Planner Friday - November

It's Planner Friday again over on the Trendy Twine blog and I am sharing my Christmas plans with you, please pop over and say hi!

I can't hold it in any longer, I'm so excited!  December is only a day away and then we can all get into the festive mood!  With this in mind I have been using my APB stamps to plan my perfect Christmas.  I want to get the lights, decorations and Christmas tree up as soon as possible and spend my weekends watching holiday movies with my children.  Though there is all that pesky shopping, wrapping and card writing to get through as well so I definitely need my planner to help me!

As usual I started my spread by adding some strips of washi tape along the top and bottom of my pages and then chose some coordinating Christmas Trendy Page Dots to reinforce the holes and add an extra splash of colour.

An extra splash of colour with the Trendy Page Dots

These pages are my monthly overview so I'm only adding the most important reminders and events to them, I will be recording everything else like housework and my regular to do lists (or the boring bits!) in my weekly pages so this is really just to give me an idea of how my month is shaping up so far. I also wanted it to look fun and festive so I'd feel a little tingle of Xmas excitement whenever I check my planner!

Cheers!

Products used: Check It Off planner stamps

Drinks & More planner stamps

Foodies planner stamps

School Days planner stamps

Perfect Pairs planner stamps

We Go Together planner stamps

Love Letter planner clip

Christmas products: This Is December Christmas stamp set

This Is December 2 Christmas stamp set

Let It Snow Christmas stamp set

Merry & Bright Christmas stamp set

Trendy Page Dot reinforcements

I've recently moved into an A5 sized organiser so I had plenty of room to add some fun decoration to my pages using stamps from the Foodies, Drinks & More and Perfect Pairs sets, after all it's the season of cocoa and cookies with the odd glass of fizz thrown in as well!

You can read the rest of my post here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Artline Monday - Mason Jar Christmas gift

Did you know that the 30th November is Mason Jar Day?  Well, I do love a little mason jar craft and as we're getting nearer to Christmas I thought I would share with you one of my favourite quick and easy gift ideas.

Supplies for my mason jar craft

You will need a mason jar (or a similar style jar), Artline poster and Supreme markers, hot chocolate powder, mini marshmallows, some sprinkles or chocolate buttons and a ribbon and gift tag. 

Before we begin you need to wash out your jar with some soapy water as we will be filling it with food and then leave it to dry completely.  When that is done you can start to decorate the outside of your jar.  I wanted to do a pretty snowflake pattern on mine so I started to draw this with my white poster marker.

Adding a snowflake pattern around the jar

When I was happy with how the design looked I added a few highlights with the Supreme metallic markers in blue, gold and silver.  They are quite hard to see when the jar is empty but they standout more once it is full.

Layers in the jar

I filled the jar in layers, the hot chocolate powder goes in first and should be about half of the contents.  Then you add mini marshmallows, the more the better and finally top the rest up with either chocolate buttons or sprinkles.

Decorating the tag

I carried on with the snowflake theme on my gift tag, drawing a large flake on the front and added some silver sparkle with the Supreme marker.

Writing my message

Then I wrote my message on the other side.  I used a white calligraphy pen because I love how white ink looks against kraft coloured paper and card and it matched the design I had drawn on the front of the tag.  You could also you the tag to write down the instructions for making the hot chocolate, 3 heaped teaspoons of powder mixed with hot water (or however many spoons the jar it came from says) and then generously top with marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles or buttons.

Finished with a bow

The last step was to thread the tag onto my ribbon and tie it around the top of the jar with a big bow.  

This really is a fun and easy gift to make, it is perfect for children to make for their friends or great for the chocoholic in your life!  As all of the ingredients are in an air tight jar they should last quite a long time, but if the recipient is anything like me this will be long gone by the start of the new year!

Please let me know if you have a go at making your own, I'd love to see it!

Artline Monday - Christmas planning countdown

Eeeeek there's only five weeks left until Christmas!  Have you started getting ready for the holidays yet?  If not don't worry, I can to help you with my handy Christmas countdown.

My Christmas countdown created with Artline pens

This is my Christmas bullet journal, I set it up last year and I use it for planning, lists and memory keeping.  You can find my previous post about it here if you would like to see how I use it for recording our holiday memories.  

This year I have planned out my timetable for getting everything ready using my Artline Stix pens and fineliners.  It starts today and has a checklist of things I need to do each week in the run up to Christmas. 

My checklist for weeks four and five

You might have already completed some of these steps or you might find it easier to do them in a different order so if you make your own list think about how to make it work for you.  I like to do as much as I can early so it is out of the way and then I can get on with enjoying the season so I might complete some of these steps before they are due but I have added them to the week I want to get them done by at the latest giving me some wriggle room.

Week five

This week I want to think about gift ideas (for the people I haven't already brought for), making sure I have all the postal addresses I need for cards and presents, checking when I need to order my Christmas turkey by and the date I can prebook my online food shop delivery and finally buy Christmas cards so I can get ready to start writing them.

Week four

I'm going to put my tree up and look for the best prices for the presents I want to buy.  I will get everything I need to wrap the gifts including paper, ribbon, sticky tape, bows and tags and I'll also work out how many stamps I need for my cards and buy those too.

Three weeks and counting

Week three

By this week I want to finish buying the presents and get them all wrapped and posted for the people I won't be seeing before Christmas. I will also get my cards into the post so they arrive in plenty of time for the holidays.  The last couple of things I want to do is start buying (and hiding!) the Christmas snacks and treats and look around for the best deals on the drinks we like too.

Week two

This week is the perfect time to visit friends and family as it is close to the holidays but not when everyone is crazy busy getting ready for the big day.  It is also when I will finalise my Christmas Dinner menu and before I buy half of the supermarket I want to make some extra room in the fridge and freezer.  At some point this week I'll want to do the BIG Christmas food shop so I will have everything we need apart from the fresh items that I will buy the following week.  There's one more thing to do, sort out some entertainment for while we are all home like DVDs and board games we can play together.

Week one 

Okay, for the last week before Christmas I just have a few things left to do.  They are do any food prep I can get out of the way early, collect my turkey and buy any fresh ingredients that I couldn't get before.  The finale thing I have on my checklist is to relax and enjoy the holiday, which I have to say is my favourite step!

I hope this helps you with your Christmas planning!

Recipe Diary 2019

Are you looking for a new planner for 2019?  Do you love to cook, consider yourself a foodie or know someone who is?  Well then let me tell you about the Recipe Diary!

The Recipe Diary*

As you can guess the diary contains lots of yummy recipes for you to try over the year and it is available in a range of beautiful covers so you can pick the one that suits you best.  There's even a special Mum's edition which has extra space for your kids timetable and activities, it makes me feel like a domestic goddess just thinking about it!

The full range of Recipe Diaries for 2019*

When Emma from the Recipe Diary contacted me she said I could select which diary I would like to review but it was a really hard choice!  I was torn between the aqua and gold Foliage one and the Pineapples.  In the end I went with Foliage and it really is stunning. 

Foliage

Okay, now let's look inside the diary!  The leaf print is continued and there's a storage pocket containing a sheet of stickers with lots of different icons for birthdays, appointments, anniversaries and more.

Pocket and stickers

There is a cover page for your details so if you loose or misplace your planner it can be returned to you.  Next is a yearly overview for 2019 and then some pages for your important phone numbers and information under the headings Personal, Health, Home and Travel.  There are sections for your contacts, useful websites, calendar dates (bank holidays, religious dates, when the clocks go forwards and back etc) and then there are two pages with the calendars for 2018, 2019 and 2020 which are great for forward planning and looking back. 

Cover page for your details

There really is so much packed inside this planner, from pages for you thoughts and plans, space to list the books you would like to read, TV shows and films to watch, places to visit and events to attend right through to pages for you to record birthday, anniversary and Christmas gifts so you won't buy the same person the same gift twice!  

Now on to the foodie bits!  There is space for you to note down your favourite meals and recipes, cook's hints and tips (meat cuts, storage times etc), recipes for quick dips, dressings, sauces and desserts, weight conversions and measurements, cooking times and metric conversions.

Week on two page layout

The next section is the main part of the diary.  The seven days of the week have equal space (which is my preference) and then there is a tasty recipe complete with a photograph to tickle your fancy and inspire you to get cooking!

Each day has enough room for your to do lists, reminders and appointments and the paper is nice and smooth giving it a luxurious feel.  The diary is A5 size so large enough for your plans but still lightweight and portable if you wanted to pop it in your bag.

Recipes to make your mouth water

The wirobinding is cleverly hidden from the outside of the diary and it makes the pages lay completely flat wherever you open the book.  This is great for when you are writing in it or if you are following a recipe in your kitchen.  Speaking of recipes, doesn't this Coffee Sponge with Ginger Cream look simply divine?  I think I am definitely going to have a go at making it!

The last few pages of the diary are for notes and thinking about the future with space for your thoughts and plans for the new year and a two page overview of 2020.  Finally there is a recipe index so you can quickly find which pages have ideas for breakfasts, main courses, cakes, drinks or desserts etc.  There is also a coordinating ribbon bookmark so you easily mark your place in the planner.

I have really enjoyed reading all the recipes in the diary, there's quite a few I would like to try and better still I think I can manage as they're not too complicated!  There's a bit of a running joke in our family about how I'm not the greatest cook and my youngest daughter always tells people she prefers her school dinners to my food but maybe, just maybe next year I can change her mind if I give these new ideas a go!

If you would like to buy a copy of the Recipe Diary it costs £9.99 and you can find them here.  If you would like to win a copy for yourself or as a gift for someone else make sure you are following me on Instagram and the Recipe Diary to so you don't miss our giveaway!

Thanks for stopping by!

* Disclaimer - Images marked with * are taken from the Recipe Diary website.  I was given this product to review free of charge and as always all opinions are honest and my own.

Artline Monday - World Kindness Day 2018

Tomorrow is World Kindness Day, one of my favourite days of the year!  The idea behind it is to make the world a brighter and happier place by committing small acts of kindness and spreading a little joy.  These acts can be random (also known as a RAK) or they can be for someone you know, how you choose to celebrate the day is up to you. 

I thought it would be nice to make some little cards with kindness quotes on them that I could hide for people to find, either in my children's school bags or somewhere out in the "wild" for strangers to discover.

Linen card and my Artline pens

I started with some lovely linen card and ripped it into smaller sized pieces using a ruler so I got a nice raw edge. I wanted to end up with something similar to the size of a business card or postcard or something in between the two.

Different sizes of card

Then I got out my Artline fineliners, bush pens and Supreme metallic markers and started writing the quotes. I mixed up the types of lettering and colours I used to make them look a little more fun and interesting and added some stickers and stamps for decoration.

Writing a quote

On the back of the cards I wrote World Kindness Day and the date 13th November 2018 so people would know what they were for and then they could search online for more details about the day and maybe commit their own acts of kindness too.

My little set of cards

I am going to put one in each of my daughter's bags tomorrow before school and I thought I'd hide the rest around my local community centre so they can be found and hopefully spread the message about World Kindness Day!

Will you be joining in with your own acts of kindness tomorrow?

Artline Monday - Poppy rocks

Last November I painted a couple of rocks with poppies on them for Remembrance Sunday so this year I thought it would be nice to make a whole batch of them to hide for people to find.

I started off by giving each rock a base coat of white paint using an Artline poster marker so my designs would stand out and look more vibrant than if I had been drawing on top of the natural grey stone colour.

Rocks with their base coat

Once the white coat was dry I started to draw and paint on the rocks using more poster markers and a selection of Artline 853 OHP markers.  I also used a purple Supreme highlighter on one of my rocks and a red calligraphy pen on a couple too.

Drawing a poppy

On the smaller stones I kept the designs simple, drawing one poppy on each with the OHP pens.

Small poppy rock & the pens used to make it

Two more small rocks & the pens used

My husband suggested I make one of the poppies purple to remember all the animals who were killed during war so I coloured one of the flowers in with the purple Supreme highlighter.  I wrote on it "Remembering the animals of war" so people would know what it was for if they found it and weren't familiar with the purple poppy's meaning.

Purple poppy & the pens used

On the larger rocks I had more room to play with so I could get creative!

Painting a poppy

I started this one by painting a poppy...

With the silhouette

... and then drew a silhouette of a solider and dog so that the solider's head would make up the centre of the poppy.

Adding the dates

The last thing I did was to write the word "Remember" and the dates.

Finished design & the pens used

On the next rock I used the red poster marker to make a series of splodges and then...

Red splodges for poppies

... drew in the stems, leaves, flower buds and centres using the Artline 853 OHP markers.

With stems, leaves, buds and centres

For my Valentines day rocks I used a calligraphy pen to write on the stones so I thought I'd give that another go on a couple of the poppy rocks.

Calligraphy pen rock - Remember them

I also drew two poppies on the first stone and a boarder of poppies on the second one.

Another calligraphy pen rock - Lest we forget...

I painted a couple of drooping poppies on this rock, again using the red poster marker and then used the OHP pens for the stems and middle of one of the flowers.

Drooping poppies & quote rock

I saw this design on Pinterest and wanted to give it a go.  It is a battlefield cross for a fallen solider which is made up of a pair of boots, a gun and helmet.

Battlefield cross & poppies

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae is a poem that really stuck with me when I learnt about it in school so I wrote the first stanza on one of my rocks.  It isn't as neat as I would have liked it to be but sometimes writing on a stone surface is a little difficult with the bumps and holes. 

In Flanders fields poem

My eldest daughter was watching me paint these rocks and she wanted to make one too so she selected a stone and drew her own design.  I love her poppy in the middle!

My daughter's poppy rock

Once all of the rocks were finished I used a black OHP marker to write my #ArtlineRocks message on the back of them.  It tells the person who finds it that they can either keep or rehind the stone and asks them to share a photo of it online with the Artline rocks hashtag.

The messages on the back of each rock

Here is our finished collection of rocks!  A couple of them will be travelling somewhere up north and a few will be heading down south too, the rest will be hidden around Birmingham over the next few days...

The finished set

... in fact we're already started hiding some!

Starting to hide the rocks

I hope these rocks are all found at least once before Sunday and I would love to see them popping up online too so I can see where they end up!

If you want to read more of my rock painting posts you can find them here.

Thanks for stopping by!