Slowly... slowly....

... my Journal Your Christmas Album is coming together. Today my workdesk is covered with papers and photos as I try and catch up, I have now done page 4 so only 25 to go!! Though I have not had time to work on the album my mind has been busy with ideas, photos are printed or planned, and it is quite exciting snatching today and tomorrow to bring things together. As always I am going into detail instead of a quick page... no wonder why it takes me so long! Do you do this too I wonder?
It has been nice thinking about each page. What kind of Christmas cards I send, who to, and whether I hand make or buy. It made me think about how pressured I often end up, trying to make so many cards and to include letters to people I don't have contact with during the year.
This year I bought most my cards, and wrote a short hand written note instead of a round robin letter. On my page I printed a photo I used on the cards that I did make, and behind it I journalled on a card I had bought.


















I have always wanted to use this next photo in a page, so thinking about what makes Christmas perfect was the ideal excuse! The is photo was taken last year at my granddaughters pre-school nativity. It was called a 'Christmas Happening' because a group of 3 year olds are unpredictable and all kinds of unexpected things might happen. It went quite smoothly, a part from Mary leaving the stage to go to the toilet, and a couple of boys poking each other playfully. The highlight for me though was the expressions on my granddaughters face. This angelic picture melts my heart and I used it on my last year Christmas cards:

I also treasure the other photos I took during that performance and I could not leave them out. So I printed them wallet size onto a large tag and slipped it into a wallet, made by glueing two pages together. I laminated the tag to make it stronger. You can see this on the table top and some of the photos here.

In a recent post I spoke about experimenting with my new Big Shot. Since then I found a YouTube video where someone was cutting out snowflakes from a drinks can. Today I tried it out. First time it embossed the metal rather than cut through - an interesting technique in its own right. However, I wanted to cut the shapes so I added one of the tabs and put it through again. Then I embossed the shapes them, using the Big Shot, and I am quite pleased with the result.

I am looking forward to collecting more dies and embossing pads. I did wonder at first if my new toy was one of those impulsive buys that might end up on the shelf, but so far I can say I am quite excited about how versitile it is proving to be.

Must get back to my album now and finish acouple more pages!!

I hope you had a good Christmas. Mine was lovely, spent with my family, and I have lots more photos added to my collection.

A very Happy New Year to you. I hope it brings you lots of good things and that it is a healthy, happy & creative one!