Have started preparing my scrapbook journal to document the forthcoming festive month which will be my fifth year joining in the Shimelle Course.

I am using a fabric album that I received as a gift a couple of Christmases ago (which I thought rather appropriate) but it come with only 8 white chipboard pages. I have added to this additional pages made from a combination of items, some of which I have had for a little while and I am overjoyed to have been able to finally put them to use. This included flocked Making Memories paper in a green holly finish and a red poinsetter pattern which I have had since I lived in my old house (and we have lived here over five years now!). Other additional pages were made using Basic Grey Basic Kraft 6x6 papers, made larger using strips of 7G Gaffer tape (also had for ages and this project finished 2 rolls) and corrugated card. So I now have a fabric album (cover to be decorated) filled with an adequate number of blank pages. I have some festive papers to use in my journal, gasoline envelopes, some kraft tags and a few other bits and bobs.

I have also made a start on my date tags which I tend to always prepare in advance and Shimelle shared a fab blog post and video on the very subject last week. Here is an image of my raw materials which include 2" scallop circles (from Basic Grey Kraft papers), punched holly leaf from green, cork star (punched from Karen Foster cork paper), a gem, a date strip (stamped), a small length of ribbon and a striped piece of paper.

And here are my step by step images to show how I pulled together these bits and pieces into my JYC2011 date tags.

I'm quite pleased with them (well these two anyway - I still have the rest to make!). I may change the orientation of the striped paper strip to align left or maybe vertically, I will see how I go.
Other news before I sign off, another 2lb loss this week on the ole diet, taking me to lowest I have weighed in five years and just past the half way point of my weightloss journey. Happy dance!!