December is...

well to be honest; december is kicking my butt!

I am suffering from fully developed december-panic.
My inner Miss Perfect is nagging at me about all sorts of things I should be doing. Or finish before the 31st.

December is always a very busy month for us. We have several birthdays, had a weekend at my mother in Rotterdam checking out my brothers new appartment, celebrating "Sinterklaas" and had a lovely company-dinner.
Still to come are our traditional "Gourmet-extravaganza" with both of our families on the first christmas day (wich means 11 people around the table)  and "Left-over Madness" on the day after that.
And then there is new years eve.... Still not quite shure how that will be..

Now don't get me wrong; I love every one of our parties  and get-togethers. I like having everyone over and seeing them enjoy themselves. Talk with people I haven't seen in a while and make shure they have a lovely time.

But Miss Perfect is freaking me out with every thing she thinks needs to be done.
And not just done but done to perfection. Instagram-perfection is what she demands...
So I'm buried in shopping-trips, endless grocerylists, christmas decorations are everywhere and my "projects I want to finish berore 2015"- list is getting longer every day.. ...
Also all sorts of plans for 2015 are starting to pop into my brain.. Things I want to do, sights I want to see and projects I want to do..

After a major Fybromyalgia flare-up this sunday evening ( fyrbo is stress-enhanced) I'm changing things up.
Putting into practise all of the things I've learned during these past few weeks in my psychosomatic physical therapy ( there is a special blogpost on that coming..) I'm changing things around here. And will try to make Miss Perfect shut up.
Starting with a major brain-dump in my bulletjournal.
To get all of those plans, need-to's and want-to's out of my brain.
 That way I don't have them floating around in my head constantly popping up. They are right there, parked on a piece of paper. I can't forget them but don't need to think about them constantly.

Next I decided to do most of my pre-christmas grocery shopping online. That means all I have to do is pick it up. Because the pre-christmas grocery store madness really messes me up.. So that's one less thing on my mind.

So my mantra for the rest of the month is : "Keep it simple"
* oh... and "don't freak out"

Ho are you all dealing with this december-thing?

December Daily; the end-result

A little applause please: Today I've finished my December Daily album!

Before I share the full album,
I really had a hard time making the pages this year. It just didn't sit right. Making the pages was so much more work than I really wantend to do.
So about half-way through the month I kind of gave up on the whole project. That's why there is one day missing.
Also a big factor in my giving up was the quality of the pictures printed by our home printer. They where just awefull. And having them all printed out would have been costly. But I really didn't want to leave the project half-finished. So I decided to , to hell with the budget, have the rest of the pictures printed out at HEMA.
(the only place here in Holland that lets you import your pictures straight from Instagram, that I know of)
It was less expensive then I thought it would be..
With all the pictures printed I had no more excuese not to finish it.

But for next , oh wait this year, I'm not shure if I want to do another december daily.
Definitively not in this format. But december is still a long way away so I still have time to decide.

And now, without further ramblings, here is my finished December Daily album:

I am so glad I can cross this project of my to do list.

Did you do a December Daily? Is yours finished?

Share a link to your December Daily in the comments.

I would love to see how yours turned out!

Dear Santa,

My unltimate christmas whislist:

* A crop-a-dile Big Bite; so I can finally punch some decent holes and not have to fiddle with an office punch...

* a Project Life core Kit; The kraft edition to be precise.

* and while we're on a roll with project lfie: a binder, inserts and lots of photo-print credits..

* a photoprinter. One that produces a decent quality photo's, isn't difficult to use, that isn't huge, one that let's me print pictures directly from my phone... Who can reccomend me one?

*"Modern Calligraphy" by Molly Suber Thorpe. Becuase her lettering is awesome!


*yarn, in all kind of different beautifull colors...

* some cute hammocks and cage liners from Chelsey's Cozies 

* a pair of pretty dotted blue wrist worms made by the talented Sandra Juto

And what's on your ultimate whishlist?

December Daily: update

It is only december 13th and I am already way behind on my pages.
I have been keeping up with writing a story about each day (in the cute little notebook I made during the Holiday Extravaganza). But I've been busy with Life so making the actual pages just hasn't happend yet.

Today I'll share the pages I've finished.

first up I decorated the inside cover with a calendar.

Day one: a lazy breakfast at Turf 

followed by our monthly beachwalk with a group of dogs.

Day 2: A peak in my On-going projects basket;

 My first "big" crochet project: Wristwarmers
(which I've currently finished by the way)

Day 3: some lovely red bushes I saw while walking Abby

And my monthly birthday-card writing.

Day 4: When I get home, dinner is on the table

 Day 5: "Sinterklaas"

A vintage postcard I found in a small shop

Day 6: A drawing of my favorite mug.
(I am so proud of that drawing!!)

My dad bought it for me at the Disney Shop in London. 

And the wrapper of my current favorite tea.

And how are you doing with your December Daily album?

Leave a link in the comments and I'll hop over to your blog and have a look...

december is for...

* december daily!!

* "sinterklaas"

* setting up the Christmas tree

* sending Christmas-cards

* lots of planning and shopping for our christmas-dinner

* christmas-dinner with the family on the 25th of December

* visiting a christmas-market in Haarlem

* drinking lots of glühwein

* baking "Oliebollen" on december 31st..

* cocheting ( within my limits..)

* cosy evenings in front of the television snuggled up under a blanket with Abby 

* my brothers birthday

* my father-in-laws birthday

* setting off fireworks on new years eve

busy busy busy..

What are your plans for December?

Holiday Extravaganza

This past weekend I took part in The Holiday Extravaganza over on rukristin.com.

Now you have to know that the whole christmas-thing doesn't start really start here in Holland until "Sinterklaas" leaves on the 6th of December. So we are not exactly in christmas-mode yet.
But this was just too much fun to miss!

There where guest-posts, DIY's, games and a total of 10 challenges.
Because of the time difference I missed the live blog Party chat. But thankfully they recorded it.
I stil need to watch it though XD

I went on a major craft-binge and had a go at ALL of the 10 challenges. And I proud to announce that I finished every one of them! Which is a big thing for someone who isn't very good at finishing things.

 I'll show you what I made:

 Challenge no.1 : Holiday Storytelling.

 The challenge was to create a project that tells of one of your holiday stories.
I picked our tradition to buy a tree. We always do this right after "Sinterklaas". I made these pictures last year for my december daily. I love how they tell a little story together.

Challenge no.2 : Holiday Cards

The challenge was to create a hand-made card to give to a friend.

Now I write a lot of christmas-cards. But never tried to make any of my own. So I wasn't really shure where to begin. I folded a regular white correspondece-card in half. then used my calligraphy-skills and wrote on it.

it still felt a bit bar after that. So I stamped some gold stars on it and glued some gold star-sequins on.
I really like how it turned out. Maybe next year I will make my own christmas-cards...

Challenge no.3 : Document the right now.

The challenge was to document the right now.
I still had a big currentl-card lying around. So I filled it out and glued it on some christmas-paper.
Taadaahh!

Challenge no4. A few of my favorite things..

The challenge was to make a project based on a given mood-board. It included hot pink and gold stationary , hand lettering and gold stars.. I knew instantly I wantend to make these hot pink note cards with some gold stars on the bottom. After a lengthy search of my stash I couldn't find any paper in the right kind of pink. 

The shops had already closed. And wouldn't be open on sunday... Thankfully a phone-call by my mother-in-law reveald that the shops would be open!! Yay! So after our monthly walk on the beach with some dogs I had to do some shopping. I found the perfect pink cards.

I made the "notes"-stamp myself and stamped the gold stars on. ( I am very much in love with the cheap HEMA star-stamp and Hero Arts gold ink)

 Challenge no.5 : Prepairing a holiday album

That was an easy challenge. I already started on putting together my December Daily album. And because I did some work on it fridaynight I got to use it for this challenge =)

More on my december daily album HERE

Challenge no. 6. Color challenge

The challenge was to use a certain colorscheme in a project. It didn't scream "holiday" to me but I knew this picture of Abby would be perfect. I used some of my christmas paper and added some stickers ("cut & paste" I believe)  I bought at the scrapbook-fair this summer.

Next up is to find a frame for it..

Challenge no.7 Get messy.

The challenge was to get messy and use paints, sprays, mists or any messy products on the next project.

So I pulled out my acryllic paints and painted a christmas tree on a small postcard-size canvas. I stuck some sparkles and a gold star in the wet paint.

As usual when I use paints I was coverd in it.. messy indeed..

Challenge no. 8 Minimalist style.

The challenge was to embrace minimalism and create a project that speaks volumes without shoving it in your face.

I had a really hard time with this one..
I combined this challenge with a project I had already in the planning. For my intuïtive developement course I need to make/buy a smal present for the last day. I knew instantly I wanted to make a stamp. But all the designs I could think of where to difficult. And then.. this one came to mind. Simple yet meaningfull.

Challenge no.9 DIY gift-wrap and Tags

The challenge was to create your own gift wrapping, tags of other gifwrapping embellishments.

This matched up very well with my stamp for my course. I found small kraft box in my stash just big enough for the stamp and a small inkpad. I stamped it with gold stars (there is that HEMA stamp and Hero ink again).
I cut a little tag with the stamps desing on it and wrapped it all up with a white and yellow ribbon.
Done!

Challenge no 10. Holiday Extravaganza Inspiration.

The challenge was to use one of the holiday extravaganza projects as inspiration.

One of the gustposts was a DIY to upcycle a moleksine. I am a big fan of notebooks and decided this was it. I have a "small" stash of empty notebooks inculding some faux-moleskines. I love the kraft covers. They are easily decorated for specific occasions.
I took some papers from my december daily stash and stuck them on. Trimmed the edges and added a label on the front. When the glue is totally dry I will add a layer of clear adhiesive plastic.
I'll use the little cutie to help me record my december stories for my december daily album.

And with that cute little notebook I finished all the holiday extravaganza challenges! 

I really enjoyed all the challenges and getting to do so much crafting.
Did you take part in the holiday extravaganza?