New Year and new projects

Well the end of last year seemed to disappear in a blur for me and from those I've spoken to I was not alone.

It feels like the year has just begun with the kids now back at school for a full week and the first crop / workshop for the year kicking off tonight.  However, in reality I look at the calendar and realise that we are already a third of the way through month 2!!!  Let’s hope the remainder of the year doesn’t fly by at this rate.


So, what have I been up to in this absence time from my blog.  Well I'm pleased to report there was quite a bit of crafty time involved :)

Here are some of the layouts created kicking off with a double layout featuring my little dancer and outlining the achievements she made with her Demi Character dance which has now been retired.  This is the first time I've featured a montague of all the photos of one dance over a number of years on the one layout and the journalling noted all her places.  I now intend to do this each time she retires one of her solo dances.  This means I've got 2 more already stacked and ready to get started on!

sorry but I'm having technical issues today and despite my trying 6 times now I can't get these pages to sit side by side on the blog!  Hope you can still get the gist :)

I also had a fun time in December helping to run the Christmas stall at my kid's school. To help instill the Christmas spirit with the kids we also offered they could come along and make a Christmas card or decorate a bauble. For the younger grades we went and did this in the classrooms but for the older ones they came to the stall and participated in these activities in their lunch hours. It was a great fundraiser for the P&C and loads of fun for the kids. We went through a batch of cards and about 150 baubles and bags of glitter - I shimmered for days!!! It was lovely to hear the kids tell me that their parents loved their gifts.

December and January in my calendar is jam packed with birthdays and of course we had Christmas thrown in there too.  I did a couple of card classes in the lead up to Christmas with a variety of different techniques.  My 2 little people both had birthdays as did my brother, husband and mother – in that order J  We had a 21^st to prepare invitations for and of course a card - here's the 21st invitation - I can share with you now that the party has been and gone.  The young lady who celebrated told me she wanted a country and western theme.  Together this is what we came up with

Nothing like Tim Holtz distress ink, a simple die cut and a distressing tool to add a western feel!

I've spent the past couple of days scouring the internet for wedding invitation inspiration as I have someone close to me getting married at the end of the year.  More fun on those ideas over the coming months!

So it is with much excitment that I anticipate tonight's first crop of the season and plan the many scrap pages to come for the year.  Hope you can all drop by and say hi throughout the year.

Happy scrapping!