In My Journal

I recently bought this little pen pouch from Kmart, I've moved a few of the things that were in there and added some of my own things. I had wanted something that could hold pens and scissors but also some stickers and things for my memory planner and for my journal.

I love having so many bright coloured pens to use, its so much more fun! I ended up adding the word love to the front of the pouch from some freckled fawn stickers, I may just decorate it a little more but for now it is perfect to pop into my bag when I am on the go.

I'm loving that my Journal is super easy (light) to bring along with me everywhere. I finally settled on the Bullet Journaling method for this year and I am loving it. Before I had seen this method of journaling I made this calendar printout that I thought would be great- turns out it fitted right in to the Bullet Journal system and so I will be printing out a few more

It has really helped me to keep track of the things that I want to achieve each month and is helping me to be much more productive throughout the day. I tend to find it easy to get distracted as the day progresses and this style of  journal really helps me bring things back to focus. I also love that this style of journaling is so versatile and I'm finding it great to have everything in the one place!

And also who wouldn't love a rainbow of hearts ?!!!

If you want to find out how to bullet journal you can go here!

In My Craft Bag

Its Sunday evening here and I have just packed up my craft bag all ready for the weekend so I thought I'd share it with you.

 I've decided on Stars for my 18 ornaments for March and I have  cut a few out and popped some green in the bag too, mostly because that happened to be the only other colour felt that I had here, I think a felt shopping trip is in order! There is also a left over heart ornament to finish off, it is an extra one that I would like to give away, I may have a whole extra set (one of each ornament) at the end that I would love to give away too!

 I've also added in a felt bunny softie that I am making, I'm hoping to share more about it with you soon. I have been brainstorming lots of fun things to make for Easter and I will share them here over March, some are quick makes and a few like the bunny softie take a little more time, not much though and if you are looking for some inspiration its best to start a little early, I usually end up waiting too long and then never get half of what I want to do done. 

So I am all packed up and ready to go with some crafting this week, I am not organised with anything else though, luches and school clothes will probably wait until the morning, whoops!

In My Craft Bag

During the school term my eldest boy and I have quite a long wait in the car in the mornings its about 40 minutes and in the afternoons about the same. We have started walking in the mornings to fill in the time most days, Blake sometimes wants a break or whatever but that still leaves the afternoon. 

 Often (more often than I would like!) I end up perusing social media. Its so much more productive when I am organised and have simple things to do.Over the last few weeks I have been a little more organised and have been keeping a selection of happy things to do/make  in my little craft bag that one of my lovely friends made for me.

 I have found that if I take ten minutes on a Sunday evening to sort out what I am doing for the week then I am much more ready to do things in these pockets of waiting time. 

 This week in my craft bag: some cotton and crotchet hook to make some more dishcloths, some pre-cut hearts to finish off my ornaments for the month and some embroidery thread, scissors and needles.

  I tend to like keeping everything separate and organised with some sandwich size snap-lock bags because you can see exactly what is in there. All these things get packed into there bags and popped into my little craft bag with of course this little tea bag pouch too!

 The craft bag can just go with my in my bag or in the car with me or even at night watching tellie, I have something crafty there to do that I don't even have to think about! So Simple and so worth taking the time to do.

My Planner

I just purchased this Kikki.K planner after much searching around and finding nothing that was cute and practical, I ordered this one online and it finally arrived and after  a crazy run home in the rain with the box under my arm trying to protect it from getting wet it made it into my home.

 Anyway I had been wanting a place to put all the things that I usually write down on scrap pieces of paper I end up with piles of paper around the place and never able to find the one list that I need. So I wasn't really wanting a calender style folder and I also wanted it to be small enough that I could take it with me in the car, we spend a lot of time in the car waiting and travelling to and from school during the year.

 I wanted a place where I could: track my goals, put weekly menu plans and shopping lists, keep a weekly cleaning plan, Christmas and birthday panning and also write ideas for blog posts. Usually all of these things are done on random bits of paper.

 So far I have managed to add a section for menu planning and have printed out some menu plans that I created, they're not perfect yet but they will do for now. I've got a few other things that I would like to print off like a shopping list and I would love some way to track my goals, to see that I am making progress (or not lol).

 I've still got a  little to do to sort out all of the things I want to keep here and I am working out weather to keep the dividers and pages that are in here and just adjust them or to make new dividers and new pages that are more suitable.

I've added some kaiser kraft stickers into the pocket and some project life cards for now. I'm sure that I am going to make lots of adjustments to make the planner work for me but other than that I am super happy with this gold planner and I'm super excited to start filling it up.

January Dreams

I don't know what happens to me over December, things get crazy and I tend to fall off the planet.

We had a lovely Christmas and we even dressed up as Santa, Mrs Clause and two little elves, it added a lot of extra fun to Christmas :-)

Anyway I do love new beginnings and I always love January. Its such a lovely time to think about all the amazing things you want to do in the year, so much possibility when every thing feels easy. Its a time to dream big.

I have a few big goals I would like to reach this year:

Save a substantial sum of money so that we can build an outdoor area (deck etc)

Walk 5 Days a week.

Blog more!!

Scrap More my style, not get so caught up in what everyone else is doing.

Keep on top of my laundry (ahhh I hate laundry!) 

Get more wicking beds going in the garden.

Create a handmade Christmas Tree.

I think my biggest crafty one is I would like to have a handmade Christmas tree. I've always dreamed of having a Christmas tree covered in handmade ornaments so yesterday when I took the tree down I counted how many ornaments were on it  a large grand total of 180 ornaments! I would love to have them all made out of felt but I think that might be unrealistic.

So I am hoping to make 18 ornaments a month for 10 months. That would mean that I would  have them all done by November, plenty of time, hopefully ;-)

Have you been dreaming up some lovely things for this year?

Mamie Made Christmas: Themes

Do you have a Christmas theme?

Have you ever had a Christmas theme?

My be you've never even thought about having a Christmas theme.

This may be a little forward thinking but I feel it helps me to be organised.

I have found that for me having a theme for Christmas helps me to simplify Christmas. If your anything like me leading up to Christmas you will see many gorgeous magazines, blogs and images on Pinterest that you will drool over and wish that you could do all of those pretty things but if you have a theme, if you know where you are headed its so much easier to stay focused and not try to do so many things that will leave you feeling stressed and you'll be able to say no to all of the drool worthy Christmas things.

(these are tags we used last year, on the back we wrote something we were thankful for each day and put it on the tree)

This year we have three Christmas trees going up in our home (a whole other story! lol) and I've decided that each tree will have a different theme. Knowing this has already helped me out as each tree's colours coordinate with the rooms that they are going in I have been able to organised the decorations so that the day the trees go up will be a much simpler process, no one will be digging through the decoration box to find what they are looking for, it will all be where its supposed to be.

You probably just have the one tree and having a theme can help you narrow down what wrapping paper, cards and decorations you will have so that everything coordinates giving your Christmas cohesive feel.

Sometimes the simpler the theme the more effective, here is a list of some fun themes I thought of:

Shape themes

Star

Hearts

Angles

Butterflies

Tree

Word Themes

Joy

Believe

Be Merry

Hope

Love

Light

Magic

Other themes

choose two colours

Pom pom Christmas

Beach Christmas

Winter wonderland

Cupcake Christmas

Candy lane Christmas

Handmade Christmas

Modern Christmas

Traditional Christmas

North pole Christmas

I'm sure there are so so many themes that could make your Christmas amazing. Not only that it is suppose to make the season more enjoyable and less stressful so you shouldn't need to go out and buy a whole pile of new stuff, May be you already have everything you need but you will feature it differently or maybe it will mean leaving out some of the things you own so that something else can stand out.

In the past I have had themes like 'Be Merry, Be Bright' and last year I did 'Joy to all the Boys and Girls" we had a boy tree (with blue ornaments) and a girl tree (with pink ornaments) and I bought one new ornament for each tree it was the word "JOY" and placed it at eye level where it stood out.

This year my shape is really a Star and each tree has a theme but the two main ones will be 'let your heart be light' and 'Believe in the  magic of Christmas'

Ok So here is some links if you thinking about themes now:
This one is a lovely pink modern tree and I just love how every thing goes with there home;here
There is an amazing advent tree here and she also talks about themes.
There is some lovely county style tree here
This post has a sweet Swedish feel that I love here and it would be easy to do yourself.

I hope I haven't given you too much to think about or made your head explode! ;-)

Are You Organised at Christmas?

Or do you have the same problem that I have rushing to get everything done, stressed tired and in a tiss, up late at night wrapping pressies. When I would much rather be watching carols and having a glass of wine with my gorgeous hubby!

(This is one of the Christmas Tree Soap's that I sold last year)

Well this year I am determined to be having that glass of wine and enjoying all of the Christmas loveliness This year I have decided to set myself a date to get everything done. I'm talking everything, gifts made, bought and wrapped, cards done, advent sorted (I'll explain our advent later) and everything just super duper organised.  I don't make all of the gifts we give, not even half but I love to have a handmade feel to the gifts we give even if that is just a hand made card or tag and that takes time.

My deadline is Friday November 21st 

This gives me a full week before our advent begins to relax.

That point is that I want to be able to enjoy the Christmas season and I have to say that I have had conversations with my three boys (hubby included) about which things they really hate doing at Christmas and things they love. There are a few things that we won't be doing this year because I want the season to be enjoyable for all of us. This might be a conversation that you have with your family there might be things that they have always wanted to do but you are usually too busy or there might be things you let go of because not everyone is into it.

So this is what I will be doing:

October will be generally for making, I've already begun to make lots of little things but still have a list of things I would like to make as gifts and decorations for our home.

Also if you have a meal at your house or family coming on Christmas day this might be something you may want to think about organizing, Christmas can get expensive and if your organised you can begin to pop some things away now and take some pressure off later.

November will be for finalizing everything, wrapping gifts and writing cards.

Also during November in our home we celebrate Thanksgiving, yes us little Aussies have made our own little tradition the date tends to move around to suit us, this year it will be on the 29th of November. We love this little tradition I think its important to be Thankful for all we have and this gives our family the chance to focus on the things that matter the most to us right before the Christmas craziness. Also another reason why I want to have Christmas stuff sorted before then.

So what do you think? Do you have one thing every year that you wish you would do early or would you like to get everything done early like me?

I would love for you to follow along or join in my Mamie Made Christmas!