December Daily 2014–planning

December Daily 2014 @ Nigtwolf's Den

December daily…well actually Journal Your Christmas (JYC) but its daily & in December so there you go 😉

I’ve been doing JYC since 2010 in 8×8 format and have completed the 2010 & 2011. 2012 & 2013 haven’t happened. Well they have, sort of. I’ve done all the journaling, created some page plans and then that was it. I totally had a valid excuse last year. I was just over 2 months pregnant and had horrid morning sickness.

This year I’m changing things up a little. Changing from an 8×8 album to a Sn@p 6×8 red burlap album.

Sn@p Red Burlap 6x8 album

The plan is a little project life style, a little traditional pages. Using mainly the Simple Stories Christmas ranges and I’ve been busy creating cards to go in my album.

Here’s a sneak at some of the goodies I’ve created so far using lots of stamps from Kellie Stamps. I am rather in love with her stamps and am slowly gaining a collection ;), my Copics and some Simple Stories stuff from last year.

Be Merry 4x6 card Doily tree 4x6 cardElf 3x4 card Reindeer 3x4 card

Journal Your Christmas–Week 4

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Week 4

Dec 22 – I’m thankful for having help over this Christmas period. I’m especially grateful for Aggie & Pa and Grandma & Grandad who have taken you out for a couple of hours on different occasions so your father & I can get things done

Dec 23 – Our Christmas stockings have never been hung by the chimney (even when we had a chimney) but can usually be found strewn, full, on chairs Christmas morning. This year, we’ve hung your stocking by the fire ready and waiting for Santa.

Dec 24 -  Christmas Eve. While you are sleeping, I’m busy wrapping the last of the presents, setting out milk and a biscuit for Santa and doing some last minute prep for tomorrow’s lunch.
You went to sleep so quickly tonight. Once you knew Santa was on his way, you were out like a light.

Dec 25 – Today we went to Aggie & Pa’s for breakfast. While we were gone Grandad & Mick came round to set up your swing set (a present from Grandma & Grandad). They were still setting it up when we got back so you got your present a little early & not totally set up. Everyone came round for lunch and the much anticipated pig wasn’t ready by lunchtime so it kept cooking while we enjoyed all the other goodies. Presents were swapped & a good time was had by most.

Dec 26 – Ah Boxing Day. Glad it is all over for another year. You spent the day playing with your new toys then in the afternoon went with Aggie for a swim (& got more presents) while Daddy, Mick & I watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special – The Snowmen. We all thought you might crash early but were still up at 10pm!!

I’m finishing my journal here this year – apart from my year in review page

Week 4 photos – I didn’t follow along with the prompts this week

Next step is to actually get this all into an album before Christmas 2013. I still haven’t finished my journal from 2011 yet *sigh*

Journal Your Christmas – Week 3

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Week 3 of our Christmas adventure

Dec 15 – I love Christmas but I’m not a huge fan of too many decorations, in our house anyway. In other people’s houses it looks great – in ours it make it look too cluttered. One of your favourite decorations that’s not on the tree is our little nativity set. You love playing with the little people & animals and the ‘fairy’

Dec 16 – Our Christmas tunes have changed so much over the years. There were Christmas records & tapes when I was young and now it’s CDs and digital tunes for you. Our playlist has changed quiet a bit too from when I was little to now. From Handel’s Messiah to some rocking tunes by Tran Siberian Orchestra and Spiritual Plague. I also throw in a bit of Enya & Medieval Baebes for good measure.

Dec 17 – Things still to do:
* wrap presents
* Pick up laybys
* buy a few last minute gifts
* Organise vegies for Xmas day
 
Dec 18 – We’re hosting Christmas at home this year but we’ve asked everyone to bring along some food to help out. We’re all looking forward to tucking into the spit roasted pork.

Dec 19 – The Christmas elves have been a big part of Christmas for you this year. We bought an advent calendar (albeit a little late) and each evening, if you’ve been good (& gone to sleep quickly), the elves bring you a little present. They have brought you Freddo frogs, lollipops, some jewellery and some art supplies.

Dec 20 – Things you are giving this year:
to mummy – B Organised diary insert, Big Bang Theory socks & hat
to daddy – My Dad book, Star Wars book
to uncle andrew – a photo
to Gran – a photo
to Grandma – Grandma mug
to Grandpa – strawberry plant
to auntie Michelle & uncle Michael – a photo

Dec 21 – Our home right now is a total disaster area. Presents, wrapping paper, old toys and cooking mess.

Week 3 photos

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15 close up 16 toys 17 someone else’s tree
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18 Christmas food 19 transportation 20 Christmas animals
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21 from the front door

 

Journal Your Christmas–Week 2

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Onto week 2 ….. (posting a tad late but you know, Christmas)

Dec 8 – We’re simplifying our tree this year. The colour scheme of silver and purple. Simple baubles plus a few special select pieces. My silver ornaments. your number pieces. Your dad’s sci fi pieces. I think I may have got your dad to agree to a smaller tree for his ornaments too but we’ll see how that goes.

Dec 9 – Over the year’s I have tried and tried to make your great grandma’s tablet (tablet is a Scottish fudge) with no success. Recently I made Aggie’s lemon slice and needed to do something with the leftover condensed milk. I searched the internet and found a recipe for microwave (!) Russian fudge. It looked so similar to tablet I thought I’d try it. Pa thinks it’s pretty close to Great Grandma’s so I think it’s our new sweet treat for the Christmas period!

Dec 10 – This year all you’ve been asking Santa for is a watch. You can’t tell the time yet but you still want one.  When the catalogues come you look at them and say "Santa will bring me that" You’ve also been asking for a swing and a slide.

Dec 11 – I’ve wrapped our presents in kraft paper again this year & our tags are free printables from the internet. Santa has his own wrapping paper this year.

Dec 12 – Keep calm. It’s only Christmas

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Dec 13 – Not a White Christmas in sight. This year is looking to be a wet but warm Christmas. The prediction at this stage is rain and high teens to low 20s.

Dec 14 – After going to other peoples places for Christmas lunch every year, this year we are staying home all day. Well not entirely. We’ll go to Aggie & Pa’s for breakfast after you check out your stocking here then we’ll be back for the insane prep of getting everything ready for the family arriving at lunch time. We’ll hopefully get most of the set up done the day before (if it doesn’t rain) so it will just be cooking the food and last minute setup on the day.

Week 2 photos

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8 windows 9 table 10 Christmas icons
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11 wrapping 12 Christmas lights 13 Vintage
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14 summer clothing

 

 

Journal Your Christmas 2012–week 1

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This year I’m planning on doing something a little different for my Journal Your Christmas project. I’m still going to be adding pages to my album as I can (I’m still working on my 2011 pages!) but I’ll be blogging the daily prompts and the photography prompts in a weekly post. I thought this also gives me an online record of what I want to add to my album.

Each post will contain my journaling and photos from the previous week. So here’s week 1.

Dec 1 – December 1. Your third Christmas. This year will be a little different as we’re busy organising Christmas at home. You seem so much more aware of the atmosphere and more interested in everything that is going on. You want your presents now and I have Santa on speed dial for when you’ve been naughty.

Dec 2 – Christmas seems to come quicker and quicker every year. No sooner than the Halloween stuff is gone from the shops do we have Christmas things appearing.

Dec 3 – So much planning to do this year. We’re holding Christmas at home for the first time and I’m not really looking forward to it but in a way I am. At least you will be at home to play with all your toys. There’s no traveling anywhere

Dec 4 – I hope in years to come you’ll look back and remember some of your favourite toys from Christmas. Some of my favourite toys I got at Christmas came from Pa (my dad). One year he made me a trolley full of building blocks, another year it was a dolls house (which still lives at Aggie & Pa’s house – I’m hoping to do it up for you to play with out there)

Dec 5 – Our Christmas card this year is another photo card. We got some professional photos done in November and one of the options was to have some Christmas photo cards done.

Dec 6 – What is truly important this Christmas? Spending time with family & friends

Dec 7 – I sense it’s Christmas time.
Seeing… trees and lights and Christmas decorations. Pinterest is an amazing source of all things Christmas
Hearing… Trans Siberian Orchestra. Our Christmas tunes are a little different from the usual.
Smelling… BBQs and bushfires. It’s slowly warming up and getting to be bbq weather. Sadly it’s also bushfire season and there are a few going already
Tasting… chocolate, after dinner mints
Feeling… warm then cold. we’ve had such a strange start to summer this year.

Week 1 photos

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1 first signs 2 light 3 ornament
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4 red 5 in front of the tree 6 hands
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7 sparkle
 
 
 
 

Christmas 2012 – Scrapbooking your Christmas

It’s no secret I LOVE Christmas scrapbook paper. Apart from my Project Life stuff and the stuff for Miss K’s album, this is my biggest stash of scrapbooking goodies. Most of this stash goes into my Journal Your Christmas album.

I thought this year I’d check out some of the scrapbooking classes around the net that are Christmas related.

Obviously the big two (that I know of and hear most people talk about anyways) are December Daily and Journal Your Christmas.

December Daily is the brain child of Ali Edwards and is an album project that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas. I’ve never done DD but have seen some sensational albums. You only have to look to Pinterest for some awesome inspiration.

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Journal Your Christmas (updated to the 2012 link) is another amazing class from Shimelle. I am such a huge fan of Shimelle’s classes and I love the fact when you buy one of her classes you get forever access. "Journal your Christmas is an online scrapbooking class to celebrate the holiday season. It starts on the first of December and finishes on the sixth of January, with thirty-seven daily prompts sent by email. "

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Big Picture Classes have a few Christmas classes – 12 Days of Christmas, Creating Christmas and Holiday Recipes. I’ll be checking out Creating Christmas and Holiday Recipes this year (yeah I know, like I need another couple of projects over Christmas)

My Creative Classroom is offering Holiday layouts and a few others AND if you register Register for any class starting in November and you will automatically be enrolled in It’s Ornamental at no additional charge.

What classes are you taking this Christmas season?

Linking up with Tina’s Christmas linky

Getting my craft on

October onwards is usually a busy time for me with scrapbooking classes.

This year I’m playing catch up and trying to get my 2011 Journal Your Christmas album finished before this Christmas. I finally got my 2010 album finished last month *sigh*

I’ve signed up for a few classes between now and Christmas

The first (which has already started) is Becky Higgins Project Real Life at Big Picture Classes

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“This idea is at the heart of everything Becky Higgins does with her blog, her products and in her real life. Come and join her for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend some time with her during the last quarter of 2012. As Becky goes about preparing for the holidays, organizing around her home and documenting her family’s story along the way, she’ll be sharing ideas to inspire you, tips to motivate you, and real-life suggestions on how to cultivate the life you want.”
I’m loving this class so far. I haven’t scrapped anything yet but I’ve been reading along and planning 😉

Next on the list is {Mo}tography at Jessica Sprague.

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”Jessica Sprague & Heidi Swapp are teaming up to bring you a one-of-a-kind photo class! Using your cell phone, we’ll show you apps & techniques to let you take, edit, and share your pics like never before!”
I’ve taken a few classes by Jessica & Heidi and had a great time. Looking forward to this and taking better photos with my iPhone.

Shimelle has just announced her new class – Scrapbook Remix
Scrapbook Remix is an online scrapbooking class that shares the secrets to mixing patterned papers of all kinds and then creating a range of pages with this combinations. We’ll talk colour, pattern, scale, size, technique and more.”
No secret I’m a HUGE fan of Shimelle.

and then December is all about Journal Your Christmas. This will be my third year doing JYC and this year I really hope to do more than just journal and make notes.

Getting your Christmas craft on

Anyone who knows me, knows I love to create stuff. I love pretty much anything crafty.

Today I thought I’d share with you some of the Christmas craft classes floating around the net at the moment.

Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas

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I did my first Journal Your Christmas (or JYC) last year & I loved it. Every year, JYC includes daily prompts from the 1st of December to the 6th of January, the twelfth day of Christmas. AND as with every class at Shimelle’s, once you take a class you have access forever & can take part in future versions of the class. Starts 1st December

Kim Archer’s Handmade Christmas

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This one is new to me this year. It’s six days of ‘fabulous Christmas-y step by step projects’. Keep an eye out for me sharing what I make after the class. Starts 25th November

Big Picture Classes – 12 Days of Christmas

Not one I’ve done but sounds interesting – 12 days of projects with different Big Picture Classes teachers. Starts 13th December

and then there’s the many sites out there listing homemade gifts. Here’s a few of my favourites.

101 Days of Christmas
Crafty Christmas (hmm this site is a bit of a distraction lol – lots of cute links to printables)
2011 DIY Gift Guide

and then there is sooooo much on Pinterest!

My Christmas pins
Pinterest Christmas search