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)]