Coming to an end of the 2011 altered book.

This is a closer look at the crackle paint.

With just two days of the year left to go I've been challenging myself to finish my altered journal in order to start a brand new book for 2012.  These are the last few pages minus the last page which I'll complete this weekend.  As I've reached the end of the book it's become so fat and the pages so warped there was a moment when I fell out of love with it but as it progressed and I started pulling out pages before glueing them together (which I should have done in the first place) I was more content.

I'm so looking forward to starting new journals and trying new ideas out.

Day 12 - finished!! :)

At last I've finished my 12 Days journal.  For those of you who are thinking, "hey, the 12 days are now, between 25th and 6th Jan?",  I KNOW!!!  I just thought it would be more fun to do it before. Note to self - next year, do it after!!!!! 

I had no idea how to finish the book so I challenged myself to use what was on my desk.  Background Christmas papers, some washi tape.  Crackle paint through a stencil (love that look), a beautiful star sent to me by a friend (I hope she doesn't mind seeing it in my journal) and lots of words and a digi stamp from Sarah Hurley's Tinseltown cd.  The bakers twine was tied around a present from my very good friend Lena.

We're already planning how to journal 2012 whilst finishing our altered book from 2011. 

Back to it......

Day 11 journal page

Four sleeps 'till Christmas - eeeeek.  I'm so behind it's untrue. Not so for my journal.  Day 11 of my 12 days so only one more to go.  I've used a photo of my Grandma as a girl and used her as an angel. 

I had a good post day yesterday with the delivery of my Scrap 365 magazine where I have a journal project featured. Happy Christmas to me.

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree.....

The tree is up and I'm catching up with journal pages.  Thursday I attended The Night Of The Proms in Luxembourg and what a fantastic show it was too. A Christmas present from my girlies, I enjoyed every second of it. 
The weekend was tree decorating time and I have to admit to being a bit of a pain when it comes to finding the perfect tree and the decorating but this year we found the perfect shape first time and the girls did a fabulous job of the decorations.

More journal pages finished

The weather here at the moment is wild but when I think back to last year, we were digging ourselves out of snowdrifts at this time.  The only thing to do is stay indoors and create and that's just what I've done in my 12 Days of Christmas journal.

The top page has been created using a digi stamp from   He's called Brill and he's adorable.  I've also added some of the words which come from the Tinseltown CD by Sarah Hurley. His little bell has been coloured with a Wink of Stella gold pen by Kuretake which gives it that gorgeous shine (photo doesn't show it sadly). Sarah Hurley has a new challenge up sponsored by Limited Runs Digi and you can see what the other DT members did with their digi images here

It's a shame you can't see properly the shine on the bottom page.  I used a metalic paint and added some gold flakes with my Zig glue pen.

Little boxes

The Kuretake website is holding it's own Christmas countdown with offers and tutorials right up to Christmas day. 

I've added my own little tutorial for these favour boxes which are perfect for the Christmas table.  I used a box template from Kuretake to make them and used the Zig glue pen to add gold flakes. 

The stamp is a snowflake stamp from the Let it Snow set by My Stamp Box. 

You can find the whole tutorial here.

Journal day 4

Wow I hadn't realised until now how blue this is!!  I don't think it was my mood, maybe just the longing for snow.  It's rained absolute cats and dogs for the past few days causing land slides and floods which is miserable but if it was snow........ now that's a different matter!!

Day 4 journal entry. This is my Christmas card design - sorry to all those friends and family who might be looking and hope for a surprise this year - not going to happen!! With 50 to make I'm afraid they're all the same design.  They won't be quite so blue though I can honestly say. 

12 Days of Christmas journal

12 Days of Christmas journal - days 2 and 3 together.  The first page is using my Santa image which I've added to my Etsy shop as a digital stamp.  I love the background colour thanks to Lena for pointing it out in my paint drawer (it was a long forgotten tub of acrylic I thought had dried up). 

On the 4th day of Christmas my true love gave to me, 4 cute tags.

I'm starting to feel a little worried that Christmas is so close now and I've so much to do still.  Time is running away with me.  What started out as a good idea, to keep a 12 days of Christmas journal, is turning out to be a tough order.  I have a feeling I'll have alot of catching up to do later on!!

Anyway, today on My Stamp Box blog we're having a 12 days of Christmas too and today it's my turn.  For my 4th day I've made 4 tags using the cute Santa from the Hohoho stamps and snowflakes from Let it snow.

 

12 days of Christmas journal Day 1 and a Tinseltown card.

Day 1 and I think this might just be one of the busiest pages I've ever made.  My idea was to take inspiration from the advent calendar but.......ooo.......is that busy or what?

I had such a good time creating the background with texture paste and a stencil, only to cover it up again with all those squares.  The little reindeer is an image from Sarah Hurley's Tinseltown cd which was lying on my table from a previous project;  Actually he was left over from the card below, I just didn't use him in the end.

Also from the Cd are the embellishments used on this card, which is on the Sarah Hurley challenge blog for the new challenge.  This card gave me so much joy to make as I loved cutting out all those little houses and colouring them in with my Promarkers. I added a touch of snow to the rooves using gesso and glitter.