It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

Today we had a guy round plastering the ceilings in our hall, staircase and landing. Hubby told me to keep out of the way as there was alot of plaster dust around so I shut myself away in my craft room, popped my ipod on and lost myself in crafting. First I did the layout above showing my husband in his new McLaren sweater on Christmas morning. I used a Simple Stories Christmas kit that I bought before Christmas for all my festive layouts.

When I'd done the layout I thought I had better make some little cards for my workmates. We all give cards on birthdays so I need about 30 for the whole year and to buy them would cost a fortune so I always make lots at the beginning of the year using up lots of scraps left from the year before. The design I pinched from my friend and workmate Val, who made me a gorgeous Christmas card using three Spellbinders tag dies. The front and back of the card are stuck together at the top so the bottom makes a little easel flap to stand the card up and has a small "Happy Birthday" greeting inside. Five down, only 25 more to make - oh joy!!

Document 2012

In 2010 Caroline and I did Shimelle Laine's Document 2010 and with alot of encouragement and nagging from each other we managed to complete it. In 2011 Caroline and I bought the Simple Stories yearly kit and used that to document 2011 and again, with alot of encouragement we both finished it, well all my photos are in, layouts for each month have been done, just needs a bit of labelling before I forget what the photos refer to.

This year I decided to follow the format I've used over the last couple of years but make a front page for the album and monthly titles using a cute 2011 Newton's Law calendar I was going to throw away. I had to fudge March cos I remember saving the page for something and tucking it away for safe keeping but as usual, "safe keeping" means "can't remember where it is". I used some new spray ink and a mask that I bought in a sale before Christmas to make the frame to sit Newton in on the front page, attached lots of buttons and a red strip at the bottoms with holes punched in it and added some pretend stitches. The montly page titles were 8.5" x 6" (portrait) pieces of cardstock, the Newton image from the calendar , a strip of ribbon and 3 buttons. Each of the page titles have been stuck on the top, left hand side of a divided page protector that displays 6 6" x 4" photos on each side, the title takes up two of the photo slots.

Tickled Pink

This photo of Penny was taken at the Scrapstars Retreat in September and uploaded to the Scrapstars Facebook page recently. When I saw the text on her t-shirt I wanted to create a layout with the photo and a Mr Tickle image cos I love the Mr Men.

Webster's Pages Black Friday Kits

I bought the two Black Friday kits from Webster's Pages a couple of weeks ago and they arrived last week. I am over the moon with them and have already been using some of the lovely goodies in the kits to create a Christmas layout. I originally thought the postage was a bit steep at $46 on top of the $50 for the kits but when I checked my bank statement the two kits and postage only came to £52 so I think I have got a real bargain and they took less than two weeks to arrive which is great for this time of year.