this year under the tree

After a full week away on a business trip, I have had a truly busy weekend to catch up with everything that needs to be done for Christmas - like presents to make, buy, and wrap, and  decorations to finish, I haven't had a single minute to sit down in front of the computer. It has actually been a full week since I even opened it last. I can't even remember when that happened before this week.

Because of this, I haven't shared my latest new product, or our Christmas card, that I actually made last week, but haven't gotten round to printing yet (no, there is no time to handmake them this year, so a photo card will have to do). And neither have I shared photos from our Italy trip, which I haven't even finished editing yet. Man, do I wish I didn't need to sleep!

So today I spent almost the whole day wrapping presents. The husband was laughing at me as it took me 45 minutes to get the first one wrapped. But once I got going it went pretty well. I have about half of the load wrapped now so they will definitely be finished this week.

Please excuse the crappy photography, the light was rapidly escaping, but here's what our gifts look like this year. White on white with silver wax seals and stamps. All to match the tree, of course.







I hope everyone are doing well, and coping a little better than I am with all the stuff going on in your lives! Have a great new week!

Free class by JessicaSprague.com

Friends, have you seen that Jessica Sprague is offering a class for free? Head on over to JessicaSprague.com to check it out!

Reminiscing and wishing

Now is about the time that I really wished I was somewhere else ... like in Italy. Looking at the pages depicting our trip last year makes me want to pack up my bags and leave right away.

I'm on the Easter express

Efficiency at its best; speeding up the egg painting process by using rubber stamps and a beautiful hot pink ink.



Here's hoping you are having a nice and relaxing Easter!

La nostra vacanza in Italia

I am so excited I might pee my pants! I can't wait to get this book in my hands. Cannot wait.

So I created a book about our trip to Italy last summer with the Classic Album templates set by Nisa of Splendid Fiins as well as my own La Storia papers and elements packs.

Click here to view this photo book.

Dreaming about the sun

It's been what, six or so months since our holiday trip to Italy? Yeah, time moves fast, for sure. I think I started on the book about the trip about three weeks after we came home. I got real far. Two pages far. I totally suck at keeping things up. This was not the first book I started without being able to finish the damned thing. I also started a book about a weekend trip to Milan a few years back. That book has twelve pages or so. Really pathetic. :)

But anyway, I hit a major wall recently with regards to creating and decided I should give myself a break and just play around a little. After all, I have been working non stop on things for almost a year now (gah, next month marks my first anniversary as a digi designer, but let's get back to that later).

One thing I like to do when I feel in a rut is look at pictures. Quite often my own. Mostly of lovely times, like sunny and relaxed days filled with ice cream and love. It makes me happy. Happy that I got to experience it. Happy that I got to capture it in a  photo. Happy that many of those photos don't suck entirely.

So that was exactly what I was doing the other day, when I felt a real punch in the gut of inspiration to scrap. And not just any old layout. No, I felt I had to scrap our holiday. So off I set, pulled out the photos again, and the kit I created with the book in mind all those months ago; La Storia. Now I just needed to get going again. And it's been going well. I have created 16 pages in three nights by the telly. I am quite pleased. One thing that has helped me tremendously is Nisa Fiin's awesome template album set coming very soon; Classic Album templates. I think I might be able to finish this time, even if it takes me a month.

Here are pages 12 and 13 of my book


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Supplies
La Storia Paper Pack and Elements Pack by In the Making Design
Modernist Elements Pack by In the Making Design
Classic Album Templates by Splendid Fiins
Stitches by Anna Aspnes
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Holiday sale goodness in a digi shop near you

Did you know that we've got a storewide sale coming up at JessicaSprague.com? No? Well this is a deal you certainly don't want to miss out on. Starting black Friday (which all my American friends have informed takes place on November 26) until the end of the year you will get a whopping 20% off any purchase, products and classes alike. Decent deal, right? Well we're not stopping there folks. Here's the kicker:
If you spend $20 in our shop you will get the coolest ever collab kit designed by yours truly and the other drop dead gorgeous and amazing designers at JessicaSprague.com. What it looks like? Lookie here:







Gorgeous isn't it? With this kit alone you get more than your $20 worth! There are lots of beautiful papers, tags, labels, wordart, rubons, brushes, alphas, you name it - it's all there (but the kitchen sink).
Aren't we too good to be true? :D

Cinque Terre - part two

Still plugging away with the Italy photos. Only a little more left, I promise! :D But it's a good way of keeping the spirit of summer alive for me.

OK so this is Monterosso












The water was amazingly clear and beautiful




Vernazza, which was my favourite of the four we visited








We had lunch at a restaurant in the harbour and sat outside. It was just divine. The food (pasta with seafood) and the wine (Vermentino) was just what a girl wants on her birthday.






Celebration continued










Manarola






Alright, more (including Via del Amore) later

Cinque Terre - part one

We took soooo many photos that day we spent in Cinque Terre that I need to break the post up. It's just too hard to scale down too much. That place is just so fantastic. Let's concentrate on the villages as seen from the water in this post.

Portovenere (which isn't part of Cinque Terre, but you pass it with the ferry from La Spezia and it's beautiful).






View of the bay


Approaching Riomaggiore






Via Del Amore between Riomaggiore and Manarola clings to the cliffs and is visible from the water.


Beautiful blue water


Manarola




Corniglia, which is the only one of the five villages that doesn't have a harbour. It can only be reached by train. Because of this it was the one village we didn't visit.


Vernazza




Another beautiful shot of the bay


Approaching Monterosso








I'll share more from Cinque Terre next