Christmas Album... Preparation Time...

Well it's that time of year again. Time to get ready to do my yearly December album, or my "Christmas Album" as I call it :) I'm doing my usual thing of 31 days from Dec 1st-31st. Works for me :)

(That's what's been happening on my desk this week)

I had a quick look at my previous albums. And there's quite a few. I have six already! Which kinda surprised me :) I spent some time thinking about what size and shape I preferred through the years. I have squares and rectangles, bigger and smaller ones...

I quickly came to the conclusion that I'm not too keen on square albums and this year I fancied making a portrait style one. I like it when I can fit 2 15x10 cm (6x4 inch) photos to a page, so I decided to make my covers a bit bigger than that. And yes I made my album completely from scratch, just like many I have done before. It just makes me happy :)

I think my album cover ended up being about 23x16 cm. But I'm not totally sticking to that format at all! Something that I have really learnt over the years is that I L-O-V-E working with the mixed page sizes. Totally love having the freedom for larger pages when I have lots of photos (or lots to say) and smaller on the less significant days. So a mix of page sizes it is.

I have not done too much preparation when it comes to the inside pages. Purely because I want to be able to have the flexibility of grabbing a larger or smaller page on the day. So it's pretty much a pile of patterned paper pages cut to different sizes at the moment.

Oh and for those who have done some clever spotting work in the photo above, yes I've decided to bind my album with the biggest o-wire and my Bind-It-All at the end. I did that another year and it works well as long as I keep in mind that I can't do too bulky pages as I work on them.

Bring on December :)

Birthday Copics (Part 2)...

This is a post that follows on from yesterday. And now I have finally taken the time to sort photos of the rest... So onto the second birthday parcel of Copics that arrived on Tuesday...

These really do a good job of complimenting my already existing E-shades etc. And good to have some more oranges. Something I was quite lacking. The odd very pale R-shade is included too.

I mentioned in my post yesterday that I didn't have too many greys. Constantly when I colour I notice that I could really have done with some more greys so this will be really handy. Plus some more blues and BG colours. And two missing greens - of course! Happiness :)

And a mixed photo of all of them just because. I feel so, so lucky to have such a big addition to my Copic collection in such a short time. I think everyone who love Copics hope to some day in the future have them all. Whether this will happen or not... who knows. But this has made a nice little dent in the missing colours part for me :) Birthdays are great!

Finally a photo of my Copic chart from a few weeks ago, and below one with the updated colours added.

Right my back is killing me so I'm going to get off this computer and let these colours make me happy instead while I have a little rest :)

Wishing you all a great, great weekend :)

Birthday Copics...

On Tuesday it was my birthday! I got totally spoilt with some great presents. But the day in general was pretty rubbish. I got severe back pain on the sides of my back. After getting medical advice there was a worry that it could be kidney related and I needed to see the doctor THAT day. Oh fun! So I spent most of the day on the phone to various places and waiting at the doctor's. That and being in pain. Good news? Turns out they think kidneys are ok and it's nothing acute. Backs can be "funny things" the doctor said. Bad news is that I was sent home with a load of pain killers that doesn't really seem to help and here I am 2 days later hurting just as much...

Oh well... Let's get onto something fun instead. Like... Let me think... Copics?! Yes I love Copic markers and on my birthday two big parcels with Copics arrived.This is the first lot...

The fluorescent shades which I have been sooo close to getting many times but never have done. I have always prioritised something a bit more "sensible", like some more very useful E-shades or something. But they are finally mine and just looking at the colours make me so, so happy! :)

Some more greys. I have been lacking in this department so they are a few to compliment the greys I already had. Plus some blues and I l-o-v-e the BG shades. Yum!

Then, because I always tend to buy/wish for greens, one has to sometimes think it IS useful to have some other colours too so a bit of red and yellow etc.

And finally this photo of all of them just because... Well, just because it makes me so happy to see them all in one fun colour mix :)

I'm off to take some photos of the second batch of Copic (yes I got TWO parcels, lucky me!) and will get back with them very soon. Probably tomorrow. See you then :)

Lawn Fawn Winter Card...

Oooh how I have had my eye on Lawn Fawn stamp sets...! For a long, long time! I bought the snowmen set last year and since then I have been wanting more and more.

And I have finally got my hands on 3 new (to me) stamp sets by Lawn Fawn which are just super, super cute :) So I'm a very happy girl.

"Critters In The Forest" (that little hedgehog is soooo sweet!), "Critters In The Sea" (can't resist the happy whale!) and "Critters In the Snow" (mmm that bear, so cuddly... polar bear? brown bear? or even a panda? The possibilities!)

I have been scrapbooking, card making, stamping etc for a long time now yet I have never really ventured into paper piecing. I have seen some really cute Lawn Fawn cards done this way so I thought I would give it a try... I decided to start playing with "Critters In The Snow"...

This is actually my second bear on the card. The first one went in the bin as I picked a paper with a pattern that was far, far too busy and soon realised that I needed something more tone on tone. In hindsight I might still have tried the bear in a less busy pattern, but there's always next time... I'm really pleased with the paper for the igloo as I think that worked well.

The snowy ground/hills I actually drew/cut by hand as I didn't have a suitable stamp for this. The reindeer is stamped on a left over piece of a Basic Grey pattern from a long time ago and I used a yellow Copic marker just to give the antlers a slightly different shade of brown.

I had soooo much fun doing this and I can totally see myself doing this again. Especially with the Lawn Fawn stamps that work so well with this technique. :)

Playing With Wood Colours...

I've done some playing and practising with my Copics this week. At the moment I'm trying out different combinations of shades for wood...

I've got a Copic book... it's called Copic Coloring 2... or something similar to that wording. I haven't got it here at the computer to check at the moment. Anyway what I wanted to say is that the blank sign image is from the book and the first colour suggestion is from there...

Colours: RV66, G43, G46, E09, E11 and E15

Then I started picking some other colours and came up with a slightly lighter and more beige version:

Colours: R56, YG23, YG25, E53, E55 and E87

And I really like this one. It's a bit brighter and more "me" in the colours so that makes me happy :)

Finally I decided (though I was very, very sceptical about this!!) to try some browns with more red tones in them...

 Colours: RV55, E33, E35, E47, YG63 and YG67

And that combination surprised me most of all...

Here you can see all three together and who knows if I don't like the redder toned one best. Or the middle one! :) Normally I'm not even a "red" person at all so that's really surprised me and made me realise even more that it's good to think outside the box and try combinations which you have never tried before.

Hope this was useful to someone else but me too and, if you have time, I'd love to hear your own recommended shades for wood please :)

You Have A Piece Of My Heart - Card...

After re-doing my Copic chart etc I have been longing to colour with my Copics all the time. I brought out a stamp which I have been wanting to use for a long time and got to work...

Isn't this image just too cute? I love the Penny Black cats and find them really hard to resist. This is actually a woodmounted stamp too, so I can have it sitting on my shelf where I can see it :) I wish I'd made a note of what Copic shades I used so I could put them on here, but I thought of it too late. Sorry about that!

Here's my finished card. Not sure if the faint colour matched stamping in the background (dotted spirals on the main portion of the card and text on the right side) show up very well on here. Both are made using Hero Arts background stamps :)

A Happy Copic Edition...

I have not bought any new Copics in... well, I think over a year. So I was very, very excited to get a new Copic order in the post... :)))

It's the 12 "new" colours for 2012. I say "new" as they are not really new anymore, but new to me and new to the Copic colour selection since this year. I also got a few others to go with that. I especially noticed that I was a little low on the blues (compared to other colour families) so I made sure I added a few more of those.

I said in my last post that I had just printed a new colour chart (my old one was years old -2009- and missing boxes for more recently released colours from 3 years) and here it is finished with my new shades added.

Ayesha, you asked how many colours I have at the moment. The honest truth? I had NO idea, literally not even a guess. Seriously! So I started counting on my new chart and, unless I went wrong somewhere, I got it to be 207 (inc my new ones). I have collected these for several years now, and like all Copic lovers, my dream is to one day have the complete colour set. Will that ever happen...who knows?! In the meantime I'm very, very happy with the colours I do have and I enjoy them a lot :)

Testing To Post From Blogger App...

... Got the blogger app on my iPad (though I wish there was an iPad version... I don't think there is...?!) and thought I would make a test post today.

I'm in the middle of making a new colour chart for my Copics. My old chart was from 2009 and had hand drawn boxes (by me) for the colours that has been released since then.

For a long time I have thought I should print out a new one... And now was finally the time :)

So let's see if I can get a photo into this blog post too...

(Ok it's looking like it will include an image for me. But I have no idea where in the post it will appear?! Anyone got any experience with this please? Can I tell it where I want it even...? Help gratefully received thanks!)

Playing...

My last post mentioned the day out at Nostell Priory and the fantatsic playground/forest that they had for kids (and adults!) there. This layout is a followup on that story and shows a tiny part of the fun we had have there... :)

I've been dying to use these (Prima?) papers from a very long time ago, and finally I had some photos that fit them colourwise. Yay!

Keeping today's post very short as I have a very busy day today. :)

Banana Or Biscuit...?

And yes, that is possibly the weirdest layout title I have ever chosen LOL!

These photos were taken on a visit to Nostell Priory - a huge National Trust estate with some great walking areas and a fantastic kids' play forest. It really wouldn't be fair to call it a playground because it stretches a long way through the forest and is something pretty special. Even fun for an adult!

The title is a long story and refers to my nephew and his choice (or rather change of choice) when it came to a stop and picnic time. It was indeed a very funny thing to watch his face when things appeared. :)