Endings, Beginnings and a Giveaway!

Hi everyone :)

Let’s start with the ENDING… the completion of my December Daily album!  I’ve been trying to work out how I wanted to bind it together.  I’d originally thought that using rings would work but they just seemed too big… SO I bought some more tartan ribbon and created my own criss cross binding.  It’s probably been done many times before but this is my first time using it and I really like it.

I tied a couple of bells left over from my Santa Banner project onto the ends of the ribbon and now the book ‘tinkles’ when you pick it up… love that!

Here’s what it looks like from the front:

And here’s a top view with all the pages… see what I mean about how FAT this December Daily got!

The neat thing is that when you open the pages you can see lovely tartan ribbon… I’m liking that too!

I updated the calendar in the front of the album so that every date has it’s own topic… perfect for when I want to find a specific thing:

On the back of the 31st I had a blank page which wasn’t really what I wanted so I added a ‘Best Bits’ page… love how that turned out!

So that’s it… it’s finished… completed… done…and I’m DEFINITELY going to do this project again in 2012!

Now, onto a BEGINNING!

Some of you already know that I planned on doing the Project Life project… and I’m super happy today because the courier arrived with my page protectors and journaling cards.  I have to say that they’re REALLY good quality and super easy to slide everything into!

I decided that I was going to do a double page spread for each week to give me lots of room which of course meant that I’d need some sort of title page.  I’ve been playing around with lots of bits and pieces that I wanted to include but it’s done now!  Here’s a look at my cover page:

I’m loving the style of this project and how you can make it be anything you want.  I’ve decided that since I’m learning to use more digital elements I’d do this project in a hybrid style… that way I can still include all the lovely things I enjoy like Tim Holtz embellishments, patterned papers, inking, stitching, embossing etc

Here’s a close up of part of the page… I made the ‘Life Love Joy’ insert using cardstock and Tim Holtz die cut letters and then I added a muse token… so pleased with how it turned out.  PLUS I’ve been using my Tim Holtz tiny attacher HEAPS!!!  For those that know me you’ll know that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY don’t like staples… but the tiny attacher is super cute… and I love using it!  They just don’t SEEM like staples to me LOL

I really like the red/black/white/kraft combo so I’ll probably use it lots through this project!

And now for the GIVEAWAY!

When I was planning this blog post I did a quick count up of how many posts I’ve done since I started this blog… and that’s when I realised that this is the 200th post!!! 

So in honour of that I’m giving away either this:

Or this:

Or this:

That’s right… you get to choose!  PLUS I’ll make you your own ‘Life Love Joy’ card in a colour scheme of your choice!  If you’re doing the Project Life project it will slip right into one of the pockets :)

So how do you go about winning???  Just leave me a comment on THIS POST before 4pm on Sunday 8th January (NZ Time).  I’ll post the winner on Sunday night along with my Project Life Week 1 pages… so make sure you come back on Sunday to see if YOU won the giveaway!

Happy scrapping everyone xx