New pages...

I've been really busy working on my Christmas journal, and I made a lot of new pages since I've posted day 9 - 11...

So here's page 12:
(I was a little impatient, and took the pictures this evening... so the quality isn't great, but I think you get the idea...)



And a close up, so you can see part of the (rather private) journaling...? Old Christmas ornaments from your childhood makes you sometimes realize how much has changed....


And page 13... it's a very simple one, but I really like it... I love real trees, and every year it's a great joy for me to put all the ornaments in there... do we have enough, or can I buy some more? I like to colour coordinate everything...

But I fear that comes slowly to an end... We have a traditions that Stach can buy one ornament for the tree every year... this year he bought a white glittery plastic Christmas tree... on the colour front a very good choice...

Anyway... here's the page...




Page 15 is all about the family members we visit (almost) every year at Christmas... it's some sort of tradition to have dinner at my parents house or with my mother in law....


Yes, I know... you've missed page 14...
Sorry, you've got to be patient... it's not finished yet...
Page 21 is done, and 24, and I've posted 25 already... and page 27 is also finished! I'm a little bit behind schedule, so I choose every time which prompt I like to do... and that's very much fun!!!

What to do with a little boy...

when you have a few days to spend?

Well, you go here:

Nice guy, don't you think? Especially if you keep in mind that this one was a life size pre historic 'action figure' that was really moving and growling at you... Very cool...

The 'Kunsthal' in Rotterdam has a this great Dino exhibition, where you could not only see a dozen moving Dinosaurs, but you could also search for Dino skeletons...

and make rubbing of 'ancient' fossils...

After all this excitement I was glad to see the mailman peeking through our front window, waving with a nice box...

full of new scrapbook stuff...
(Sorry Sjoera, but what's a girl to do to keep her supplies in order and Pien doesn't have them...?)

I love good mail days, don't you?

And I really needed this delivery, because I'm running out of Heidi Swapp letters... they're the perfect size for my Christmas journal (that's 8 by 8 inches), so guess what I'm doing this evening...

Hope you have a merry, bright and peaceful...

d


Wow, the second day of Christmas afready... time goes so fast...
Hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday, with lots of love and presents...

I'm off now to my mother in law... we had a very nice diner there yesterday, and Stach spent the night at her place, so we're going to pick him up... but I wanted to show you my Christmas journal page I made yesterday...

Almost Christmas...

Finally, the holidays have come... I'm two weeks off work!

It has been a few very busy weeks, and my Christmas journal isn't filling with nice festive pages as fast as it should... but hey, our tree is up for a week now, and I've sent al my Christmas cards on time...

The tree is not very big, but a real one!!! We always have a real tree, I love the smell! It's a 'Nordman', so the needles don't come off... Stach and I had fun decorating it!

I made a lot of cards with Stach last week, but we still needed a few more... so I made these cards with the lovely Basic Grey paper... and a fabulous stamp from Cat's life Press...

Really had fun making these...

But there was also the Christmas journal... I'm way behind, but these next few days there's time to do some serious catching up...

Here's page 9:

And a close up:

And page 10: The photo I've used is from an add of one of my favorite stores, 'Life Style'...

And page 11:

I'll try to post some more pages very soon... hopefully tomorrow!

Did you have fun today?

Well... I had...

Bought myself a new friend...


Yeah, I know... I'm supposed to be a grown up now... a responsable person that takes care of a child, works for her money and pays her taxes... NOT someone who buys a stuffed animal just for fun...

But... look at him... (his name is Aron, according to the little card that was stuck on his neck, so it's a 'him'), I just couldn't resist... so I bought this little guy just for me... and it was fun!!

And now he's sitting on my desk and he keeps me company while I work on my pages... (just have to rescue him from time to time out of the hands of my 3 year old son...)

Anyway, back to the real topic of this post; my Christmas journal! Pages 7 and 8 are done, so here they are...

This page was all about our preparations for Christmas... Well, I guess Santa isn't visiting us, because his good old friend Sinterklaas has just been here... but that doesn't mean I don't have some shopping (and other things) to do...

And here's a close up:

Day 8 shows the signs of Christmas in our neighbourhood...

And, here's a close up to:

Working on page 9 right now... Yep, I'm a little slow, but who does care??? As long as we're having fun, right?

O, and before I forget... about that felt border on page 6: I don't want to disappoint you all, but it's not made by me... I bought it at Xenos... (see my last post, it's not my idea...) (so if any of you girls are Dutch, check this store out, it's really fun stuff...)

Christmas journal: day 3, 4, 5 and 6

Oke, I've got a cup of nice hot chocolate, a very ancient Christmas cassette (!!) playing on the good old stereo and some peace and quiet around here... (the boys are out this morning, having there Sunday trip together)

So it's starting to feel a bit like Christmas here already...

time to post a few Christmas pages from my journal!
I'd like to thank all you love ladies for commenting so nicely on my earlies pages!

Here we go for the next 4 pages:

Day 3 was about Chistmas cards... who do you sent them to, what kind of cards do you sent, etc. I made my basic list for this year... as soon as our cards are ready to write (I always sent hand-made cards; this year I'm trying to make them with Stach... ) the list usually grows...
The picture of the card behind the list is a detail of one I made last year...

Day 4 was about our personal dreams for Christmas...

I uesed a lot of pictures from home decor magazines... as you can see I like red and white decorations, a BIG tree (the kind that can ony be decorated if you use a ladder), a nice walk in the snow and after that being together as a family, having hot chocolate in front of a nice fire...

(Well, and maybe a secretly hidden gifts or two under the tree? Just for the fun of it...)

And it seems I'm a very lucky girl, because most of this can be accomplished!!!

We'll, maybe we've to leave the snow out of this picture (it's far to warm for this time of year...) and we celebrate both Christmas dinners at Gerard's and my parents home every year, so we cannot stay home together ALL day... but hey, I'm counting my blessings here!

On day 5 we were counting the day 'till Christmas...

I thought it would be fun to make a calender with little Christmas socks; one for every day...

You can fill them too, if you like...

I think this well be a nice idea for next year...

Day 6: our good and not so good memories...

I thought a lot about is, and finally I journaled only some good memories... not because it seems I don't have much bad memories about Christmas, but most importantly because I like to remember the good things... Let's nurture our souls with the good things and memories; there's already so much bad stuff in this world, don't ya think?

Here's a close up...

And another one... the star border is made out of felt...

I came up with the idea when I read Corinne's blog... she makes amazing pages with this ready made felt... (for you Dutch girls: go to Blokker or Xenos! Thanks for the tip Corinne!!)

Well, enough for now...

Page 7 and 8 are already done, and I'm working on page 9 now... try to show you tonight...

5 december

Oh, the JOY...

Stach had a great time when he saw all those colourfull wrapped gifts on the morning of December 5th!! He was dancing up and down in front of our stove.

Sinterklaas gave him a lots of presents this year (not all on his birthday on December 5th, I'm glad to say), but hey, he's a great and sweet little guy!

So he got a few puzzles and a few games; things we can do together as a family!

And the BIG gift today was a racing track! Man, he's REALY happy!!

And I think I've been good this year too, because there were a few presents with my name on them!

So I'm happy too, because these will be great to work with in my Christmas journal!

And I also found the time somewhere (?) to create a little surprise for our dear friends across the street.
(For you who are not familiar with the whole "Sinterklaas" thing: every year, around November 19th, Sinterklaas visits our country with his "Zwarte Pieten". He travels with his steamboat all the way from Spain, to celebrate his birthday with all the children on December 5th. And, you've already guessed this, I think... he celebrates this by giving us gifts...)
So I made a little steamboat for them...



Inside I'd hidden some gifts for them. On "Sinterklaasavond", just after dinner, I put the boat secretly on there doorstep, ringed the bell many times and ran back to our house!!

So MUCH fun!!!

(They later told me it was a great succes!!)

Well, Sinterklaas has left our country, and the stores are already filled with Christmas decorations!
Soon it will be Christmas..

So I've got to work on my journal, 'cause I'm a few days behind!
Trying to post some pages tonight!

Christmas journal: day 1 and 2

Well, I've got my supplies in order....

ready to start with my Christmas journal!

And this is my album cover:

And these are my entries for day 1 and 2:

And I'm already finished with day 3!!

But I will post that entry tomorrow!

Off to bed now!

Sweet dreams everybody!!