Less than 3 hrs til December!

Woooooo! Haven't started this week's Cathy's class yet I must admit, but that's because I've been super busy decorating and doing more Xmas Crafts. I made myself a cute Christmas book, and I have frosted snowflakes in the window and the Xmas lights up in the window too. It's so festive in my front room it's awesome. Quite fancy putting a few bits up in the bedroom, as aside from the frosted snowflakes in the kitchen window too, the only decorated room is our lounge lol.

I have a digital kit from Digital Design Essentials ready for Shimelle's Journal Your Chistmas class that starts tomorrow, I will try my best to keep up, and I have a "Christmas Past" accordian album I have in mind... and A month of Gratitude book from Cathy... and a "Holiday 2008" album from Cathy too... lol... dunno how I'm going to get it all done!

Scrap your day etc.

I can't believe it's the 25th tomorrow. My goodness. Not only that, but I'm actually REMEMBERING to do these**.



(** Watch me forget my camera tomorrow now lol!)



I haven't shared a Cathy layout in a while... Yes I am keeping up with the class. It's just this week I can't do layout #2 as there's a big 11x8.5 photo required and I'd have to order it online for posting so that has to wait. Then there's my awesome Xmas tree I decorated myself. I was soooo excited when I spotted those little xmas lights which were perfect... Then G found some awesome multicoloured ones lol. So either way our trees are not the same ;)

Bit misty eyed!

At my nan's house yesterday, she was going through the photos of Lauren's Christening. I had put all the photos on to CD for my Aunt who went to Asda and got some prints for nan :) Lauren had some professional shots done (which looked so cute btw!) and my Aunt had been discussing just how much these prints were! £18 for a print that would cost pence if you got them developed yourself... I said this is how the photographers make their money! I'm guessing the photographers might have had a small fee if not done it for free, to photograph the children around our hometown at the local paper... They are running a baby competition as they always do - only to enter you must have a photo done by the photographer - you cannot enter your own. That's when they charge the parents such high fees for prints, as that's where they make their money.

Anywho, back to my point.

So my nan was completely gushing over my photos. I just love taking them, and I do my best, and ultimately it's all headed for the designated scrapbooks anyway - so in this case the photos were going to end up in Lauren's album. But it was what she was saying about the photos that made me get a little choked up lol. She held up a photo of Leanne and said: "This looks like a professional took it!" and continued to go on about how wonderful the shots were.

Awwwwwwwwww :)

And speaking of photography, I got these shots from Claire's mum - which other than the group photo I took at the end on timer and did a mad dash to get in the photo & the one my dad took of me, Claire and Stewart - proves I was there lol!

Snowed In woooo

I listened to the majority of Snowed In today, woo-hoo! This album has been so much a part of Christmas since 1997 when it was released :) I absolutely must listen to during the week it was first released back in 97 - It was 17th November, but I couldn't listen to it until this morning. I love this album :) And I'm seriously feeling all festive! I know Americans have Thanksgiving to get out of the way before they can get festive lol, but for us it's pretty much a straight run to Christmas once we have Guy Fawkes (5th Nov) over with. We're getting out decorations down from the attic tomorrow, super exciting! Even more so after seeing Cathy's xmas album in "Mini albums in an evening", such a cute album - I got the downloads from the site ready for my own!

I'm starting to feel a little... poorly. I'm getting really hot, I've had to unplug our little electric heater (Stewart still hasn't popped around to check the central heating), my head is pounding, I have really bad congestion and I feel just generally rough.

I also feel super happy about it being Friday night. My favourite time of the week... Why? Because work has just finished and you still have all of Saturday and Sunday to look forward to. I've been public enemy number 1 at work all week. So the fact I have Monday off (although to go to hospital in Cardiff with G, as he needs to get a check up every couple of years after he had leukemia when he was younger), is a welcome relief.

Update with my DG album: I've printed off 188 wallet sized photos (ayecarumba!) and I'm pretty convinced that I don't have enough cardstock for all the journalling so I'll be getting more when I get to paperarts in mid December. I've added extra page protectors so I can fit all of my DGs into one album as well, but in the meantime I can still do the midnumbing task of cutting out all of those 188 photos, finding out which day they belong to, put them in order, and then stick them down on paper. I'll have a nice little production line going and I will feel so FANTASTIC when I'm completed :) Seriously, I've done mini books but apart from filling 2 12x12 scrapbooks of random stuff, it will feel so great to have a big theme album completed. Maybe it's a crafter/scrapbooking thing lol.

Anywho, I'm off to grab some cold & flu capsules (just to be sure!!) and to watch "Now that's what I call 1983" on ITV, awesome. It's the year I was born :D

Accomplished

I've done about 5 double layouts for the album in just 2 nights, and have printed enough photos for a further 3 more layouts... Just 13 more to go! LOL! I think I may need a "Daily Grind part 2" album! But it feels so good to get stuck in. I'm very much a follower of the "simple scrapbooking" philosophy now... well I think I've always followed it, as I never realised at how much a part of me did so much of the Design Course I'm doing without even realising it. In fact a fellow scrapper saw my UKS gallery and said that I didn't need to do the course lol. The layouts in the DG album may appear to be boring and plain, but for me right now it's about getting those photos and journalling from that moment down and into an album (I do plan on getting a page up on the site about the scrapping element of the DG and feature the above layout in sketch form featuring measurements etc as I have been getting for my class). And I'm seriously loving it. I've not been so inspired to get so much scrapping done in such a long time. In fact I think I've done more scrapping over these last 7 weeks than I have done in a couple of years! and I now have a system -even if it is a bit of a random one - for "must scrap" photos.

But as for this album, I'm so pleased to finally be getting into it and getting all those really old and distant memories down. As I have noted on my DG page:

"I really can’t say how much I’ve enjoyed this project. This project gave me such insight to other countries, traditions and ways of life, and I’ve been participating since 2002! It’s such a cool feeling to look back over all my past grinds that I joined in and see old work friends who I lost contact with, see my great nan who we sadly lost in January 2007 and to see a spread of food across the table at my nan’s house which since she had her operation for her cancer she is no longer able to do.
Can you remember step-by-step what you did Christmas Eve 5 years ago? I have been lucky enough to have Grinds on such days as my cousin’s wedding and I collected all the photos and put them into a scrapbook album to remember her special day. My first holiday without my parents to Egypt. And if all this hasn’t persuaded you to join in, then nothing will!"

:)

To be honest, when I was going to move everything over to kirstybase.com I was planning on cutting the photolog out, and not transfer it over but now I just can't let it go.

Another Lazy Sunday

Firstly, I've been featured on UKScrapper's front page (wooo!) http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/, scroll down to "blog bits" :)

and I have this clip on my mobile phone, and showed it to my dad yesterday lol: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6srQTTEAA, this is why I love Top Gear so much! There's a channel over at you tube: http://uk.youtube.com/user/TopGear

Today I am catching up on Jessica's class (read: Starting Jessica's class). I wanted to see how everyone else got on with theirs and I have decided I'm making the album using my bind it all. Grabbed a printer cartridge and some card so I can get started.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Got it finished and have started on the prompts too, using my old "ask Kirsty" notebook I made aaaaaaaaaaaaages ago.

Richard Hammond week

I guess which started last week when he was on Radio One and I pretty much sat and listened to it on my phone at work with my headphones on lol. Richard mentioned book signings! I am soooo there! I want to meet Richard loads lol.

Then there's the awesome Top Gear that's back on the TV on a Sunday (and on Dave [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="no" center_content="no" min_height="none"][a tv channel] every day! Yesssssssss) and there's the new Morrisons advert:


Now I just need Richard-ify my phone....[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

Not so lazy Sunday

I think I've been procrastinating my class today, and Jessica's class starts tomorrow. Not a wise move lol, I'll be trying my best to cram everything in!

On the plus side I finally sorted out the bookcase, tidied up the desk, vaccumed the whole flat and shampooed the bedroom and bathroom carpets, cleaned up the kitchen, organised my scrapbooking supplies so they're not all in Hobby Craft plastic bags sat in my bedroom... All washing is done and dried (yet to be ironed though! Ended up at my parents house for a fair few hours playing on my mum's new game lol)

Now I'm here ready to get my Design Your Life class done. I'm saving all the Real World Colours to do over Christmas - pop into Paperarts to get the co-ordinating cardstock as mentioned in class and do it over Xmas break. Then I'm not going back and forth to Brimscombe every few weeks.

Off we go!

Xmas Binder & downloads

**LINKS NO LONGER AVAILABLE**

http://www.mediafire.com/?h2m3z3qjcmi = Budget list
(table format with 2 columns: Person and amount)
http://www.mediafire.com/?zm2zd2zzjjd = Calendar pages
(november & dec with room for notes)
http://www.mediafire.com/?nz43midyymh = Card list
(Tick list)
http://www.mediafire.com/?zmwt2amynwd = Person budget
(Individual person. Includes name, present and amount spent)
http://www.mediafire.com/?tmqwdzz5ane = Present list
(Tick list)
http://www.mediafire.com/?wdioczfaqmd = To do list
(table format with deadline and tick list)



All downloads are for an A5 binder as seen here :) I whipped it up this morning, it was really good fun :)

A few things to brighten my week

(1) I got a letter from Little Princess Trust to say thank you for my hair donation :) It's a lovely letter too!
(2) New video up at sims3.com --- I can't wait for the game, but poo, they've pushed the UK release date back from February to April. Still, it'll be soooooo awesome and it's so exciting to see what's coming! Check it out.
(3) Pop Tarts... 2 boxes. *slurp* I've finished off the Baileys flavoured Hagen Daas tonight though lol. And I have Pretzels. My favourite snack food!
(4) Studio Calico kit shipped on Monday - yaaaaaaay! My free American Crafts bonus kit thingy isn't coming until December though, but the way I see it - extra Xmas present!
(5) Xmas ideas. I've been sat going through my special mags for gift ideas for my budget Xmas :) Fabbo ideas and best of all there's lots of cool ideas online at places like twopeasinabucket.com and creatingkeepsakes.com have online bonuses from the mags (paper crafts if you wanna look)

Week 5

Just finished these 2 digi pages :) I bought some stuff from Holly Designs - her stuff is seriously awesome! And it was alllll on sale at the weekend. Wanted to kick myself today though as I saw she's the one who does the lush metal alphas like my making Memories ones. Gutted.





and my pages from Cathy's class:






Now I'm off cos I want to watch a programme about the Titanic that's on at 9pm and I'm going to snuggle in bed and watch it after my shower :)

Free class "Toot"

Even if you're not a scrapbooker, I seriously urge you to check this out... after all it is free! It's a class held by Jessica Sprague (who is a digi scrapper extrodinaire!) and if you head to her blog, linkage here, you can get the info to sign up for her free class "Stories In Hand".
That's right, if you're a digi scrapper, regular scrapper, or not a scrapper at all, you can join in :) I have a naked Heidi Swapp album I have just remembered I have (but took out 10 page protectors, so I'll put them back in lol) for class. My goodness I'll have 2 classes going! So join in and if you do, let me know cos we can compare notes!

I've done my assignments for Cathy's class (I will share I promise!) but at the moment I'm finding when it comes to my own layouts, I use Publisher to work out my layouts and jig things around instead of sitting on the living room floor with stuff everywhere. I'm finding this approach much better! I love working with Cathy's sketches, so I suppose doing it the Publisher way is my way of preparing a "sketch" to work from. Now my page is figured out (using some yummy digi stuff I bought this morning - half price due to National Digi Scrapping Day, for full effect lol!) I just need to go into the bedroom, pick 2 sheets of cardstock and 3 scraps of co-ordinating paper... and my page will come together super quick :)

Oooooooooooooooo aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand my payment has gone through for my Studio Calico kit weeeeeeeee! I had the strangest dream last night... I dreamt Martha Stewart was trying to sell me an SC kit. Seriously. I was at Martha's site browsing her crafts the other day, and I'm soooooo excited about SC so I suppose it sorta makes sense lol. Then I woke up and decided I was going to add the "more kraft" add on to my order if it hadn't already gone through but it had.
Basically we pay 50p-60p per sheet of cardstock. At SC, I can buy 6 sheets for $3... That works out 50c a sheet - and about half of what I'd pay over here (30p ish).