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)]