Santa's little helper and some prep

Ah, the school Christmas Fayre. This week the school is having a "Santa's Little Helper" Day where the children can go into school in their own clothes in exchange for a little something for the Christmas Fayre. Now what sort of a Mother would I be if I let my kid potentially be the only one in uniform all for the sake of a tombola prize? Is this the ultimate guilt trip? Cunning, very cunning. I've given in and made these earrings rather than see my little lad walk dejectedly through the school gates because his Mum was mean. I hope whoever wins them likes them. Maybe I should go and get myself a ticket and see if I can win them back. Then again, I may just make up a second pair for myself as I rather like them.

This is the other crafty thing I have done today. Lovingly and patiently, whilst Rosie was making me "cups of tea" I sat and cut up a sheet of American Crafts paper to make some embellishments for my JYC album. I can't wait to get started this year, less than 24 hours to go!

Lists....

Oh heck, where did the time go!

I have been striving to be more organised, but the last few weeks it all feels as though it's gone very pear shaped on that front. December is about to kick in and I really need to pull my Christmas socks up (I don't have any actual Christmas socks though should you be wondering)

Right, first up I've just submitted my first set of DT work to Steph over at Indigo Mill. I was lucky enough to have the Snowy White Snow kit to work with. Here's a little sneak peek where I have also used some Prima Sultan centres. You'll find another one over on the Mill Pond and more will come over the next few weeks.

Next up - JYC 2009!!! Are you ready? We start tomorrow. I have a box ready to go, my extra page protectors have arrived so I just need to slice up that cardstock. I can't pre-plan much more than that as I discovered last year.

What else - oh yes, my crafty Advent box. A group of us on UKS are doing a swap this year, and I think just about everyone has their box of goodies ready to start opening. I found myself settling into a little routine last year around this. This years will go something like this....school run finished, print off the JYC prompt, make a coffee, open my present for the day and read the prompt. How does that sound for a nice start to the day?

I'm off into York tomorrow - assuming the weather is kind to us, to get some more Christmas shopping done and spend the evening wrapping the kids presents. I think I'm going to need more Christmas wrap though!

Phwoar.......

I know my 365 has gone somewhat pear shaped recently - but look what I got for my birthday from Chris! A Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM. I nearly fell off the bed whilst being a little tearful. I was so shocked. I have admired this lens since buying my 450D, and didn't think I'd get one for quite a while yet. How lucky do I feel? Extraordinarily lucky!! Just need time and daylight to have a proper play. Maybe December could be a 365 macro month!

What's your favourite gadget?

I'm having a tidy up in my craft room today, well, I call it my craft room, it's our spare bedroom and I am spreading around it - hence the tidy up, and I started thinking about some favourite things, one being gadget.

As crafters we have hundreds of gadgets available to us, most of which we buy, use twice and stick in a cupboard. But it came to me that my favourite gadget isn't a crafty tool, but my pasta maker.

This little baby is the one thing I love to use. Jamie more often than not like to help cut the pasta once it's all rolled out. It also means a scrummy meal is on it's way, usually with a rich homemade tomato sauce. It's serious comfort food and we rarely eat dried pasta now.

So, come on, share, what's your favourite gadget?

Thankful for....

Look what I just came across.... These little journaling cards are from Elle's Studio and they are FREE! Pop across to the blog and you can download the pdf for yourself!

Never let it be said I don't share! (That's just chocolate...)

A little treat....

Just thought I'd quickly share this little beaut with you. It's my birthday next week and I always like to buy myself a little something. This year it's a dolly bead from A String of Beads. It came on Saturday and I have snaffled the photo from the website to show you. It is just stunning in real life.

A new circle....

Where does the time go? Firstly I can't believe I last posted 12 days ago, and secondly - last minute Annie here (no offence to those Annie's amongst you) has just finished putting together the pages of her new circle journal. Phew...it's due to be posted today.

My journal this time is titled " A Day In The life". I love the idea of Ali Edwards 'Week in the Life' project (one I intend to do around February time - I'm assuming I'll have chance by then although I'm really not sure what will have changed between now and then), so given my desire to do that project thought it would be fun to do a day in the life.

I think we all assume our lives are, in the main, mundane and routine. My day is generally get up, battle with the kids, get ready, battle with the kids, get the kids ready, school run battle, coffee, housework*, lunch, guilt chores**, school run, main battle with the kids....and so on. I think you get the drift.

The day I chose to do my page turned out a little differently, became a reflective day where I mostly sat, drank coffee and thought about things. After that I decided that I would stick to that day to journal and ended up creating a page without considering the journaling which is now tucked away as a little book in the envelope.

You may notice I have gone the collage route again. I loved the last one I did so much I wanted to do something similar in my own so I have one to keep.

I'm really looking forward to reading about everyone's day when it comes home again, although that's a long way away yet.

by way of explanation

* reading blogs, blogging, facebook games and paper stroking

** actual cleaning of the home

Funny face day

Rosie has a thing about pulling funny faces, except it's not really faces but face. She shouts "funny face" and promptly pulls her mouth wide with her fingers. This she finds wildly amusing, and so do I and anyone else around at the time. Today she asked me to take pictures of her doing a funny face, who am I to say no.

I know it's not the sharpest shot in the world, but I think that that is partly down to me laughing at her and to her inability to keep still as she was trying to pull the widest mouth she could manage. When she's old enough to understand I will be telling her the wind will change and she'll stick like that! LOL.

All good things....

....must come to an end. Today I share with you a sneak peek of the final journal that I am taking part in on UKS. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by for this. Sadly mine is amongst a couple of journals taking there time to come home again. It's not been the smoothest of CJ's but I have enjoyed working on all the journals and seeing how everyone has interpreted the themes.

The theme for Tracy's journal is "Quotes" and I have chosen two to share with her and I hope she is happy with them. I'd better go and wrap it up ready for posting.

Thanks for looking!

The Twilight Zone

If I had to say which was my favourite class from GoGoGetaway, I would probably say this one - The Twilight Zone with Nicola Kerridge. I had such a sweet photo of Jamie to use on this and wasn't sure how he's take to me making him into a full blown Monster, so a subtle Devil seemed in order. I loved this technique and could run and run with it. It's in need of a little more paint but I really wanted to share it with you.

Wow, what a weekend!

What a fabulous weekend with so many amazing classes. It was really hard to chose which one's to do, but I made the right decision as I loved them. Just wished I could have taken some of the others as well. Perhaps I need one of this time thingies from Harry Potter. Note the technical term there - thingies. Oh yeah, I know what I'm on about.

I'll do a few posts to cover off each of the LO's I did in the classes, but first up - stash shopping! I was extremely good when you consider how many gorgeous goodies there were in the shop. An extra treat as I only ever shop online.

Some beautiful glazed cardstock.

Ooh, I just loved this one from Prima!

Some KI Memories embellishments. yep, one is missing and has found it's was onto the LO from Shimelle's class.

These Maya Road stamps were just too cute to leave behind.

More of those Melissa Frances frames...

Some amazing lace

(remember that blog candy I'm planning - some of this may find it's way in to it)

One of the challenges from the weekend (of which I only managed two) was to travel light, so all I took with me was my tool kit in a table top tote, and an empty box to bring everything home again in. As you can see...the box was a little..full shall we say.

That's it for now. I will return shortly with more gogogetaway goodness.