Journal Your Christmas

So this year I'm joining dozens of other people all over the world and taking Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas class. I'm working nights this year over Christmas and I've been trying to think of ways to keep things special despite this. I'm hoping to keep up with this project - it's an email prompt everyday from Dec 1st until the last of the 12 days of Christmas (January). I've already made my covers and got my stash so hopefully I'll have a lovely journal by the end of the season.

Christmas is on the way...

... and I'm nowhere near ready!! Eeeek! So I've been Christmas shopping online. Love Amazon prime - it's my new favourite thing. And a couple of bits for me might have slipped into the basket too. I've been very very naughty lately with my shopping habits. Not spending bucketloads on the house has made a real difference to our bank balance but I'm trying my hardest to make up the difference in scrapping stash!! Off to Ikea next week to buy boxes to store things in!

Look what I found in my travels; www.blurb.com is fab site where you can create a book and get it professionally printed and bound. Surprisingly reasonable prices too! Hmmmm.... time to get creative methinks!

After a moderate delay, due to 5 consective night shifts and a day spent asleep on the sofa, the remaining photos of our new home. Not much for the writing today. Gonna try and get my mojo back with a few sketches or challenges. Maybe tomoro I'll be more chatty.

Andy and I share this room, sort of. I have one end and the cupboard for scrapping and he has the other end with his apple mac and desk if he wants to do anywork..... ever!!

Everyone who sees this room asks why we don't have our bedroom up here. It is lovely and big and makes a perfect guestroom.

Upstairs!

Thought I'd bring you the befores and afters together for the upstairs. We've done more upstairs than anywhere else at the moment. I think when you see the master bedroom before, you'll understand why that was our first priority! We might have to split this into 2 sections, depending on how many photos I end up using and how long they take to upload.

Here is our lovely bathroom - the tiles aren't too bad but the wallpaper is horrendous and the bathroom fittings are outdated. So we've removed most of them and the clock and the wallpaper is almost all gone.

Toilet before; note the broken toilet seat - you don't want to know what it looked like underneath!!

Work in progress; we had Andy's sister and her family to stay a few weeks ago and Tilly thought it was great to rip the wallpaper off. We were very careful to make sure she understood she couldn't do it anywhere else or in anyone else's house!!

So the decorating is still in progress but look at my brand-new toilet seat! How cool is that?!

The boxroom - bigger than I remembered it being, but it was always full of junk when we viewed the property. The best bit is how the wallpaper doesn't match the carpet, which doesn't match the curtains, which don't match the wallpaper. 3 different patterns none of which are nice. But it's low down on the list.Our boxroom - more of a wardrobe room really. Plus a general junkroom at the moment. Every house has to have a junkroom. We think this will eventually be a nursery, but where we'll put all the clothes is anybody's guess!!

And my favourite room, the master bedroom. The befores are scary. The wallpaper was so dark and oppressive and the window decorations left a lot to be desired. Those pelmets were the first things to go.

And now;

I love this room so much. It's a quiet sanctuary for Andy and me. Nothing but a bed and some chests of drawers. The colours are so peaceful and relaxing. And we can finally put pictures up on the walls where we want them to be. The rhinos in the alcove (spot the old cupboard minus the doors?) are a housewarming gift from Andy's parents. It looks so beautiful and fits perfectly in the room.

Ok, I'm photo'd out now. I'll do the scraproom and the loft a little bit later. Must go and shower and think about going to the supermarket. See you later!

More house-y photos!

As promised, here are the after photos. We'll do upstairs tomoro!!

Living room looks better now - there's quite a bit less rubbish hanging around and we've moved the bookcases. But everything looks so right in there, especially with our red curtains.

And now for the evidence of my husband's destructive tendencies. I let him loose with some hand tools and look what happened!!

But look at it now;

We'll do something else with those alcoves when we do the kitchen but for now, the remains for the shelves work well enough.

I'm really pleased with the way the house is coming together. It feels like home and the right place to be for us. Can't quite believe that we might have our children here!!!

I'm Back!!!

We are finally online at our new home! It's only taken the better part of a month! So here, as promised are some new home piccies! These are the befores, the afters will come tomoro.

On the day we got the keys - of course, we were supposed to pick them up at about 11am. Actually got them about 2pm and then the previous owner was still there doing some cleaning (we're not sure what they were cleaning, there was a lot still to do once we got in). And still there at 5pm when we went back for the second time. At which point we called the estate agents to get rid of them!!

Open the front door, and here's the stairs. Very useful for getting to the bedrooms.

Living room - looks better with furniture in it.

Kitchen - got to love the orange wallpaper. And the kitchen that hasn't been updated for the last 20 years!

Dining room - more orange wallpaper and those shelves/cabinets eliminate about a foot of floor space. Turn in tomoro to see what Andy did to them!!

Check out this girl!

Finally off work today after working 7 days straight. Busy busy!! House sale seems to be coming through as well (if the solicitors can stop mucking things up!). This is a flying visit just to check and say...

Have a look at this girl's blog - she's my little sister, starting her married life on the other side of the world. Far too far away for my liking but she seems to be enjoying herself. They've just arrived in San Antonio where they'll be working for the year so there should be more new soon. Keep an eye out, she'll see amazing things this year if past experience is anything to go by!

Time flies!

Doesn't seem like a week since I was last here. Been busy since then. First a few LOs for your delight and delectation. The next 3 DLOs for My Freedom - I'll have to post a piccie of the album they live in, it's sooooo pretty!

Next a new project; Learn Something New Everyday by Shimelle (noticing a theme yet?) Really really please with how they've turned out (ok, not so much sept 2nd but it'll do for now). Especially pleased with the cover. And that I've managed to keep up for 3 days in a row now!! Of course, I am on clinic week so I've been home all day monday and wednesday and left work before 2pm all the other days. Maybe with a full-time week things will be different, but for now I'm happy!



And lastly, an exciting delivery. Picked up my new crocs from the post office today. Ruby Red Mary Janes. So so pretty and very comfortable. Haven't taken them off since I got home!! And I've just ordered some lovely bits and bobs from etsy. Yummy yummy!

My Freedom LOs

So I've actually managed to complete 2 DLOs for Shimelle's My Freedom class! Given that this is the third class I've done, and these are the first LOs I've actually complete, that's quite an achievement. They've worked quite well, I think. It's not my usual style; I've based them mostly on the prompts from Shimelle and followed her sketchs quite closely. I've had the Piggy Tales pp (Baa Baa Black Sheep) for ages just waiting for the 'right project'.

The first prompt was 'Time' and what it means to me.

The journalling is based on 2 elements; an hour-by-hour description of my day and some thoughts about how I'd spend a perfect day and what I think about time.

Time to rise
I love the extremes of the day; early mornings when the light is grey, late nights when the air is clear.
Time to prepare
I work best with small routines that slot into my day so I get everything done and don’t feel rushed.
Time to drive
My most recent milestones were getting married and starting work; now I have responsibilities.
Time to work
All the clocks in the hospital tell a (slightly) different time so a watch is essential equipment.
Time to act
Urgent isn’t always important; there’s nothing, except a crash call, that can’t wait 10 minutes for a rest.
Time to eat
I have good intentions about my time but I rarely follow through.
Time to reassure
I can only do my job – not everyone else’s as well.
Time to explain
I have a new watch from Next. It only cost £20 but it makes me feel shiny and smart when I wear it.
Time to handover
We start with a plan and it usually goes out the window within the hour.
Time to check in
If I had one day to do anything, I’d make time to see friends; coffee and a browse at Borders.
Time to talk
I’d be productive.
Time to watch t.v.
I’d watch something I really want to and then turn off the television.
Time to read
And I’d do something just for me; - reading or scrapping.
Time to relax
Most of my time is spent on work, housework and unfulfilling television.
Time to sleep
There’s something eery and lovely about being awake when most people are asleep.

The second prompt was 'Travel'. I focused my photos on how I travel day-to-day and picked the questions I liked most for the journalling.

What modes of transportation do you use?
I drive my car, a lovely little purple Ford KA, and occasionally I take the bus. I still drive Mum & Dad’s Volvo from time to time. I walk a lot around the hospital and I try to walk to places when I have a day off.
For what reasons do you travel?
I drive to work most days and stop at the supermarket or the petrol station on the way home. Otherwise, I travel for errands; I’ve started walking down the road to the local shops instead of driving to the supermarket. I travel to visit my family mostly and occasionally to visit friends. We travel to go on holiday; mostly by car but by plane a couple of times.
Do you travel light or push your luggage allowance to the limit?
I travel with enough luggage to be prepared and usually 3 pairs of shoes. I don’t pack as much as I used to. And now, when I go away overnight only, I take my small green wheelie case. I have a medium purple one too; apparently I look quite amusing with
both, prancing through the airport.
What place in the world has left an impression on your soul?
I loved San Francisco and I would love to go back one day and explore some more. We went to Antigua on our honeymoon and it was amazing. Time moved quite differently there; we got up early and walked on the beach before breakfast. It was calm and peaceful and we had a wonderful time just being together. I really want to go back there one day and spend a few weeks doing nothing together.

That's it for now. Might be back later, you never know!!

2 posts in one day?! Never!!

Just finished this minibook - a gift for my old housemate who's moved to Liverpool to start her GP training job. It's taken forever!! I started it back in July, I think and I'm going to have to post it to her. I'm not sure when she'll be back in Leicester. I'm really proud of the book (despite the fact that the rings haven't come together quite straight) - it sort of evolved as I went along. The idea was to have lots of photos of house-related things and then I decided I needed some journalling too, to make it more a memory book than a photo album. I used Basic Grey Sultry stash (pp, rub-ons, buttons, glazed brads and stickers), some BG 2 Scoops fibres, Bazzil CS, Stickles and my lovely BIA. So here are the pictures;

So that's that. I hope you like it. Need to work out some way of sending it in perfect condition to Liverpool. It's never going to be toddler-proof so I probably ought to include a warning (she lives with her sister, BIL and nephew). Plus, I need to find out the names of the other people who lived in the house since I moved out. There were a lot of us in the end; 5-bed house and only Sarah was there for the whole time. I lasted the second-longest but defected when I got married! It was a great place to live and I have some really great memories tied up in it. It's a real shame to think I'll probably never go back there again.

New Stash!!

First things first; my new stash from my epic buying of the last few days! Once again, fantastic service from UKS sponsors - Sarah's Cards and Scraprevolution. Both parcels arrived this morning with my friendly postie. (BTW, the parcelforce driver round here is a lady and she wears shorts. All the time. She's quite smiley!)

Yummy yummy!! Can't wait to make use of all that stash! Particularly love the AC cardstock. 8.5x11 is a size I'm really enjoying at the moment.

On a more irritating note, received a letter this morning from our mortgage brokers regarding our solicitors. I'm so upset by it, I'm just going to quote (verbatim including spelling and grammar mistakes!!) the letter!

...they have advised that the solicitors you have chosen are not on there
panel and have advised they need you chose new ones...

This is from an office manager of a morgage broker. You'd hope she has some English qualifications! Or at least a grammar checker on her pc! And, given that they know we want to move as quickly as possible, why not ring us? They have hubby's mobile number and he's very reachable even at work. Very very irritating!

Ok, rant over. Now a philosophical question; why is it when I sit down to scrap, I spend hours being very busy but don't produce a single LO?!

Wow! Time flies!

I've just realised it's been a month since I last posted! I'm a very naughty blogger! I haven't even got a good excuse.

Been on nights since Wednesday last week. Had a couple of good nights and got about 2 hours sleep each. The other 3 weren't so good though - one of our babies decided to go off at about 2am... all three nights! Managed to catch up on my sleep on Monday though. Spent most of the afternoon asleep on the sofa. All tucked up in a blanket provided by my lovely husband!

In a post-nights frenzy, and in anticipation of my first ST1 paycheck, I went a little bit mad online. All I wanted was some little chipboard birdies. A Maya Road tin with birds and branches to be precise. Which got me thinking about chipboard in general and minibook covers in particular. So I ordered some A4 chipboard sheets from Sarah's Cards and some new AC 8.5x11 cardstock fell into my cart along with some new Thickers. I got puffy, glitter and foil! Very exciting. But they didn't stock the birdies. Scraprevolution do stock the birdie tin... and to justify the postage cost, a few more packs of Thickers and some acetate sheets got chucked in.

Then this morning, I was thinking about lace cardstock - I love that stuff and I don't have enough of it. So I've got a few sheets of that for good measure.

We drove to Nottingham to look at carpets, wallpaper and kitchens (more on that later) today. And what's in Nottingham? Hobbycraft and The Range! Couldn't believe the range at The Range! I needed some acrylic paint and found a tote to go with it too. Plus a circle cutter and some lovely lovely Sharpies!!

So all in all it's been an expensive week! And now I have no money to spend until at least the end of September!

BTW, just so you don't feel sorry for him, Hubby got a toolbox and some speakers for the car to play with. He's not as hard doneby as he'd like you to think!

Take photos tomorrow!

Well, today actually but i didn't find the piccie til this morning!