My Christmas 2013 Journal

Hi everyone

December and the build up to Christmas is always crazy busy in this house but it really is one of the most wonderful times of the year for me! 

I take a million photographs throughout the festive season - ok, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I do take a lot!

Each year I like to select a few favourites or the ones that tell a story or were taken at special events we have been to and get them into my albums.

This year I've decided to make a smaller book as well as some larger 12" x 12" layouts that will go into my main album.

Here is my first page in my book:

The page is 7" x 7" and I'm using an album I've had in my stash for a while now. 

The album is plain cream pages held together with a book ring. The front and back covers are thick chipboard which I will also decorate as I don't think lime green arrows are very festive!

For several years now I have loosely followed Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas. This is a class which for a very reasonable initial cost gives you access every year so you can follow the daily prompts year after year if you wish.

For my Christmas book I'm using a variety of supplies , some older and some brand new. For this first page I used a sheet of Echo Park This n That Christmas matted onto red cardstock and added some Simple Stories December Documented papers and stickers, wood veneer stars, enamel dots and red gems to embellish.

Do you have a separate album/journal or book for recording December and Christmas? 

Have you started to scrap the season already or do you wait until January?

Happy December!

Sarah x

JYC 3rd-5th

I hope your New Year celebrations were good! We had a lovely quiet night at home with a glass of wine watching the London fireworks on TV. I still cannot believe how fast 2011 flew by and that we are now in 2012 but I guess I'd better get used to it. lol!

I thought I would pop by and show you a few more pages from my christmas Journal. I didn't even attempt to make any pages beyond the first few days of December as I knew that as the month progressed I just would not get time to sit down and craft, but since things have calmed down now I have been able to get a few pages done. I'm keeping them very simple and at 6" x 6" finding it a very manegable size to work with!

So, here's 3rd December ~ Cards ...

For the 4th, I went off topic as I wanted to record our viist to a local museum for their Victorian Christmas and Childrens Crafts event. It's not a great photo, but as H was so busy sticking and cutting all the photos were a bit blurry!!

5th December ~ Advent ...

I love the look on her face in this photo!

Before I go, if you haven't already don't forget to pop over to the SJ Crafts Shop and check out the Grab Boxes and Grab Bags  and there's still lots of bargains in the Winter Sale!

 I'll be back soon with more of my JYC pages! Thanks for stopping by!!

Our Christmas .... So far!

As the 25th gets closer and I find myself busy with the last minute gift shopping, food shopping, Christmas baking and wrapping I have quickly put together this collage of photos to show what we have been up to as we countdown the days to Christmas!!

Our local garden centre holds a Christmas Charity evening in support of Julia's House and we went along for the 2nd year running. It's a fabulous evening, with lots for the children to do including a reindeer hunt, meeting Santa, Guess the name of the Teddy and the whole venue is beautifully decorated. Hannah hung a star on the tree "For someone special this Christmas".

We decorated our Christmas tree at home on the 10th, carefully hanging the decorations we've collected over the years. We bought H a fairy decoration on her first Christmas and each year we've bought another, now she's older she likes to choose her own.

The advent calender this year is a Hello Kitty one, which gets opened first thing each morning!

This post will be used for my Christmas Journal ... I'm waiting for my photos to be printed before I make more pages!

JYC 1st & 2nd

Still keeping it super quick and simple!!

Here's 1st December ...

This page is about my plan to record our activities, traditions and preparations for Christmas with lots of photos and making my Christmas Journal to record the memories of this wonderful time of year.

As the season gets busier and just a little bit crazy I will take time out of all the madness and make sure i get "me time" to play with pretty paper and create my journal!

2nd December ... Weather

A record of how different the weather is this year compared to 2009 and 2010.

Christmas 2009 was a true white christmas when we had snow on 25th December in N. Ireland and last year it had already snowed early in December but this year there is no sign of the white stuff!

Front Cover

So, going along with my plan of keeping my Christmas journal very, very simple, I made my cover this morning!

Not very traditional colours and all from scraps .... starting as I mean to go on!

I'm not yet sure if I will use book rings to hold all the pages together or if I will use a 6" x 6" album and page protectors ... that decision is still to be made and may depend on how fat the journal ends up!!

JYC preparations

I'm already to go with my Christmas journal!

I've decided to keep it small this year and to help me acheive my goal to complete a page each day through December I've cut my cardstock into 6" x 6" pages. I've got 20 pages done and plan to add in a few extras as I go along in different sizes or I may use patterned paper for a few.

I've sorted through my papers and made a pile of christmas papers and added in some non Christmassy patterned papers that could also be used. I'm aiming to use up old stash for this project! One of the papers is from 2007!!

I have another pile of plain cardstock scraps which I will use to mat photos, punch/die cut shapes and make borders etc! Again using up the odds and ends so there is an assortment of colours there!

This is my "journaling" pile .... an assortment of strips of paper, journal cards, titles and a few punched tag shapes .... you may spot a few die cuts there too which I've already pushed out from the backing sheet to save time!

I've also sorted out some punches, stamps, inks, stickers, embellishments, alphas etc but for some reason didn't take a pic of them.

All the papers & cardstock are now in clear 12 x 12 bags and I'll pop the rest into a basket so I have everything together.

Shimelle's 1st prompt has arrived in my in box and I've already made a start on my first page!

Let the Christmas Countdown begin!

JYC Starts tomorrow!!

One of the best things about Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class is that once you've signed up you can join in each year. I initially took this class back in 2008 and have participated each year since then. I haven't managed to complete an album on any of those years. Oh dear! But .... and this is the great bit I do love the pages I have done and I have them all in the same album and together they tell a lot about Christmas in this house over the last few years.

This year I would dearly love to finish a page for each day of December so today I have been busy preparing my pages, cutting my cardstock into 6" x 6" pages and gathering together christmas stash so that I'm all ready. More on my preparations tomorrow!

As you may be aware today is "Strike Day" and H's school was closed so whilst I was busy with my stash she was busy painting her little piggy bank!

Look at the concentration!!

Are you ready for JYC? 

Have you done any preparations or are going to make your page from scratch each day?