So I turned 29 a couple of weeks back, and as usual with work and life in general getting in my way I’ve not blogged (in fact, my digital kit I’ve been working on hasn’t been touched in some time and I have been neglecting my CT work this month too, I am such a bad person!)

The point of this post was really to give myself a quick toot toot lol, as Cathy Zielske herself picked my above layout as one of the giveaway winners in her Type class so I’ve been especially excited. Even more so when I note that I started that layout right before bedtime on the final night of class (again, had been super busy!) and I nearly never got to do it and I’m so glad I did!

How is it Sunday afternoon? Why does the week go slow yet the weekend go super speedy? I have to admit, I’ve taken quite a few short cuts this week at home, and we have managed on a small budget for food. We made a beef casserole which made roughly 5 meals or so, and the best part was the pizza (above) made with a cheap pizza base packet mix (just add water!) and rolled out – just a quarter with chips was enough for us so we had yet another meal each from it. Score! This is something I have been trying to get through to Gareth when we cook meals, that we need leftovers, and once again Pinterest has come to our rescue, and we have a few blog studies to do

I think I’ve also settled on my One Little Word for 2012…

Learn

I have a couple of Type classes coming up within the next week (exciting! Especially as they have a “scrapbooking” orientation to them) I have a creative writing class from OU downloaded on my iPhone from iTunes U, I have played with Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign so that I know my way around it to do very basic things (I used Illustrator to do my papers) but I’d love to do some learning at lynda.com on them, and because I’m so out on webdesign as I was self taught back in 2001 and lost touch with it for a few years after I moved out of my parents. Not to mention learning coding at codeacademy Later this year? I’d love to get the acoustic guitar out and learn to play a Hanson song or two!

I’ve not played around making a digital kit in many years. Now this kit in particular is aimed towards my special crafts site as a freebie, but I have been toying with the idea of removing those theme specific items and releasing it as a mini kit for here. But I still have a lot of work left to do on it, believe me! But it’s actually really fun to be doing something with design. I could never do it and make a business of it though, I couldn’t do numerous kits a month LOL! Though I have been making templates, and overlays so hopefully there will be more freebies in the future ;)

2011 was undoubtedly an awful over all, but there were some noteworthy moments. But onwards and upwards, because 2012 has GOT to be a good year for us!

We had a new shower fitted as our electric one broke, and I got our ornament made on Christmas Eve

My Christmas Gifts, and our pressies from Florida! I’ve not seen those pop tarts before!

Taz opened his presents with the help of Oliver. This tickled us so much! He’s never done this before! We had chocolate fountain and I made some xmas cupcakes (better late than never!) and not to mention a nice pampered bubble bath

Ok so I found a great new app (PicFrame) and had to use it to show you that I am indeed doing December Daily In fact there are days that I look at my page and I don’t like it, but the one above about fond memories of moving the sofa during the winter and the page I did yesterday I do like Yesterdays is a random letter to santa:

My silhouette/robo has been doing me proud, though I need a new mat (and to temporarily put a new blade on so I can get my gift boxes done!)

I shall be enjoying a long weekend (Monday off work, a-woo-hoo!) and basking in my “up-togetherness” as I have just one or two presents left to make and then I’m done. Well apart from getting presents for Gareth which he just decided the other day that he wants otherwise I would have got it before now

Really trying to be festive and in that Christmas mood. And to be in the moment and savour this time of year!

If I am covered in glue, glitter, paint or ink… I’m happy

In actual fact, I have been planning in my head a reworking on my Hanson crafts site over the christmas break, so I look forward to that too

Now I have been working on my December Daily, I will share that when I can. At the moment only day 1 is truly completed, I am not falling behind in the slightest but my paper scrapping time is limited and I want it to be an awesome album to look back on so bear with me

Firstly a big Thank You to Chrissy & her bf’s dad for the lift to Birmingham and home again. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have made it there in the first place. I also met a local girl called Kerry, which was great news as I didn’t know there were any fans nearby. She lives the next town over from me So there was the 3 of us fans in the car having a gossip all the way up!

They both had Meet & Greets (Which I luckily enough had back in April 2007) so they continued on to the pub while I met up with my friend who had a M&G with me 4 years ago, so it was good to catch up with her and I’m so thankful I have such a cool Hanson friend who I shared that experience with and we’ve become friends because of it.

Maiyu was 25th in the queue and I was number 28 so we hung out and luckily, look who we bumped into…

I look awful, and very cold lol, but I was so grateful to Isaac for stopping & taking this picture. It was Gareth’s camera and I hadn’t actually got to play with it, so I pointed out to Gareth that a Hanson had used his camera and he told me we had to wash it *roll eyes*  Although my M&G was one of the BEST days of my life, I often think back over it and cringe as I often act up when I’m nervous and I made a complete tit of myself. So I felt I at least redeemed myself last night by seeing Isaac again.

I had the best time dancing and singing next Maiyu! And luckily after some playing with Gareth’s camera, I got the hang of it

My December Daily has all the base pages completed.

and I have added a ribbon to keep it closed as it is quite chunky now and won’t close   I will take some better photos on a day where it’s not overcast and with a camera that’s not my iPhone

I started on my Christmas gifts too, I have done some candles, some lip balm (though I need to remelt them and add some more flavour to it),

I tried making some “bubble bars” which I tried one tonight, and it worked but didn’t last long :\ I may need to use my soap bar moulds to make them slightly larger to see if that makes a difference, but I love this mould! I plan on using it for my bath bombs and for the soaps that I will be gifting

and one of my magazines “Making Gifts” had a recipe for indulgent bath melts, which I also tried out…

and then last night we went to see Lee Evans in Cardiff, it was a good show and interesting to see a show Live as I’ve only ever seen Comedians on a DVD!

in 5 days it’s Hanson!

I thought long & hard about which album to choose and what other things I had to hand. I bought some shapes from Silhouette Store and Kerri Bradford, and jumped for joy when I remembered my Glitz and Glitter border stickers – one in particular saying “believe” which I knew just HAD to be on the front cover.

I have done my opener page and that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I am a bit stumped on just what I want to do.

I was so excited to see this lace cardstock shape and I just had to have it, I unfortunately have run out of acetate to stick it on to have it as a pretty filler page, so I need to keep my eyes peeled for some more.

I sat and cut some shapes on my Craft Robo including my numbers for my days (though I may not use them all – still undecided! Eeek!)

I’ve still got another 2 weeks to have a play and see how things will work out.