Merry Christmas 2011

We have had a lovely Christmas snug & warm from the damp, wet days outside !

The family all arrived safely from North Wales & Berkshire loaded with gifts & drinks !

We had a very nice meal at Sosban on North Dock in Llanelli - amazing the restoration they have accomplished there !

On Christmas Morning, we gathered for a happy hour of present opening, then ate a full Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings, drank plenty of Cava, chatted & played games & watched Christmas TV.

We followed this with a couple of days of peaceful fuddling about & resting up and enjoying each other's company.

Christmas Miracle 1918

Today I had a story published on the "Scrapgirls" website.

They were asking for true Christmas stories & I just had a compulsion to write the story that my Great Uncle Arthur had told me many years ago about his coming home from the First World War.

I just had an intuitive feeling that they would like the story and if I sent it I might be chosen !

So I wrote my tale & created the required accompanying digital scrapbook layout using their products as was laid out in the rules of the competition.

And today out of the blue when I opened their daily newsletter - there was my story !

http://www.scrapgirls.com/NL/SG_News_111214_Wed_Two.html

I was chuffed that they liked it & chose to publish it - and pleased to think of girls all over the world reading Uncle Arthur's story !

Journal your Christmas 2011

And we're off ... today is the first day of my 4th Journal Your Christmas ! I have my covers underway & love the feeling that girls all over the world are taking part in this scrapping month ! I also like the idea of looking back on each year in years to come & remembering the good (and even the bad) times I have had each December !

Christmas Makes !

So Christmas activity on the workdesk this week !

I have the place cards for the Christmas Dining Table finished (as you can see it's a red & gold theme this year !) so that's one job done & dusted.

The Angel (one of Tilda's patterns) I am making for my mother in law is well underway - just the hair to stitch on & features and a few finishing touches !

I am making a quick gift box for my Mum so that to finish ... happily all the rest of the pressies for my side of the family are safely wrapped & ready to pass over to my sister when we meet for our annual girlie weekend in Bath on Saturday ! Looking forward to having time together as we live 6 hours apart & seeing the Christmas market which is supposed to be very atmospheric.

Although I am eternally grateful we don't have the snow we had this time last year - with it being so mild I'm feeling it hard to get Christmassy ! And Journal Your Christmas starts tomorrow !

Lest We Forget

It struck me that we are a unique generation living through this sequence of special dates at the start of the century where the day the month & the year all have the same number.

11-11-11 was especially poignant being Remembrance Day. So I created this Journal Page to honour this date & the fallen - in special memory of Great Grandfather Thomas Blackman, killed at Ypres in 1915.

WOYWW - Huddled in my workroom away from the winter rain !

So here we are with the clocks changed for the Winter - dark going to work in the morning & dark coming home at night ! The only fun place is amongst the clutter on my work-desk !

Here we have the Industrial Chic configurations box project which I didn't quite get finished at my Artsycrafty Weekend - what a big step outside my comfort zone with the paint effects & style - but brilliant to have the chance to try something new! After a bit more gluing & decoration to finish it off & I think it looks really cool !

I also have my new Paperartsy Hot Picks stamps which I am looking forward to playing with !

I'm also having a play around with my own version of what I saw the girls had done on one of the Lynne Perrella workshops - taking a photocopy of a face & overlaying with paint & other decorations - early days but fun to experiment with a new style ! Hope everyone has a happy crafty week !

Watch the Birdie ...

Another fab day at the Autumn Artsy-Crafty Weekend !

Always a long day but so enjoyable - today was metal work (I always forget how much I enjoy the metal stuff & now vow to do more of it at home !!) and lots of paint.

Cunning use of ordinary kitchen foil - all scrunched up then painted & sanded works a treat to create textured surfaces !

Layering card strips & shapes below the thin sticky-backed metal then refining them to show as sort of silhouettes afterwards looks brilliant !

Constructing the bird houses was a 3 woman job & we agreed it was a very bonding experience to all pitch in with each others houses - short of renting an octopus for the task there wasn't a hope of doing it on your own !!

Blending our own paint colours was fun - I came full of intentions to go with Autumnal colours but as the new paint colours hadn't arrived from Leandra's manufacturer these were off the agenda - so I went with a sort of Damson - which they all teased me matched my shirt perfectly !

At lunchtime as the sun was out I had a brisk walk round the block (penance for the berry cheesecake !!) and found some cute pine cones & feathers which were happily recycled into my birdhouse project !

Such a shame this is probably the last class here - the end of a happy era in which I have learnt such a huge amount ! All the more reason to enjoy tomorrow to the full !