12 & 13

Which means I'm up to date! At least til tomorrow ....

Day 12 was about tales of Christmas past, but I was really struck by a line of Shimelle's in the prompt about accepting change :"accept change with grace and a laugh, and enjoy each year for its unique celebration." Day 13 was about how you give out the presents, well I did this in detail last year so just kept to a general present theme this time.

10 & 11, wrapped up trees!

Onward with this year's journal then. Day 10 was an easy one - luckily I had already bought my IKEA wrapping paper and tags so that didn't take long, just the addition of a little word fetti sticker about making presents look luscious. Day 11 was about the tree. Well I don't have mine up yet, and don't plan to put it up for a bit yet, and anyway I used a piccie of it last year, so wasn't quite sure what to do. Then I realised I had lots of stickers with trees, and that they kept featuring on paper and so on. So I stuck on lots of trees, then added a tree stamp. Then I didn't know what to write so tried googling for an appropriate verse, but couldn't find one quite right. So I just wrote my own! Well, it works for me...

Okay, so my piccie taking skills are pretty poor, and apparently folks would like to read my wee tree verse so here it is:

CHRISTMAS TREE

A symbol of the season

Of memories and lights

Coloured balls and trinkets

Glittery and bright

A focal point to gaze on

To just enjoy the sight

And feel the peace of Christmas

There for all this night.

Christmas Journal 2007

I've decided to do Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class again this year - and in so doing have just realised my blog is now one year old! Happy Birthday Blog! I couldn't start straight away on the 1st as I was away working but have spent the past few days scrapping with my mum and am now up to date. Yay! I'm finding it different this year as I already know what the posts are going to be of course, but have chosen a very different size this year, much smaller, and am trying to do different things. So that's a useful task in itself. So here's the catch up then....

THE MANIFESTO

I declare my intention to Journal my Christmas. Writing something down every day. Creating a little bit whenever possible. Getting my stories documented for myself and maybe for others to read too. I hope by taking a little time each day to reflect, to write, to create, I will keep my Christmas alive and well, despite the commercial pressure that exists outside my door. Family, friends and hot beverages will help. I will try not to get too reliant on chocolate. I may meet others taking this same journey. I may share my work from time to time. I may remember just why I loved Christmas in the first place, and that may be a very magical moment indeed.

Flapsi Hapsi x

Thanks to Cherylol for seeing her inspiring day 6 with the Oliver Herford poem 'I heard a bird sing'. I didn't know the poem and was so struck by it that I used it for my day 6 page too. The rest are pretty stratighforward: 1 was to say why you are doing this / 2 was about the weather - as I travel a lot it's a real worry here / 3 was cards - which I've not really thought about yet! / 4 was about your perfect Christmas. Now I had a bit of a problem with that one - I'm not really into shiny materialistic out of a magazine Christmas and I hate all the stress and tension that comes with it so for me a perfect Christmas would be chilled out and relaxed! One day maybe ...

Day 5 was about Advent Calendars - I don't use these anymore so I did a diary excerpt as my own countdown - pretty hectic really/ day 6 was meant to be good and bad memories but I don't see the point of dwelling on bad memories or silly things like not getting what you wanted as a kid - life is too short, but I loved this poem / 7 was about shopping / 8 was the sights of Christmas /9 was about traditions. Off to have a look at number 10 now ...

Remember polaroids?

Still on this minibook fiesta, almost finished off all the ones I've bought at some point or other (as you do). These were polaroids taken in summer 1984, when I went on holiday with my parents to farmhouse outside York. We had a great time, and I have so many lovely memories of that holiday. And to make it especially memorable, the minster went on fire just after we visited it ... no it wasn't my fault!

Getting a lot more confident with the doodling now though! So glad I took that class...

Self realisation

Week 45 - guess we're on the home straight now, of Em's Art Journal challenge. This prompt was self realisation - I didn't want to go for just one moment but tried to remind myself of all the things needed for this to happen! So, kind of a note to self then....

Birthday cards keepsake book

No, that's not a self-portait on the cover (and since it came from my nephew I hope it wasn't meant to be either!). I decided to dig out all those old birthday cards my family have made over the years and put them into this book, bedeck it with lots of purple ribbons, the odd flower or two and some pretty paper. Great fun to do, and it makes a great keepsake album. And there's still space for more in there (just in case the family are reading....)

More minibooks!

This one is very pink, I know, it has to happen sometimes. My sis and I have birthdays 9 days apart and younger nephew's is only two days before his mum's so as I was going down to their's with pressie for Andrew we decided just to make it a birthday weekend and sis and combined out birthdays into one big cake fuelled experience .... here's the pics! You can tell how much I enjoyed the BPS Doodle all day class, eh?

The missing 43

Entitled scary .... the halloween art card.... which mysteriously disappeared from my pc.... hmmmm......

The Bombdy

Minibook madness has descended! I bought several of these papermania minibooks some time ago and feel that before I get to seriously play with the bind it all I should use these up! So here's the first one, pictures I took when I visited the 'bombdy' - St Luke's bombed out church in Liverpool city centre. I'd flown in from Italy and had a couple of hours to kill before my train north so was wondering around when I realised something was going on in this interesting building. A group called Urban Strawberry Lunch had opened up the building as an art exhibition, come place for folk to meet and have lunch. A real fascinating mix of art, community, remembrance and ideas. I loved it.