Thinking ahead

Well, actually, I started off this afternoon by thinking back ... to around this time last year when we had a class, at my local crop, where we produced a christmas mini-book.  But we only produced the basic book, plus some decorated pages.  Whilst the idea was that we finished it last year, I decided to save mine for this year and to complete it, a page per day, this December.  So I thought I'd better have a sort-out of where I was up to and what I'd need to complete it - it is 1st December this coming Thursday after all (where HAS this year gone?!)

The book has a decorated chipboard cover

The pages are a mix of envelopes (I'll be putting receipts, recipes and other bits and pieces inside the envelopes and more interesting memorabilia on the outside) and shaped cardstock, all with gold inked edges

All pages have been decorated to some extent but I will be adding extra embellishments, photos, journalling blocks or whatever else seems appropriate.  I aim to complete a record of christmas, and the lead-up to it, this year.

As for thinking ahead ... thinking even further ahead, I've also been preparing a book to record the whole of next year.  It is A4 sized and the plan is to complete a double page for each month.  I want to include everyday stuff - photos of the garden, the weather, new shoes, the biscuits I baked ... the sort of humdrum stuff we often forget about.  I also want to use up some of my ScrapaGogo kits, so I'm going to make myself pick one kit per month and try to use mostly (or even only) stuff from that kit to complete the month's entry.  I'm hoping to produce a book to remind us what everyday life is like, to look back at in the future.

The chipboard covers are covered with Tim Holtz resist paper which has been coloured with distress stains and perfect pearls mists.  The numbers are American Crafts "Thickers" and I've also added a clockface rub-on, some tissue-tape and some charms plus a keyhole embellishemnt I found lying about in my stash.

I'm looking forward to working on this and will share one or two of the entries in it on here as I go through the year ...