JYC 2010 Days 22-26

Here is Part 1 of a big catch up in my JYC, I haven't had too much time to journal with all the various activities that have been happening!

Day 22 - Last minute lists. I still had quite a bit to do including, baking cookies/brownies, wrapping them and handing them out to friends.
Day 23 - Stockings. I didn't really have a very good picture of our stockings as we only lay them out on Christmas eve, so I found this picture in a magazine, and added some die-cut stockings on top.
Day 24- Christmas eve! Only 1 more sleep. Christmas eve is always a busy day at my parents house because its also my Mum's birthday. This year we went for lunch at Frankie & Benny's which was great fun spending time together and eating yummy food! In the early evening my grandparents, Uncle and Auntie came over for birthday cake and to give their gifts. Me and my sis bought Mum a child's caterpillar cake. It was so cute!

Day 25- CHRISTMAS DAY, IT'S FINALLY HERE!

Wow, it's amazing how quickly the day goes isn't it? We got up at about 8.30, to the sound of Christmas music playing downstairs. First we opened the stockings and then Taye just dived into unwrapping his most wanted toys! The whole cast of Toy Story 3 actually.

I inserted a paper Starbucks bag between the 2 Christmas day pages so that I could include tags and more photos inside the bag at a later date. No doubt this will be quite full soon enough!
Taye was very lucky to receive a bike, Buzz, Jessie AND Woody from Father Christmas! Thank you Santa! He also received lots more TS3 toys from family and friends, lucky thing!
We had an amazing dinner that Mum had cooked at about 2.30 but waited till about 5 to have my favourite Christmas pudding. I love it so much, but this year for some unknown reason, Mum only bought a small one so I was on rations!
Day 26- Boxing day. This is also my cousins birthday and he celebrated his 9th birthday this year at my Grandparents. We played on the Wii and had lots of fun, lots of food and lots of wine. In the evening we ended up playing our fav family games such as Tip-it, and Chase the Ace, which I won again! yay!

JYC 2010 Day 20 & 21

Day 20 - Unexpected surprises! I found this prompt a little tricky at first as I couldn't think of anything that had been unexpected. Then I looked outside and realized that the 2nd lot of snow had been quite unexpected so thought I would journal about that.

I kept the page quite simple with just a few rub-ons and stickers!
I bought Taye a sledge but he didn't really like it when it tipped him out and so Dad decided that he would have some fun with it instead. He is such a big kid!
Day 21 - Right Now! I could have taken so many pictures about my home, or what I see from my window etc.. but I decided just to take a simple pic of Taye, and my little compact camera has a cool setting that tells you the age of a child (when you enter their birthday) when that picture was taken. So here is Taye at 3years, 9months and 9days!

Happy Christmas eve-eve! xx

10 Daily Makes 7/10

Daily Make 7 - Paper dolls. I downloaded these templates from the '12 days' class I signed up recently but you can see lots more dolls here by Kirsty Neale.

I adapted them to make grandparent dolls to give to my grandma and grandad for Christmas. They look quite cool (my grandad doesn't usually look so 'on trend') For the skin I used a beauty ad from a magazine and cut out the shapes. The shoes are made from scraps of leather and the clothes are made from patterned papers and magazine pages.

Really pleased with how they have turned out, just didn't photograph it so well! I hope they like it x

JYC 2010 Day 17, 18 & 19 & 10 Daily Makes 6/10

Day 17 - The Perfect Gift. This prompt was a great opportunity for me to visit dreamland and dream of all the wonderful gifts I could think that would be perfect. A diamond ring was at the top of the list!
Day 18 - Christmas Dinner! After the presents this is the highlight of Christmas day right? It made me really hungry just thinking about it! We always have the traditional roast turkey with all the trimmings! For the last few years my mum has threatened to cook sausages and mash instead, so she won't get as stressed with all the preparations! But so far she hasn't followed through! phew!

our Christmas menu!

Day 19 - Letter to Santa..... Dear Santa, I have been a really really really good girl this year so please could I have.....
Naughty or Nice? I promise I am nice!

Daily Make 6 - Origami Christmas card. I found this tutorial here on the Hobbycraft site so gave it a go! It says that it would take approx 2 hours to finish but think I did it in about 30-40 mins! and I think it looks really cute!

10 Daily Makes 5/10

Daily Make 5 - Quick bookmark! these are so cute and very quick and easy to make and you can personalize them as gifts for family and friends.

I cut out a rectangle of cardboard and then covered it with some patterned paper and made a little power flower, it may get squashed a bit inside the book but it will look cute till then right?

10 Daily Makes 4/10

Daily Make 4 - Butterfly collage. I know that these aren't new but here is a little one I created using a Martha Stewart punch! I have hand cut them before like here and they can look equally lovely but they do take forever so thought that this would be a quick make!

I used an old little atlas as the paper and then just added a few pearls.

JYC 2010 Day 16

Day 16 - Gratitude! This page really didn't take long as there are plenty of things to be thankful for. I am so so grateful that I have wonderful family around me and thankful for all the amazing friends that I have. Also I'm deeply grateful that I have my little Taye, though his little face is already taking up a lot of this album so this is a Taye free page! lol

This picture was taken Wednesday night, when I went out to celebrate my friend Simone's 40th. She is the one on the left, she doesn't look 40 does she?

10 Daily Makes 3/10

Daily Make 3- Ribbon Wreath

I recently bought this polystyrene ring with the purpose to do something festive with it, so here is what I have come up with. Took me just over an hour and only broke one nail, so not too bad!

I have seen these around the blog world lately but usually they have been made in a particular colour scheme, but mine however has no such thing and instead is a complete mix of colours, sizes and textured ribbon!
Finished it off with a glittered snowflake which I pinched from my tree. Sorry tree! x Let me know what you think.

10 Daily Makes 2/10

Daily Makes 2 - leather feather earrings

I have lots of pieces of scrap leather that I have collected up for a while but now takes up the best part of a shoe box, so thought that I would have a go at making some earrings from the various colours!

I make my sister earrings every Christmas and she sort of expects them from me now, so made the blue pair with her in mind. Hope you like.
I still have loads of pieces left over so will make a few more pairs and maybe make them bigger! I have a textured gold piece which I cant wait to use!

JYC 2010 Day 14 & 15

Day 14 - Gifts! I have developed a long list of people I need to buy gifts for this year so decided that I would try and make some. I make my sister earrings every christmas, but I have tried to branch out my handmaking ideas and create different things. I will post more about these in my 10 Daily Makes mini series!
Not entirely happy with this page but here it is anyway. Can you tell what my favorite pen is yet?
Day 15- Visitors. Taye and I had the pleasure of our friends coming round to exchange gifts last week! (they are going to Australia for 3 weeks, lucky things) Taye and Yasmin (one of his girlfriends) were chatting away about all the presents that could potentially fit under the tree! While little Annabelle just wanted to pull the tree over!

10 Daily Makes

Not satisfied by doing Journal your Christmas and other Christmas preparation things, I have challenged myself to make something everyday for 10 days (because there are only 10 days left to go) and post about it here! I'm crazy right?

This year I was determined to make a lot more gifts but so far I have only made a few, so this challenge will help me to follow through with all my ideas.

So my first project is inspired by these here over at Martha Stewart crafts!

Daily Make 1 - Mitten tag clips!

I made a template of a mitten, cut it out in various papers and then decorated them. I have popped an initial on the front instead of the persons name and attached a mini peg on the back. I have made mine quite small but if you have bigger pegs you could obviously make the mittens bigger.


Just wrap your chosen gift with ribbon or string and clip on the tag! Remember to label with an initial!

JYC 2010 Day 12 & 13

Day 12 - Tales of Christmas Past. Journaling this page made me really think about the changes that have happened to our Christmases over the years! The main one is being able to see the joy and excitement of Christmas through a childs eye again, which is so great!
Day 13- Music (but it was also my half birthday, incase you wondered!) Anyway I wrote down my top 10 Christmas songs! I love love Christmas, and nothing gets you festive than a classic like 'White Christmas'
Fa la la la la la la la la!

JYC 2010 Day 9, 10 and 11

Wow, the first time I actually uploaded the images in the right order! Anyways here are my pages for days 9, 10 and 11!

Day 9 - There are so many traditions to talk about! it brought back memories when I wrote them down. We have a selection of family games we always play when we are all together at christmas, so I wrote about these and popped them into the little envelope. I hope that I have started a new tradition this year by buying my first REAL tree! Yes I know many people do this every year but I love mine so so much. It has made me so christmassy!
Day 10 - Wrapping! Now this was a great prompt for me as i'm a little bit of a wrapping paper horder I mean Collector! I made little presents out of my chosen Xmas wrap and arranged them on the page in a little stacking. Cute!
Almost forgot the date tag, but found a place for it in the end!
Day 11 - Christmas tree! My REAL tree is decorated in bright stars, baubles and twinkly lights. Colours in fushia, turquoise, purple and silver! Yay it looks so good! Want to keep it forever!