Journal...

It seems a bit strange to work on my Christmas Journal in January, but it's now the 3rd year that I'm doing it so I guess it's become a little like a habit to finish the journal in Jan/Feb by now.

My left side (13th) is all about the tradition of baking gingerbread cookies and the right side (14th) is listing what Christmas gifts we're giving this year. (Could be handy to look back on next year!)

Yesterday I finished off January's on-line layout class for Mel & Jill at ATDML (I will post a link here when it give live in about a week's time) and got that sent off and right now I will get some digi kits sorted and then I hope to have the time left to do a layout for a challenge at the Lilypad blog which will go live on Monday.

"Hotspots"....

I think we all have them in our houses. "Hotspots"...places where things tend to gather in a pile. Fortunately we don't have too many, but one such place was on top of the microwave. We don't have too much work surface in the kitchen so anything small tends to end up there. Shopping list, vouchers, various pens, tape, tea light holders, boxes of matches etc. It was kinda a mess in our otherwise very tidy kitchen and it bothered me...

So on Sunday evening (what a time to pick!) we suddenly decided to sort it out. We dumped all the stuff on the kitchen table and I went through it all, sorted, put away and threw away while Ross had the microwave out from the wall and cleaned it inside and out plus the surface on which it stood etc.

Now all that we have on there is the shopping list pad, a timer and a portable fire alarm. Neat and tidy. Result :)

But we were still left with some pens... Pens that would normally go in a pen jar on the window sill next to the microwave. In an empty jam jar. With a label half torn off. Not the prettiest. So to go with our new tidy ex-hotspot I decided to make a "happy" pen jar yesterday...

[Supplies: Bug-A-Boo Kinda Love by Lauren Grier (SSD)]

Photos and Cupcakes...

Thanks to all of you who left me a comment regarding the cupcake post:

Kat (& LuAnn) - thanks for the tip about double cases.

Jennifer - thanks for the tip about the silicone baking cups. I'll keep an eye out for those.

Tracy - yes they did indeed taste good anyway :) And don't give up on that Christmas journal. Just set little goals...like a page a day or something...and you will get there in the end. I managed to get a few more pages done in my journal yesterday afternoon. I was hoping to do some more today but I now realise I won't have time for that. Maybe tomorrow instead...

Yesterday I got this in the post:

Have you got it? Sorted your photos? Or maybe even done the Big Picture Scrapbooking class that goes with the book? I'd love to hear about it :) I managed to read chapter 1 last night and hope to read some more tonight.

Off to work on some hybrid cards...

Note To Self: "Buy Cupcake Trays!!"

We were baking cupcakes yesterday afternoon. Very-bad-for-you cupcakes. Almond, raspberry and marzipan cupcakes. They are to die for...soooo yummy...but soooo bad for you too. Then again, everything that is super nice seem to be bad for you. :)

Now why is it that you always remember things too late? As the trays came out of the oven I immediately remembered that we'd had a disaster last time and had decided that we must buy some cupcake trays to hold the paper cases or otherwise they just expand sideways and flip over. Had I remembered? No. The first tray still came out pretty ok...

But the second one was a bit of a disaster. The cases just flipped over in the oven when the mixture expanded because of the heat/baking powder.

Still, we rescued the ones we could and continued to fill and add the buttercream icing like planned.

And the overflowing cupcakes were just scraped off the baking sheet and added onto a plate with the leftover buttercream etc as a little treat for the hard working chefs afterwards so nothing was really lost in the end after all :)

Right - that's a lot of baking photos. Over to my Christmas journal which I still have so much to catch up on and so little time to do it. This is the next spread in the book. The left side shows this year's Christmas card. (I just love that Cuttlebug embossing folder!)

At least I managed to print off photos for another 7 pages the other day. So that's a start. Now I just need to find some time asap to make those pages...

High (Up) In The Sky...

Mmm...those Pistachio Macaroons are dangerously addictive!! :)

This is a layout which was done for Cathy Zielske's Big Picture Scrapbooking class. I have the last 3 weeks to catch up on due to being abroad and having no access to my stash. Something that I was aware of even when I signed up back in September and I'm determined to finish the class properly rather than taking the easy route and skipping the last few weeks. Far too good class not to finish :)

Anyway the layout is pretty much following Cathy's original idea and sketch. I was very tempted to add a little more, make it a little more "me"...but in the end I decided to stick with Cathy's style :)

Mmm...

I feel like I'm "back at school" LOL! I have had a day with no scrapping today (very rare!) as I was trying to catch up on "The Organized & Inspired Scrapbooker" class. I have already worked myself through the pre-class work and more or less the 1st week's work too. Lots of reading in the book and then quizzes to answer. Things to think about and plan. I spent most of yesterday afternoon doing it and then continued this morning. So after lunch it was definitely time for a break.

A baking break. It was ages since I baked but spotted this recipe for "Pistachio Macaroons" in one of Nigella Lawson's books the other day and picked up ingredients for it yesterday when we went food shopping.

Yummy chewy macaroons sandwiched with a sweet pistachio butter cream. Really nice (and easy to make - very few ingredients) but pretty sweet so I doubt you can eat too many at once LOL!

"The Organized And Inspired Scrapbooker"...

Hrm...I'm starting to think that I might have a little weakness for signing up for classes LOL! Back in the beginning of December I saw this BPS class which sounded very interesting. To organise your scraproom etc. And we can never be too organised, right? :)

I put it out of my mind because my scraproom is so tiny and I wondered how limited I'd be with what I could actually do/adapt and get out of the class etc. We went away over Christmas & New Year and I kinda forgot about it. Until yesterday when I bumped into a link to the class by chance. And it was the last day to sign up. And I signed up late last night. LOL! I already have the book that's needed for the class so at least it felt good not to have to buy yet another thing on top of the class fee. Anyone else taking it? :)

The class started on the 1st so today is actually the start of the second week already (which came as a little shock to me this morning!). Plus there's a "pre-class assignment". So I have a little to catch up on. First I need to do some Lilypad CT work, then I'd like to get some photos picked and printed for some entries in my Christmas Journal and after that I hope to sit down, download the pre-class work and get started on that :)

Leaving you with a Lilypad CT layout which I made this morning...

[Supplies: Scrap Pad - The Lilypad Special - Amy Martin, Artsy Photo Masks Vol 1 - Kasia Designs, Just Some Papers - Kasia Designs, Epoxy Dots #2 - Amy Wolff, Circle Werx - CD Muckosky, Colorful Borders - Jenna Desai, Flower Bits - Jenna Desai, Doodley-Strips - Kate Hadfield, Lilypad Linens - Kate Hadfield, Polka-Dotty Alpha - Kate Hadfield, TLP Buttons & String - Natalie Braxton (all from the Lilypad)]

Great Colours...

I kinda missed the launch of the January BYOC (build your own collab) at the Lilypad last week when I was away and I only caught up on it yesterday. Wow ---> love the colours :) Green (yum!), pink, white and black. I downloaded a few kits yesterday and got them all unzipped and sorted, ready to play with this morning:

[Supplies: Scrap Pad - The Lilypad Special - Amy Martin, Black And White Basics - Amy Wolff, Sock Hop Alphabet - CD Muckosky, Doodlicious - Jenna Desai, Flower Bits - Jenna Desai, Just Swirls - Jenna Desai, Button Bitties - Kate Hadfield, Doodley-Strips - Kate Hadfield, Lilypad Linens - Kate Hadfield, Polka-Dotty Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Paper Daisies - Kaye Winiecki, TLP Buttons & String - Natalie Braxton (all from the Lilypad)]

These are some of my favourite kits from the January BYOC (in no particular order):

I got behind on my Christmas journal, because of having no access to my stash over Christmas and New Year, so I'd better go and pick that up now...