I've moved!!

My blog has relocated and I love my new home! I'd love to see you over at my new place:
Clearingthebrambles.wordpress.com
Pop on over and say hi!

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Welcome Back Shimelle

I first discovered Scrapbooking when I discovered a little Christmas mini-book workshop called Journal Your Christmas in (I think) 2008. I joined in in a small way that December and then in the new year I followed the Scrapbooker who lead the course and discovered things like Two Peas in a Bucket (sadly missed) and a plethora of other scrapbookers out there.

My style has evolved since then, and continues to do so as I seek a memory keeping style that is authentic to who I am and now my creative mind works. Throughout to evolution I have always happily followed the work of this original source of inspiration. She has been on maternity leave for a few months but is back to work now and her pages are as inspiring as ever!

Head on over to her site by clicking here to check out her new (and old) pages. Welcome back Shimelle!

 

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A test blog post from Blogsy

I was recommended an app called Blogsy today and after a bit of research I've bought it! This is just a quick test post. It's looking good so far and is meant to be easy to post photos to. Let's try.... from my camera roll:

That was amazingly easy and you can easily reduce the size!

It is meant to work with Instagram too:

 

Not bad!

It's a little tricky to get used to where you are dropping the photos as you drag and drop them with your finger. If this posts ok online and looks ok then I'll be really really happy!

Posting so fingers crossed....

 

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Whiskers on Kittens

Saffy is 12 this year... I'm not too sure how that is possible!!! Lately she has started to look a little older too. She doesn't eat very much and is getting a little thin. She sleeps a lot. She purrs A LOT! She's a happy kitty, but an aging kitty.  I want to get her into my scrapbook more this year and celebrate her lovely energy.  Here's a page I just made and uploaded to the Studio Calico gallery.

Thanks for looking!

Bloglovin'

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I've made the decision to switch to an Apple computer and I am soooooo excited about it!!! I'm hoping that the ease of it will inspire me to re-connect with this blog so I've signed on to Bloglovin' as some accountability.

Hello December

December 1st means one thing to me as a memory-keeper - the start of December Daily/ Journal Your Christmas.  I have been journalling the stories of my December since 2010 when I first discovered Shimelle's wonderful Journal Your Christmas project and class.  If you have never heard of this and you are a Scrapbooker, I can really recommend it.  It is really reasonably priced and you can keep doing the project year after year with fresh prompts each December.  I discovered Ali Edward's December Daily project a few years later and since then I have combined the two approaches to document my December.  Ali focuses on one story per day and Shimelle uses prompts to inspire you to write about traditional Christmas things and Christmas memories.  I am going to heavily lean towards the one story per day approach this year BUT it wouldn't be December if I didn't look at the JYC prompts at all ... plus this year Shimelle is releasing a short video each day focussing on one 3x4 card...and I LOVE her videos!
As December starts I am aiming to create a day behind ie. to live the day and all it's stories and then to create in my album to remember one of those.
The stories of today include:

• A day spent at Birmingham Library for the Library Toolkit training course.  The library is new and beautiful! Described as a marmite library as you either love it or hate it! I loved it and want to go again to have a proposer look around.
• Spending time with Natalie travelling to and from the course - and also shopping in Birmingham together afterwards.  I have so few friends who live locally to me it was so nice to spend some social time with a kindred spirit!
• Twinkle lights ... I just love them! They are the best part of December for me!

Are you documenting your December? What methods will you be using to capture the stories and images if you are?

Family time

Today I have counted my blessings that I am part of the wonderful family of my Beloved.  When he and I had what we affectionately refer to as 'The Blip' in December, I thought I had lost all links to this extended family.

The forgiveness of my Dear One, and theirs, has been a gift I never thought I would receive.  In turn it lead to wonderful family afternoons like today...