10 Projects to finish!

If you've been following my Journal Your Christmas posts you'd have noticed on New Years Day Seren and I spent hours sorting through my craft supplies.  She nabbed loads for herself and I cleared some much needed space in the craft corner of my bedroom.  During this process we found loads of  half finished proects so as it's 10 Things day today I decided to do my top 10 of all the projects I found half finished!  Here they are:

1. Project life - a new project I'm hoping to start when they finally arrive on Amazon.co.uk

2. Move More Eat Well - started this last year, this post was the only one I did!  Signed up for the Big Picture class this year so hopefully that will motivate me to think more about it!

3. 6x4 Photo Love - still got Mat to December to do!

4. Mini book about our house using the following Kit:

5. A travel journal documenting our holiday in Devon Cliffs in 2009 (oops!)

6. Sort out some pix for this year in review page

7. A family mini book using the following kit:

8. Scrap your Day - managed to do 2 months in 2009 so want to add three more in 2011.  I'm thinking this is going to be a long project.

9. Find a pic of the husband and I for this True Love layout.

10. A cute pink paper bag album, don't know what to fill it with yet, any ideas?

Thanks for spending some time reading today.  If you want to see more 10 things then goto Shimelle.com.

And More Pages! this one included Christmas Day and Boxing Day

Here's Christmas Day

quickly followed by Boxing Day!

Playing with the Wii at Mamgu's house

New Years Eve Buffet

and finally, New Years Day I was organizing my craft space with Seren,  the pic above is all the projects I have on half at the moment.  

And more Journal your Christmas pages

The 15th included Jon's Nativity and Seren dancing in the Kingsway Shopping Centre, Newport.

The 16th was Tom and Seren's Nativity.

Today was the day Seren's Christmas dance show.  Here she is after the show and isn't she beaming.

Here the kids are making Christmas gifts for the teachers

Finally, Christmas Eve was spent playing with Uncle Paul.

More Christmas Pages

Here's the second set of pages I've made for JYC this year, really on a roll at the moment.

December 2nd, Panto at the Riverfront see Andy's review here and here.

Advent Calenders for December 5th

Handmande cards for December 6th

Old and New traditions on the 7th

A New tradition for me and the kids, eating Chocolate Yule Log together on the 9th

Our 10th wedding anniversary on the 11th Decemecer, where has the time gone?

Journal Your Christmas 2011

Nearly gave up on Journal your Christmas/December Daily this year as I got so far behind!  But spending a bit of time on it last night made me realise that I can catch up and I will finish it!  So here are the pages I have already made:

Title Page

December 1

December 3

December 4

Latest Reviews

Between the busyness of working lots of  jobs and looking after the family and the house I have managed to fit in 4 reviews in the last month.  Must start making layouts of all these reviews!  The fist one was at the end of November and it was Katy Perry!  I was really impressed by the great set and immaculate vocals!  The next one was Erasure in St David's Hall, it was great to have a night out with my husband and just relax and enjoy the music.  I have never been a huge Erasure fan but I was really impressed with Andy Bell, he had a great voice and really gave a wonderful performance.  Here's some pix from the night:

Finally, this weekend I reviewed Will Young (at St David's Hall again) on Saturday night and All then Fun of the Fair with David Essex on Monday night.  Will Young was amazing, he had so much energy on stage it was a really enjoyable show.  Here are some pics from the night:

Now i'm off to get started on Journal Your Christmas, finally decided to sign up this year, so looking forward to it!

Big Mistake!

October seems to be the month to do reviews for the paper.  As A works in the offices of the company that runs the local paper he has several shows he can choose from each month.  So far this month we have done 5 and it's only October 12th!  Last night I did one and now I think I regret it.  It was called Street Scene and it was advertised as a musical done by an opera company.  That shouldn't be too bad, I naively thought, I can cope with opera if there's lots of dance routines as well (I actually hate opera).  The poster was beautiful so I thought I'd give it a go.

I can't knock any of the performances as they we brilliant, all talented actors, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.  I could barely understand the singing as I struggle with the style of opera music, but somehow with the help of my wonderful hubbie I managed to get this review put together:

The Opera Group and Young Vic co-production of Street Scene by Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes and Elmer Rice opened for a two night run at Newport riverfront on Tuesday evening.


An American Opera, Street Scene was written in the post war era of 1946 and is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by Rice. The opera follows 24 hours in the differing but interacting lives of several families in a 1940s tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The drama itself covers everything from scandal mongering and murder to victimisation and classification, taking in an elaborate blend of musical and opera along the way boasting a 40 strong cast, full choir and orchestra.


For me, the productions musical highlights were delivered in the first half of the production including The Ice Cream Song and Moon-faced, Starry-eyed which featured the shows only dance routine and utilised the casts amazing talents to their full potential The scene setting 1940s style American street featured several well placed props from strategically placed rubbish bins, staircases and a balcony housing the full orchestra (including the harp!) to the casts authentically styled costumes.


Street Scene is a production that remains both retrospective and modern, setting it apart from other productions of its kind. 

If you enjoy opera music then I'm sure you'll love Street Scene and if you get a chance to see it I would highly recommend it.