Happy Birthday Alma!

Last week was my lovely friend Alma's birthday.  Being a fellow crafter, I wasn't going to get away with buying her a birthday card, nor buying a gift.  This is the card I came up with for her:

For her little gift, I searched Pinterest for some inspiration, and found these cute little OWLS.  They were originally intended to be little Christmas tree decorations, so I enlarged the pattern and made this one first:

Since he was my first one, there were a few bits I wanted to tweak (like only using one strand of embroidery floss instead of two), so he will stay here with me!  The two that went to live with Alma (who loves the colour green!) look like this:

and this:

I am delighted to say that Alma loved them, and they are now nesting with her in her bedroom!  I also love them, and love making them, although they did cause me a serious problem last week, when Arnold, one of my young cats, swallowed the needle and navy blue thread that I had kept by the side of my chair in a pin cushion :(  I rushed him to the vet where an xray confirmed that he had indeed swallowed a needle, an operation to remove it from his tummy followed, along with three nights at the vet, and a bill for well over £800.  Needless to say, I now keep all my needles and pins safely in a tin ...

Carole x

Fancy a walk Morris?

This was the layout that I did at last week's crop.  The photo was taken on Christmas Eve 2010, when we actually had some snow and wintry weather.  We always had to be so careful to check when we set off down the road with the dogs that Morris (our cat) wasn't following, he didn't like to be left out!  In the photo we are quite a way down the road from our house, so after the photo was taken we had to take him back and pop him indoors!

I used a doily on the kraft background to represent a snowflake, then some Basic Grey Figgy Pudding papers and some lovely snowflakes with gems.  The layout came together quite well, but I had much difficulty in deciding where to put the journalling - so it was lucky that I was at the crop at the time and had some expert advice on hand (thanks Katy and Angela!)

Carole x

Making Friends

So this new layout isn't Christmassy, but it is on a Winter/snowy theme (well the weather was cold and frosty when I did it!)

I totally have Daphne to thank for this layout!  I had no idea what I was going to do with this photo, but then I found some gorgeous Basic Grey Figgy Pudding papers that Daphne had given me, and within the packet was also some scraps, including lots of circles.  They just called out to me to be used, along with some snowflakes that Daphne had also punched for me when I was doing my Christmas Journal, but didn't get to use due to the lack of snowy weather!  So there it is, and I am rather pleased with it :)

Have been doing some different crafting this week, but can't let on what just yet ;)  I will say though, that they are rather "tweet"!!!

Carole x

p.s.  I have been VERY brave, and done what Roxy asked me to do, and entered this layout into the Seriously Creative Challenges here - hope you are happy now Roxy!!!

The Real Santa

Hi everyone, and thank you for sticking with me through all my Christmas Journal blog posts ... it felt like rather a lot of Christmas related posts!

So, therefore I am sorry to blog about something else Christmassy today!  However, whilst my Christmas bits and bobs were still out on my desk, I wanted to get back into 12 x 12 layouts - I was a bit worried because I had got used to the 7 x 5 format of my Christmas Journal!

This is what I created:

I must admit that I had hoped to use up a few more embellishments, since I have a stack left over, but oh well, I quite like how it turned out anyway!

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 1 January 2012

The last page of my Christmas Journal (phew!  I shall be glad to blog about something else other than my journal!)  I decided to end my journal on New Year's Day, instead of twelfth night as I did last year, as to be honest, once it is the new year and the decorations are taken down there isn't a lot to journal about!

Just two more pics to share, the inside front and back covers:

So there it is.  My Christmas Journal 2011.  Once again, I am really happy with the completed project, even if I don't love each individual page.  Yes, I'll admit that I did get behind and that that stressed me out a little bit, but I was determined to finish it!

Now, what shall I do next???

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 31 December

New Year's Eve.  Not my most favourite day of the year (in fact, quite possibly my least favourite day of the year, but that is another story).  We had a lovely evening, again with our good friends.

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 30 December

Another quiet day on the 30th (I actually had to work for most of the day), so since Tilly was the only pet who hadn't yet had her own page, here she is!!!

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 29 December

Thursday 29 December was the day that we visited my family - and what a busy full on day it was, but great fun and so lovely to see everyone!

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 28 December

I need to start this blog post with an apology to Alex - sorry Alex (she hates this pic, but it was the only one we got whilst out shopping).

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 27 December

Another day visiting for us, this time to Phil's sister and her family - our gorgeous four little nephews!  So lovely to see them all at Christmas :)

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 26th December

In sharp contrast to our quiet Christmas Day, Boxing Day was mad!  We went to our good friend's The Moxey's and had such a lovely fun day :)  Another bonus was that now Alex has passed her driving test, she could be our taxi for the day!!!  A little bit of pay back for all those times we have ferried her around!

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 25th December

Christmas Day was quite quiet around here, which was just lovely!  We all got to hang out together, play some games, walk the dogs in the forest, and for me especially, play with my new camera :)

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 24 December

Christmas Eve we spent the day with Phil's parents in Somerset:

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 23 December

Friday 23 December was the day that we set for our Girls' Night, following Daphne's German traditions!

I tried journalling straight onto the paper, but it is quite difficult to read, but it says:

"Us crafty girls got together for a fun girlie night.  We had a lovely dinner, each of us made a different course, then we played some Buzz and Singstar.  Such fun!"

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 22 December

You might not believe this, I can't quite, but I only made one lot of mince pies this year (OK, it was a double batch, and with homemade mincemeat).  I was happily making them when my visitors turned up an HOUR early (I ask you!!!) so I hurried to finish them and completely forgot to put the two little slits in the top to let the steam escape (I was making little eccles mince pies with puff pastry) ... but it didn't seem to affect the taste luckily!

Carole x

Christmas Journal 2011 - 21st December

So yesterday, the kids were back at school, Phil was back at work and I had the house to myself, so I decided to try and catch up a little bit with my Christmas Journal.  I managed SEVEN pages!!!  I've still got a way to go (and deciding which day I should end on would help too!)

I had fully intended to take a photo of all the bags of food shopping when we had brought them in from the car to the kitchen, but in our rush to get the cold stuff into the fridge and freezer, I forgot!  Never mind, I found an image of Waitrose's logo and popped that on (bags of shopping wouldn't have been very interesting anyway, right?!)

Carole x