Paper Obsession

Park Life

Here's a very quick layout I did a couple of days ago of Charlie at Beddington Park. I love it when a page comes together without all the agonising. I wish I could say my scrapping was always like that!

Just splashed out on a Dymo labeller - I think this is one gadget that I'll use lots - great fun. Here are a couple of close-ups. Fuzzy I'm afraid due to appalling light conditions this week. Where did the sun go?!

 

Nearly time for Journal Your Christmas!!! Starts tomorrow, and so starts the run-up to Christmas. We will put our tree up next weekend. Yippee!

Journal Your Christmas - three sleeps away!

Monday 1st December marks the start of 'Journal Your Christmas' 2008 which will, no doubt, become my obsession for the month of December and beyond. JYC is an annual online class by Shimelle (details here) which started five or so years ago and now seems to have hundreds of followers all over the world. This is my first year and I, like so many others, have been itching to get started for weeks. The online forum is buzzing with chatter about preparing for the class, who's using which patterned papers, and what makes this such an exciting class to participate in.

The idea is to reclaim your Christmas by setting aside a bit of time each day from 1st Dec through to 6th Jan to journal, blog or scrapbook on what the festive season means to you. Shimelle will be sending an email prompt every day containing suggestions on the focus for the day. There is no pressure to complete a scrapbook page every day - in fact I will be astonished if I manage to do that! But I will be trying to save an hour or so every day to jot down some thoughts, maybe even complete a super-quick layout as time allows. I have a gorgeous new 12"x12" album on my shelf and have even prepared a few pages ready to add photos and journalling - how organised is that?! 

Of course I have still to finish my Photography work-book and Portfolio - my last class of this unit is next Thursday and I would love to be able to hand in at least the work-book. The Portfolio, I fear, could take a bit longer..

Time to finalise my portfolio

 

With only two weeks left of Unit 1 of my Photography course I need to start choosing photos for my Portfolio. Or at least finish taking photos and start choosing them. On Saturday we braved arctic winds to head into London for me to (attempt to) get some super-duper shots of street life on the South Bank. Not all that easy with two cold, fractious toddlers and one slightly impatient husband. The wind was ferocious along the Thames path and Charlie refused point-blank to have the rain cover on the push-chair. Harry obligingly fell asleep for a good hour so that saved the situation from becoming unbearable.

Looking through the 170-odd photos later, I found a bare handful of ones I am truly pleased with - and several more that could have been fantastic if I had just been a little more careful with my focusing, or getting all the important bits in the shot, and so on.. Howls of frustration!

I love this one Charlie - runny nose, chocolate round his mouth, looking cold and fed-up - bless him!

This is Harry doing his utmost to get lost among the crowds on the South Bank. Having been an angel for the previous hour (i.e. asleep) he decided now it was time to be a little devil. Clearly I have been experimenting with the soft focus and black & white settings here.

This character seems to be always here, pedalling like crazy whenever someone puts a coin in his tin. I am still trying to get that perfect shot. Maybe next time..

I am quite pleased with this one, the London Eye is so iconic - but that just makes it harder to get a great picture that's not been done a million times over. I'd love to attempt photos of London by night but with the boys to get into bed I can't see that happening any time soon..

Harry loves the hens

This is my second go at this post.. aaaargh! I will try and keep it snappy this time.

I have completed a scrapbook layout!

This shows Harry making a beeline for the hens at Christmas Tree Farm back in October. I was following close behind, torn between capturing him on camera and rescuing the hens from a vigorous patting. Luckily both Harry and the hens came away virtually unscathed.

The layout took remarkably little time (only a couple of hours) when I got down to it. After a lot of deliberating the night before, I decided to just Go For It, ripping and painting with gay abandon - very liberating! It might not be brilliant but it gave me hope that - one day - I might be able to scrap with a bit more freedom, without agonising over every part of the process.

As Shimelle says, 'There is no stress is scrapbooking.' I aspire to this, I really do!

Talking of Shimelle, I have just signed up to her Journal Your Christmas class. The idea is to document the run-up to Christmas and beyond by completing a page each day in December, up to the first week of January. Oh. My... How likely am I to complete this? I am nothing if not deluded.. But really, there is no pressure to do it all! I am going to try and get organised in advance, get the bare bones of a few pages together and get all my supplies organised, and then just do what I can. I am really looking forward to getting stuck in - reading the comments of others who have done the class before, it seems to be a fun and fulfilling class.

Enough for now.. I am itching to get scrapping.