WOYWW - Out With The Old - In With The New !

Well a belated Happy New Year to you all !
Much beloved & I saw in the New Year with our friends Lynda & Robert over a leisurely meal which we managed to spread out from 7.30 to 11pm with lots of chatter !
We watched the Fireworks over London on the telly, took photos & sang Auld Lang Syne - well it had to be done ! So lovely to have made friends here in Wales to spend these significant times with.





I sneaked an hour whilst cooking to make a little ATC for Lynda & I to mark the turning of the year ...

So despite not getting to bed until gone 1am, by 8.15am I was up & packing all the Christmas decorations away. Four & half solid hours of wrapping, packing, running up & done the step ladder to the roof space to the storage boxes, vacuuming & cleaning later I was done ! Only the lights on the outside of the house remain up as the day was one of relentless stormy rain & gales !
The house always looks bland & stark with all the lights & Christmas-y things gone !

It has been a hectic week as we had Much Beloved's family to stay for a week - and I only had christmas Day & Boxing Day off work - so it was a manic week of caring for guests - cooking, washing up, washing bed linen & generally trying to make sure they were enjoying themselves !

This afternoon I finally got to attack my craft desk - to finish the old & make way for the new !
Despite all the duties of entertaining the family, I had made sure I wrote an entry for my Christmas Journal every night. From experience I know this is the trick to keeping up ! I can always sort out pictures & memorabilia later - but if I fall behind writing my thoughts down, the project is doomed !

So I put the last week's pages together & ring bound the book - always a sense of accomplishment !
And a plump little journal it is too !
And also emptied the Project Box of all the Christmas paraphernalia - so it stands empty & poised for the next projects !







So what's coming up ?
First I have ripped all the photos out of the perpetual calendar I have in the lounge - at 5 years old it was looking tired & dated - so time for a revamp - maybe not even using photos this time ! I have some lovely papers I picked up as a bargain at Homesense - so these will be my inspiration !







Next I have proposed a Journal Challenge with Lynda - inspired by the idea of a Rainbow Journal I read about in the Pages magazine - we are going to make a freestyle/ junk journal working through the colours of the rainbow & we have added in a second idea to work with in each colour just to spice it up a bit !

And we have our Alphabet ATC challenge running too

So that should be enough to keep me busy for a while !

Wishing you all a safe, healthy & happy and creatively inspired New Year !
Love Ali x