It's almost the end of November (yikes!) the last two months have flown by! My little one is 8 weeks old today and I literally can't believe it! I swing between feeling she has always been part of our lives and still hardly believing that she is ours and that she is here!
But with her two month birthday looming... I figured it was about time that I sorted out my plan for Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas. I really want to complete an album this year and document Abigail's first christmas. I didn't bother last year and the year before my attempt was a bit half hearted, but I love my 2008 album and I adore my 2007 album. So this year I am going to try really hard to create an album that I love again.
In a stash busting mission I went into the loft and dug out my RUB box of Christmas stash and I was delighted to find some old favourites stashed away in here that will all be making an apperance again this year. I hope that some 'vintage' october afternoon, cosmo and even some love elsie will help to inspire me again.
Small formats seem to work better for me with these ongoing daily projects. So this year I am using a Paperchase kraft folder. It is A5 in size and was a bargain at only £3. I bought two pack of page protectors for it (also from Paperchase) so half the inserts will be A5 in size and the other half are two 6x4 pockets. So I hope that I will be able just to slot in a photo after Christmas on any days that get too busy.
I will be following the prompts sent by Shimelle but also adding in a mixture of daily activities and just stuff that we get up to over the Christmas period, so you never know I might even create more than one page/pocket a day!
So having dug out my old stash I defintely did not need any new papers. Which is fortunate as I have not been taken by any of the Christmas ranges this year. I like the bright Bella Blvd range (reminds me of some of the great old KI memories ranges) but otherwise it seems that a lot of ranges are going for the classic muted green/red colourschemes and Christmas for me is brighter than that! I love the bright pinks and aquas much better!
Though of course I couldn't not do any shopping!!!
So here are my little "top up" purchases!
I bought some tags/pennants from Elle's Studio. I love that so many of the tag sheets you can now cut yourself which means that the price is really low. I ordered direct from the States, just made sure that my total order was under £15. Took about 2 weeks to arrive though, thats the only downside.
I also found some gorgeous bits from Ormolu, including their Christmas flair badges and the comedy named Christmas flappers!
Some bright washi tape from Washi Tapes UK (I might use some of this for Christmas wrapping too!)
And finally some fantastic tags from a great ebay seller at the Little Candy Co. (I also bought some lovely packaging bits from her for Christmas wrapping, great postage rates!)
I have been putting our night time wakings to good use and aside from these goodies I have also bought all my Christmas presents in the middle of the night thanks to my iphone. I don't know how people coped with night time feedings before the dawn of internet shopping and iphones! So sharing my excitment with you all!
The other thing I wanted to share with you is this...
It is actually an embroidered badge that I had made up for my Ranger unit. (For those of you who don't know, I also run a Ranger unit, part of Girlguiding UK) We always do a Christmas camp/event and this year I had these badges designed for our event.
I had some extras made as I thought that other groups might be interested in them, but then I also figured that they have a cute potential for Christmas albums!!! I had added some to a tag that I am going to use for my front cover... the badges are 10cm wide and can be stuck, sewn or stapled to your projects! I think that they are gorgeous and have some cute details on them.
If you wanted to grab one then I have listed them on ebay HERE.
They are just £2.50 including free P&P, please message me via ebay if you are interested in more than 10 as I can do you a discount rate. (Maybe if you are also a Guider and are interested in some for a Christmas event!)
8 comments:
Great to see that you are on track with your JYC, better get myself into gear to sort mine. Love the badges, another fab idea. x
Those badges are really cute!
I can't wait to see this. :D
I am sitting out this year as I don't think there's anything "new" to add to the album I made and finished for last year, but I might just join along with retrospective posts from the two "albums" I have completed.
The Paperchase binder idea is really great, I used it for my album last year, but had to split it between two binders as the entries were just too lumpy to sit in one. So I have up to Christmas Eve in the first binder and the rest in the next binder. So my advice if you want it all in one binder is to try and use the divider pockets for "photo only days" or days where you are just writing or slipping a tiny note in as the binder will soon fill up. I didn't even use that much lumpy stuff, it's just the cardstock plus paper really started growing chunky once a photo was also added into the mix. LOL
Anyway, I shall be a vicarious JYCer this December and look forward to see your entries. Nice to see some of my fave Christmas stash already in use there. :oD
Love that you're using your badge for your JYC - as soon a I saw it on Guiders I knew I wanted it for my JYC cover :D
Just went shopping for washi tapes - they had some great tapes on sale, thanks for the link!!
Looking forward to seeing your album pages - your layouts always inspire me :)
Those badges are super awesome... Although I have no idea what I'd do with one!
Good luck with JYC and the little one. Looking forward to seeing your pages :) xx
Your album is looking great so far!
I thought the same thing about the christmas collections this year, though I do like My Mind's Eye 12 Days of Christmas, which I have a few bits of. I'm mostly trying to use up old stash too though, if I manage to use enough then I've got an excuse to buy more stash next year :-)
Thanks for the links, I've just bookmarked some. The badge looks cool, I used to have a camp blanket, I'm looking forward to when my daughter starts on the Girl Guiding scene! x
I love those Paperchase binders & dividers too - perfect size & the recipe ones are fun! Looking forward to seeing more of your album & photos of Abigail's first Christmas xx
I'm glad you are joining in this year. Thanks for the tip about the Kraft album. Did you not like the My Minds Eye collection, 12 Days of Christmas? http://www.sjpapercrafts.co.uk/12-days-of-christmas-collection--new-88-c.asp I'm the opposite in that I like the traditional colours but with a little bit of a twist and nothing too heavy. It will be wonderful to look back on and Christmas just gets better and better from now on. Have fun!
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