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Here is our lovely bathroom - the tiles aren't too bad but the wallpaper is horrendous and the bathroom fittings are outdated.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!!