Finish Off January and SAD February

I finished my Christmas 2012 journal!  I had already done a page for each day using inks, paints and stamps, so decided to use the opposite page for a photo or two and some pretty paper.  I was really pleased to use up some older Christmas stash!  Here’s a few of the double page spreads:

 

I used old Christmas cards and other bits and pieces on some pages where I didn’t have a photo

And I will admit there are 1 or 2 pages that are not completed, but I am OK with that.  I have written everything I want to about Christmas 2012!

That wraps up my January craft goal, to finish off my 2012 album and JYC.  So what am I going to do in February?

I want to quilt my Little Town quilt and Tuscan Village scene, so I am going to try and sew everyday!  Remember LOAD (Layout a Day)?  Well, this is SAD, Sew a Day!  I know it should be Sew Every Day, but I prefer SAD to SED!

New Year’s Resolutions and Goals

Some of you who have read my blog for a while will know that I love making new year’s resolutions and setting goals for myself.  A few years ago I did an online class: How to achieve your goals and live the life you love with Aby Garvey at www.simplify101.com.  I still chat on the forum daily with the same dozen or so participants, who have become firm friends.   We set ourselves annual goals, but then break them down month by month. 

This year I started with my ‘One Little Word’ (an idea from www.aliedwards.com), which is CREATE.   I have set goals for a creating a healthy lifestyle, creating a comfortable and welcoming home and we are in the process of planning some very exciting travel later in the year.  I would dearly like to do more craft this year, and schedule crafting time into my life on a weekly basis.

Aby has written 2 inspiring blog posts here and here about setting 13 goals in 2013.  This got me thinking, what 13 goals could I set myself for 2013? Bearing in mind my crafting goal, I have decided to use this idea to set myself crafting goals for each month of the year.  I have lots of ideas (far more than 13 actually!) and will set one per month.

To kick it all off, I am making January a ‘finish-off’ month and will finish my 2012 album, and my Christmas album (JYC).  Here are my December pages in my 2012 album, Project Life style:

Hope you like them!  I am going to make 2013 album a bit simpler and make more 12 x 12 LOs for my other albums.  In fact, I still have to organise my albums despite Shimelle’s class being several months ago (last May in fact!)  So there’s a job I need to do.  I am confused between Stacey Julian’s Library of Memories and annual albums.  More about this later!

Snowman!

Here’s some pics of my snowman and snowy garden I took on Friday:

I wasn’t too keen to see the snow at first.  Walking the dog on Friday morning was very difficult, as it had just started snowing and was very slippy!  Later on I had to walk to the hairdressers, but the snow was deeper, so I wrapped up well, put on my new wellington boots, and set off!  It was beginning to melt a bit, so easier to walk on.  I decided that as the snow was a couple of inches deep in the garden I would build a snowman!  Here he is, built solely with my own hands!

It’s Sunday morning now, and it’s snowing again.  Friday’s snow has melted and refrozen, so the pavements will be even more treacherous now! This is why we don’t cope with snow very well in the UK!  We don’t get very much snow so we don’t spend much money on preparing for it (for instance we don’t have snow tyres) and the temperature hovers around zero, not several degrees below, so it gets very icy!

How do you cope with snow?

Simply a Moment

Following Alexa’s prompt, here’s my moment from today.

 

It’s 4pm, and it’s beginning to get dark outside.  Although it’s been a bright day I can see it’s gloomy now, and it looks very cold.  I’ve had the central heating on high all day as I’ve cleaned my bedroom carpet and I’m hoping it will dry.  But I can still feel a cold draught around my legs.  I’m still wearing my old fleecy as it’s so cold today.

I’m sitting at the dining room table that is strewn with craft stuff.  Still trying to finish off my Journal Your Christmas album.  I’ll have another go at it in a minute.  I’ve just taken the backs off a big pile of Christmas cards so that I can give the pictures to Mum for making recycled Christmas cards. It feels good to get them out of the way - what a long time it takes to put Christmas properly away!

I’m listening to BBC Radio 2 iplayer.  Stewart McConie is doing a really interesting series called ‘The People’s Songs’.  The episode I’m listening to is called ‘Two Tribes’ and includes songs and interviews  about the cold war.  Very interesting!

The rest of the house is quiet, everyone out to work. They will be back in a couple of hours so I will have to start thinking about cooking dinner soon, but for now, I can move the laptop out of the way and indulge in a little cutting and sticking!

New Year’s Day

The sun is shining brightly so we took Merlin for a long walk to blow out the cobwebs from last night’s celebrations!

As you can see we weren’t the only ones with this idea!  This path is usually quite empty for my early morning dog walks.

Well, here we go into another year, I hope 2013 brings you all good luck and joy!