A family Get Together.

On Sunday last, my Dad's side of the family got together for a meal out and to gather before Christmas.  Sadly, I had no cards to hand over this year, I'll have to post them (if I get any made).

Lunch was lovely and it was good to see Dad's sister and my cousins again. More Basic Grey papers, and I added Paperchase puffy stickers as my family are from London.

The Ballet!

I had never been to the ballet before, so when I saw that The Nutcracker was on at the Birmingham Hippodrome, I contacted Hannah and booked a couple of tickets for us.

We had an amazing day in our second city, and the ballet was so beautiful it brought a tear to my eye.  The set was incredible, and the standard of dance glorious.  I would definitely see another ballet again, maybe taking both girls.

At Last!

The kitchen is done (well mostly.. just a few small jobs to finish) and to celebrate I took a photo and added it to my journal today.

It has been good to get back to my crafting; just wondering whether I have time to make any cards at all this year.

A Trip to the Panto.

On the first of December this year, we took the whole school to the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry to see Dick Whittington.

It was so lovely to go to the panto again, I hadn't been since the children were small and nothing had changed!  The dame was the same actor, there was plenty of glitter, booing of the baddies, silly songs, slapstick and laughs galore.

JYC 2016

Here we are with the start to my Christmas journal; a little late admittedly, but started at last nonetheless!

I used simple embellishments for the cover of my 8x8 album.  It's odd using 8x8 again: my very firts JYC back in 2008 was 8x8 and I had not revisited this size...until now!  One difference is that some of the pages are pocket style, along with full 8x8 pages.

I also decided to included an introductory layout before beginning the journal proper, mainly because I went to the Panto at our local theatre on the first and I did want to make a page about this. Not only that, it includes a selfie of me!

 More about that page tomorrow!

How Long Have I been Missing?

Almost 4 weeks since I posted, the longest pause since I started my blog back back in 2008. The reason I have not been posting is that I have not been crafting either.
All of my crafty stash has been boxed up for the past month in the spare room while my kitchen has been refurbished.  I normally craft in there and store my craft materials there too.  Now the kitchen is nearly finished, and much of my stash is away, I am almost ready to begin crafting again.
As it is almost December, I thought I would share my materials that I will be using for my Christmas Journal.  Number 9 this year!!

 I have it all crammed into a 12x12 RUB in an effort to keep everything under control this year!

There is a tray on top for embellishments, and papers, stickers, stamps and letters are underneath.

I will be using a random selection of letters..

lots of stamps (some old, some new)...

Papers by Basic Grey (25th and Pine; one of their final Christmas kits)

dies to cut out my numbers (Can't believe I haven't prepared these yet)

and stickers that match the papers.

My journal will be a Simple Stories 6x8 like last year, but it isn't ready yet.
Hope the kitchen gets finished next weekend so I can get started on time.