Days 5-9

Sorry for the delay! It's a busy time of year! So to catch up, on Day 5 I opened Kathleen's giftie:

 

 A beautiful little necklace - on a Scrabble tile! I love dragonflies so this is perfect!

Thank you Kathleen!

Day 6 is from Jane H:

Coasters! I love them!

Thank you Jane!

Day 7  is from Beth A:

Another tile necklace -this one has my initial! Love it!

and she used the "L" tile!

Thank you Beth!

Day 8  two for Day 8, from Linda H and Sue B!

Linda's giftie:

This cute little bag! It is a very interesting triangular shape - very cool!

I just may have to keep my change in it - perfect!

Thank you Linda!

and Sue's giftie:

an angel magnet with my initial! Awesome!! I love it!

Thank you Sue!

and today's - Day 9 - also had two gifties, from Suzanne C and Joanne R:

Suzanne's first:

a beautiful metal ornament!

Looks gorgeous on the tree!

Thank you Suzanne!

and today's last giftie is from Joanne:

Beautifully presented necklace!

the front. . .

and the back! Love it!!!!

Thank you Joanne!

Day 4

Here it is Day 4 already! Two to open today!


First from Wanda H:

 I love the bird stamp!

 

 Isn't this gorgeous? It's made from Grungepaper 

and feels like thin leather!

 Inside are these beautiful cards

 -double sided no less!

Thanks Wanda!

And the second giftie is from Daphne D:

This is so-o-o-o beautiful and soft! A cell phone/i-pod holder!

Perfect!

Thank you Daphne!

Day 3

Day 3 already for the ByHand Yahoo group swap! Today's giftie was from Wendy K:

 

A beautiful quilted beverage holder!!

This is absolutely gorgeous and will be great to hold those Starbucks cups of Cafe Americano!!

Thanks Wendy!

Day2!

Again, we get 2 gifties today!  Here is the first one from Jane S:

Inside. . .

A lovely paper bag book that I can fill up with something fun! This will be fun to play with, thanks you Jane!

and

A giftie from Carmen G

A shaker Snowman Ornament! So cute!!

Mr. Snowman is very happy on my tree!
Thank you Carmen!!

Day 1!

Today is day 1 of the 12 Days of Christmas Swap at the Byhand Yahoo group! What was really fun is that several of the gifties were doubled up this year so more people could play - more goodies for us all! So we got 2 gifts today! I forgot to take photos of the gifts before unwrapping, I will do that tomorrow - too late now!

Here is the basket, filled to the brim!

The first giftie I opened was from Ruth C

This is so beautiful! I love it, and know just where it's going to go!

Thanks Ruth!

The next one was from Judy L

Wow! A felted tree with a star - gorgeous!

Thanks Judy! 

What a great way to start the 12 Days if Christmas!!

It's Back!!

The Byhand Yahoo group is having it's annual 12 Days of Christmas Swap, and of course, I'm taking part again! Just sent my last 8 parcels out today, and 1 to my DD - it's a surprise for her - she doesn't even know it's coming!

Our tree this year, we pulled up our dingy gray shag carpet and found beautiful wood floors beneath! Makes SUCH a difference. Look to the right of the tree and you see. . .

This is the basket of Byhand gifties that have arrived so far. . .

and these went out today. I sent the first nine 2 weeks ago to the States.You'll have to wait until day 11 to see what I made!

I am ALMOST finished with my current journal, will post in a day or so as soon as it's done. Will start my NEW journal tonight, as I just finished reading The Shipping News and I need to do my page. Started reading The Nanny Diaries - I need something light hearted and fun after The Shipping news! So I will be back in a few days!

More Journal Pages

Here are some more journal pages, starting the 1st of November. I did watch Teesha's videos, so there is some Teesha Moore influence - and I like it! I do seem to be making the collage pages faster than I can journal, they are so relaxing at the end of the day! I have two pages ready to journal right now, and I'm only half-way through journaling the page I'm on now. The solution is to use more quotes in my journaling to take up a lot of space at one time. That should work! Better than not doing the collages until I catch up! Anyway, here they are:

I printed out all of Nancy's Crowabout pages so I would have lots to play with,

so most if not all of these images are from those collage pages. The bird is a stamp. The

bottom edge of leaves is something I made using photos of the leaves in our front yard.

I was visiting my DD, and the girl's body reminded me of her, so I used it.

When I showed this page to her, she was actually wearing those pants,

and had worn those exact shoes that day! These images are from Nancy's sheets,

except the girl's face and the stamped edges and swirls.

One of my fav pages, and DD's as well! She loved the Mucha girl. Again, most images are from Nancy except for the Mucha Girl and the stamped leaves.

I finished the book "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory. I generally like this page, except for the Martha Stewart letters. Don't waste your money, luckily these were on sale, but I could have done the lettering better by hand. They were horrible! The images are of the real people, Anne, Mary, Henry and Katherine, and the letter is a real letter from Henry to Anne (totally unreadable though!)!

I loved the book, and will probably read more of the series!

My "fun" reading! My DD got me hooked on the Sookie Stackhouse books

(from True Blood) and this one is the 3rd one. Quick reading, and fun. I'm now reading

the 4th one, so a new page is imminent! I thought I would just use the cover art since

I liked it so much, and collaged around it. Most of the collaged edges are from Nancy,

except for Elvis I think. Don't read the page if you want to read the book!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Tomorrow is Hallowe'en and I'm so glad the next day is Sunday! "They" should declare that Hallowe'en ALWAYS fall on Saturday!
(Can you tell I'm a teacher?)

Some more journal pages for you! Unfortunately that's all I've done lately except for some Christmas tags for a swap, and of course I had to rush them to the mailbox without scanning them first. Oh well!

here are my pages

 

This was the book I read for my online book club.

I thought I would put my books in my regular journal from now on

rather than a separate one. We'll see how it works!

This was not my favourite book. I give it 3 stars.

Have a fun Hallowe'en!

More Journal pages

It seems that all I am doing lately (all I really have time for) is journal pages. That's not a really bad thing, but I hope to get back into other projects! I am doing a lot of material making for school that takes up a lot of my extra time, so when that is done, I should have lots more time! In the meantime, here are my journal pages:

I love the tattoos I put on the back of this lady! My DD is getting a tattoo on her back in January, I seem to be a bit obsessed with tattoos these days. I don't think I would ever get one though.

I love this page! Again, a "tattoo" on the girl's arm. I love the flying pig!

 

Another favorite page, I love the birds! Also I discovered Crowabout Collage Group

and used some of Nancy's images on this page.

Some more Crowabout images, I like the legs on this page!

And an image I cut out from an old ATC of mine. The Asian girl on the right is a tattoo image.

played with Zentangles on an empty spot. Not my forte!

It's October, i thought it would be fun to use Halloween images on my October pages!

The ghosty looking one on the upper left is a transparency. The "death" image is another tattoo image.

I really like this page, because I love the sexy image of the Spanish dancer!

Some Crowabout images on this page too.

I thought I would try a spooky black page. I couldn't get anything to write on the black, so I tried covering the black with white watercolor crayon. That was even worse and my Pitt pen refused to write at all. So I covered it with white acrylic paint (paint dauber) and my black gel pen worked on that. But I need a new Pitt pen! I don't know what is was about the white that destroyed the pen. I did manage to use white gel pen to make some highlights until it refused to work anymore as well. the dog and cats are from Crowabout.