Christmas Collections & November Haul

Welcome back, folks!  So yesterday I meant to share with you a new post and then completely spaced out once I got home.  You know how it is, just too many things going on and the memory just isn't what it used to be, sad to say.  Anyway...

So I skipped making my usual 2Peas order in October.  With the bathroom/flat renovations going on and everything filthy and packed up, there just wasn't any opportunity to craft much so it seemed pointless to purchase supplies I couldn't use.  I was also having issues deciding on which Christmas collection to choose this year.  So here's the conundrum:

Last year I used Echo Park's This & That Christmas by Lori Whitlock - very traditional designs but with some non-traditional colours thrown in (some yellow and aqua) and wood grain, which I was just challenging myself to use.  I really enjoyed the collection pack - the papers were lovely and the sticker sheets had a great selection from which to choose.  I mixed in a few other random bits here and there, most notably a gorgeous white and cream wood grain from Webster's Pages.

So this year, like many of us, I eagerly sifted through all of the CHA-S Christmas reveals...and found myself uninspired.  True story.  I'm not exactly sure what turned me off so many of the collections, although I suspect a lot of it was the choice of green most manufacturers used (green in my least favourite colour and I'm pretty picky about which tints and shades I like).  There was plenty bits and pieces that I liked from a selection of different collections but with this time of year being so manic for me (elementary school teacher, remember - report card writing and parent/teacher talks), I don't have much time or energy to cherry pick and make my own collection.  At the end of the day, it's just easier to choose one full collection and go with that.

Well, I liked the modern design of Echo Park's 'Tis the Season collection.  I also liked the chalkboard elements but... (you knew there was a 'but', right?) there was just so much black and grey, I was concerned that with my black & white photos that the LOs would be very dark and drab.  Why not use colour photos, you wonder?  Well, my parents' house is beautifully decorated but in no colour that pairs well with any variation of red so it's just easier to go B&W.

In the end, I chickened out and bought Echo Park's Reflections Christmas, again by Lori Whitlock.  It's beautiful (and traditional) and I like the pops of aqua again so I'm sure it will all work out.  I'm also planning to add in gold accents with some Heidi Swapp gold lamé, sequins and washi tape.

So what about you?  Which Christmas collection did you decide to go with this year?  Or did you mix n' match?  And why - what was it that inspired or drew you to those choices?

And finally - here's what I picked up in my most recent 2Peas order:

Belated WIP Wednesday

Okay, I know it's officially not Wednesday anymore but I was having a completely slovenly day yesterday and didn't do much of anything (it was wonderful, btw).  Anyway, I'm playing catch-up today and have actually managed to be quite productive so I guess it all evens out in the long run.

So, first up - I have finished my donation slab blocks for the Quilts Recover Southern Alberta project - yeah!  I sat down today and sewed a new orange block, since I had fallen in love with the first one I made and then made a second red block, since I had a lot of leftover red scraps I'm unlikely to use for anything else.

That brings the total up to eight blocks altogether and I'm quite happy about it.  I'm eagerly awaiting Cheryl's address so that I can pop these into the post in the next week.  Here's a look at the collection altogether:

I've also been working a bit more on re-organising my scrapbooking stash.  It all started when I found some wooden clothes pegs at a good price; brought them home and decorated them with narrow washi tape, then sat down and went through my ziplock bag of ribbons, creating a donation pile and winding the rest I wanted to keep onto my new, prettied-up pegs.

How lovely, eh?  I've since found an old glass container I no longer use for baking supplies and have stored them in there.  Well, then I seemed to have gotten the de-stashing bug because I quickly moved on to my stash baskets, which are now pretty bare.  I'm very happy about that, though, because a lot of it was stuff left over from my extremely early scrapping days that doesn't match my current style or things that I've received from elsewhere (ie. magazine gifts, etc.) that again don't match my style.  And of course, clearing out the old means plenty of room for new shopping - squee!

So at the moment this is the current state of things.  Not really organised, as you can see.  Those two woven baskets in the bottom shelf are actually my 'stash' and with the exception of cardstock and patterned paper, everything fits in here.  Small, right?  What can I say, I own a small flat and I need to balance living space with hobbies.  The majority of my scrapbooking supplies are currently in a similarly large basket in the kitchen, though - that's my current stash that I'm working through so this certainly isn't all of it.

The box on the second shelf in the first cubby on the left is my box of de-stashed items.  The other two cubbies on this shelf have things that would normally fit into the stash baskets but it's all awaiting further organisation at the moment.  I'm trying to decide what to do about paper storage right now.  I have paper sleeves that my 12x12 cardstock comes in that I'm considering recycling to hold my patterned paper in one of these cubby squares.  Or I might invest in a cropper hopper - one for cardstock and one for patterned paper would be plenty for me.  Or perhaps the black three-partitioned cropper hopper.  I'm going to chat it over with a fellow scrapper friend who's coming to visit for a crop this weekend and then try to decide on a course of action.  Suggestions are whole-heartedly accepted.