Christmas Album | Day 22...

I'm now working on the back of the transparency page so I'm trying to keep the layout the same...

Time to get the house ready for Christmas in Sweden. It's the 22nd of December and Dad brings in the tree while we carry up the boxes from the basement. Boxes containing wrapped Christmas figurines (Santas), the decorations for the tree etc.

Every year since... well, as long as I can remember. Since I was very, very young we have played the same Christmas album while decorating the tree. Yes it did indeed start out as a music cassette (album) and we have had it converted to CD since. Nothing says Christmas to me more than playing this Swedish album. We even have one in the UK too so we can play it while we decorate our tree here :) Magical moments indeed :)

Distress Markers...

So who's excited about the new Distress Markers that Tim Holtz has launched? Me!! LOL! I pre-ordered mine quite a few weeks ago now and I'm hoping they will dispatch very soon. Coming from the US, I guess it will be a little while longer no matter what...

I'm actually not into the super grungy look. It's just not me. But I still love Tim Holtz distress products and they certainly don't have to be used for only very grungy arty projects at all. I'm looking forward to using my markers for stamping and making cards. Should be so much fun! I can't wait :)

Are you getting some too....?

Christmas Album | Day 21...

21st of December. Time to wrap presents. This was one of the pages that came with the Making Memories album that I had saved from the year before. A transparency page printed with lots of Christmas related words in Christmas colours. Fun :)

I really liked it but found it a bit hard to work with. Of course you need to think that everything needs to fit perfectly with what's on the back of the page. In the end I decided to make it very simple. Just two standard sized photos, some old Doodlebug border strips and then the date + journaling on top of the photos using stickers. You can still see the text transparency peeking out at either side but it doesn't make the page "too" busy.

Christmas Album | Day 20...

This was a nice day. 20th of December. We spent some of it doing some shopping. Well, actually no shopping at all (all the presents were already bought) but we just walked around this shopping centre and enjoyed it. Not many people at all there either as we were there when it opened. T

hey had a cute little Christmas village too with stalls selling lots of yummy things. I took the photo you see on the top of the page from the first floor and down (the stalls were on the ground floor). It looks so cosy :)

In the evening we had two late birthday celebrations with family which was so nice! I wish I'd thought about getting us all in the photo.

Christmas Album | Day 19...

Okay, we're up to the 19th now. Making progress :) And yes it IS hard to complete a project when you're "behind". But it's totally do-able and I AM going to get to the end of this album. Just like I have done previous years.

Anyway, back to day 19... This was the day we travelled. And with getting to and from airports etc, it's pretty much an all day thing. So my photos are travel related. To make this tie in with the rest of the album I kept my borders in red and green (Christmas colours) and therefore it totally fits with the page opposite it (in the album).

Right I'm off to get some Creative Team work done. Hope you all have a good day :)

Christmas Album | Day 18...

Like the day before (=17th of Dec), this page is very simple with one photo. We're here only one day away from travelling and therefore it was not much time for Christmas related activities. In fact, if you look between the candles, you can see a suitcase lying ready to be packed. Well actually it's already 90% packed at that point.

Still, this was the 4th of Advent and we made sure to take the time for a short break in our packing to celebrate Advent like Swedes do. Well actually this was not really celebrated like Swedes do (or as we normally do) at all...

This turned out to be totally different. The Glögg was missing. The gingerbread cookies were missing. Instead there was hot chocolate with marshmallows! LOL! We didn't want to open a new bottle of Glögg the day before travelling and the remaining gingerbread cookies were already in the freezer. So a rather different Advent for us :)

Beach Love...

I don't think I have mentioned it here on my blog before but Kay Miller has recently moved from After 5 Designs to Scrap Orchard. I've always been a huge fan of Kay and I'm so pleased to follow her over to the Scrap Orchard too...

As part of my Creative Team assignments I have been working with the kit above this week.

I love the greens and aquas. And even though I used to hate orange as a child, since I started scrapping, I have really come to like this colour too! Strange how you can change like that...

Still, green will forever be my favourite :) *smile*

[Supplies: Wishful Thinking - Kay Miller, Pieces Of My Heart 14 - Kay Miller (from SO)]

With Love...

I hope you all had a perfect love filled day yesterday :) I guess Valentine's Day is one of the most popular days of the whole year to eat out. So I'm very much like, why do it? In general, the more busy a restaurant is, the worse service you are likely to/might get. Therefore I (we!) prefer to avoid this day for eating out and instead saving that for another time.

Same with the cinema, why choose to go on this specific day when it's more likely to be super busy and you might not even get tickets to the film you really want? Fine of course if you enjoy crowded places, we're all different, but I definitely prefer things less busy.

So instead we got some extra nice food in and had a cosy night at home just the two of us... that's perfection to us and that's how we spent last night. *happiness*

Christmas Album | Day 17...

I wanted to document the fact that since we travelled with our Christmas presents we wrapped them at our destination rather than at home. Because let's face it, if we DID wrap them here, then that surely would be THE time that the customs would decide to check all your luggage! LOL!

But I wanted a photo on my page and that was the "tricky" part. What to use? In the end my eyes fell on something on the desk that I had been working on as part of my CT work for Kate Hadfield at the Lilypad. Her Christmas tag stamps. Which I had just had fun colouring in with my Copics! Tags ---> wrapping! And out came the camera. Perfect :)

Christmas Album | Day 16...

Day 16 in my album and usually the only day in my Christmas album which is non Christmassy. Because it's birthday time in our house. :)

To make the page go with the rest of the album, I still kept a few Christmas embellishments and chose to use a green cardstock page as the background. It makes the whole look a lot more unified and the page doesn't stand out at all as "not fitting in the album".

Christmas Album | Day 15...

15th - This was a snow day for us. Well, snow and snow... To someone from Sweden it wasn't really that much snow, but to the UK it was a snow day. I always find it rather amusing that as soon as a snowflake falls it's "crisis" in this country. It always seems to come as some massive unexpected surprise... yet it snows every year :)

And talking about snow, we're actually supposed to have some today... though so far it's just rain, which is rather surprising considering it's below zero.

Christmas Album | Day 14...

I think this day/page is very self explanatory. The photo features an advent calendar that I made a few years back (2008) and which we have used every year since. As I was putting up the "14th" I was thinking about how nice it was to be able to use it every year and I wondered for how many years we'll end up using it...

The big embellishment in the middle is by Pink Paislee. I knew I wanted them as soon as I saw the pack (it's from the year before this Christmas collection) of them. Only in hindsight, I'm thinking that they are not so handy as they are extremely bulky...!

Oh My I'm Cold...

Wow today it's soooo cold. It's been such a mild "winter" so far that today is a bit of a shock really. Minus 6 degrees. Most days we have had more like plus 10 degrees - so that is some difference.

I'm still working on my Christmas album. And quite happily doing so I have to say. :) I was determined to not let it stress me. It can take the time it takes. I know I will finish it. Should hopefully have some more pages done next week.

Anyway a break from photos of the Christmas album today and instead a layout done for the Lilypad CT assignments:

[Supplies: Lovey Dovey Doodads - Kate Hadfield, Lovey Dovey Templates - Emily Merritt,
Whimsy Love - Gina Miller, Underground Valentine Word Art - Karah Fredricks, Perfect Pear - Kaye Winiecki, Key To My Heart - Sahlin Studio, Washi Tape Strips No 2 - Sahlin Studio
(all from The Lilypad)]

Christmas Album | Day 13...

What goes on a certain day/date in my Christmas album varies from year to year (depending on what's happening and what we're doing etc)...

But there are a few days like the 24th (the day Christmas is celebrated in Sweden) and the 31th (New Year's Eve) that will always feature the "same" thing in my album every year...

So is the 13th. Why you say? Well, here is my page...

The tradition of Lucia. On the 13th of December every year. Like many things, this was originally a religious celebration. Today it's mostly celebrated...well, just because it's celebrated :) I'm so pleased that we can watch the Lucia program (which is shown early in the morning and then repeated late afternoon on TV) over the internet. Nice to be able to keep one tradition even though you're not in the same country :)