Happy New Year!

I know it’s a bit late considering we’re almost half way through January but… Happy New Year!

Mikayla and I spent New Years with my Dad up in Whangarei and we had a really great time catching up with friends and family.  It also gave us to attend the Waipu Highland Games which we haven’t done for 10 years.

Once we got back home I got busy with the Scrapbook Dreams January Kit…. and it really inspired some creativity!  Out of just one kit I created a double layout and four single layouts :)

First of all I started with a double layout all about New Years Day at the Waipu Games.  I’d taken lots of photos and didn’t want to miss any of the highlights of the main ceremony so a double layout was the only way to capture it all!

The Basic Grey ‘Tartan Plaid’ was perfect for this layout… and using it across a double layout meant that I could use LOTS of photos!

The second layout features Mikayla and my Dad.  While we were at the games lots of people came up to Dad and wished him a Happy New Year… and of course quite a few of them remembered me from when I was a little girl.  At one point my Dad was talking to one of his friends and said “and this is my little granddaughter Mikayla'”… at which point Mikayla stood up (she’s now 5’ 6”) and said “and this is my little grandad”… I was sure she was going to get in trouble for that one but Dad just laughed!  So here’s my layout dedicated to them:

Since a lot of the paper in this kit comes from the Basic Grey ‘Jovial’ collection I thought I’d better actually do something to do with Christmas.  We celebrated Christmas early this year since both my sisters were going to be with their in-laws and Mum got the obligatory family photo! I love all the little squares of colour on this one :)

Layout #3 is doing double duty this month!  As well as being made from papers in the kit, it’s also my take on the Scrapbook Dreams January Challenge.

On Boxing Day I got busy pulling out our ‘vege’ garden… it was completely over grown and looking terrible!  Once it was all back to being bare I put down polythene matting and covered it in bark (a LOT of bark actually!) and then I planted up some pots and sat them on top.  It’s practically maintenance free and I’m loving it!

For my final layout I had some gorgeous photos of my little niece Sammy… she’s already 6 months old!  She went camping with her family and when bath time came she got put into a bucket :)  There were some really fantastic facial expressions in the photos!

So that’s my efforts with the January kit… I love how different each layout has turned out… and I love the creative start to 2011!

I hope you are all having an equally good start to the New Year.  Shell xx