December Daily 2012 Progress

I have to admit that my plan to just use my Instax camera has not been that successful as I am so used to just grabbing my phone for that quick shot. I have taken a variety of Instax photos but I have taken a lot more on my phone and even on my point and shoot. After a major shopping expedition yesterday, we have ink for the printer so I am hoping to get some photos printed and to experiment on printing on vellum tonight and will get caught up on my pages.

I have completed my first two days. What you may notice is that I have added some extra pages in. I called into my new LSS and they had a buy 5 Christmas items and get 50% off promotion on. I picked up Crate Paper's Peppermint 6 x 6 pad and a variety of Christmas embellishments. Who could resist at half price?! I have also just sent off an order to Greatest View after being successfully enabled by Rosalie on Instagram. Lots of lovely flair at her the Greatest View Etsy shop and her international shipping rates are very low.

Day One - the construction of our tree and the dancing with happiness daughter

Decorating the tree - well the bottom half mainly

Finally got to use up some of these larger sequins!

I am pretty happy with things so far - I just wish I was a little further along. I will be playing catch up next week while Scarlett is at school.

I took Scarlett shopping for her Daddy's Christmas present today. I picked up a few clothes for her at H & M yesterday and she decided to wear the new dress today. The accessories are all her own choice! Scarlett definitely has her own sense of style. Now if I can just get her to stop showing off her Tinkerbell knickers now she is toilet trained we will be in business!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Memories and the Beginning of Christmas

For once in my life I have actually got a little organised and prepared some page blanks to use for my December Daily. I was so thrilled to have a quiet child free morning and I managed to complete eight pages thinking about the sorts of things we are most likely to do. I am a little reluctant to go to much further ahead as I don't want to be forced to do my activities on set days so things fit in my album.

Here are the eight page bases.

I decided it needed a little introduction and I loved the word stickers from Cosmo Cricket's Tiny Type Christmas set.

 

I loved the mixture of paper and veneer Christmas trees. I still have not gotten over my love of those veneer stars. They need to make them forever!

I had to use some of my washi collection. The layering  is far from perfect but I love all the Christmas motifs and colours on this page.

I know that I am going to be in the line at the Post Office on Friday sending all our parcels back to NZ so I decided to use this label so I could record it. Yes, I will be taking my instax there!

When I first saw this paper I really did wonder how on earth I could I could use it in Singapore. Then I remembered there is a Snow City which has an indoor snow and skiing set up or we could visit the indoor ice skating rink at the Marina Bay Sands. Either way, we will be doing something cold weather that will help my daughter grasp what a northern hemisphere Christmas is all about.

I have mainly used my Simple Scrapper kit with some additional Studio Calico, October Afternoon and other odds and ends from my stash.

I am so super excited to be starting now. I am starting to realise that I am not going to be able to incorporate my Journal Your Christmas in this book but I am excited to blog about it and perhaps create a photo book or even some 12 x 12 pages to record these memories.

Is everyone else feeling excited about this season? What are you doing to record your Holiday season?

Garden City

We really enjoy living in Singapore and now that there is some uncertainty about how much longer we will be here we are trying to make the most of our time here.

One of the things we love is how green it is here. Even though the island is really tiny, huge amounts of space are given over to plants and trees and the city feels exceptionally verdant. We spend a lot of time exploring parks and playgrounds trying to burn off lots of toddler energy. 

By this time of year there is far less outdoor activity as the monsoon has arrived. Some days we barely see any rain but others it buckets down for most of the day. On these sort of days we resort to indoor playgrounds and such in the malls. Scarlett also has weekly gym and ballet classes to keep her active whatever the weather.

One of our favourite malls is on the other end of the island near the airport. Whenever we visit Changi City Point we wonder why we don't go more often. There is a great water play area, an indoor playground and a wonderful amphitheatre which is the subject of today's layout.

The amphitheatre is decorated like a field of sunflowers and Scarlett loves running up and down the stairs and generally burning off steam. The clouds painted above the sunflowers are lovely too.  This is another Roller Rink special with a lot of Amy Tangerine papers and some Echo Park borders and letters. 

We have a sick wee girl here today... another school day missed. Her parent conference went really well last night. Her teachers are really pleased with her and are going to arrange some testing for her as they believe she may need some more structured extension in her learning. It sounds like she is pretty well behaved at school too which was a relief!

I am planning a night of prepping my December Daily album tonight. My kit from Simple Scrappers arrived today and it is lovely. I have some beautiful bits and pieces from Studio Calico's Wonderland and Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride to jazz it up a bit. I have also signed up for Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas for the  first time. I am starting to get really excited about it all!

Have a great rest of your week!

The countdown is well and truly on

It is only four more sleeps until Scarlett and I head back home to New Zealand for the first time in 18 months. I have only just realised how many things I have to get done between now and Saturday afternoon. It is a little bit daunting to be honest.

We made a real effort to do some fun things as a family over the weekend. Saturday's visit to Little India was a great success and one of the malls along the road had a great outdoor playground. Scarlett had a wonderful time scaling the climbing wall and wooshing down the slide. On Sunday we split up - Tet and Scarlett did the grocery shopping while I had a pedicure. I think I got the better deal! In the afternoon we headed down to one of the local malls as they had a live Sesame Street performance. Scarlett loves Ernie with a passion and she really enjoyed watching the characters dancing on stage. We had hoped to have a trip on the Singapore Flyer which has all been decorated for Christmas but sadly Scarlett had reached the end of her tether and we headed home.

I have got a bit behind with completing pages of my December Daily and I have realised they do not photograph well at all. This is in no small part due to my using silver pen! I have plenty of ideas for each day but no photos printed! I am off to the mall this afternoon to get some photo paper and we will attempt to print some photos on our Pixma at home. I will let you know how that goes.

I have finally taken a photograph of the layout I completed last week. I am really happy with how it turned out. I used an idea from Shimelle's PPP again - combining spots and stripes although I think it is clear which way my heart lies. 

I am hoping to complete three days of entries in my DD today and to make my Dad's printer's tray from Elle's Studio. The sad thing is my photos are all landscape and it is designed for more portrait so most of the cute notes and labels will not fit! Hopefully I will work out a way to make something good.

And still it rains

I know it is the monsoon in Singapore at present. I love the cooler temperatures - 28 as opposed to 34 is a very pleasant improvement. I do not even mind the rain but please let the all day rain stop!

I know I should not grumble. Today was lovely until about three. Currently the lightning and thunder are arriving at the same time and it is happening out both sides of the apartment. I do believe we are in the middle of a storm! Foolishly I left taking photos of my DD and my most recent layout until after we got home from Christmas shopping. The light is nowhere near good enough so I guess I am going to try again tomorrow.

Last night we hit Orchard Road to make some inroads into our Christmas shopping. We managed to buy Scarlett a couple more presents and her best buddies in the whole world had their presents sorted too. We oohed and ahhed at all the lights and monster Christmas trees and had a delicious dinner. We totally wore Scarlett out and she was carried home sleeping in Tet's arms for the first time in a long time.

After gym today we headed to Little India as my sister has specifically asked for some Indian bangles for Christmas. We found those after a lot of hot walking! Good when someone is really specific about what they would like though. We also bought Scarlett's Christmas day dress. I just love it!

Scarlett has slept on both car journeys to and from Little India so Tet is sitting in the car with her till she wakes up. He is playing Angry Birds so they are both happy. Our daughter has never transferred well from the car so we always are prepared with Ipad or magazines for these inevitable breaks. It has given me a chance to blog and to complete Day 2 of my DD. I am very grateful!

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful weekend. My last full one in Singapore before we head home to NZ. I am getting really excited!