Pumpkin - Go team Jacob!

There was no contest when I decided on which template I wanted to use to carve my pumpkin this year :) I wanted something pretty simple as this is only my third ever pumpkin, and my second using a template, but as I was soooo proud of my witch last year, I had to at least give it a go!



Template from here: http://www.pinkraygun.com/2009/10/10/free-pumpkin-carving-templates-twilights-jacob/. Although Gareth says he prefers my witch from last year, and he just doesn't "see" Jacob in this one. I don't care. It took me about 2 hours from start to finish.

And I also decided on doing a paper haunted house, after seeing a few on a website and thinking how cool they were. Apart from the pumpkin, I have no halloween stuff here, so the paper house would be fun, so again I chose a nice easy one :)



Download and instructions here: http://www.haunteddimensions.raykeim.com/index301.html

Sadly the lighting is terrible in here. This is why we can't play with Neville this evening. Nev is our virtual pet, as seen here:



We saw an advert for EyePet and curiosity got the better of us. So we got a copy and played with it for aaaaaaaaaaaaages lol!

My Thursday

Mon-Wed blog posts were done on Sunday, and I had the week off work and I had all these awesome plans - one of which was that I was going to have some freebies. I will post them eventually. But this is how my week has shaped up:
Monday: Dentist am. Quick check, said I needed to go back for clean and polish. Book next appointment for Wednesday morning. Spend all afternoon with my dad working on something for mum.

Tuesday: Doctors am, goes ok although Gareth poorly and home sick. Gas man supposed to come between 12.30pm and 4.30pm. Get call to say he's not coming but someone will call me to arrange another appointment, so I race out to get car checked. Says I need a new sleeve this time, they temporarily fix it (sounds much better!) and tell me that they will call me and let me know when it's in. Take stuff back to Argos for refund.

Wednesday: Dentist am. Late going in, dentist butchers my teeth - gums bleeding and sore for a while. Go home and wonder why I haven't heard from garage or Gas man. Gareth needs to go to docs, so I take him and he needs blood test so we wait until the nurse is available - there over an hour. Get him back and give him more medicine and ring gas man. Turns out they went ahead and made an appointment for Thursday between 12.30 and 4.30 again. Thanks for telling me. Rang garage, car part there I can carry on and get it fitted an hour after calling... Get there, wrong part. Will be in Thursday - tell them it will have to be Friday instead as gas man coming. Go to Blockbuster and use 2 of my free rental vouchers on Bolt and Secret Life of Bees. Watch Bolt with Gaz in the evening.

Thursday: Scrapbooking which I've been meaning to do all week, and watched Secret Life of Bees. Gas man turns up at 1 and condemns fire. I am livid, ring dad. Dad turns up and is also livid. Gas engineer apologises and leaves, taking my number and tells me he will ring. Rings up at 4 ish (he was here 2 hours) and tells me someone can start work on fire Saturday morning. Too late to get car fixed after I was thinking I could. Dad tells me he will come up Friday morning to prepare for the man to come and fix the fire, so I have to then hope I can get my car repair fitted in during lunch time and return the DVDs and use up my last voucher so I can at least enjoy some of my week off!

So this is what I did this morning:


I just have to finish my journalling, print it and do the photos and I'm done :) Possibly the only happy thing this week lol!

Journal part 3: My current journal

This is my current journal, and I will share with you some bits and bobs from it :)


It's another Daler Rowney of course! I decorated the book with Making memories stuff. I am missing one of the flower gems off the front though, and I have a velour lilac ribbon as a bookmark that co-ordinates.

and here's a sneek peek at some of my entries (more after cut as image heavy!)

Journal part 2: The memories

With my swap journal, I began to include a few more relevant bits in my journals, not just random stuff I picked up along the way (although, in one of my hard back books I have a return bus ticket from at least 10 years ago - and it's interesting to see the price difference!)

Yes, when I get upset I generally head straight to the journal and whine about my life in it - it's free therapy and it never judges me. I like that! But I also like to put the every day life in it too :) As I also carried it everywhere with me in my bag, I kept some of my favourite photos in the back (this from my swap journal)





Pictures of myself and Stewart growing up :) That always cheered me up!

I'm also not an artist by any means. I really suck at drawing, but my journal was my go to place just to release some creativity (One of my Daler-Rowney journals)



I like to include happy photos:



Portraits of myself, and talking about my hobby (in this case this was about photography - before I got my DSLR):


and simple reminders to myself:


Some of the other things I have found helpful in my journals are tabs. Loving the Tabs! I can quick reference back to things - you have no idea how many times I thought about something, and thought "that was back in August 2005" or something, gone back to my journal for that time and sat flicking through the pages to get back to that date to see what it was I was looking for. These tabs are by Doodlebug, and was on their Summer cardstock stickers sheet. Doodlebug was my happy thing back then and my journal is even covered in doodlebug papers.



I also kept miniature envelopes in my journal for no other reason than to write cute notes to myself and stash them away in there to find again later, and any smaller bit of emphemera I had collected. Larger envelopes is definitely something I will do in my next journal, to keep all my bits and bobs in a nice and neat order.



Now, you may notice a very silly thing, and ask: "But Kirsty, you said you chose Daler Rowney books because they were acid free, protected your photos and I can see you even used scrapbook products in your books... so WHY can I see BIRO in your books!?" Ah yes. This is something I stupidly and completely over looked! I do in fact journal with acid free pens now. It was shocking to me, that although you can't see it in photos, my very first journal is already yellowing. Seriously breaks my heart, and this is why I'm going all out acid free in my current journals.

Also my number 1 top tip: If you should take you journal around with you, put your address in the back of the book! Mine reads: "This journal has no monetary value but it means a lot to me, so if found please return to {address} I will gladly refund the postage."

Tomorrow I will be sharing bits from my current journal and might have a little something for you ;)

Journal part 1: The evolution

I thought I'd take the opportunity to take this week to talk about things and give things to all my blog readers (lol, all two of you Rachael and Katie ;) ) Today will be part one of my ramblings on journals :) It's what gave me the idea when I was doing my personal blog. I wanted to keep it separate from my photography hobby blog and giving that the subdomain "blog" I chose "journal" for my personal blog.

This is my very first journal, aged 11 years:

It did have a lock on it and you could at one time back when I was 11, close it up but over the years I used it I began putting things in it and it would no longer close properly.



I also had horrific 11 year old writing and mainly talked about teddy bears and what I called them lol.



and my random stickers - back when the original 90210 was on! I kid you not, I even have a sticker of MC Hammer in there - don't ask me why!



Then came my awesome "fluffy" journal, which still locks and I still have the key hidden away in my secret hiding place even after all these years and moving.



Filled with Hanson goodness :)

New Halloween Theme

For what us Brits lack in Halloween celebrating, I'm making up for in my new blog theme, and even more cooler is the fact that I've played with the widgets and as my themes are widget friendly, I'm having a blast lol! I am currently perusing the widgets now :) 

Even better, I'm going to branch out and do some Blogger themes including my all time favourite types: Photoblog themes. So that's something to look forward to playing with tomorrow.

Anywho, the kitchen isn't going to clean itself, nor is the lounge with all house info everywhere and I need to change the bed sheets as well once the washing that is in the machine is done. So glamourous! But the themes are giving me a welcome distraction :)