Christmas Album | Day 12...

Yay I'm making some good progress on my album now :)

The background for this page was actually a white piece of cardstock which I had lying in a cardboard box while spraying (misting) some other items. I picked it up to throw it away one day but really loved what I saw and decided to cut down a piece to use for my Christmas album. That I just happened to have used shades of red and green mists was just perfect too :)

The page describes what has now become a tradition since a few years back for us. To buy Ravensburger's 1000 pieces limited edition Christmas jigsaw every year. Something that we really enjoy! We don't really do jigsaws for the rest of the year, so to sit down with this while paying some Christmas music in December is just really special and cosy. *smile*

Mmm... Cupcakes...

Well it's Friday so I think it's a perfect day to talk about yummy cupcakes. :)

Allie had created this super cute kit which I guess was a Valentine's/Love kit really, but I spotted some cupcake images in there too and that was all I needed to scrap a cupcake layout :)

[Supplies: Cloud 9 - Lliella Designs (from SSD)]

These cupcakes are my faves. And if everything goes to plan *fingers crossed* my handsome boyfriend is coming home with a box of these tonight. Yay! So an even more perfect day to post this layout on.

Wishing you all a great weekend :)

Christmas Album | Day 11...

As I'm typing this my printer is very busy printing out 26 photos (some of them with 2 smaller images on each) for my Christmas album catch-up plan...

Normally I send off to have my photos printed as it's cheaper but I figured I'd print them myself this time just to get the job done asap. Also it didn't really seem worth the postage for "only" 26 photos. I do have other photos (from Christmas etc) that I want to get printed too but I wasn't sure when I'd get the time to sit down and go through those... So this seemed like a good compromise.

Thanks to all of you who have commented on my catch-up plan. I appreciate both the encouraging comments and the support in feeling that I'm not alone doing this :)

Christmas Album | Catching Up Plan...

I'm always in the same boat. Since I spend part of December away from my stash, I always have some part of the album to do after Christmas. The amount of days might vary slightly from year to year though. This year it's even worse as I have also been very ill for several weeks...

So I thought I would share my strategy which I use every time...

I make sure I take photos every day during December. Since I have a pretty good memory, the photos remind me of the stories I want to write. This year I have 3 days when I was literally too ill to even pick up the camera. Fortunately on the 3rd day I asked someone else to take some photos. The other days I will just have to work with anyway...

So my next strategy is this: take my album and flick through it from where I need to start (the date which I last made a page for). I will go through the pages one by one (since they are all different sizes) and at the same time go through each photo folder (=one day at a time) on my computer. I will have a pad next to me where I will write down which photos I want to use for which day, what size I want them printed at and how many photos I want for each day. Also I will write down the "subject" for that day.

So my list might say:
20th Dec "Wrapping The Presents" 2 photos at 10x15 cm - portrait and one 10x7,5 - portrait.

This is what I aim to do this weekend. Work out what photos and what size I need and what goes on which page. This list will then make it SOOOO much easier to finish the pages. Just work along it page by page when I have some spare time and get it done that way :) It will just take whatever time it takes and I'm happy with that. :)

I normally finish my album in February and this year it will definitely be the case that I can't finish in January...

Hope this was of help to some of you who might also have pages to finish. If you do, I'd love to hear from you and what strategies *you* have for finishing :)

Flower Power...

Well whether you're ill or not, there are still CT commitments that have to be done... so here's a layout which I worked on yesterday...

[Supplies: These Moments Trims & Fringe - Amber Clegg, Betwined - Amy Martin, Mega Label Pack - Amy Wolff, The Bliss Project Journal Cards Pack 1 - Gina Miller, Vintage Poinsettia - Sahlin Studio, Vintage Poinsettia Papers - Sahlin Studio (all from The Lilypad)]

...brings a change also in between the Christmas album pages :) I thought I'd go for something very non-Christmassy when scrapping this one.

Are you in the same position as me with lots of pages from your Christmas album still to do? Then please come back at the weekend when I will share my strategies for catching up and getting it finished :)

Christmas Album 2011 | Day 10...

First thanks for all the sweet comments left on my post, and e-mails, about me being ill. I have really appreciated them. I have felt really bad that I have virtually left my blog without posts for nearly 2 weeks. :( I'm still not feeling 100% cold or stomach wise and I saw the doctor again yesterday but, *touch wood*, I am slowly getting better. So I figured that I'd at least get a small blog post done in between resting :) Yay!

So here we go, day 10 of my Christmas journal. And yes I have an awful lot of catching up to do regarding this but more on this and my plans about it another day...

This was the back of that felt page which I had a bit of a glue situation with at first. I don't normally work with felt and it took some time to find the right glue to work with paper AND felt.

This page is all about lights and a mini Christmas tree that we have in our bedroom window (at Christmas obviously, which it isn't anymore LOL!) The little smoke spiral coming out of the house is actually a tiny bit of a Doodlebug sticker border which I just happened to spot as I was working on this page and thought it would make some cool chimney smoke :)

Sorry...

Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm ill and have had the worst bad luck. Being broad over Christmas and New Year I first got some sort of stomach bug. A BAD one. Couldn't keep anything down for days and had to see a doctor abroad two times doing several tests etc. SUPER weak and ill. Then before I even recovered I got the WORST cold I have ever experienced in my whole life. I'm now here 10 (!) days later (since the cold started!) and the cold is NO better whatsoever. Crazy! I'm exhausted just sitting on this chair typing this... so I'm off to do some more resting. If anyone have some amazing getting-over-very-bad-colds remedies please post... I can't take much more LOL!

Christmas Album 2011 | Day 9...

Oh this was a tricky page to make!! The Making Memories Christmas album, which I used as my base this year, had a few felt pages in it (two I think - so it will make 4 pages in total). And oooooh did I have fun trying to attach my papers and photos to this material *giggle*

I needed a wet glue but of course I didn't want any messy dried glue blobs anywhere. Anyway, in the end I found my Tombow glue worked well as long as you gave it plenty of time to dry before you tried to move anything.

As for the page it just documents decorating for Christmas and our traditions around that :)