Dolly's Dreamings

Shopping!

Now regular readers of my blog will know me of old ... me and shopping .... we're quite happy together.

But me and Christmas shopping when I am already frazzled and tired .... mmmm .... not so good.

My JYC page for today is very simple and explains that I haven't time or patience for much battling with the crowds so i either shop very early or do it all on line.

I have to say Nij and I are great friends with Amazon. We both create wish list through the years and each of us knows if we are looking for present ideas, those wish lists are an excellent starting point.

I joke and say out Christmas arrives in brown cardboard packages printed with Amazon. But it is not a joke - it is largely true.

However this year I have ventured 'off the list' for quite a few gifts. Still bought on line, but a little more daring! Watch this space to see how that works out.

Now for the first time in ages I did one of the weekly challenges on UKS and here it is

Clear evidence that I really am 'crazy cat lady' .... as if you ever doubted it!

Fitness First and Freebies

No free class today but I do have a fab set of FREE overlays on a white Christmas theme. Click HERE  to download it.  The set has the overlay with and without the border and just the word art.

It's been a gorgeous day here - well till now .... it has just gone awfully black!  We went for a walk round Poole park lake. they have an activity trail with half a dozen fitness stations where you can do step work, bench presses, cross tarining and rowing. It was cold but great fun and ..... major achievement for this week ..... we jogged part of it. OK so it was not a huge sector, but we did it. I pulled my arm though ... I think I may have been a bit vigorous on one of the presses. My lower arm is really painful.

Me in action ont he rower .... it was a bit windy but I am dead chuffed cos I am wearing teeny trousers that Jakki gave me because they are too big for her.  Diet tip of the day ... diet with a best friend who is smaller than you so that their old clothes fit you!

I made my page for JYC today and documented the two most recent Christmases, 2007 and 2008, both celebrated at our friend's house (we usually take it in turn to do Christmas for everyone) and one was a disaster and one was rather small but lovely.

I am loving doing this journal digitally and am being very good and printing each page off as it is done. I can't wait to get to bind the book at the end.

I also finished my paper wreath I have been making. It was based ont he wreath by the incredibly talented Gail (Ephemera) and if you want to see what it SHOULD look like click here and then go browse round her blog because she is the most incredible artist. I admire her work so much.

 

Advent celebration

I love Christmas and I love the preparation for it and the build up to it. Every year .... I just love it.

I used to get so excited when it was Advent Sunday and the first candles would be lit in church. Then I'd watch Blue Peter that week and they would light their advent ring. I used to love opening the advent calendar I would always have as a child. None of your new fangled chocolate treats then. It was just a cardboard calendar with pictures behind each door.

I still love advent. It is a time of preparation in readiness for the celebration of Christ's birth and I still focus on the religious side of the festival. But I also love all the other preparations too. Preparing by buying the gifts and writing the cards, getting little Christmas treats ready for the day itself, putting up decorations, seeing Christmas lights, listening to christmas music. as I type this I have carols playing and a gingerbread and cinnamon candle burning in the scrap room. I love it all.

There is also no chance that i will forget the date of=r how many days it is to Christmas.

We have a countdown santa in the hall that we write the sleeps till Christmas on. We have the cat baking sheet calendar I made last year that builds up, cat by cat, our fur baby family. I have a gorgeous advent box to open a gift every day made by my wonderful best friend Jakki (we have made each other an advent box each year for the past three years) and now we have the new advent house, just for Nigel with chocolates and special Christmas quotes in every drawer.

We popped out this morning to John lewis and I bought a couple of Christmas presents - including one for myself with some vouchers I had been given int he summer. It is a gorgeous doorstop cat but I am sure it will be a photo of the day in the near future.

I have also done a little scrapping. I made the page above for my JYC, which I am loving as much as I always do. I also made another page as part of my DT work for Shimelle Digitals.

The photo was one I took this week. as I was leaving for work it was really dark and cold and frosty with a mist over the heath. there was a full moon and it was so beautiful. the picture hasn't come out well but, as they say, it is the quality of the memory that matters, not the quality of the photograph.

As it was a very Christmassy post i also thought .... since I had learnt how to do it .... I would share a video from last Christmas. Kind of explains why we are not having a tree this year

The PURRfect Christmas

As I have done JYC several years it is harder to think of pages to make that match the prompts. Now I know I don't have to match the prompts exactly, but I do love a challenge.

I have already scrapped my perfect Christmas setting and so this year I have journalled about a PURR-fect Christmas.

The journalling and photo explain how, when the kittens were just 14 weeks old and had been with us a fortnight, we thought it would be cute to make a holiday card ready for that Christmas. In a heatwave in July we got out decorations and genuinely believed they would pose beautifully for us. This was the only decent picture and it is so blurred and out of focus. We do, however, have dozens of them eating the wreath, sitting on it, in it, behind it, on top of each other and so on. We never did make that perfect holiday card, but we do have a PURRfect Christmas every year because we have them and our Boo as well. Christmas is lovely with all the trimmings, but the message of Christmas is so tied up with love and family and home and for us our fur family epitomise all three of those things. They are our family who make our house a home filled with love. So just having them makes our Christmas just perfect.

Last night we went out as guests of the promoters of Poole Speedway to a wonderful hotel for a fab evening with a great meal ..... and yes I ate! It was wonderful and really christmassy.

Christmas began in earnest for me today as it was our nativity at school with out 3 - 7 year olds and it was as heart-wrenching, funny, skillful and totally wonderful as always. For me it really is the start of Christmas every year.

I have caught up on uploading my photos of the day as well so the album on here is complete and I am just one weekly page behind.

Have a great weekend everyone. And to kick it off here is the cutest cat video ever ever ever.

Waltzing matilda

Now I bet at least 50% of the people who read the title of this post are humming that little Aussie ditty quietly to themselves!

Actually there is nothing Aussie about my post today but it is the name of a new kit by Dawn Inskip that I have had terrific fun playing with. It doesn't have to be used for aussie themed stuff .... it is really versatile.

This is the first page I made with it.

It is my favourite place on the heath and I loved the play on words as it might not be the outback but it really is out the back of the house.

I love the word art in the kit.

This second page was very tongue in cheek! One of my fave places to eat across America is the Outback Steakhouse (not bad for a vegetarian eh!) and this picture just demanded to be scrapped with the kit.

This third page is my most recent of my project 365

and finally - here is my very hastily completed page for day three of JYC

Displaying cards is a problem when you live with a Fiki

Dental emergency

It's been a strange day one way and another.

I was on a school trip today - we were doing a wonderful Tudor Christmas day out in the wilds of Dorset. It is a really fabulous day - very enjoyable. The children enter a Tudor hall all decorated for Christmas, learn about a Tudor Christmas, make Tudor gingerbread and read mince pies (with meat and fruit) and they write a Tudor letter with quill pens, make pomanders and leather pockets, make a kissing bough, stage their very own proper mummers play and learn Tudor dances. An utterly fab day but a long journey so we leave school at 7.30 am. It was a grim trip as the rain was utterly dreadful - Florida type rain .... like a monsoon. Anyway - we arrived and had a drink on arrival and I ate a crispbread and broke half my tooth off with the first - and only - bite. It was broken enough to cause a LOT of pain.

Phone call to hubby at home to make an emergency dental appointment for the next day.

Phonecall back - dentist off to a conference on Thursday and friday so could do this afternoon or Monday. Yikes! the pain was bad - no way was Monday an option.

Luckily enough we had extra adults on the trip so the party leader and I agreed I could be done without. Phonecall to hubby at home to say please come and get me.

Travel time to get to destination on coach 1 hour 45 minutes. Time available for husband to come and get me and take me back to the dentist 4 hours. Just do-able. Time it took hubby to find a place not recognised by even a really good sat nav and monsoon weather through country lanes that were flooded - just over 2 hours. Time back to the dentist 1 hour 30 minutes (speed due to the need to get screaming wife OUT OF THE CAR!)

Anyway - the dentist saw the extent of the problem and the decay under the busted bit that caused the break and fixed it. He was a superstar. Trouble is with my TMJ a trip to the dentist is always traumatic and I will pay for this with jaw ache for the next week. But heck - he saved the tooth.

Then I was riddled with guilt at missingt he trip. But I waited till they were all safely back and have just got home.

Hey ho - life is at least varied.

Anyway - I am about to do my JYC page and will upload it when it is done.

OK - making my page was just the therapy I needed.

This year I had snow pictures to scrap - taken in february this year when we here on the south coast who never ever get snow had more than we wanted. (never happy are we?)

I would love a white Christmas with thick white snow everywhere, but let's face it, unless I go away I am never ever going to have that here. And much as I would love the snowy Christmas I am clearly never going to leave my fur babies at Christmas now am I!

The page gave me the chance to document the awful weather from today as well .... sadly monsoon rains not snow.

Happy Advent

OK so I know it was Advent Sunday on Sunday but Advent has started for me today really. 1st december - feeling all christmassy (and all knackered but that is another story)

Been at work for 12 hours straight but the NICE thing is my Christmas Tree went up in my classroom and when i eventuually got home Nij has put up the Christmas santa to count down the days, the Christmas wreath ont he door and the Christmas candles. He really is a very very very special man.

I also opened my advent box today. jakki - my best friend - and i do each other an advent box each year and I opened my first present today. It was a gorgeous box the like of which i haven't seen. Huge and thick plastic with a wire frame and very pretty and inside are all my other wrapped gifts. I will take a picture of it in the fullness of time.

It was so hard to buy Jakki's this year as she doesn't scrap much so I really struggled to buy things that may tempt her.

I have yet to do my page 1 of JYC which starts today - but i WILL do it before i go to bed and will add it on here when I have.

I do have another calendar page to share though - June this time. the photo is very special to me. My Daddy used to talk a lot about a magical place called Fairy Glen in sefton park. He used to play there as a child and I had all sorts of visions of what it would be like. he took me there when I was about 5 but i don't remember it. When we went up to stay with my cousin |Joyce this year I asked her to take us there. It has recently been renovated and it was a gorgeous day with bright sunshine and it truly was magical. It was also very poignant to visit it and remember my Daddy, who I still miss every single day. So the June page is of Fairy Glen.

I can't quite believe that this page has come together as quickly as it has, but I have done my manifesto page and it is all printed off and in the journal!

I have decided to use the Jessica Sprague numbers this year and was going to try and do the Holidays in hand class as well as this one. clearly too much! I have printed off all the prompts and will do that one NEXT Christmas.

Anyway, I digress. here is my manifesto page - my declaration of intent for myself.

2010 is looming

I am aware that 2010 is just around the corner and I need to get on with things like calendars.

I was desperate to use Dawn's new calendar kit to make a CD calendar for myself for my office desk and made a start on it last night.

Now you wouldn't seriously expect me to do anything like start in january and work my way through logically would you? Good, because I didn't.

I started with July and November because I knew which photos I wanted to use for them.

I have to say I am really pleased with them now they are printed out.

Now - you have to go and visit my friend Heather HERE because she has the most awesome video called patience on her blog. It just took my breath away to watch it.

I hope you enjoy it.

FREE Class - Always in trouble

Now tell the truth ..... as soon as you saw the title you KNEW it was about Fiki didn't you!

I guess that is because he really is always in trouble. He is just a bad bad boy.

Anyway - I digress. this is another free class which can be used to fit any theme you like. As always the class is often just an inspiration kick start - maybe for a colour choice, the tag idea, a topic inspiration etc. Just enjoy it however it works for you.

I won't be doing the random freee classes on a Sunday for much longer as, in January, I will be starting on the project for the year and posting prompts or pages or downloads each week.

The class this week uses hidden journalling under  two tags that open to reveal whatever you want to hide away.

You can download the class HERE

This is another page that uses the same technique .... but quite an old page. It was one of my entries for The Best Of British (which I was thrilled to win ... one of 5)  in 2006

Can I also say a huge thank you to so many of you wonderful people for the fab feedback on my advent house.

Thank you for taking the time to visit and comment. It meant a great deal.

Such a wonderful fun creative day

I have really really really enjoyed myself today. I have made a project I have been longing to do for ages.

I finally decorated my Advent House.

These advent houses have been very popular - they are incredible value at just £5 from Tescos. they are made of wood and very sturdy. But I think they look dreadful in their raw state.

I have now finished one (the girls may have to wait till next advent for theirs as one is enough for today!)

I am not into funky Christmas colours I'm afarid. I am very traditional and to me Christmas is red and gold and green and subtle.

I know exactly what I wanted to do with the house.

It was painted cream first to give me a blank canvas. Thanks go to my ever devoted hubby who did the painting for me in the week so i could have fun this weekend. he really is a star. It was just painted with left over paint from our recent home decorating jobs.

I couldn't find the right paper so bough at digital kit I loved and printed the papers and elements I wanted. A lmost everything came from the same kit - Joy to the World by Kristin Cronin Barrow at Sweet Shoppe Designs. It is a fabulous kit with such rich papers and I fell in love with the angel.

She looks cute with her wings edged  in stickles

This is the complete house

I haven't done so much sanding in a long long time ... and the curves and the chipboard swirls were a real pain ... but worth it

I cut loads of scallop strips for the roof, edged in brown ink and stickles which looks like snow (and hardly shows in the pictures)

and ... it is not often I say this .... I am thrilled with what I have created. It took a while to work out how to have the angel fixed on (she is double sided and just HAD to be there)

Thanks for looking and, if you have a spare second, I'd love to know what you think.