WOYWW 130 - one and half spaces...

Yes that's right, one and half spaces to share today.  My normal crafting area, my wonderful pink craft room, is currently a haven of Christmas organisation.  I have separate piles for each person so that I can decide if I am finished buying for them and then wrap with coordinated papers.  Anal?  Yes!  But it helps me to sort out whose present is whose when there are piles of gifts under the tree.  And for the record, aside from a bike, I am done with buying.  Of course there will be other little things for stockings sneaking into my bags (after being paid for obvsiously!) when I can't resist but the trauma of "must buy" has gone for the year.  Huzzah!  I want to get everything wrapped as soon as possible because I am anal like that but also because I want my room back.

In the meantime, I am trying to prepare as much as possible for Journal Your Christmas and I have almost finished my date tags.  I just have 40 buttons to thread and stick on so that is what I am doing.  On the sofa.

 And yes, for the record, that is a precarious place to keep a jar of buttons.  And yes, for the record, I did spill said jar of buttons down the side of the sofa.  I had nightmares last night about lost precious buttons languishing among the fluff and hairbands in the dark depths of the sofa lining.  *shudder*.

And with that dear WOYWW-ers, I bid you farewell as I have a little chap here to entertain for the day due to the strikes.  We've got lots planned as we rarely have more than 5 minutes alone together so we shall make the most of it, but I will be around the desks later.  Stop by Julia's blog for the worldwide list of desks to snoop at.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 129

A bit of this, a bit of that, that's my desk at the moment.  After a couple of weeks of solicitors and meeting lovely crafty friends in Ikea, I haven't joined in for a while.  My crafting has slipped a bit too because I just want to wrap myself in blankets and sleep right now!

I am about to clear the decks to do the wrapping.  I shall put on a silly hat and some Christmas music, light some festive smelling candles (whilst not leaving them unattended / going out to collect L from school / go to bed, as I have 3 times in the past week...)

Before I can start, there are bits of JYC which I need to sort and pack into my bag for the final crop of the year on Saturday, bits of the 11 layouts from the Stash Dive, and bits of Christmas planning, and I think I spied some bits of someone small's crafting there too.  Then there is a tie that needs stitching and some photos to be copied for my dear Dad.

I've just had my nails done (my new treat to myself for my weight loss) so I can't possible do anything other than a bit of blog hopping for a while.  You'll fine the list of desks to visit on Julia's blog and while you are there, why not upload and share yours?

Bye for now
xx

Squeezing in some challenges

I'm back on the Christmas theme again - yay!  Two more challenges from Shimelle's Christmas Crafting weekend.  I made this tag for a special present for DH.  It just became a lot bigger a present than I thought as it clashes with something else so he'd better darn well appreciate it!  The snowflake has silver / grey Stickles on it but you can't really see on the photo despite my best attempts to introduce some light into the proceedings ;-)

I also prepped another page for my JYC using the inspiration of "cutting the paper".  I love these baubles on the icy blue MME paper and there are 3 pages for each design.  I had enough to cut some out and decoupage them to make a really clean looking page which just needs a photo and a date at some point in December.

My next project is to get on with some wrapping now before November comes to an end and I miss my self imposed deadline.  I've got 2 more cakes to make and I'm thinking of making my Dad a little hamper of goodies now that he is having to tighten his belt a bit.  Hhhmmm... next year I will start even earlier I think!

Bye for now xx

A story that was missing

I have some photos in my drawer to scrap that are just there because I like the picture.  Others, like this one, are there for the story.  Its not the clearest picture in the world as I had left the camera in the car overnight and it was taking a while to adjust to the warmer air in the house.  And there is no camera in the world that can make a child pose the way you want and stay like that until you are ready for them to move!

It was one of those moments when everything comes together.  A "peak experience" for the psychologists among you.  It was the sort of moment I had dreamed of when I thought about becoming a mum.  My Dad had bought B this little cradle and she had a new dolly from her Nanny.  Watching her putting her new baby into the crib and carefully putting the blanket over her and rocking her to sleep, made my heart burst.  How do little ladies know how to do this?  She was totally absorbed and looking so pretty in her little dress.  Its a simple thing really, watching a little girl playing, but it is moments like these that pull me back from the brink sometimes and make it all worthwhile.  These are the moments I live for.  These are the moments I need to craft about.  It is my therapy.

It makes me so excited about this coming Christmas too.  We went into town today to watch the lights being switched on.  They were both really excited to see Father Christmas and he was a pretty good one too.  L whispered to me that he knew that he was the really real one, you know, the ACTUAL one.  I cherish these moments and wonder how long it will be before they don't believe?  There is such a small window when you have more than one child, or all of the children understanding about Christmas and yet still believing in it too.  We are in this window this Christmas and I intend to make the most of it.

This layout was brought to you by the Christmas Crafting Weekend with Shimelle.

What Christmassy things are you up to this weekend?  Enjoy them, whatever they may be :-)

Bye for now
xx

Creative Stash Diving - Layout 1

A little break from the Christmas themed stuff here...

This is the first of the 11 layouts that I made from the creative stash diving prompt in Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party.  It is my beautiful girl on the beach in Pembrokeshire having a wonderful time just chilling and pottering about.  She loved just watching all the activity and the dogs and the boats etc.

I had to use a rock in the garden to hold the pages down while I photographed them.  Its definitely getting harder to find a decent slot in the day to get good light.

I added some shell buttons and some normal buttons but looking at it now I think I want to snip the threads a bit shorter.  I tried to leave them but its just not me!  I love the colours and the papers but I'm not sure about the whole thing overall.

It was definitely the embellishment bit that I struggled with here and I think it will be the same on some of the others.  Its been really interesting to scrap in this crazy way as it challenges you in various ways but also teaches you a lot about how you normally scrap and which bits you struggle with and take up your time!

I'm stuck on the sofa with a poorly girl today - just a cough / cold but it affects her breathing a fair bit.  Seeing these photos though she is now upset that she can't go to the beach!  That's my girl ;-)

Bye for now
xx

A garland title

Why is it that it is always the things that you think will be simple that end up causing problems?  I wanted to keep my album front for JYC pretty simple this year and I used Shimelle's Christmas garland challenge as inspiration.  I wanted to use a page from the MME collection that I'm using for the album to cover the chipboard portion of the cover and I decided to do a bit of misting on it.  Epic fail.  I misted over a chipboard Christmas tree but the colour was all kinds of wrong.  I tried using another colour but you couldn't see it at all.  So I tried adding a splatter of white paint to look like snow but it just looked a mess.  I started again.  This time I cut the paper slightly too small.  Second epic fail.  Third time lucky?  Not quite but it will have to do!  The paper was slightly too short again due to a mistake lining up a straight edge.... and then when I placed the washi tape on, I managed to lay it on at an angle and unlike other washi tapes, this one wasn't coming off again :-(

So this is it.  I love the paper and I love the brown glitter Thickers but as for the whole thing, well I'm not that taken with it to be honest but it is what it is.  I do also love the little reindeer and of course the Jenni Bowlin stick pins :-)

So that's my background pages done and my front cover done.  I'll probably just paint the insides and the back but I'll leave it till the end so I can see if there is any paper left over!  I need to think about my dates next and any pockets I want to make but I also need to wrap a few presents too.  Do you know that Christmas Day is actually on the same date each year?  I know!  Crazy huh?!  And yet we still rush around and leave things too late...

Bye for now xx

Pockets of love

One of the challenges from Shimelle's Christmas Weekend, was to make something involving pockets that you can use on your pages, or wherever, for extra journalling or photos etc.  I decided to make a couple of matching pockets out of this gorgeous vellum.  It fell into my basket when I was buying the dye for my curtains in my craft room - oops!

I still have my children's letters to Father Christmas from last year but they didn't quite make it onto a page yet so this year I thought these pockets would be a good way of keeping them in my JYC.  I love the way they turned out so much that I will definitely be using them in other ways.  I might even make a large one for the reverse side of each page for my journalling and that way I can keep my writing out of sight!  I'm also going to be making some skinny versions of these to pop a nail buffer inside for a little extra gift at Christmas.

I'm now 2 cakes out of 4 down and the pudding is made, just needs steaming.  I'm getting there!

Bye for now xx

Holidays are coming....

Tee hee!  The Coca-Cola advert has been spotted so it is officially time to start Christmas preparations.  I have bought the vast majority of my presents and I am ready with sellotape and gift tags galore.  I've made one Christmas cake, I'm soaking the fruit for another, and today is our Stir-up Sunday so I am making the puddings.

But if that wasn't enough, Shimelle is having a Christmas Crafting Weekend over on her blog and so I am beginning to get my Journal Your Christmas album together.  I've gone for the 8.5 x 11 American Crafts Modern album but I've actually put in normal A4 page protectors.  I've got a stack of A4 card serving no real purpose and an empty 8.5x11 album.  I didn't like having a separate album for the different size with my everyday layouts in so they are now in the 12x12 albums chronologically and I like the mix of pages in there now.  So it was a win win.  I decided to keep the stuff from last year separate and caved in a bought some new papers for this year.  I went with a collection from last year, My Mind's Eye I Believe and got a stack of 54 sheets which I think will be enough ;-)  So I've used some A4 card in red and white (I didn't have any of the right greens / aquas... typical!) and then chopped some patterned paper for the other pages.

I'm doing my journalling on the back of each page but I'm still thinking about how to make that look wonderful.  Today I'm hoping to get some of the date tags done as I really like what I did last year and am going to attempt something similar.  Its all go go go !!!

So, how are your preparations coming along?  Or are you like my good husband who believes that Christmas starts on 24th December?  Whatever your preference, have a wonderful Sunday.

Bye for now xx

WOYWW 126 - New Craft Room!!!

Good morning Wednesday, that fabulous day of the week when we get to share our workspaces across the globe.  Julia holds the keys to all the desks so grab a cuppa and have a peruse.

You know those days where you think "It would be really good if we could move that bit of furniture there" and the next thing you know, you have moved every piece of furniture in your house and been to IKEA or whatever your store of choice is, several times?  We had one of those days Sunday, and this was the result....

(I'm part way through completing those 11 layouts!) But wait!  Are there things missing from my desk?  Why yes, I do believe there is.  But where have they gone?  All around the room in my new furniture!  Hurrah!  Some of you might remember that I was deliberating over changing the cabinets in my room because although I loved them, they were just not doing the job I needed them to do.  We managed to get them into our lounge in the end which was where I had always wanted them to go and yet never thought it would work.  It has been a total win win situation with the lounge looking far more homely and finished (we've been in this house nearly 2 1/2 years...) and we have managed to keep hold of our precious Jali cabinets which hold so many memories for us.  Then of course there was the new Expedit which I have coveted for some time.  Management said we should block off one of the 2 doors to the cupboard so I could have a bigger Expedit.  It makes me slightly nervous because it means I have to keep that cupboard tidy enough to be able to get to the other end!

The only problem is that I wanted to keep my papers and cardstock in the Expedit but the RUBs and Cropper Hoppers are slightly too big.  I am going to try and use a pizza box cut down into a Cropper Hopper shape but we shall see how things go.

I pinched the draws out of the spare room - top drawer = printer stuff and photos, middle = punches, bottom = die cutting stuff.  The pin board needs to go up but I'm not sure where yet.

I moved the shelving that was behind me so now this is where my paper lives and my new set of boxes from Ikea which also need painting.  Room for lots of pretties here which is great as I never had anywhere to display anything.

And this is the whole room.  I have to say that that sun streaming in is a VERY rare thing and it happens now because of the change in the clocks and will be gone in about half an hour but I'll take it while I can!

So it is very much a work in progress as it still needs painting and I think I need to live in it a while to see if I like where things are but for now I love it!

Bye for now
xx