JANUARY PL PART 2

TUESDAY, 27 JANUARY, 2015

Hello Fellow Crafters!

Looking at my post date above I cannot believe that January is nearly over. Where did the month go?

Today I am sharing a few pages from my January Project Life. 

I have to say that I am liking the bigger size album this year. A change was definitely needed and I am glad that I chose to go with the 9 x 12 size. Although with the bigger size I do feel that I haven't done that much yet this year whereas with the smaller 6 x 8 size it definitely fills up quicker. 

The first page

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Just before the Christmas break I was having difficulty with my right shoulder. It got to the point where just after the new year the pain became unbearable so had to visit the GP. She referred me to a physiotherapist. 

I cut up the flier from the physio clinic and inserted this into (4) 3 x 4 pockets.  I also created a mock patient assessment file card (don't worry, that's not my real NHS number). Found a little file folder tab from The Daily Grind kit by Simple Stories and enjoyed using my new sewing machine to attach it to the top of the card. 

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I'm not necessarily a Marvel fan, one way or the other but one afternoon I found myself sitting in front of the telly watching Captain America - The Winter Soldier.  And I have to say it was quite a good film - a fast paced action packed adventure! Enjoyed it! 
(This insert is design I) 

The top (2) pockets

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The bottom pocket

A pic of Rupert, full from his dinner, sitting in the kitchen, dozing with contentment as we eat our dinner. He brings me such joy! 

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I also got a chance to do another full size 9 x 12 layout. I am really enjoying being able to work with this size. 

I know I already used this photo on my title page but I really liked it and we so rarely take pictures together (something I aim to do more this year) so I thought I would use it for a full size layout as well. 

I wanted to do a lot of layering with this layout as well as use a pink colour scheme. I am trying to make an effort to use up more of my stash this year as I have quite a lot to use so this was my first attempt at that. 

A close up of some of the smaller details.

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My next page including a new year pic, what book I'm currently reading and some pics of all of us.  

Inserted a 2015 card at the top of the page. A very cute photo that Jason posted on my FB page just after the New Year which is totally my sense of humour! 

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Last year I saw a lot of crafters regularly include in their albums what they were reading. This year I thought I would do the same. I am currently reading The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty. 

I found this great printable on the Happy Go Lucky blog by the lovely Kara, which you can find here. The printable was much larger but I scaled it down to fit into a 3 x 4 pocket.

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More pictures of Rupert as he is the child that I document! This is a daily ritual with Rupert. When Simon comes home for the evening this is what Rupert does.  It makes us both laugh so much!

As you can see this page is not complete. I have a few spaces yet to fill but I wanted to get it up and posted on the blog.

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I have been coveting shoes like these for ages and finally found a pair in the UK, which is not an easy task.  There are many companies that carry shoes like this but mostly in the US or even some in Australia. But I always hesitate to purchase them from outside the UK as the postage would cost a small fortune and as well, if they don't fit and I have to return them I will then lose again with the return postage.

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So this was a great find for me and I ordered them straight away. Took more than a couple weeks to arrive and when they did I was so excited, like a small child on Christmas morning! I was absolutely gutted to find as I was unpacking them from the box that there was a gouge on the outer heel of the right shoe. It doesn't come through completely in the small photo above but in real life you could clearly see it. So sadly I had to return them, after all that. 

I had my yoga mat out as I make an effort to exercise at home at least three times a week. Rupert always likes to roll around and rub his face all over my yoga mat once I'm done exercising. Don't know why he does it but I find it so adorable!

After looking back on my pages I have noticed that they do seem quite busy with all the polka dots, stripes and bold colours. 

Wondering if maybe I should tone it down it bit...?

Thanks for taking the time to drop by my blog!

INSPIRATION FOUND

THURSDAY, 15 JANUARY, 2015

Hello All!

This is a just a quick one today!

As if I already don't have enough crafting projects on the go, this morning I was inspired to create something else. 

I was surfing the members gallery over at Studio Calico last night and came across some Christmas tags by Mandy G. which you can find here.

I was so inspired by her beautiful creations that I instantly pinned them into my inspiration book to covet and pine over later. 

When I got up this morning her lovely creations were still floating around in my head so I decided to sit down at my craft table and see if I could do her work justice by creating something similar. 

I definitely had fun just getting lost in making these with a couple of kits by My Minds Eye that I recently found on the cheap at TK Maxx (the UK equivalent of TJ Maxx). 

I do love when inspiration hits you in that way! You see something that you really like so much so that you want to have a go at creating something similar and then get completely lost in the momentum that follows. 

If you would like to check out Mandy's gallery at Studio Calico you can find it here or see more of her work, you can follow her on her blog or on Instagram @papersandstamps.

Can't wait to use these now on a layout!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by. 

STARTING MY 2015 ALBUM

WEDNESDAY, 14 JANUARY, 2015

As mentioned in my New Year's post I have a lot of catching up to do! I have nearly finished with my December album but have yet to post the completed pages here. 

I have however started on my new album for 2015! It arrived in the post over the weekend and I was just too excited by its arrival and simply got carried away.

I wouldn't say I'm a chronological scrapper but technically I feel like I should have posted my completed December album pages here before my 2015 album. 

Nevertheless, below is a photo of the album I chose for this year.  It's the American Crafts Raspberry 12x12 craft album.  The past two years I have been using the Simple Stories 6x8 albums to document my memory keeping.

I have enjoyed using the 6x8 size and have done so since 2013. The pages are fairly quick to create in the smaller size plus it is different from what I am typically used to. 

I have always been a 12x12 girl but more than a few years ago, due to numerous house moves I had to pack away all my scrap supplies. Then, long story short, as I was living in limited space I didn't have the extra room nor money, to be honest, to pursue my hobby.

It was only in 2013, when I happened across Simple Stories that I took up scrapbooking again in a limited capacity, as I still did not have much space to scrap in.  

However, now that I've been scrapping again for a few years and really have the taste for it, I've genuinely come to miss creating the larger sized layouts. I feel you just can't create the full page layouts with the same impact in the smaller size as you can in a bigger size album. Plus having managed to sequester a small corner of our lounge to scrap in I have decided to go back to a bigger size album now. 

Now I know there has been talk over at Studio Calico about the 9x12 albums coming out this year, but with no specific release date. Being somewhat of an impatient scrapper I didn't want to either fall behind waiting for the release of the albums or scrap pages without an album to put them in. 

So I took inspiration from Marcy Penner and decided to cut down a 12x12 album to 9x12. You can find Marcy's tutorial here. 

Below is my finished album, or should I say at least for now. I wanted something simple but I am not sure that I like what I have created. Bonkers I know!

This is my title page which was fun to create. I used a mixture of PL cards and metallic Charmed cards by My Minds Eye. 

These pictures are from our last walk at Cookham during the Christmas break. However, as it fell at the end of the two weeks it also made it the first walk of the new year at Cookham!  It was so cold and Simon & I were trying to bundle up to keep warm. 

The page below includes some pictures of me with my new haircut for the New Year. I felt I desperately needed a change so booked into the salon on January 2nd and had my super long hair chopped off into a much shorter middy style vintage cut. I was a bit hesitant at first but am very happy with the results. 

A page wouldn't be complete without a few pics of Rupert. Simon was making the bed and Rupert climbed in and managed to tuck himself up. Very cute!

This is a PL Blush journal card with a day of the week bubble and B&W arrow by Simple Stories. The heart is punched from scrap paper.  I then stitched across all of it. 

This is my introduction page leading into my album. 

The polka dot background paper is by My Minds Eye and the pink stars are Studio Calico. I haven't embellished it as I wanted the words to stand on their own but I feel it does need something underneath it. 

As I said I came back to the bigger sized albums as I missed creating full page layouts. And this is my first full sized (nearly) layout which I enjoyed immensely! I went a bit old school with this - some inking and aging of the paper and also some good old fashioned paper tearing!

This was a 12x12 page protector that I cut down to 9x12 and sewed up the open side. You can see my wonky stitching there on the left. 

A close up of my antiqued paper tearing - an old school technique that I still enjoy doing. I think it was the perfect technique for this layout. 

I've had this tag in my stash for ages and thought the creepy old house on it would work well with the theme of this page. I antiqued it, distressed it, crinkled it up and inked it a bit before adhering it to the page with a few wrinkles in it.  

A close up of the actual photo I took that inspired the page as I think the other picture didn't do it justice as you couldn't see the detail in it. 

If you can't make it out it's a picture of the moon through the branches of the trees on the lane next to our house. 

That's the start of my 2015 album which I hope you've enjoyed!

A good start I think.

Thanks for taking time to stop by my blog.

Christine x

DECEMBER ALBUM

DAY 23 TO DAY 25
WEDNESDAY, 14 JANUARY, 2015

DAY 23

"AN EVENING WITH JULIE"

Julie invited us over for a few Christmas cocktails so the evening was spent in front of the fire, chatting, catching up and enjoying each other's company. Made for a lovely evening!

DAY 24

"TRADITION"

It has always been a tradition for me to watch It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve. I love this film and cry every time I see it even though I've seen it a hundred times before. A brilliant tradition. 

DAY 25

"CHRISTMAS"

I just loved this felt Santa gift tag that I decided to use it on my main Christmas page.

Couldn't do a Christmas layout without including a picture of your Christmas roast dinner! So delicious! Now that is one UK tradition that I can totally get used to!

After dinner we did watch a few Christmas films as we sat in front of the fire. I wanted to include these in the layout so punched some holes in a Simple Stories Cozy Christmas pocket and popped it in my album. I printed out small pics of the films and glued them to the back of a couple Christmas gift tags. Done!

The photo-a-day prompt for today was "Morning" and the picture of Rupert documents this. We spent the morning in bed opening presents with Rupert surfing through the discarded wrapping paper. With him loving every minute of it!

That's my pre-Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve and Christmas day pages!

Yay!  Another one finished!

As I'm documenting until the end of December I have a couple more days to complete and then December is done!

Thanks for having a look!

DECEMBER ALBUM

DAY 17 TO DAY 22

TUESDAY, 13 JANUARY, 2015

Well I've definitely had some catching up to do with my album!

Had to find some down time to sit down at my craft table and crack out a few pages. 

DAY 17

"PRESENTS"

DAY 18
For this day as I had something personal to add to my album I did not use the photo-a-day prompt. 

I have included a photo of the date insert card for this day. 

DAY 19
"CHRISTMAS CRUNCH POPCORN & TOY STORY 3"

For this day as well I did not use the photo prompt. As mentioned in my Day 3 post I talked about some recipes that I wanted to do closer to Christmas.  

Today was one of those days. I got the ingredients together and decided to make the Christmas Crunch popcorn found here.

It was quite tasty but didn't look as festive as the original picture simply because it was difficult to find red and green sprinkles here in the UK.  I know, you wouldn't think so.  There are Christmas themed things here in the UK but not always similar to the ones in the US.  

Like for example, the bag of green and red M&M's that you find EVERYWHERE in the US at this time of year, however here, not so much.

Tonight I also watched Toy Story 3. It was a bittersweet story. Never expected to find myself weeping over a cartoon (the furnace scene). They were holding hands!

DAY 20
"FOUR CHRISTMASES"

Tonight we watched Four Christmases, a funny film about the chaos experienced at Christmas when trying to keep up with modern day split families. 

DAY 21
"BAKING & THE FAMILY MAN"

Today was the day that I had designated for those recipes that I had wanted to try that I had mentioned in my post on Day 3 here.

I have to say that I have done this recipe more than a few times but for some unknown reason, it did not turn out as expected. I was quite disappointed to say the least as well as not happy about the ingredients wasted and time lost.  Plus I probably wouldn't have the time to do another batch until after Christmas now. 

Tonight we watched Family Man.  It's funny because when this film first came out I wasn't that fond of it. However, over time it has become a favorite. I didn't have any room left to journal so I stapled a Christmas tag to the side of the page protector. 

DAY 22
"SHOPPING"

Had to go into town today to do a little bit of shopping as Simon has been nonstop at work and hasn't had any time to pick up something for his sister. So I said I would pick a few things on her list and see if I could get them in town. 

I made a point of going early but traffic was still crazy. Took nearly an hour to exit the car park and get out of town. 

On the way home I decided to treat myself and get a Costa Hot Chocolate. This time I had the White Hot Chocolate which is oh so good! I kept the wrapper on my cup and inserted into my book. I love the little Picasso style snowman on the cup! 

Feels nice to get all that out of the way and up on the blog!

Have scrapped and photographed the 23rd through the 25th, just need to get them up on the blog and then it's only a couple more days to finish after that!!

Thanks for stopping by to have a look!

Christine

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

SUNDAY, 11 JANUARY 2015

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope a Merry Christmas was had by all and that you managed to find time to truly enjoy your Christmas break with friends and family.

It has been a while since I have been here on my blog and I have some major catching up to do!

I have been scrapping like mad to finish my December album and as well I have already, very naughtily, started on my 2015 album before finishing December. 

Typically I will scrap a few pages and then post a blog entry about it.  However, as I want to get caught up I have been absent here a bit to focus on my scrapping. 

Nevertheless I have nearly reached the goal posts so will be posting a few blog entries over the upcoming week about the remaining pages in my December album and the changes I have made for my 2015 album. 

Hope to see you then!

Thanks as always for dropping by!

Christine x