Finished!

Its been a wonderful Christmas season and Kev and the girls are back at work and school and today was the last day of my Christmas Journal. Here are some pics of my last 2 pages and the finished album...

Things to remember

Magic

Todays journal entry...

I think Christmas must have a little spark of magic in there somewhere. Its easy to think its become more commercial, and I’m not a religious type,but despite all that I feel a warmth come every festive season. I think back over the month and there was the Wrenbury meal, all of us very different people but all sharing the common bond of crafting, and we had a riot reminiscing. I think of the generosity of the people who gave donations when the band played in the town square. The Christmas meal at Alvaston with the Willaston mums that made me feel so included. Even goodwill messages from online friends make you feel warm and fuzzy. I reckon Christmas brings out the best in people.We should try to make it last all year.

Happy New Year!

Its 2009 already! I just finished yesterdays and todays journal pages...

Catching up on the journal plus 2008 review.

2008 review journalling reads:

Quite a positive year for us. Kevin finally completed and passed his Masters in Public Administration (MPA) Open University course. He also has successful visits to Nigeria,Thailand and Malaysia. Kitty has really come along with her reading and writing and has continued to enjoy school. In September she moved up into Mrs Bebbington’s year One class. She has started going to Rainbows and passed her level one in swimming. Zoe has had a very eventful year. She won a trophy at Co-Op band for being the most promising newcomer, and has continued to play her clarinet for the Co-Op at numerous concerts including the Crewe Lyceum theatre, Nantwich town square and the Dane Bank theatre. During the summer she started having private Clarinet and music theory lessons with Gwendoline. She has done really well and achieved distinctions in both her Grade One music theory and her clarinet playing exams. The biggest change for her has been moving up to high school. She was fortunate to get a place at her first choice school. There were a lot of leavers parties for her to go to at the end of year six - one of the most memorable being the one at Crewe Vagrants, where they had a talent show. and a very emotional leavers assembly at school. She seems to have settled in well at high school, and has been to Conway with the rest of year seven. I have been very involved with my digital scrapbooking teamwork and have had a few pages published in Scrapbook Inspirations magazine and Digital Artist Magazine (online). I have even been interviewed a couple of times! I got a new car this year to cope with my increased daily driving. I did another photography course in the spring. We also had new windows and fascias on the house this year and now it looks great!

Boxing Day

Christmas Day

Ok so I'm a day late, but Happy Christmas everyone. Here's my journal entry for yesterday...

Nearly Christmas!!!!

Phew, All Caught Up!

Been a hectic few days, DD1 has been playing here and there and I got a bit behind with my journal but I am all caught up now :)

Grateful

Todays journal entry. The photos are some I took during CJ's photography course, naturally the photoshoot fell into mayhem. Journalling reads - It may be chaos, but it's my chaos!

Oooh Inspired!

Finally I got my free heat tool set (from mag subscription). Was doing some blog browsing and re-visited the blog of Dan99 (link is in list of favourite blogger on the right). Totally inspired by his tutorials I had a go at a tag...

Its not at all perfect but its a real start. I see lots of experiments on the horizon :)

Cool effects!

Shimelle's prompt today had some inspiring photography by Beth Retro. So inspiring I had a go myself at creating some lighting effects using CS3. The photo is and old one of DD1 when she was 2 that I scanned.

If you've been here before you might also spot that I made a new blog header with the same techniques!!

Visitors?

Giving

My journal entry for today.

And I have to add... YAY! Alexandra Burke won X Factor wooohoooo :)

More Journal Entries

Deck the Halls

A page about our tree for my Christmas Journal

Wrapping it up

I've used my christmas wrapping paper today to make the small presents.

Tradition

Tradition is such a big part of Christmas, but what makes what we do become a tradition? I suppose you could say that when Christmas just isn’t Christmas without a particular thing then that something must have become a tradition. For me Christmas is not complete without the proper Turkey dinner, which we have at lunchtime so that we can have turkey sandwiches for tea, and we must have crackers to pull, and we have to wear the paper hats from inside. I have to watch ‘A Wonderful Life’ in the run up to Christmas, and of course the tree and the lights outside are a must. And keeping a journal. I guess we make our own traditions, some are unique to us and others are the same as other peoples, but without these things it’s just not ‘our’ Christmas.

More Journalling

Caught up now with my Christmas Journal...

The Countdown...

Page 5 of my journal.
We have a wooden cupboard full of tiny drawers. Each drawer contains a little ornament to hang on the little wooden tree. The girls take it in turns to do this, but both girls get an advent calendar in the post from Nanny Owl, and this year Kev bought me one too. Zoe’s features a cathedral with a market outside, Kitty’shas got lots of ducks on and mine is a night time scene with the stable in the middle.