Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 1 - Composition Book

Marks Finest Papers are sponsoring a unique challenge called the Twelve Days of Christmas.
Each day from Oct 22 until Mov 2, 2013, they featured a different challenge. You can find the challenges here.

There is a Christmas themed stamp set  for each days individual prize,  and a grand prize of $350.  worth of current stamp sets for the grand prize winner who enters all 12 challenges. You have until 9Pm on Nov 11, 2013 to upload your creations. Submissions are limited to up to 5 per each days challenge.
 I am going to give it a try...hopefully I get it finished in the next seven days!  

Day 1 is to decorate a composition book. I have mentioned before that my daughters and I like to go down to the USA and shop the Black Friday sales. We book a hotel for 2 nights and shop till we drop. I get a lot of fabulous crafty bargains at Joannes and Michaels on Black Friday. We usually just sleep 3 or 4 hours as the sales are all at weird times at different stores. We do the bulk

of our Christmas shopping on Black Friday.

I think the Joanns is at 4 am or something like that! Yes, you read that correctly...you shop all night!!!

The line ups to pay are huge (maybe 40 to 60 minutes)...but the shoppers are all on a shopping bargain high...everyone is friendly and giggling...and it is a lot of fun! The massive savings suits this frugal lady too!

In order to shop successfully at Black Friday, we research the sales flyers and online ads, plan our strategy, make wish lists and mark the store hours for the special times our items go on sale.

We then create a master list that we all share. It would be impossible to get everything on your list if you were shopping on your own. We take a copy of the master list each, and we each get assigned stores and assigned items in that store. It is key to get a shopping cart and believe me, that is an experience in itself on Black Friday!!! lol

This book is the start of my Black Friday planning. My wish lists and stores, times, etc will be recorded in here...It is from this book that the master list will be compiled.  I use the back pages to assign a couple of pages per person in my family. I then use thes to list the presents I hope to buy for that person.  This way the book can still be used after Black Friday, for tracking the rest of the Christmas shopping and used to check and see who is finished and who still needs a couple more things. I try to treat everyone equally, so this helps me keep track of that.

For those of you whose heads are spinning by now, remember that I have a brain injury that causes me to forget things in the moment. If I did not have this list, I would get distracted and forget where to meet and at what time. I would also forget some  items I was there for. 

For me, it is when I multitask, or when I feel stressed, that I forget more often. This book really helps me stay on track for my bargains.

The snowflakes at the top are self adhesived felt from the dollar store and I stuck a small rhinestone down into the hole in the center. So the bling is attached to the green glitter paper and protected from being knocked off by the depth of the felt snowflake hole.

The large snowflake on the bottom right is a raw chipboard one that I picked up in a package from Michaels in the after Xmas sales last year. I added another felt adhesive snowflake overtop and punched a hole through it all for a red diamond brad.  I attached this big snowflake as soon as I finished cutting the glitter paper and rounding the right side edges. That way I was able to attach the snowflake to the glitter paper with the brad before I glued that whole front page down onto my book.

Now remember that I need my book to be able to withstand being shoved in and out of my purse those 2 days. I basically covered the entire back of the Best Creations Olive Green Glitter paper with Sook Wang and stuck it down. I used a Anna Griffin Christmas Kitsch Vellum quote sentiment sticker and affixed it first to some ivory card and then trimmed the whole thing down to fit on my book. It was just a little too big as is. That was then affixed to a snippet of the same glitter paper in red.

I really love this glitter paper as the glitter does not come off. It is glittery but affixed to the page really well...do not want a purse full of glitter now, do I...

The little red band is a belly band to keep the book shut and protect the precious pages! Yes, I know...it is a funny word...but it works!

This book is entered in the following challenges:

1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets (the small, red, glitter card mat.
2. Marks Finest Papers Twelve Days Of Christmas - Day 1
3. Unstampabelles - Vellum
4. A gem of a challenge - Christmas
5. Allsorts Challenge - Christmas Cheer
6. A Little Bit Crafty -  Sparkle and Shine
7. Simon says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything goes