Cheryl Johnson's Twelve Days of Christmas Workshop

Here's my attempt to day one, had a play with my camera with the WB settings - Cloudy, Tungsten, Fuorescent, Day Light and Auto. These Images were done with the flash off.
Tungstan I think was the best setting with the light I had in my living room this evening.

Here are my Final pages for my Holidays in Hand Class, just need to insert the writing and pictures, Wish me luck :).

Will probably make a start on the filling in over the weekend, as I have a few other projects that need my attention. I've got to catch up on three prompts for Cheryal Johnsons 12 day Photography Course, I will explain more in my next post. I have a cat and owl wire sculpture to complete by Tuesday next week and got to do the middle of my Calendar though its useable as is lol.

Here's my Eleventh, Twelfth and Thirteenth Holidays in Hand pages. So 13/25 LOs done lol. I will get there lol. I'm actually shocked on how many LOs I've completed using only two kits, it's a record for me. :)

Made Mince Pies yesterday with my boys and a friend, have to say they tasted great but looked a little like road kill mince pies after the difficulty we had getting them out of the trey lol. Today me and my friend helped the boys make some Christmas Cards, My eldest was definantly on a roll with his. They were really simple for the boys to make. I bought a pack of 40 sheets of card for a £1 and a bundle of wrapping paper and 2 extra sheets for £1.24, So all in all a bargain and we helped the boys cut the pictures they wanted to use and helped fold the card ready for the boys to stick their pictures on. My eldest also attempted some writting which was fab. We will be continueing with some more makes as the days go by in our prep for xmas :) And when I get the chance I'll post some piccys.

Heres my next bunch of Holidays in Hand template. Thinking of doing up to the 25th Dec 09 and decide then whether I want to do the whole month when I get there. So another 15 templates to do lol. All the following LO's are made using the same kits as stated in my last post.

I have recieved some really nice comments over on Jessica Sprague's Holiday in Hands forum which is really helping to keep me motivated to continue with this project.

Decided to make a Start on my Holidays In Hand templates and managed five LOs tonight. I decided to do my pages Digi in the end, partly because I haven't any 8x8 bazzil cardstock and as I'm trying to save money digi seemed the way to go. I made the following LOs using Scrapberry Design's Tinsel Town, Loriem Design's Christmas Cuddles and Jessica Sprague's 12x12 template and numbers. I will be using the above kits for the rest of my album. I'm teaching myself Photoshop Elements 8 so quite please with what I've done so far.

I have almost completed my Kaisercraft Calendar which is looking fab. And I would like to say a huge thankyou to Chrissy at Merly Impressions for putting together a kit and including the Kaisercraft project sheet and some ideas. The kit arrived the following and my calendar came at the same time so I was able to get started right away :) Just got the middle to decorate and then I will post a piccy.

Ok so I'm being a little crazy taking on another project, and after looking at my hubby's face when I told him about it I could tell he was not overly impressed lol as he says I way to much stuff to finnish let alone start. And I know he's right and I know I'm not the best person to take on long projects but I really liked the look of this and the best part was it was free :)



I've signed up for Jessica Sprague's Holidays In Hand 2009 class and I really hope to be able to keep up, I feel that it will be a fantastic keepsake at the end, not to mention get me motivated to make a christmas to remember and set in some new family traditions and bring in some of my childhood ones in along the way.

Assignment 1 - Write your Values and Goals.

Our Xmas every yr gets alittle hectic as we take it in turns in either going to my folks or to hubby' parents, whether it be held at theirs either or at either of my sister in laws. But I feel spending time with family is what christmas is all about.

Goals:

1. Spend time with the family
2. Want to have stockings ready and filled for my boys a week before xmas, not last minute.
3. Would like to get xmas cards out whether bought or made, but want to send them to all close family.
4. Make things with the kids to do with xmas to get them in the spirit.
5. Have all the presents bought and wrapped and not left to last minute.
6. Make an Xmas Calendar that will last for yrs to come. That will hopefully set a tradition to my boys :)

Assignment 2 - Commit

I commit to finding at least twenty minutes a day to do Recording/Writing/Photographing/Savouring/Printing/Glueing/Scrapbooking/Remembering/Slowing down every day in December

Sounds scarey but I think it can be done. I get the evenings to do what I like, just have to get myself motivated :)

Assignment 3 - Organising

I have looked through the Organised Christmas link http://christmas.organisedhome.com/printable/christmas-planner

and I like the look of the card check list planner, gift idea list planner and xmas pocket planner and thinking of encorporating these into my LOs as I'm thinking of trying to do a LO a day.

Day 2 December Prompts

I have as of yet to print out my prompts but thinking 5x5 will be the best size for me and display them using a clipboard. My plan is to fill out the Make and Do sections the day before or morning of so that it can fit in with our family as you never know what may crop up.

Things To Make

I have a few ideas:

1. kaisercraft Calendar - I have had my eye on it for some time lol and also would like one that can be used yrs to come :)
2. Making Cards for close family
3. Making Mince pies
4. Making Xmas Cake
5. Making chocolate Yule Log
6. Making Xmas Crackers

All of which can be done with my boys to involve them in the xmas prep and get them in the spirit. I'm also enrolled on to a Xmas craft course with my middle son at our local Children's Centre, running three Tuesdays in December, so it should be a lot of fun this yr. :)

I'm sure I will come up with more Make Ideas through the month lol.

Do List - I'm yet to sort out but again I'll be filling this out the night before or the morning of.

Assignment 3 - Watch this space as I have to print (hope I have enough ink (eek not sure I have :( but we will see. ) and make my way of displaying the prompts wish me luck lol.

Well what a Cyber Crop it was fantastic :) (over on Ukscrappers ) I did so much better this time round and completed three classes :) Got a few more to do which I'm going to attempt over the week. But its not a race and its the taking part that counts and I loved every minute of it, So thankyou to the team on UKscrappers for putting the crop together and thankyou to the wonder Teachers and to the Sponsers for their wonderful kits. I was so chuffed to recieve mine, they were fab and best off all they took me out of my comfort zone and got me to work with papers that I wouldn't necessarily pick out my self and try new products :)

On with my LO's Below is One of the LOs I did with The mystery kit. I have another but it needs completeing and I still have bits left from the kit to work with :)

My take on the Twister & Shout class by Taniwah and PaperArts. I love how my LO turned out and have definantly found a love for distressing and inking through this class.

Here's My take on the class by Ifa - Over the Rainbow. I used own stash for this class and think the LO worked out well. Love the yellow cardstock I used :) The Title reads Young Love and the writeing reads Todd & Courteney are so in love at 5yrs old, they have already mapped out their future - a job at Tescos & two children named Megatron and Bumblebee from Transformers. Now 6 & still going strong.

Last class I've done so far was Shimelle's Take No Notice Of The Man Behind The Curtain and I managed to get a kit yippe :) Had never taken part in any of her classes before or had one of her kits and it was awsome and I loved my LO as it was perfect for a couple of my wedding photos.

Ok on to my pumpkin, I wasn't going to post pics of my Pumpkin until he was painted but I decided to give in lol so here he is in different stages lol

Starting Life as a plastic bin bag filled with scrumpled newspaper and tied with cord to form ridges. where I tied the bag I fixed a toilet roll on top with Masking Tape to create the stalk :)

Paper mached, this took forever lol, I used wall paper paste and newspaper to cover the bin bag and after the bag had a layer covered I waited for it to dry before doing another layer. I repeated this process till it felt rock solid and wasn't flimsey.

Once it was rock solid I cut a whole out of the bottom and took all the newspaper out and bin bag till I had a shell :) unfortunantly after making the whole it made the pumpkin feel flimzy in places, so I used Masking Tape around the edges of the whole to make it a little stronger.

Now it was time to carve the face and this was rather scarey as I had a fear the whole thing would cave in lol.

To enhance the features I used strips of Ceriel Box and slid them in to place.

And this is as far as I have got, I decided to do a Layer of Mod Rock just to make him a bit stronger and I love this stuff :)

So all that's left to do is paint him, I think I'm going to paint him with Acrylics and then give him a coating of yaught varnish so hes weather proof. All though on the site he dry brushes Black Latex Exterior Paint, White Latex Prima paint and then diluted acrylics in orange, yellow and green. But I fear his method could get rather expensive for me :( though I suppose I could put a wanted post on Freecycle, we'll see.

I had such fun making him but it did take just over two weeks. I'm considering making a couple more with my boys but useing bags that we get from our local take out that are slightly smaller than the normal supermarket bags and see how they turn out. But this little project may have to wait as I have a back log of crafts and projects to complete lol.