5 things I love about December

Christmas cards

Christmas music  How about this one! LOL

 

Visiting Garden centres

Looking at the Christmas lights when walking the dog (photo taken in 2007)

5 things w/e 27th November

 

OOps!  I forgot to pos this on Friday.  Oh well, better late than never eh?

 

seeing:

Seen the first Christmas lights up and lit on a house just round the corner!  I love going for a dog walk in the dark and seeing everyone’s house lit up – just for me to see!

Hearing:

Raia pitter pattering on our bedroom window, thunder in the middle of the night (always sets our doorbell off!) and wind blowing!  Yes, it is STILL horrible weather!

Tasting:

Gorgeous salmon sandwiches and the best cup of tea I have ever tasted at The Tea Cosy (see my other blog for pics)

Smelling:

Garlic!  at the Pomodoro and Mozarella restaurant last night!

 

Feeling:

the enormous effort trying to walk against the wind this morning on Ferring beach

Blog award!

 

Thanks Dorothy!  I have a bog award YAY! 

But now I have to answer all these questions!!  With one word answers!

1. Where is your cell phone? … downstairs

2. Your hair? … short

3. Your mother?… gardner
4. Your father?… dead
5. Your favourite food? … casserole
6. Your dream last night?… wind!
7. Your favourite drink? … wine
8. Your dream/goal?… travel
9. What room are you in?… computer room

10. Your hobby?… scrapbooking
11. Your fear?… snakes
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years?… traveling
13. Where were you last night? … Gilberts
14. Something that you’re aren’t?… athletic
15. Muffins?… no
16. Wish list item? … Porsche 911
17. Where did you grow up? … here
18. Last thing you did?… drink
19. What are you wearing?… fleecy
20. Your TV?… off
21. Your Pets?… Merlin
22. Friends? … not as many as before (oops sorry not 1 word!)
23. Your life?… hectic
24. Your mood?… busy
25. Missing Someone?… dad
26. vehicle?… motorike
27. Something your not wearing?… hat
28. Your favourite store? … craft shop
29. Your favourite colour?… orange
30. When was the last time you laughed?… this morning
31. Last time you cried?… never
32. Your best friend?… don’t have one
33. One place that I go to over and over? … craft club
34. Facebook?… sometimes
35. Favourite place to eat?… Italian

5 things:

A quick post this morning before I go out in the rain and wind with the dog!  And then I have to go to Waitrose for food shopping, which is Ok because I can get 2 hours free parking while i go clothes shopping for new smart black trousers.  Then I am seeing Mum this afternoon. 

Right now I am seeing:

dark, damp, windy weather outside (not too keen to go out there tbh)

Right now I am hearing:

Snow Patrol!  Lucy went to see them on Wednesday night in Brighton and the house has been filled with their songs turned up loud!  I love them!

Also, I have started listening listening to Christmas music, starting with a little Jazz Christmas CD, lovely! 

Radio 2 has been playing Wild Horses by Susan Boyle all week, and it is seriously getting on my nerves!

 

Right now I am smelling:

Some Christmas candles I have bought for a present, boy are they strong! 

 

Right now I am tasting:

My gorgeous lamb casserole!  Well, not quite right now, it’s what I am having later on for tea!

 

Right now I can feel:

My fingers lightly skipping over the keyboard ….. and pressing all the wrong keys!!!

Looking back

I have been keeping this blog since August 2005.  I did write another blog before that but I didn't let anyone see that - it was very private!

So it's easy to look back at what I was doing 1 year ago today.  In fact, I was writing a daily thankyou last November.  On 18th November 2008, I was thankful for my Crawley crop!  They were a really great bunch, and we had a lot of laughs.  But I don’t go to that one anymore.  Instead myself and Burn are going to have a crafty evening in her craft cabin at least once per month!  (In fact, we are going to the craft barn for a class on Saturday with the fabulous Sue Roddis .  So I am looking forward to that.

 

Looking back further:

November 2007 I had just finished taking an online photography course with Cheryl Johnson.  I took Painting with Light, and I have to say it’s a fantastic course and the best of hers that I have done.  I am still doing loads of photography, and tryong to do Project 365 from March 2009 – March 2010.

November 2006 I was doing circle journals, and writing about the music I listen to.  Well, I am still doing circle journals and still listening to music, although my taste has changed a bit!  (Still listening to lots of radio 2 though)

November 2005 I didn’t write anything!!  But I was about to start my first online class: Shimelle’s JYC!!!!

November 14th

2 good things this weekend!  One is the cybercrop over on www.ukscrappers.co.uk, and the other is that Maurice is going to Phoenix tomorrow for a week on business and I have put in orders to 2 scrapbook stores and a quilt shop for him to bring home with him next weekend!  YAY!

Here's a LO that I did this morning for the cybercrop:

It’s another one for Lucy’s 18th birthday album.  Isn’t she cute?  I think this picture really shows her personality!

 

And here’s a sneak preview of a Christmas minibook I made for a swap over on UKs:

learning something new

I have just learnt how to embed a You Tube video WOOHOO!

5 things….

Here’s an idea I got from Shimelle’s class:

 

What am I seeing right now? 

Rain!  It is damp and dreary today.  It is pouring down with rain, and is very dark.. It is forecast to get windy too!

 

What am I listening to right now?

Black Swan Song by Athlete (won’t let me embed it at the moment, so go and find it on You Tube.

 

What am I tasting right now?

Just had a very healthy salad for lunch.  Trying to lose a few lbs before Lucy’s party on 12th December to be able to fit into my LBD!

 

What am smelling right now?

Last thing I noticed the smell of was my friend’s baking this morning when I went for coffee!  Had to have a piece of her warm scone!  MMMMMMM!  (It was only a tiny bit I promise!)

 

What am I feeling right now?

A bit bundled up in warm clothes!

 

What are you seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling?

December Daily

I completed this book last year – my aim was to document all the things I do to prepare for Christmas.  I really enjoyed doing it, and am really pleased with the end result.  I have just read it again, and it really brings back the essence of the month!

I think I made most of the pages ahead of time, I had some file folders which i used as a template for the covers, then covered them with Christmas paper (Basic Gray in this case).  I tend to stick to one make now for a minibook (my first attempt at JYC used all different papers, and I prefer a more unified look!)  I didn’t take all the pictures at the time, in fact, one or two of them are not even my own, but downloaded off the internet!  Some days I used Shimelle’s JYC prompt if it fitted in with what I wanted to do, or used another day perhaps.

I tried to make my pages of different shapes and sizes.  Some are just the same as the covers, some are torn about half way along, some are different shapes, including a snowflake paper!  I also used acetate for some pages.

So here’s a few pictures:

The front cover has an acetate over the top stamped with white stazon snowflakes.  The white scalloped card is stuck onto the acetate.

Day 1 documents my shopping!  This is not one of my photos but is from the shopping centre website!  On some of the LHS of the pages I tried to use Christmas photos I had taken over the years.

This page is a double page documenting my scrapbook crop’s Christmas party!  That’s me in the silly turkey hat LOL!

I love this page!  IN that envelope is a list of number 1 singles over the years!  I LOVE Christmas music – all sorts, from carols to Slade’s Merry Christmas to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas!

Here’s my snowflake page.  It’s a piece of scrapbook paper that was in the shape of a snowflake cut and half and glued together.  I seem to have written on it upside down!  The RHS is an acetate with the photo stuck on.  When you turn the page to no 14, there is some journaling the same shape as the photo, so it is hidden from view here.

LHS my lounge with the tree and mantelpiece decorated!  RHS, DS Nicholas and his friend.

 

I have included this page to show you how daft we are!  There is a Boxing Day swim in the sea for charity (a lot of seaside resorts in England do it!) Last December we did it in aid off our Dad who sadly died the previous August.  The photo in the middle is of (L-R) my niece, my brother and me.  The bottom photo is off someone pouring warm water over DD Lucy!

Finally, here’s a glimpse of it from the edge so you can see the different sized pages.

Christmas

Each Christmas recently I have done a December scrapbook.  I have completed two ‘JOurnal Your Christmas’ classes from Shimelle, and then last Christmas I completed  a ‘December daily’ class from Ali Edwards.

 

 

This year I am doing a different sort of class, ‘Get organised for the holidays’ from www.simplify101.com, my new ‘online home’!  Last week’s lesson was to make your holiday inspiration statement.  That’s exactly what the page from day 4 of JYC above does!  It captures my perfect Christmas!

Not sure of the exact wording yet, but my statement includes the words:

MAGIC, JOY, and LAUGHTER

One thing I have already done is cook the Christmas pudding.  I am now in the process of finalising who is coming when, and then I need to start to plan food and drink, presents, decorations, and other activities.

This Christmas is ever so slightly complicated by the fact that Lucy turns 18 on 8th December (party on Saturday 12th) and Nicholas turns 21 on 27th December (we have yet to finalise his plans) eeeeeek!  £££££££££££££££££s!

Thoughts on blogging

I have spent quite a lot of time today reading the Shimelle’s forum on her blogging for scrapbookers class.  It has made me think about why I blog, and how I see my blogging in the future.

 

 

I blog because:

• I love writing diaries
• I love taking pictures and uploading the ‘best’ ones to my blog to help tell the story and make my blog post more interesting
• I love to document my everyday life so that I can enjoy looking back in years to come
• I like keeping in touch through blogging (always my craft friends so far, maybe I will be brave enough one day to give the blog address to other friends
• I like the fact it is hosted on the internet so that if my computer crashes i won’t lose it all
• It helps me to remember stories that I want to scrapbook

But it doesn’t always work like that!  I am pretty good at keeping up with my photo a day, and that includes a lot of everyday things.  I do keep in touch with friends through blogging (see my sidebar on my photo blog)

I don’t keep this one up very much now that I am blogging a photo a day on my other blog.  I would like to keep it for explaining what is uppermost in my mind at any one time, and for remembering stories that I want to scrapbook.

I would like to make it funnier (LOL) and alter the tone and attitude.  I want to explore different styles of writing and recording and therefore make it more interesting, and to for my readers! 

I would also like to learn some more technical stuff, like how to get a better background – I quite like the background on the other blog, but not this one!  And I guess there are lots of technical things that I don’t even know exist!  So I will try and keep up with the forum.

October 22nd

 

 

OK tour of the bedroom time!  Top picture is of the wardrobe.  It is 1930s solid wood with ‘flame’ mahogany doors.  It is a triple wardrobe, each section is like a coffin (!) and comes off the base once the top is taken off.  It is a *** to move!  But we’ve had it out on the landing for about 3 months!  Moved it back in yesterday, at last!  Now I need to sort out my clothes!

 

Second picture shows the new sink, and my chest of drawers.  We will hang some pictures above that chest of drawers.  The top needs 1 or 2 nice bold pieces, not the mish mash that’s on there LOL!  This is DH’s side of the bed.

 

Third picture is my side of the bed.  What a mess!  The pine bedside cabinets really need to go, but not sure where to go to buy more.  Our other ‘pieces’ of furniture came from a second hand furniture shop that isn’t there anymore.  So we need new bedside cabinets and a cabinet for the little stereo.  (I like to listen to a CD while reading in bed, and we wake to Radio 2 at 6.30am with the alarm setting).  The big chest of drawers in front of the window is Maurice’s.  I need a nice big mirror to go on top of it.  The old dressing table has had to be dumped because it had woodworm!

My paper clutter

I must tell you about my paper clutter course I have been doing on www.simplify101.com

It has been very enlightening! Here's my office clutter before, and then again after. I realised that my 'prime real estate' ie the first shelf was taken up with stuff that wasn't so important. So although most of the paper is the same it is better organised and labelled, and certainly looks a lot neater!

The course has been really good, and I recommend it to anyone. You get 6 weekly 'lessons' and there is a small forum where we have been encouraged to swap ideas. We have a daily thread where we tell what we have been doing in our 15mins alloted time per day! It has been a great motivator! So much so that I have signed up for another course, 'Organise101', to help me to organise my scrapbooking stash.

Craft room mess!

I thought I would embarrass myself and show you how messy my dining room is at the moment! I have literally just dumped things in there, all over the table, the chairs and the floor! I have been sorting out my paper clutter and books upstairs in the little bedroom we use as a computer room/office, and thus this room has been severely neglected!

Maurice has gone on his holiday motorcycling in the Himalays today, and I have 2 weeks without him, Nicholas is away this week and then again the next weekend, and Lucy is away both weekends too! So I am going to empty this room bit by bit, and then put it all back NEATLY!!!! One of the problems is that while Nicholas was away I put most of my sewing stuff upstairs, which is all piled up by the window now. I cannot do any scrapping or card making atm, so I really must do it!

All my own photos CJ

I have just received the most gorgeous circle journal home! It was an 'all my own photos' circle journal over on UKScrappers. It really is the most fabulous CJ I have ever received. Thanks girls!!!

I really do intend to properly finish this one, and will probably find out some historical facts to write in the journaling spots.

Special thanks then to Karen (enola05) for organising!

Pages and creators:

Pier - Me!
Palm Trees, view from pier and beach huts (all in fab flaps!) - Kate (secretscrapper)
Warners etc (more fabulous flaps!) - Gemma (craftygem)
Worthing Pier (even more flaps!!!) - Karen (enola05)
Seafront relections- Liz (jerseyscraps)
beach scenes- Dee (craftdee)
funfair - Arlene (dizzyscrapper)
Seafront hotel - Ally (AJ)
Seafront elegance -Jo (jo.Bee)
Pavilion theatre - Me (I put in too many pagesLOL!)
Beach - Caz (Caz890)