Happy New Year!...

Wishing you and your family a Happy New Year! Hope you'll have a great time tonight celebrating :)

Layout Time...

I have some digital layouts which I have been working on and which never got the chance to go on the blog with all this posting about my Christmas album. So today it's break time and time for a layout instead. Okay so it's Christmas related also, but still... :)

[Supplies: Elfin Whimsy - Amy Wolff, Grow With Love Holiday Edition - Sara Gleason, Crystal Livesay, The December BYOC Collection - Heather Hess, Star Swirls Whimsy - Jenna Desai
For The Record - Designs By Lili, Knit Alpha - Sahlin Studio, Knitted Crochet Snowflakes - Sahlin Studio (all from The Lilypad)]

These kits that I have used are part of the Lilypad BYOC collection for December. I should have another layout using these kits after the New Year...

And talking about the New Year... it's almost here!! Getting excited for tomorrow yet? Know what to wear and what to do? Should be lots of fun! :)

Christmas Journal - Day 10...

Another one of these unusual page protectors with flaps for Day 10...

Page protectors which at first I was not sure about at all, but now I really love working with once I tried it :) I'm so pleased I have another one of these albums to use for another project - and I know just the thing!

Some memories which I wanted to capture in my album this year. Some new decorations which I wanted to feature and get documented and also some journaling about when we sent and handed out our Christmas cards this year. Could be useful to know next year!

...and the flap open, so you can see the full page on the inside! :)

Birthday Card...

Yes a non Christmas related post inbetween all my Christmas album entries. Though a very quick blog post! This time I have used a very cute kit by Kay Miller called Winds Of Change...

[Supplies: Winds Of Change - Kay Miller (A5D)]

It's a Swedish birthday. Grattis means Congratulations in Swedish! :)

See you tomorrow with some more from my Christmas album...

Christmas Journal - Day 9...

Hope you had a great Christmas!! :)

A page with no photos...? Yes that is perfectly okay in my album! :) There's absolutely no need to add photos every day if you don't want. And since on many pages I have several photos, it's actually quite nice to have a page with no photos here and there mixed into the album.

I had a lot of journaling I wanted to do, and I love white space when I scrap, so there was no way I was going to clutter up the page by trying to fit in a photo too.

This page is about Christmas traditions. Where we'll spend Christmas this year and how I think it will be similar and/or different to other times. :)

Merry Christmas!...

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas! Hope you all have the most perfect Christmas possible :)

Christmas Journal - Day 8...

Ooooh it's getting close to Christmas!! Are you excited? I love all the cosiness about Christmas :) And here's a really Christmassy page from my Christmas album...

This time it's a smaller page protector. It's 5x7 inches. All these fun different sized (and pocketed!) page protectors came with the album when I bought it.

I realised that I'd never documented these Santas so I wanted to capture a photo of them and get it down in my album where and when they were from. Something fun to look back on when you start wondering how long you have had something...

I think this is something that I have learnt from my mum. She has books from when she was little and inside it's always written very neatly when and who it was from. And the same with so many other things, like my parents lights for the Christmas tree. Shes written it on the box. It's the year when I was born. And yes they are still going strong! Nothing today would work that long. Our last tree lights lasted 4 years... or was it even only 3?!

Christmas Journal - Day 7...

Christmas album time again...

Yes I know I'm working several days behind, I normally end up doing that due to the busy time of December, but I'm totally happy with that. I KNOW I will finish it, whether that will be in January or February... that doesn't matter to me at all :) As long as I keep taking photos and making notes on the day in question, it's always easy to create the page later. So keep that in mind if you yourself is also making a Christmas album and working behind.

...another one of these fun 9 pocket pages (and the back of Day 6 of course!) I decided I wanted to get the tree in there. Plus some journaling about when we decorated it etc. That type of info is always fun to compare with other years. And I think I have remembered to add a date of when the tree was put up in all my previous Christmas albums too :)

Naughty Cat Christmas Card...

Again, I thought it would be nice to have a little break in between all the Christmas album pages, so I thought I'd show you a Christmas card I made instead...

One of our neighbours has the cutest ginger cat! We totally love it (and they know we do, I'm pretty sure it's obvious!) We always exchange Christmas cards with them and this year I decided to make one rather than buy one (I normally only make cards for family and we buy for the rest) as I had the perfect stamp...

If you check out the top of the tree I think you can see why I thought this would be the perfect stamp for them? :) The stamp is by Penny Black and I had lots of fun colouring it in with my Copics :)

Christmas Journal - Day 6...

Loved, loved, loved working with this fun 9 sectioned page protector. :) It was just so different working with the small pockets and I really enjoyed coming up with what should go in which pocket :)

The photos and the page is about the Christmas market in Leeds that we went to. It was the first time we visited this Christmas market. It was super cosy but I think we both had hopes that it would have been a bit bigger than it was. I'm sure we'll go again some year but I think it might be too small to bother with every year...

Christmas Journal - Day 5...

And after a little card break yesterday, we're back to my Christmas album again. I'm really, really enjoying doing this. Yes of course some days it's rather stressful to fit it in amongst all the Christmas preparations. But it's such a nice break and also something nice to look back on later :)

Anyway onto Day 5...

This uses the back of the flap page protector from Day 4. I decided to photograph my pages inside the page protectors. Otherwise I think certain pages just wouldn't make sense... with lots of little pieces of card just lying about LOL! But of course it's not the easiest to take photos of something inside of reflective plastic. This was one such day, and the light outside just didn't behave. So I have lots of reflection on the top part of the photo... but I think you can see the main parts anyway :)

I Love Snowflakes...

A little break in the Christmas album page posting for a wintery card I made. I've been using a very pretty digital winter kit called "Softly Falling" by Kay Miller in pinks, browns and whites. Really nice and refreshing to see winter kits in other colours apart from the usual blues, whites, greens and purples... :)

[Supplies: Softly Falling - Kay Miller (A5D)]

Isn't that gingerbread house just too cute? I just had to use it on my card *smile*

More from my Christmas album tomorrow again...!

Christmas Journal - Day 4...

On Monday I mentioned making Christmas cards and how I inserted an extra page into my Christmas album between Day 3 and Day 4. I wanted the actual card in my album but I also wanted to capture some of the moments of making them. So onto Day 4 and assembling time :)

Day 4 uses a rather fun page protector. On the front it has a flap that goes over the page. I decided to use both the front and back of this flap for Day 4. (And then the back side will be the next day). At first I wasn't sure I would like working with these page protectors and the tall/narrow extra flap compartments. But I found myself really enjoying it :)

Here you can see the page opened up. The two larger squares are 5x5 inches and the little flap is only 2 inches wide. It turned out really fun to work with once I planned my photos etc :)

Christmas Journal - Cover + Extras...

For my Christmas album I used this Pink Paislee album...

It's a plain canvas album (with lots of fun mixed page protectors) in a white, kinda creamy, colour. I decided to put some of my Cosmic Shimmer Misters to use and after a few days of spraying, drying, spraying, drying... the result is this:

What you can't see in the picture is the shimmer from the mica in the sprays. I tried taking a few close-up photos tilting the cover in the sun... but I'm not sure it's much more obvious in the photos there either ...?

Oh well. It's shimmery in reality at least :) Now I need to add some sort of title to the front. I will be back with more photos once that is done...

I have mentioned before that I'm happy using photos in my album which might be taken on a different day. I'm also happy to just use whatever size/shaped page protector comes next in my album... and if that *really* doesn't work, then I'm happy moving things around, adding or removing something.

Heading onto Day 4 (which I'll add in my next update) I wanted to documenting making our Christmas cards. And I always include one of them in the album. Only the page protector pockets for Day 4 were not tall enough to fit the card. What to do? I had a little think and in the end I decided to add an extra 5x7 page protector between Day 3 and Day 4. :)

So the first side is just a pretty green polka dot paper with the card attached to it (it had to be placed sideways but I'm totally fine with that) :)

And on the back I just used a piece of card cut from an empty Christmas card box + a word sticker. Everything works - no stress :)

Christmas Journal - Day 3...

First of all, thank you Charlotte for suggesting how to get rid of the blue light I suffered with on my last photo - I really appreciate it :)

Christmas is coming fast eh? These last two weeks seem to have gone faster than any weeks ever before almost LOL! Anyway, I hope you're feeling at least reasonably prepared and can enjoy this weekend :)

Right, onto the page for Dec 3rd in my Christmas album...

I decided I wanted to have a page & journal about Christmas markets in general. The photo is taken in Manchester and is actually from the 29th... but I'm totally cool with that. My album is about capturing Christmas, the run up to it, our traditions etc and it's totally fine if a photo comes from a different day to the one I'm actually working on :) Putting the tradition of visiting Christmas market into my album was something I definitely wanted to do :)

Christmas Journal - Day 2...

I have finished spraying my album cover with the Cosmic Shimmers now. I went for a combination of green and red shades. It's dry (or at least I hope so!) and I will decorate the front later today or tomorrow I think... Will get photos on here when it's done :)

This is the page for December 2nd. For some reason the whole photo has a very blue tone. Not sure what went wrong (the colours are correct in reality) and I'm not such an expert on PSE that I know how to fix such a thing :( Anyone else know?

The page is about the weather. And about braving the weather on foot when the car was impossible to get out of our street. I made note of the temperature and the snowfall. Could be fun to look back on and compare in the future.

Now I need to go and have a good think about today's page... :)

Christmas Journal - Day 1 + Christmas Market...

Last night we visited the Christmas market in Leeds. We'd never been to that one before but decided a long time ago that this year we'd definitely try it.

Brrr it was soooo cold! Gloves, hat, scarf... still cold!

The market was a lot smaller than what's in Manchester but it was done in a very cosy way so we still enjoyed it a lot. Even if we'd hoped that there would be a few more stalls. Here are some photos from the night...

It wasn't nearly as empty as it looks in my photos. I just waited around as I wanted as few people as possible in the shots LOL!

And before I go, here's the page for December 1st in my Christmas journal. It's the same 9 pocket page protector as for the Intro as it's the back of that page. The subject had to be the obvious one for that day - how we were snowed in and it was impossible to get the car out :)

Christmas Journal - Intro...

Right, it's about time that I got the camera out to take some photos of my Christmas journal...

This morning I have been catching up on the pages for day 4 + 5. The weekend days. The pages are now done and in the page protectors. I'm also working on my cover. I'm spraying it with Cosmic Shimmer Mists and it's going to take a few days to get that done due to spraying several times and it having to dry in between. Anyway, let's start at the beginning :)

This is the title/intro page to my album. The album I chose came with lots of different sized page protectors. I kinda mixed them up in the album and most of them are just placed on a random day. This means I will take it as they appear and adapt my page with my photos etc to fit the page protectors. On a few "obvious" days (like Christmas Eve) I chose to put a larger page protector on purpose. And if I have a small 7x5 inch page protector and it turns out that I want to use lots of photos for a certain day, then of course I can move the page protectors around if it comes to it :) So it's totally flexible... :)

Christmas Joy...

Sharing a little layout while we're continuing to be snowed in...

[Supplies: Elegant Holiday - PixelWorks, Clip-tionary Holidays - PixelWorks, All The Trimmings - PixelWorks, Grow With Love Marriage Edition - Sara Gleason, Crystal Livesay (all from The Lilypad)]

I'd better get myself organised and get some photos taken of my Christmas journal too! Aaaah! LOL! Totally forgotten to do that. Day 1 + 2 are done and I'm doing today's page later today...

Christmas Time...

We've been snowed in here for 2 days now and it's not looking any better yet either. Cars are standing here totally snowed over and the temperature is below zero so it's not going to disappear too soon. The UK not using winter tyres on cars so that of course makes it a disaster as soon as the snow arrives!

A few days ago I was working with a really cute Christmas collab by Kay Miller and Kristin Aagard. It's been released today and you can find it here:

I picked some Santa photos from last year at Christmas Eve and got scrapping. In Sweden Santa actually arrives (usually late afternoon on the 24th - which is the day Christmas is celebrated on) and gives you the presents, which is different from the UK as he supposedly comes during the night and leaves the presents (ie you never see Santa) :)

[Supplies: Santa's Workshop - Kay Miller, Kristin Aagard (from A5D), Grow With Love Holiday Edition - Sara Gleason, Crystal Livesay (from the Lilypad)]