JYC and Bog awards

Roll on Dec 1st - I am ready for you (or I will be in the next few days when the last of my Christmas stash arrives!!!) I think I have gone a "little" over board this year with Christmas papers etc - but that is literally only because I have never really scrapped Christmas before (I know... odd) But I seriously dislike the samey old style photos we get each year! I am challenging myself to get good photos this Christmas. I think some of the drudgery comes from the lighting in the UK this time of year - it is SOOOO DULL that I makes me wanna scream! I have my house lights all ON all day at the moment - our Electricity bill is grande!

Anyway - back on track... so - in order to compensate for buying papers - I wanted to try and make as many embellishments etc for my album as possible. I designed and printed out flash cards, numbers, and canvas elements that I will incorporate into the pages.
**Numbers**

** I pre-sewed and glue-dotted some buttons**

I made these little felties.. which was a labour of blanket stitch love - but are cute (I hope to make some more later)

** These are the canvas elements**

**Scrunchie PomPom flowers - 2" across. Made using a punch and brads**

**These are the flash cards**

I also printed a border on each 6x12 Kraft page (as that's the size I am doing). I was really pleased with the way they have turned out. I corner rounded all the pages to match the border.

Bought things include some East of India Ribbon - mmmmmmmm pretty!

Adornit letters. I also plan on using the October Afternoon alpha stickers.

The gorgeous Mini Deck by Cosmo (Blogger just deleted that image for some reason.. sorry)

Here are some of my chosen papers - trimmed to fit inside the printed border on my kraft pages.The nice thing about 6x12 is you can use both sides of double sided paper happily - and if you don't want to use both pieces, you will have a huge off cut for embellishing. (in the photo below you will see Finlay pointing to his current favourite piece.. he then proceeded to pick up most of the papers and give me a super huge crease in the top corner - fab *grump*)

Offcuts! woo! *heart*

And this is my cover and first page of the album.
6x12 Green corduroy *(be still my heart!!!)*

Oooooooooo I am feeling friggin' festive and in need of some mulled wine!

In other news.....

Awww - I was touched this week to see that Angela, Rachel and Becks have all given me a little blog award for making them smile! So lovely - blogs are funny things - I literally read about 100 regularly - and would feel lost if blog land disappeared over night. I love the daily ritual of seeing what made capers my friends have gotten up to, and the inspiration on the Cosmo and American Crafts blog etc .
Part of the award requires me to post FIVE things about myself that you wouldn't normally know. So, five facts of me "right now" are....

1: I am back on my diet - no one knows this apart from me (until now) and so far I have had four days of eating like an angel and not the chocolate hover that I had fast become.

2: I don't like soup anywhere near as much as I crave too. I love making soups, but as soon as I am done making them, ill sit down for a bowl and my instant thought half way through it is "really... is this it!? Where is the 10" piece of hot buttered baguette?!?!?! - I am a lunch time carbo-holic and soup doesn't cut it for me!!!"

3: The Twilight books give me unrealistic expectations of love and life - and this both bothers and intrigues me.

4: There is the ghost of an old lady in our flat. She has a distinctive perfume, which we smell all the time, esp when we are sad. And she is soooo comforting, that I hope she never leaves. I sometimes hear Finlay talking as if he is answering someone, and I wonder if its her talking to him.

5: Our conservatory leaks in three places at the moment - and the current rain situation in the UK has meant that we have run out of pans to cook with - as they are all catching drips. *sigh*