4th December

Hi hi!!

Up to day 4 already today!! Wow!!

A pretty quiet day here today, I wasn't feeling fantastic so after school drop off my littlest guy and I headed home where I finished up a couple of projects - one of which is this weeks project for Deer & Fawn Designs - head over here if you would like to see :)

After school pick up I finally remembered to get the little guys to hang the strawberry flavoured candy canes on our tree!! They were so impressed that they got to hang them! And I'm not even going to let my OCD take over and re-arrange after bedtime!!

A close up of our day card. Love how this turned out!!

The hand stitching you can see is actually from day 3 and I'm actually really impressed how it turned out on the back ;) Again, most of the bits are from Michelle's kits. The red epoxy sticker and gold label are from the Freckled Fawn kit and the bluey coloured stars and from my stash :)

And a close up of my tiny bit of embellishing on the photo

Again, the gold label from the FF kit, the red washi from Michelle's kit and more of those super cute bluey coloured stars!!

Well, that's it for me for today!!

Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I can keep this up and see you tomorrow!

Mel

xx

3rd December and some news

Hello there and welcome to my day 3!

I will be completely honest here and say I did not have the best day in the world!! Every Wednesday (until next week) my littlest guy spends the day at daycare. This means that every 2nd Wednesday my biggest little guy and I get to spend a day together, just him and me. I love (for the most part!!) these days we get together because, let's face it, they don't stay little near long enough.

We are nearly at the end of our very 1st school year with him - 5 days a fortnight and I think he is feeling it - big time!! He is tired, irritable and cranky. He doesn't mind showing this in the form of "a nearly 5 year old tantrum". Fun times for all!!

We have had a few lovely moments together today which I am grateful for, eternally, as today is our very last date day. Which I am sad about, that means he off to school full time next year. FULL TIME!! Holy smokes Batman, how did THAT happen?! 

Anyways, not a great day. We headed to our local Spotlight for some gold embossing powder - that was it, 1 thing. I left with 5!! 2 are for gifts, the embossing powder and the most gorgeous little owl that was a complete spur of the moment purchase. I left home with $20.00 in my pocket. The total was $22.15. Poo!! Oh well, the owl goes back. My big guy got upset so I explained why. A very nice stranger overheard our conversation and ran over to give me $2.00 - so very kind and thoughtful but at the time no one did the maths and didn't realise we were 15 stupid cents short!! Out to the car where I hunted and came up with 5c! Darn! Oh well, impulse buy, not meant to be. Head back in to tell the girl behind the counter, nope, not gonna happen, still 10c!! As we headed back to the car again another very kind woman stopped and handed over the 10c. So sweet!

The best part about this? For me, was knowing that my big guy watched this scenario. Saw the real meaning of giving. The generosity of a random act of kindness. And the 2nd lady, well her little lady was with her so she too got to see the same thing. Yes, it was only $2.15. It was only an impulse purchase but the thought behind the giving of that small amount of cash is immeasurable!!

Ok, so enough chattering away. 

Here is our Day 3 spread. 

I just added an Ali Edwards "love" stamp to the top left before I printed :)

You may remember that Day 3 was prepped for our cards for 2014 from my foundation pages post? Well, our cards are not ready yet, not even finished! So they can happen another day. This story was made for today!!

Here is a close up of the card - most of the supplies were from The Stamp Spot kits. The red heart was the Freckled Fawn kit and the "holiday cheer" stamp was an American Crafts roller date stamp.

And just cause I love it here is a shot of just that gorgeous owl!

Now, if you have made it this far through this post I congratulate you!! Haha!!

My news,

I have been asked by Jen over at Dusty Attic if I would like to join her DT for 2015!! Head over here and you can see my intro post. I am so, so, so excited to be joining this amazing group of crafters and to be honest, a little intimidated, you should head over to their blog and take a look at the stunning work over there!! I received my DT box of goodies yesterday and WOW!! Ideas swirling through my head already!

Well, hopefully I can keep up this December thing and I shall see you all tomorrow!! I hope you too are enjoying your December journey!!

Mel

xx

2nd December

And boom!! just like that, another day down!

I am currently sitting at my almost completely clean and tidy desk typing this at the end of our day 2 here in Perth, Western Australia :)

Pretty simple and quick today. Not a great deal happening around here but I did get around to a couple of house work type things which lead me to my story for today. One of my housework type things today was changing all the sheets on our beds. Enter personalised Christmas pillowcases for my little guys.... which lead to me remembering to photograph the boys Christmas placemats - while they were still clean after breakfast ;)

So, 1 page, 3 photo's and and some journalling and pretty pieces on a handmade card from the kit from The Stamp Spot.

And there you have it!!

I love when these stories just come to me - part of the reason I didn't do HEAPS of foundation pages!!

Hope your journey is coming together and happy December 2nd!!

Mel

xx

1st December!!

Wow, wow and wow!! Well, it is officially now the SECOND day of December 2014!! I can't actually believe that it is here already and I have one day DONE and dusted!! 

For our pages I had a fairly good idea what photo's I would include so that made the decision making super easy, especially since I managed to get a cracker of shot of my littlest guy putting the star on top of the tree for the 1st time!! His face is priceless and will most definately make our PL album for the week and more than likely a 12x12 as well!!

But, since I already had in my head a 6x8 shot of the tree I stuck with that and that makes up the 1st of the 2 pages for day one :)

I have added a brush from Ali Edwards December Daily 2014 Combo Pack but have edited it to take off the day number and the lines at the bottom. I just wanted a fairly simple border around the whole thing. The little embellishment cluster was already put together - even had the foam dots attached to the back ;) Popped that on and called it done!!

Side 2 - a shaker from Michelle's kit with a sticker popped on top, a photo of our elf, Pixie and her return to our home, a filler card I had in my stash from ages ago by Agnus from Scrap That with a flair from stash attached and some journalling straight onto a 3x4 kit also straight from the kit :) Oh, that card that looks blue (behind the vellum) is actually teal but I couldn't for the life of me get it to come out teal in the photo!!

And both pages together

Well, 1 down and I gotta admit, I am rather impressed that I have managed that so far!! Haha!! Have already started work on day 2 - ideas hit me as I was doing housework!!

Hope you are so far enjoying December and your journey documenting it or just following along!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mel

xx

And the flairs go to.....

Wow!!

Thank you for all of the comments left on the give away post!! I loved reading every single one of them. 

Without further ado however the winner that I have chosen is

Wildfairy with this comment

wildfairy27 November 2014 17:36

My most memorable christmas is from a couple of years ago when out of sillyness i sat on my, then boyfriend now husband's, knee and he pretend to be santa and asked me what i wanted for christmas. I said a baby, only to find out 3 weeks later that we were pregnant with our beautiful baby girl.

This story rang a little close to home for me with us desperately wanting to be pregnant with our 2nd baby at Christmas 2011. A pregnancy test on Christmas Eve came up negative but testing again on 30th December brought us a whole new gift which was by far the best gift we received that year!!

Congratulations Wildfairy, can you please contact me ASAP via email melindasweetman@gmail.com. You have 24 hours to get me your address so I can get these gorgeous flair on their way to you!

To the rest of you that stopped by, thank you again for taking the time to stop in and also to my newest followers, THANK YOU!!

I hope to update fairly regularly over December (time permitting of course!!) and wish those of you participating an amazing December Daily journey! For those of you not participating enjoy the lead up to this crazy fun happy time of year!!

Melinda

xx

A little surprise for one of my lovely followers

Hello there lovely followers!!

Today, a very short and sweet post. The incredibly generous Michelle from The Stamp Spot has has given each of her Documenting December DT girls an awesome little give away!! That's correct, all 10 of us are having this give away!!

Would you love this set of EXCLUSIVE to The Stamp Spot flair?? 

Gorgeous, aren't they?! Even more gorgeous in real life ;)

How do you get your name in the draw I hear you ask? Simple really, leave me a little love telling me what your most memorable Christmas memory is. Be it good or bad or funny I would love to know. 

I will pick a winner 7pm (or probably more like 7:15pm since 7pm is our kids bedtime) WA (Australia) time on Sunday 30th November 2014 and will announce the winner here on my blog. Said winner will be need to contact me within 24 hours of the blog post going live via email melindasweetman@gmail.com All prizes will be sent by Michelle via regular Australia post as a letter. 

Should the winner not contact me within the specified time frame I shall re-draw another winner from the comments Monday December 1st, 10pm WA time. 

Sorry but Australia only please due to postage.

Best of luck to everyone, seriously, you want these flair, they are gorgeous and EXCLUSIVE!!

Mel

xx

December Daily, some foundation pages.....

Hi there!!

Well, today I am here to share with you some of my foundation pages for our 2nd December Daily album using mostly supplies from the main, red add on and teal add on kits from Michelle over at The Stamp Spot. Michelle is slowing introducing all of her Documenting December DT members and my shares are also up for today over on the store blog! 

For a more in depth view of all my goodies head on over here to see my stash!

But without further ado here are the few pages I have prepped in advance.

I will add before I share photos however that I have not done a great deal of sticking etc as I really don't know what each day is going to entail! I have had a brain storm this morning for a few more pages however and hope to get to these this week! 

I plan on finding a story each day and documenting that. Not all will be Christmas specific. Real life still happens and as a Project Lifer I try to keep it honest and tell the stories that happen. Things like the last day at 3 year old Kindy, a friend's child's birthday and a couple of girl's nights out appeared in our DD last year and I plan to stay true to that same idea this year.

Enough of my blabbering now though and onto the paper and pretty things!!

First up, an overview of what our DD will look like:

I sat with my diary, my album, post it notes and couple of pens one night and got a very rough idea of what was happening and when. Obviously, the backs of each page will be the following day. I know I can work with that system because that is how I PL ;)

This is our day one spread. On the left will be a 6x8 photo I think of our tree, one of my most fave things about Christmas!! And that little card will get attached somewhere on top of the photo. A filler (love this from the kit!!), a spot for journalling and 2 photo's. Pretty sure one of those photo's will be the return of our Elf on the Shelf, Pixie.

Obviously, our day 3 ;) I have yet to attach the 3x4 card to the vellum, thinking I will stitch it on with teal thread but will wait until I decide what I will do with day 4. Either a collage of 2 portrait pics (if our cards this year are that way oriented) or an actual card if they are landscape.

Possibly our day 8.... The number is not stuck down as yet. This and the back and front of a full 6x8 page will be dedicated to our Santa photo's this year. I love Santa, the magic of believing and seeing (hopefully!!) my boys face's light up when they see him. The white card is for journalling, the filler and hopefully a 6x4 of either both boys with Santa or maybe even me with Santa ;) Never too old for a photo with the big guy in red!! The 6x8 page will be my big guy on the front and my little guy on the back. Possibly full 6x8 photo's, possibly mini layouts....

Again, number is not stuck down!! This page will be used for Letter to Santa. A nice big bag attached to the back of the page will fit in photo copied letters to Santa (I copied our letters last year and so love them!!) and printed on matte photo paper. I have teamed this with a Simple Stories 4x4 page protector for either 2 photo's (more than likely!) or photo's and journalling.

Last and by all means not least I have put this little 3x4 card together for the day we will head out to see our local light spectacular that we discovered last year. Can't wait!!

Well, that is it for me! I am hoping to keep up this year and get something done every day and if you embarking on your own DD journey enjoy it :)

Mel

xx