Capturing...

So my Christmas album for 2011 is finally finished. Yay! That's a great feeling. And it felt like it took me a long time to get it complete it this year. Yet I guess that's just what matters. To complete it! And not so much the time it took.

Today there will definitely not be anything Christmas related on my blog for a change. Instead let's jump into some digital scrapping...

[Supplies: Busy Boy - Amy Martin, For The Love Of Love - Allison Pennington, Love Letters The Pieces - Allison Pennington, Love In My Lens - CD Muckosky, Big Ol Tags 4 - Lauren Reid
(all from The Lilypad)]

I have of course kept up with my CT work for the digital scrapping teams while still working on my Christmas album (maybe a little reason why it took me quite a while to complete my album...?) and above is a layout which I really enjoyed doing for the Lilypad.

I love the colours I was working with for this layout. The stitched hearts at the bottom is one of my favourites. In fact I'd love to try something similar on a paper layout some time. If my sewing machine would actually behave. But I guess I could always do some sewing by hand... :)

Christmas Album | Day 31...

Before I go onto the last (yes, last!! yay!) page in my album, I just wanted to answer a question left by "bunny mommy" on my last post. Unfortunately you didn't leave an e-mail address so I couldn't respond personally... I really hope you see this :)

Thanks for the comments on my photos :) That made me so happy! And you were wondering what camera I use. I use two. One smaller (which always stays in my bag) and one a bit larger. The smaller camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX60. Looooove this! Most of the photos in my Christmas album were taken with this.

My larger camera is also a Panasonic Lumix, the FZ38 model. Loooooove this too! I used to have Fuji cameras. Then I had the opportunity to use and compare with the equivalent cameras in the Panasonic Lumix range... Wow what a difference!! I could not believe how much the Panasonic Lumix cameras outclassed the Fuji ones. And now I'm very much like "never a Fuji again" LOL! Anyway, hope that was of some help and thanks again for your comment!

And with the final page above, 31st of December, my Christmas album is complete. I never spend the whole of December at home so I have this every year... having to complete my album at a later stage. But I'm okay with that. I know it will happen. And I know I will always finish it. And what a great feeling that is :)

Christmas Album | Day 30...

One day to go in my album after this, and it's complete :)

Onto Day 30th...

If you've followed my last two pages/days, from the 28th onwards, you know that I spent those days being really ill and the 29th going to the emergency doctor. I had tests done, tests that were too high and today they wanted me to come back, as close to 24 hours later as possible, to have everything re-taken again. So off to the doctor I went...

It was so busy there! The waiting room was over flowing. I could hardly sit straight up on my seat due to feeling so weak and I was suffering badly with nausea. I though I really wouldn't make it waiting for all those people before me going in first. Fortunately they called me in early, since I was having the same tests done, I could bypass the general queue. God job really. I was feeling worse than when I'd been there the day before but the tests showed better results. Yay! They thought whatever it was had turned for the better and I was told to go home and rest & get better. Of course to return if I was feeling worse again. Wow what a very, very, very ill 3 days it's been...

Christmas Album | Day 29...

The 29th of December page in my Christmas album... Just a general Christmas tree photo. Couldn't manage anything else. As I mentioned last time, I'd gotten really ill on the 28th. Today (29th) was no better. In fact it was worse. I had episodes of being doubled over in stomach pains, so bad that in the end my parents insisted on me doing to see the emergency doctor...

The doctor was worried enough to make several tests. Tests that were too high. And she wanted me to come back in 24 hours to have all the tests done again to see how they had changed... So off home I went and spent most of the day half sleeping, half wriggling around in agony...

Christmas Album | Day 28...

Before going onto my Christmas album I just have to mention my new iPad. It arrived on schedule, before lunchtime, on Friday. I spent the day doing a restore from my old iPad as I had a lot of info on that which I wanted transferred to my new iPad. And now that I have had the time to play with it for a few days... Well ---> I'm in love!! :)

It's... amazing! The screen is fantastic! It's all good and well hearing facts and figures showing that something is indeed much improved, but when you can actually SEE it - that is great! The speed is a huge improvement from my old iPad 1 too. Love to have a camera etc. I'm so glad that I upgraded. :)

28th of December. Not a lot happened on this day. Or rather, the truth is that I have no idea what happened on this day. I woke up with the worst upset stomach! Within an hour I was so weak I could hardly stand on my very shaky legs... and I spent most of that day sleeping it away...!

Christmas Album | Day 27...

Our favourite board game... Or I should say board gameS, as there are several expansion packs, are the Ticket To Ride series of games. We actually first discovered it via the iTunes iPad app. I'd been thinking about getting the app for a while, in the end I decided to go for it... and we were hooked.

...then followed the boardgames. So much fun! I love strategy games :)

For Christmas we got Mum & Dad Ticket To Ride USA. And day 27th in my Christmas album features the premiere for their new game and the evening we were teaching them how to play. We played several evenings in a row after this :)

Christmas Album | Day 26...

Only five more days/pages to do after this one and my December album is complete :)

We're onto December 26th and another "tradition". For... Well... I really don't know... For as long as I can remember (!) my aunt and uncle have invited us all on my Mum's side (my Dad's side of the family lives in a different part of the country so we see them at different times) for dinner on the 26th of December every year.

Every year it seems like we're more and more people (girlfriends, babies etc added) and we don't know how they manage each year. It always seems full to capacity and "how will they manage next year?!" LOL! But they do :)

Anyway I think we all really like, and appreciate, that they do this as it's really the one time in the whole year when we ALL meet at once. So a really nice tradition indeed :)

Christmas Album | Day 25...

Not many days left in my Christmas album now. Told you I would get it done eventually :) Much too great of a project to give up on!

...and we're on to Dec 25th. In the UK the BIG Christmas day... In Sweden not so. The 24th is when it's celebrated. So the 25th in Sweden is like... well, I guess what Boxing Day (26th) is like in the UK.

A day when we tend to really enjoy Christmas, spend time with family, playing with new presents and just relax a bit. One thing that's kinda become tradition in our family, without it even really having been decided, is no TV in the evenings on the 24th/25th/26th. I'm not sure how it's ended up like that. But I'm so grateful. It's nice not having it on...

Just sitting around, being together, talking, and... what's also become a tradition on these evenings is board game playing. Preferably some sort of quiz game. We all love a game called MIG which has been released in different versions now (they even do one in English). It's kinda like a Swedish version of Trivial Pursuit only you don't have a board. Just question cards, 2 dice and a scoring pad. We love to play this in teams :)

Excited, Excited, Excited...

Yesterday I was up before 6 in the morning for one single reason. To pre-order the new iPad (3rd gen). The pre-orders technically started the night before but the shop was down for hours and never worked even by the time we went to bed...

And am I glad I got up extra early just for this. Why? Well, we've got them for the launch date of the 16th of March and even just a little later (after we both had placed our orders) they changed the delivery time and it now says a more unspecified "2-3 weeks" for delivery.

At the moment I have a 32 GB iPad 1. Already back then we both decided that it was crazy to upgrade every year (which is the rate Apple seem to update them at the moment) so we said we were not "allowed" to get the iPad 2 but would wait for the 3rd generation. And this was the day when it was finally announced on Tuesday. Soooo exciting! Went for the 64 GB (as I constantly run out of space on my iPad 1) but no 3G (or indeed 4G as it is now) as we have a 3G dongle anyway.

Also I'm pretty sure my current cover won't fit so I per-ordered this Smart cover from Apple too. They have a really cool little video on their site showing how clever the cover is. Do I need to say what colour I went for...? Maybe not, eh? :) If you need a hint... it might be in my profile... or the colour of the text on my blog... or indeed a lot of other things I own LOL!

Bring on next Friday - I'm soooo excited, can't wait! :)

Christmas Album | Day 24...

The 24th of December has two pages in my album. There's really two reasons for this. Firstly because the 24th is THE day for Christmas (in Sweden). Secondly because I'm working from the 1st to the 31st and that would leave one page left over at the end of finishing it. I thought because I knew I would have most photos from this day it would be a great day to do a double spread. Rather than having to use lots of very small photos...

The actual background pages that I was working on (which came with the album) were different for each day. So to pull them together I kept the design very simple (and very much focusing on the photos) and the same for both pages.

I wish I'd thought about photographing these photos together (just as well as separately) when I took these photos, but hey, I didn't... Oh well :)

Christmas Album | Day 23...

Sorry I have been missing in action for a few days more than intended. I've been through some terrible kidney stone treatment. And no, that's probably not the end of it yet either... :(

Anyway, let's not talk about that now... Back to my Christmas album and the 23rd of December:

This was a pretty calm day. Just the final prepartions to be done for "tomorrow". Mum is making the Christmas ham and the Christmas presents are beginning to gather under the tree. The page is quite simple really. Two large photos and a border from some sticker sheet that I can't remember who manufactured. Journaling card, stamps and labels. Done :)