Saturday 29 December 2018

My Word for 2019

A little vlog from me which has become an annual tradition of mine actually! Here I talk about setting my word for 2019. If you would like to watch my past years videos here are the links...

My Word for 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6B9QHEcruk
My Word for 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_a_Ksai4_o&t=331s
(My word for 2016 is in this journal flip video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwyvBLPtjfQ)
My Word for 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgEwrqVuUVE


Thursday 27 December 2018

Completed Planner Flip Through

Today I am sharing with you a flip through of a completed planner / diary insert from April to December 2018. The stickers are mainly ones that I design and sell in my shop and the insert is also one that I designed and sell and you can purchase as print at home or printed: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mrsbrimbles?section_id=25185990



Wednesday 26 December 2018

Boxing Day Sale



Hey guys!

I hope you have had an amazing Christmas (so far) and your Boxing Day is a nice relaxing one. Of course it wouldn't be Boxing Day without a Boxing Day sale now would it! Do you have Christmas spending money burning a hole in your pocket? he he!

So here is the scoop... us coupon code: yayboxing2018 to take 30% off, yes 30% off your order. In fact the sale is valid from Boxing Day all the way through to New Year!*

The sale is valid both at: https://www.mrsbrimbles.co.uk/shop/ and also: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mrsbrimbles (no code needed for Etsy, the discount has already been applied!)

We are still open and will still be processing orders during the Christmas to New Year Week although our next postal collection is 2nd January 2019.

ALSO.... did you know that the sale is store wide so that means you can also use the code not just on physical products but also on any of my online courses.

The online courses, events and workshops are available here: https://www.mrsbrimbles.co.uk/product-category/brands/mrsbrimbles/workshops/

Small Print:

No minimum order quantity - order as much or as little as you like. Please make sure you use the coupon at time of purchase as the discount cannot be given after the transaction has been made. Excludes items already in the sale section. Available internationally. Available from 26th December 2018 until the end of 1st January 2019- remember we are UK based so this is GMT! Coupon cannot be used in conjunction with any other code or coupon. Phew! That's that done lol!

Shipping

Please bear in mind that it is Christmas. Whilst Jon will do his very best to process and ship your order in his usual fashion, Royal Mail will not be collecting from us again until 2nd January. Please allow longer than usual for us to ship your order and for it to be received. Thank you!! Our shipping policy if you need it is here: https://www.mrsbrimbles.co.uk/about/refund-shipping-policy/

Problems Ordering?

Now sometimes during sales the website can go a bit crazy. If it tells you "not enough stock wait 15" this means that stock is very low and that people in front of you have it in their carts waiting to check out. This may keep recurring if people keep adding, you will be in a queing system waiting to check out, you may literally miss it each time and that does unfortunately happen sometimes with popular items. We just ask customers to be considerate and either check out or release the item for people who would really like it. Please be patient with the website it has a lot of work to do and Mr B is working to keep it up and running as best as he possibly can.

Happy Sale Shopping!

Anyways I will let you get back to your choccies and Carry On films!

Much love as always

Anna, Jon, Miss B & the Fluffies xxxxx

Monday 24 December 2018

Merry Christmas!



Can you believe Christmas is here! Amazing! When I was a child it seemed to take an eternity in between opening each door of the advent calendar and now as an adult the time seems to whizz by and I don't get to do all of the things I would like to do despite my best efforts at planning!

Whatever you are up to I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas) or holiday of your choosing if indeed you choose to celebrate) from my little family to yours.

I would also like to thank you all for your support throughout the year, whether that is watching little old me on YouTube join me on Patreon or subscribing to a Brimbles Box. All is genuinely very much appreciated and I love you all.

What an exciting  year it has been!




Mrs Brimbles celebrated 5 years of being a business back in April. We celebrated with a month of challenges, prompts and giveaways over in the Facebook group. I really hope you enjoyed taking part in all of the festivities as much as I enjoyed putting it all together for you. Talking of birthdays, I also celebrated being on Patreon for a year back in the Summer. I love my little Patreon community as I get to continue to create art that I love as well as interact with like minded individuals, something I don't get to do that often 'in person'. It is with the support of my Patreons that I am able to continue to make YouTube videos for general viewing and prompts etc as this means I don't have to find alternative employment.

The Brimbles Boxes came back by popular demand as both a recurring PayPal subscription as well as stand alone boxes. I am humbled and honoured that you guys love my illustrations and I love seeing what you create using my products. I literally smile and do a happy dance when I see that you love them too.

I have never been about numbers because I genuinely share because I enjoy to do so. It started off as a hobby and it has just grown from there but it is still something that I continue to enjoy. If you know me you will know that I will put a video up if 5 or 500 people watch it because it is my passion and I so enjoy it. My YouTube channel has continued to grow steadily as well as my instagram account. Although I am not about numbers, I am kind of hoping that I might reach the 20K mark by the end of 2019 lol.

So that's it for now and almost for 2018 too!

I will see you in the New Year for more journal and planner fun! If you find yourself at a lost end over the Christmas break and wanna chat with other planner nerds and journal junkies don't forget to come over and join us in the Facebook Group 'Mrs Brimbles Happy Place' we are over 3,500 members now which is so exciting.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our customers, followers past, present and future a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Thank you so much for supporting our family and our little business, we appreciate each and every one of you more than you could possibly know.

Festive Felicitations to you,

Anna, Jon, Miss B and all the Fluffies (Florence Tinkerbell, Luna Petunia Macaroon, Snowdrop Sprinkles and Betty Spaghetti)
xx

Posting & Working Dates

Righty-o me dears, just to let you know that our shops (www.mrsbrimbles.co.uk and www.etsy.com/shop/mrsbrimbles ) will NOT be closing during the festive week. So you will still be able to browse and make any purchases you wish to make. However we will not be having a Royal Mail collection again until 2nd January so any orders placed during that week will be despatched then. We will still be around to answer emails etc should you need us.

Thursday 20 December 2018

December Daily Flip Through 1-14 2018

I have a flip through for you of my December Daily or my fextive journal, whatever you want to call it lol! This is days -1 to 14!



Wednesday 12 December 2018

Otterly Fantastic planner pages



2018 will henceforth be known as the year that I became obsessed with otters. And it's entirely the fault of a good friend and colleague of mine who is also obsessed with the cute little hand-holding critters. We became so obsessed we did an information project on them with our students at school because it was something different to the traditional Australian animals we might normally have covered. So, when I saw the gorgeous painted otters in one of the Patreon packs that Anna has on her Patreon account, I was SO excited and had to use them in a layout. Because who doesn't love a bit of cuteness staring up at them from their planner pages? Full disclosure: while I am a member of Anna's design team, I subscribe to her Patreon account of my own accord, because I love her extra content and the digital designs that she releases. I adore cutting out cute pictures and creating layouts with them. If you'd like to watch the process of this layout, check out this video:




This was a pretty simple layout to create - all I needed were some washi tapes and the printable from Anna's Patreon account, from which I just fussy cut out the images. I wasn't too worried about the whitespace (it's my planner, it's for me, and I don't get hung up on too much perfection... otherwise I would be a lot more stressed out on a daily basis!). All the washi tapes are ones I have collected from various places including Etsy and instore here in Australia and I picked them because the purple-y tones matched the purple on the teacup. Look, otters in a teacup! My layout is a monthly layout on two pages that's my own design and works for me, with larger boxes for Saturday and Sunday because those are usually my busiest days in my personal planner (my work planner is usually weekday heavy, naturally) and I wanted something relatively crisp and clean and easy to work with. A few strips of washi, a bit of glue for the cut-outs and some hand lettering to add a tiny bit more interest and I was done!

 

How do you like to plan? Do you like stickers? Cut-outs? Minimalist? A combination of any of the above, or something completely different? I love switching it up on a regular basis. I find it keeps life interesting and makes my weeks a lot of fun. If you like this video, you can find plenty of other planner layouts (over three years' worth now!) on my Youtube channel

 Have a wonderful week, planner friends! 
 Stef

Sunday 9 December 2018

Sketchy Girls and Journal pages

Well, it certainly has been a while since I last posted. I have been following and loving all the bits you guys have been sharing over in the Brimbles Facebook Group  but I've been a bit AWOL. I got married at the beginning of October (yay!) so most of August and September saw me working away on candles, decorations and my bouquet as I decided to undertake most things myself. Phew! It was stressful and hardworking but boy did it teach me a thing or two!

(Photo curtesy of Anna Brim. I was too busy doing the getting married bit and I've not had the professional photographs back yet.)

For a while I've been struggling with creativity and I've continuously hit a block whenever the creative mojo strikes. I've had to learn to love and enjoy the process of crafting again, sometimes working creatively for you business can, sadly, sometimes starve and taint the artist within. The process becomes clinical, and unfortunately I have lost some love for it. Since the wedding though, I feel rejuvenated and I've decided to dedicate some more time for creating just for me. I've taken a couple of weeks off, closing my shop to create purely for me and to push and explore some ideas I'd placed on the back burner.


Autumn is probably my favourite season, with Winter coming an incredibly close second (mostly because of CHRISTMAS!). It's all the magical colours, the slight chill in the air, the feel of forthcoming rain, the squash and crunch of leaves underfoot. It is like the world opens up, and comes alive, shedding itself of what has come before and preparing itself for the new beginning in Spring. I feel like my soul vibrates to a different tune during the autumn, like I can breathe again. I can feel the inspiration bubbling away under the surface.


Following Anna's Autumn Doodle from last month's Patreon collage sheets, which pictured all her favourite things about the season, I decided to fetch my stamps and felt tips and give it a whirl. It feels like it's been a very long time since I did any of this!


Using stamps felt like a good way to go, it meant I could get creating a page, building volume and content quickly. All without the fear of how it would look, once it's down, it's down, no faffing back and forth about placement.


I have quite a collection of stamps, but there were a few Autumnal activities which I didn't have an appropriate stamp for, so I doodled a few in there too!


I ended up doing a bit of ghost stamping, which came about by mistake, since I dropped my inked stamp block onto the page and a little transferred. I thought I would roll with it and turn it into a feature. You'll notice it is a little funky around the tea bag haha! I've now filled


After getting stuck in with the stamping and colouring in, the creativity just kept on coming. This little lady came to mind after looking in the mirror. I often wear my dreads in a bun on the top of my head when I'm creating as they have a tendency to fall into paint, glue, glitter, whatever it is and the result is always a mess! J made the joke once that my dread bun looks like a cross between a pineapple and a pumpkin, and he's right.


Cartoony style art is something I'm really getting into, I'm not very good, I still really struggle with the looseness of it, but I'm getting there! I used a mixture of watercolour paint and pencils to create the texture of her hair and then outlined her using a 0.3 waterfast pigment liner. I felt she was missing something so I gave her some pumpkin leaf earrings too match her hair. I want to work a little more on faces so I'm going revisit some of Anna's early Patreon content where she gave some tips and tricks for drawing sketchy girls.

I'm now off to download and play with the next lot of collage sheets! Till next time guys xx

Saturday 8 December 2018

Watercolour Moon Art Journal Page





Hi everyone, wow it's nearly Christmas, time flies! Today I have been playing around with a few things from Anna Brims Patreon goodies to create a Wintery themed art journal page. I'm in love with this page, the colour, the texture, the mood, it all sings to me and makes me warm and fuzzy.

For the page I followed a video tutorial of Anna creating a moon page like this one, but with a painted unicorn... you can get this as a collage sheet and I tell you now,
it's stunning (you can see a sneak of it below in the photograph). 

 

 

Creating the watercolour moon page

I used my Daniel Smith watercolours firstly to paint the moon and background. I'm not going to go in to the how's here - you can see for yourself on Anna Brims Patreon Page. Anna then suggested using nail varnish to add sparkly texture and oh my word I love it, it really makes the moon and sky stand out. I then added a Prima Spray mist to really give the sky texture. I did have to be careful here as the spray mist does have a mind of it's own and I always feel it sprays a bit too much. However the result here was just what I was going for.


I then added one of Anna's cute Autumnal girls which I cut from a collage sheet to really make the page pop. She's so cute. I must say the collage sheets this month are amazing. I can't wait to use the rest of them now that I finally have some printer ink. Lastly I finished off the page with a quick quote using a white paint pen and outlined it all and added shadow using a fine uni ball pen.



I'm really liking the page and I will definitely be using up my old and unused nail varnishes in my art projects again. I must warn you though it did pong quite a bit whilst I was creating the page.

Thanks for reading the post, I promise I won't leave it as long next time. Now my ink here is here there will be no stopping me with the collage sheets.

​Take Care, Kerry xx

You can find me here:
kerrymaymakes.com

Instagram  |  You Tube  |  Pinterest ​
Art Journaling FB Group 


Friday 7 December 2018

December journaling

Hey everyone, I hope you're starting to feel festive, I definitely am.  Jingle and Mingle helped, but my daughter constantly singing carols from her Christmas play has got me ready for the festive season.

I've been trying to keep my December memory keeping simple.  December is busy in my house as I'm sure it is in yours, so I didn't want to set myself up for failure by creating unrealistic expectations of myself.  I've been making a list each day (see #30lists on instagram) and decorating them with my Christmas ephemera.  Anna has some gorgeous collage sheets this month and they were perfect for this project.  There's a page of festive words, which I just love and I used on this page to list the things I wanted to take photos of this month.



There's also this lovely father Christmas paper (I've torn and glued it to the top of page 6) and some little journalling cards which have been perfect to write my lists on (here on page 5).



I hope you're finding time to create this month, it's important to do something for yourself in this season of giving.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets as well as art tutorials. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Thursday 6 December 2018

Stef's planner pages



Hello, Planner Friends! While the Northern part of the world is gearing up for Winter, here in the Southern Hemisphere, we're bracing for Summer, which has sporadically stuck it's head out a few times only to retreat behind some Spring rains. Which makes for a difficult time predicting weather, but I love Spring rains so I don't mind too much. It's also the time of year when I really think about gardening. I don't have too big a garden - just a lot of plants on my balcony - but it's nice seeing them come into flower after Winter. As a result, I've had a lot of Spring-themed planner layouts recently, and they make me so happy! This week I used the English Garden sticker bundle by Mrs Brimbles to create a fun, horizontal layout. The kit has stickers that would work for both horizontal and vertical layouts, but I really wanted to play with the illustration stickers this week, and this is the result. For the full process, check out this video:





It's been a while since I played with a LOT of coloured washi tapes and I have to say, it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. There's nothing like pops of colour to really brighten your day. I find it impossible not to look at this layout without smiling, because everything about it is so cheerful, and that's exactly what I need at this time of year when everything starts to get hectic in the lead-up to the holidays.

 

I wish I could say I had a formula to where I placed the stickers, but I honestly don't (and I'm pretty sure I break a lot of design rules, too... but hey, rules are meant to be broken, right?). I just wanted to make sure I not only had a pretty layout, but a functional one, too, with plenty of room for my to-dos and upcoming events.

 

My horizontal layouts always have eight boxes - the eight being for a 'notes' section. Which in my layouts is always more decorative than 'notes' (because that's just how I roll!), and it's position in my layout tends to fluctuate depending on how much space I need. So this week it's in the middle of the week and I really don't mind that!

 

I hope that wherever you are, you are being inspired and living your best life, and that your planner helps you to do that. If you're looking for more planner inspiration, I post planner videos every week on my Youtube channel

 Happy planning, friends! 
 Stef

Wednesday 5 December 2018

Painting pumpkins using Anna's tutorial

Hi everyone, it's Rose here.  The change in the weather has definitely been more noticeable
in the past week or so and it's made me want to snuggle in with paints and my journal!  Oh and YouTube and art videos.  We celebrated Halloween more this year than we had before, my little girl is now 5 and she really wanted to hand out sweets for the Trick or Treaters so we made a pumpkin for the step and bought in a load of sweets.  Unfortunately it rained and only two groups of people knocked but she loved giving them their sweets.

The pumpkin carving leaves you with loads of pumpkin flesh so I needed to find something to do with it and used the BBC website to find a recipe for soup.  It ended up being really nice with some fresh bread and we all enjoyed it.  So I happened upon the video Anna made in which she painted, and taught us, how to paint pumpkins.  Anna said in the video that she was thinking of including her recipe in her art journal and I thought that was a great idea for me to be able to make a record of the night and something I could put on social media as well (I have lots of photos of my little one in her costume but she is adopted so I really don't like to share much online).



You can probably see that my style of drawing and painting is very different to Anna's, I wish I could be whimsical and fun but I used Anna's advice on painting in layers for the lights and darks and I actually really love my painting.

Don't forget to check out Anna's Patreon which includes all of Anna's beautiful collage sheets as well as art tutorials such as this one. You can find more of my art here, on my blog, or on Instagram.

Friday 16 November 2018

Mrs Brimbles Festive Memory Keeping project!


Welcome to the Mrs Brimbles Festive Memory Keeping project!



Now I warn you now that this post is loooooooong! Very long but it (hopefully) contains lots of useful information for you for starting your own festive memory keeping project. Please do read towards the end for the giveaway stuff.

This is an exciting project that I hope you will take part in even if it is in part. I know a monthly challenge can be quite daunting at first but once you get into it you will hopefully find that you are loving it and can’t wait to do it the next day and the next. So what is it all about?

You may have heard the term ‘December Daily’ banded about quite a bit. This is actually the copyrighted term that the lady, Ali Edwards founded. She created a whole community of documenting 1st – 25th December in a pocket scrapbook type album. These days, whilst her community and business is still going strong, many people use the term DD for all sorts of memory keeping projects or indeed projects that they do daily during December. I call it my Festive Memory Keeping Project (FMKP ) just to avoid any copyright issues and because I actually do mine from 30th November (the day we write our letters to FC) through to 1st January. In the past couple of years I have done this in a travelers notebook insert but this year I am using an altered children’s storybook. If you would like to see that and my past FMKP why not check out the playlist that I have on YouTube.

Getting started, what do you need?



All you will need is your album which can be a scrapbook or pocket scrapbook style album or it could be a journal or travelers notebook. Anything that you would like to create in really. Of course you could just write rather than use photos so it could just be a lined notebook. It is entirely up to you as to how deep you would like to go with this project. To create your project you will need:

·       A pen to write your journaling not matter how much you do
·       Scissors
·       Glue Stick or double sided tape
·       Your Photos

It is also really fun to add other things in like ephemera, washi tape, stickers to decorate your pages but these are not essential. Don’t get bogged down or overwhelmed about having ‘stuff’ whilst it is really nice to have and lots of fun, the key here is to document your memories so embellishments just enhance that.

Using Photos


In 2016 I used my iphone to take my photos and then print them out using a Polaroid Zip (a HP sprocket is pretty much the same). In 2017 Jon bought me a Canon Selphy so I used that in part last year and will be using it again for 2018. I like to use the app ‘photo grid’ to print two 3x4 or four 2x3 photos per 6x4 photo paper as I find one 6x4 is just too big for my pages. You may choose to print your photos out yourself at home or at a shop. Some days I just have one photo per day and other days I have more. It all depends on what we have done that day as to how much I want to document. I am a bit of a photo taking nerd though so generally it will be multiple for me! So yeah some days I have one photo on one page and then other days where we have a lot going on it will be multiple pages.

Finding the time & Inspiration

For the most part I do my pages every night sitting on the sofa watching TV. It doesn’t take me very long as I collate all of the supplies that I want to use in a bag which I put together before the project starts. Having them all to hand is a massive time saver for me because I don’t have to spend ages trying to find things and I also don’t stress over the perfect embellishment or sticker. I am pretty sure you know what I am talking about there. I think we have all spent longer than necessary deliberating over which sticker to use.  So pulling everything together at the start I find to be such a time saver. I did a video on prepping for it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgNY40aGSeo&t=436s

I prefer to document my day every evening or at least the next night if we are out. I find it easier as the memories are really fresh in my mind, if I leave it too long it kind of all gets forgotten. Do whatever works for you though with the time that you have, if you prefer to batch process a whole week in one go then go for it. The whole point of this project is that it is supposed to be a fun way to document your Christmas. Don’t stress if you miss a day, just do it when you can.

One of my biggest problems is that I struggled to narrow it down some days as to what to document as some days there seemed to be more than others. Some days it was hard but I always found something. I have had people say to me on my journal videos in the past that their lives are boring and they wouldn’t know what to write about. I can assure you that your day to day life right now may seem that way to you but in 50 years time you will look back on your right now and feel totally differently about it. Just imaging how you would feel if your Grandparent kept a Christmas memory album and you found it in the attic one day. I know I would be pretty excited by it. I would love to know what a mundane day was like for them, what they ate, what they wore etc. so please don’t feel this way. Not every day has to be all confetti and lightning.

Prompts to give you a helping hand

So you will probably have your own ideas based around the traditions you have as a family and things going on around you so use your daily life as prompts. Of course it might be really nice to look back on Christmas of your past or childhood. You could journal about your traditions and things that you did to pass along to your children.


1.     What do you do when you write to Father Christmas? Photograph the kids writing their letters and maybe how lovely it is spending time together getting excited. Take a photo of their letters to add to your journal. Maybe consider adding their letter to your project (see the parents note under the prompts!) You get always get your child to write their wish list into you project too.
2.     Advent calendars – capture your child’s excitement as they see their calendar for the first time. What did they think? What calendar did they get?


3.     Lights – go for a walk and document and photo the lights in your street, village or town. Who has the best, most tasteful and who has the craziest show. Do you have lights outside your house, what and why?
4.     Document buying or choosing your tree – take photos in the shop. My Mum once bought a 6ft plastic tree home on the bus, luckily you had to put it together but the box was still pretty big!
5.     Document trimming the tree, are your lights in a jumbles mess?
6.     Do you have a favourite ornament? Why is it your favourite? Does it have sentimental value? Maybe a deceased loved one gave you it or maybe you bought it on an exotic holiday. We always go away in November for our Wedding anniversary (except this year lol) and we always buy a bauble with the name of the place we are at for our tree. And of course fashions change too!


7.     Document your Christmas music collection or just talk about your favourites and why they are that. Did your Dad always do Karaoke to Slade? Does good old Bing always make you wish you had snow at Christmas?
8.     Everyone loves a good snuggly Christmas movie right? What’s your favourite? What is the cheesiest one? You could draw your favourite scene or you could photograph your collection of DVDs
9.     Christmas jumpers used to be a bit of a joke but now they really are a thing that a lot of people wear in the festive season. A good selfie in yours would be fab or maybe a family photo all wearing Christmas jumpers, PJs etc. I took a photo last year and the year before of Miss B’s Christmas jumpers all drying on the radiator. It was below a shelf with Christmas decorations on and it looked really cute.
10.  Take photos of the decorations around your house. Why do you have those?
11.  Document your gift buying, you can take photos of the shops, your bags or your weary feet. Do flat lay of the gifts you bought for each person.
12.  Don’t forget to photograph the gifts once they are all nicely wrapped. A nice staged shot of your wrapping paper and tape or the presents under the tree.
13.  Like most people I love it when coffee shops bring out their Christmas cups. I don’t get to those shops much as I don’t really go into town much but at Christmas time I do like to treat myself and make a trip. You could consider treatingyourself and photograph your cup and your tasty treat.
14.  Take a photo of your feet, where you are standing right now. Why are you there and what are you doing? Bonus points for a Christmas chaos or Christmas prep you are doing.
15.  Do you love baking? Don’t forget to document the mince pies, Christmas cake or Christmas pud being made. Show how messy you got the kitchen in the process or how you burnt them.



16.  Was your child in a nativity play or did you go and see a pantomime or show?
17.  What was the last day of work like for you or the last day of school? Did you have a get together with the girls for pre Christmas drinkies?
18.  How about your weekly food shopping? What does that look like this time of year? What is the price of basic things like food, bread, petrol etc. I like documenting things like that as it is good to look back on. Photograph your receipt (thermally printed receipts fade!)
19.  Do you have any Christmas traditions in your family? Document those.
20.  How do you display your Christma cards?
21.  What about your wishlist? You could screen shot your Amazon wish list, or write your list down.
22.  Whilst we are talking about screen shots, a screen shot of a text message to a friend or special someone wishing them a Merry Christmas is a lovely addition to a project.
23.  As you come to the end of the month do you have any reflections on the year. Goals or aspirations for the coming year.
24.  Document your crafts and anything you made or your kids have made.



25.  Find the joy and the bliss in the ordinary and the snuggly. I like to photograph me snuggling under a blanket eating popcorn or a hot chocolate with marshmallows. Not every day has to be amazing the ordinary days are just as cozy.


26.  Us Brits especially like to talk about the weather. How was the weather for you today? Were you all bundled up? Was it all frosty and icy this morning and you had to defrost your car before you could go to work but actually whilst a bit annoying it was really pretty. Maybe we got that elusive snow day.  Hoar frost (Google it if you don’t know what I mean…it’s very pretty!) is especially lovely to photograph on spider webs and plants in the garden!
27.  Christmas Eve! Did you put a mince pie and a tipple out for FC? Did you go to church? Out for drinks? Do you always watch Santa Claus the movie?
28.  Christmas Day!!! This is the big day! The day where you might want to use several pages and I hope you have so much content lol! You have the presents, the meal, the games, Grandad asleep on the sofa still wearing his cracker hat etc. Go to town people!
29.  29. Boxing Day. What is that to you? Do you do it all again, do you hang out in your PJs all day watching movies and eating chocolate. The left over buffet. Whatever you do document it.
30.  New Years Eve, do you celebrate? If you do document that. Maybe some screen shots of Big Ben and fireworks. You could talk about the past year and close it down and talk about the New Year coming in.

31.  Did you visit santa in his grotto this year? Don’t forget to add that!

OK so that is just a few prompts for you lol enough for everyday of the month if you need to use them! Throw in what has being going on for you and you have more than enough for your album or journal. Oh and it’s OK to do more than one thing a day. If you are still stuck for ideas or just want a bit of inspiration (because quite frankly who doesn’t like ogling at other people’s creations) I have curated a YouTube list of videos as well as a Pinterest board to help give you some ideas.


My Tips

A little tip and a heads up for parents… you need to have a think in advance about whether or not you will be showing your journal or album to your children either now or in the future. If your children believe in Father Christmas you may want to not photograph the wrapping paper or presents that are associated with the big man in red! You don’t want to shatter your child’s Christmas dreams if they flick through your album and there are photos of you wrapping the toy that Santa gave them that year.

Another little tip I would like to share with you: I have an app on my phone called ‘catch Santa’. I love it and it’s a great little tool. You just take a picture and use their app to put Santa in the photo. I have used it for a couple of years to add Santa next to our tree on Christmas Eve with the presents around it. It can look a little fake so I always make my photo in the CS app and then import it into instagram or RD Magic by Rhonna and play around with filters until it looks right in my eyes. Whilst we are talking photo apps for your phone (p.s. I use an iphone so I don’t know if these are available for android so don’t shoot me if they are not), I love to add text to my photos and my two favourite apps for doing this are Rhonna Designs and Little Moments by Fat Mum Slim. I think text on photos adds a little something and doing it on your phone is very quick and easy especially if you don’t have photoshop or any editing software.




Let’s get documenting

Hopefully you have everything you need at your fingertips now to create your amazing festive memory keeping project. If you do need yet more tips, advice or help get involved in the Mrs Brimbles Happy Place. We already have some great ideas in there on how to make shaker pockets etc with sequins when you don’t have a Fuse tool.  Don’t forget to share how your getting on too so that we can all get inspired by each other. You may be using an item in a way we hadn’t thought of before so it would be great to see. Please don’t be shy, no one is judging you at all, we are just happy to see your creations.

If you want to play along for fun then start posting your photos of your completed project page(s) from 1st December. Remember to use the hashtag:  #mrsbrimblesfestivememorykeeping (sorry it’s long lol!) so that we can find your photos and see what you are up to. You can post anywhere on social media but if you want to be in with a chance of winning the prize it needs to be on instagram or in the Mrs Brimbles Happy Place group on Facebook (or both of course). If you are playing along with this in order win the prize please do make sure that you read all guidelines on how to enter and the rules below oh and if you want to be in with winning the prize you will need to register on the giveaway widget below too! To be in with the prize you DON’T have to post every day BUT you DO have to post your completed month of pages by the end of the challenege. Of course if you don’t want to be in with winning the prize you can post for fun and we would still love to see all of your photos.

If this challenge / project is a bit too in depth for you but you still want something to push yourself creatively then I also have the usual #mrsbrimblesdecdaily challenege prompts for you to use. There is a prize for this too.





Check out ‘the rules’ below if you would like to play along for the prize!

Well that is all from me! I really hope you enjoy your project!

Much Love

Anna



The Rules

I know, so boring that there needs to be rules but there does so that everyone is clear on what they need to do and to keep it fair to everyone participating!

The Rules for both challenges…

·       You need to be following me on instagram: @mrsbrimbles please do not tag me in your photos as I will get lots of notifications. I will see your photos on the hashtag!
·       The prompts are just that, prompts, interpret them as you will, or if you are stuck for inspiration just post a photo anyway! If you haven't registered on the widget you won't be elligible to win the prize so you will just be doing the challenge for fun which is totally fine with me if it is with you.You can register at any time from now but photo posting on instagram and in the Facebook group starts on 1st December 2018.
·       You DO NOT have to post everyday but you do have to post all of your photos (see below) by the deadline. You DO NOT have to post in numerical order, you can post any prompt on any day and any number of photos on any day.
·       Once the competition has closed a winner will be drawn by random using the giveaway widget, and emailed. The winners name will appear on the giveaway widget once closed.
·       The winner will be emailed by me to arrange receipt of the prize. 
·       Your email address will be added to my newsletter database - I will not sell this to anyone else nor will I constantly be spamming you and you can unsubscribe at any time! 
·       Open internationally
·       You must be over eighteen years of age or have parental / guardian permission.
·       The prizes stated are the only prize(s) - no cash alternative.
·       One winner for each challenege will be chosen at random and notified by email. Winner(s) will be announced on this page on the rafflecopter widget after the closing date.
·       If the winner(s) do not respond to my email within 48 hours a new winner(s) will be chosen


Brimbles Festive Memory keeping Project


·       You must post photos of all 31 of your pages on instagram or Mrs Brimbles Happy Place Facebook group (or both) using the hashtag #mrsbrimblesfestivememorykeeping
·       You have until 7am GMT on 30th January 2019 to register for the giveaway on the widget below AND to complete the photo challenge on instagram / Facebook.
·       Prize: £30 store credit to spend in my shop

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Mrs Brimbles Dec Daily Photo Posting Challenge

·       You must post 5 photos from the prompts that are inspiring you on instagram or Mrs Brimbles Happy Place Facebook group (or both) using the hashtag #mrsbrimblesdecdaily and #mrsbrimblesdecdaily2018
·       You have until 7am GMT on 5th January 2019 to register for the giveaway on the widget below AND to complete the photo challenge on instagram / Facebook.

·       Prize: £15 store credit to spend in my shop

a Rafflecopter giveaway

(All photos in this post are my photos I have taken in past Christmasses and have shared on my instagram feed @mrsbrimbles this year I have a new feed @thewhimsicalcloud for personal photo sharing like this!)