UPDATE ON JYC, I DON'T 'DO' CARDS NORMALLY BUT....

Well the title says it all really - a little bit of everything to be included in this posting.  Firstly my 'Journal Our Christmas' is proving difficult - it's not in essence a difficult task I'm just making hard work of it and it's becoming more of a Christmas diary than anything else, but documenting life whichever way I write it is still documenting life!  So I'm two days behind at the moment and two days ago I was also two days behind!  Something of a trend here, anyway day 13 should have been about Christmas carols, but I did that last year so I documented one of those little gems that shouldn't be forgotten here is the entry:

"I covered the topic of Christmas carols last year, so this year thought I’d document one of those awesome conversations that I have with my little lad—this is how it went:

“Mum, do you know what people in Africa get for Christmas?”

“No sweetie—what?”

“Life!”

“Pardon?”

“Life?”

(My brain was not connecting at all)

“What they all get sent to prison?”

“What are you talking about Mum?”

“I don’t know what are you talking about?”

“I told you people in Africa get life for Christmas”

“Have you been practicing for the Christmas carol concert today?”

“Yes”

“Have you been singing, ‘Feed the World?”

“Yes Mum, how did you know?”

“Just a rough guess” I said trying not to stifle a laugh—talk about cross purpose talking!!"

 
Day 14 was another ecclectic mix that was supposed to be around gifts, so one page had this on it
 
"Most amusing gifts we’ve ever received


Two years ago when Craig picked his Mum up on Christmas Day she gave him a half full bottle of Bell’s Whisky unwrapped and I got a pair of her clip on earrings! We were mighty confused as you can imagine, but I suppose this is what dementia does to you and she obviously panicked and wanted to sort presents quickly, we have since chuckled about this!

The year my Mum saw fit to buy me a tracksuit in bright green with beading around the top! I had what can only be described as a rock hairstyle at the time—the outfit looked what can only be described as WRONG—when I asked why she hadn’t got me black she said she and Shaun thought a little colour in my wardrobe would do me good. Firstly when on earth had she ever seen me wearing a track suit and secondly there is nothing wrong with the colour black!

And the other page on gifts!  (NOW FOR ANYONE RELATED TO ME THIS IS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT SPOILER, I'VE BANNED IMMEDIATE FAMILY FROM MY BLOG TIL AFTER CHRISTMAS BUT JUST INCASE YOU'VE POPPED ALONG - GO AWAY IMMEDIATELY!)

Every year I try and come up with something just that little bit different as a gift, this year is no different but thankfully due to UK Scrappers I’ve come across some awesome websites that have really got the imagination running riot! One such website is http://www.bakerella.com It shows all sorts of delightful goodies to make including this cookie in a jar mix! Don’t they look awesome, apart from having to convert the cups into grams it was such a fun gift to make.

Now I have never nor do I ever wish to attempt to proclaim myself to be a card maker, I make cards primarily because I send out loads of cards to family and it's a great way of using up scraps of paper from my scrapbooking and mini book making. I've sent all the Christmas cards that I need to send this year so at the weekend I did something that I always promise I'll do but never manage, I made cards for immediate family, yes one for hubby, one for son, one for Mum, one for my etc etc... You get my drift I made cards, my first thought was that I wanted to make them all different, however half an hour with a few promarkers led to four of these! What happened to individual!! So I sorted one of these for my Mum and her hubby and then set to making cards for the rest.

I did a card for my sister which turned out to be my first art journalled Christmas card - what do you think?

I then proceeded to take my halloween spooky house embossing folder and my halloween stamps to create a Halloween inspired Christmas card because my brother and his girlfriend adore Halloween so it seemed apt!

I loved making them and can confirm they were well received (well apart from my brothers which still hasn't landed on his doorstep, despite me having seen him last night!!!!!! 

Finally I've now officially finished work for over the Christmas season, now all I have to do is get my brain to stop thinking about it and I can start to relax, when I went to my last scrapbook class before Christmas we did a fabulous altered project and the lovely Sandra brought in her stamps for us to use.  Apart from being highly envious of the gorgeous stamps she owns I realised how neat and tidy her stamps were and thought in shame at the state of mine - this is what mine looked like! 

When I came home I decided to do something about this, so over a couple of nights I've chopped up some paper, stamped on it with my stamps and then laminated it, I've then cut them out, rounded the corners and adhered my easi-mount stamps and acrylic stamps on the back, I've then put them in little plastic wallets that you normally use for cards, and I've left them open for easy access.  So the rather awful pile of stamps now looks like this, how awesome is that, I hadn't realised I had so many and I've even categorised them, furthermore the gorgeous blonde moments stamps I've got already come on laminated sheets, so no work was involved in doing those!  Although it was a lengthy and somewhat laborious task now it's done I'm really pleased with it.  

It's freezing here today and my poor hubby has come home poorly so he's upstairs in bed, hope he feels better soon.  If you stop by for a look leave a message. 

WHEN ART JOURNALING STARTS TO AFFECT YOUR SCRAPPING!!!!

Well having spent some serious time away from blog land recently, two posts in two days - I'm on a roll (ha ha ha). Now here is a layout I did yesterday...


Usually when I scrap I gather cardstock and papers, embellishments and photos and start ripping and tearing, inking and stitching and using vast quantities of paper and cardstock to boot. This page was going to be no different - or so I thought - you see the thing is I've recently started art journaling and well before I knew it I'd set to with paint on the photo - I know what was I thinking - but well there was a carrier bag in the photo and lots of debris and well white acrylic seemed a good idea, corner rounded photos and a piece of yellow cardstock. The cardstock didn't stay plain for long, Tim Holtz stamps at the ready a bit of distress ink, blonde moments stamp around the edges, additional bits of card to create more checker board, black pen, silver pen and some die cut letters and there is was done! It took about 20 minutes to do in total and after I'd finished I set off laughing - it reminds me of my journal pages, ink, paint, image, title and journaling - maybe it'll be a whole new style of scrapping and only one sheet of cardstock used (the pile of patterned papers sat to one side looking forlorn) and a small piece of scrap black cardstock!

The story behind the title Happy Birthday Eve? Well my birthday is the day before my sons (went into labour on my birthday!). Last Christmas he asked what we meant by Christmas Eve and once I'd explained he said - ooh well Mum that means your birthday is my Birthday Eve and well it kind of stuck, particularly this year when my birthday fell at the weekend and his didn't!