Well I’ve seen an abundance of ‘My Review of 2011 posts’ but my memory is soooo terrible I can barely remember what I’ve done this year so Kate Takes 5’s Listography to list your top 5 photos of 2011 seems like a much better way to recall my year.

1. Like my friend Jay I have to pick a picture from our friend Stacey’s Wicked themed Hen Do in London. Jay has picked a great one of the group of us (complete with random lady) which you can see here. As the Bridesmaid I felt a certain amount of pressure to get the day right and I believe everyone had a fantastic day on our tour round London, Ice-cream at Harrods, Afternoon Tea at The Dorchester and trip to see Wicked. It was great to see my Musical Theatre loving friend collecting autographs from, and pictures with the cast at the end of the night. The rest of us snuck in on this picture with Elphaba herself, Rachel Tucker (thanks Rachel for being a) mind-blowingly amazing as Elphaba and b) so lovely to your fans outside).

2. Then of course there was the Wedding, complete with me making a tit of myself; blubbing whilst attempting to read the poem I’d written Stacey and her hubby, gorgeous dresses of green, a sweetie stand, button bouquets, cupcakes, karaoke. All in all a great day that would have scored very highly on Four Weddings. Here’s a photo of  6 schoolfriends that I believe have been bought even closer through the use of Social Media this year.

3. I’m going to cheat a tiny bit for this one and add two pictures, but forgive me as it was a mega special occasion.  It was my Nainy and Taidy’s  (welsh for Gran and Grandad) 60th (Yes 6-0) Wedding Anniversary. As well as arranging the telegram from the Queen that you can see here from one of my earlier Silent Sunday pictures, we travelled up to help them celebrate. The picture on the cake is them on their wedding day and then a picture of all of their family that we are putting on canvas for them to keep.

4. I’ve spent the last couple months of the year being creative, in November during NaNoWriMo I managed to add another 10,000 words to the 50,000 words of my novel that I started in last year’s challenge. A Facebook challenge at the start of the year was to give a handmade gift to the first 5 people to comment on your statement. I made a promise of the draft (no matter what state it was in). So it is in the hands of others as we speak and I’ve had two really helpful sets of constructive critique so far. I did debate making bookmarks to go with them but because I provided the draft in Kindle format this wouldn’t really be that helpful so instead I made a set of slightly unique paintings for each person that is representative of the book. Here is the version I made for myself in a mock up front cover.

5. Finally, I re-taught myself to knit using You Tube and, in my recent Bucket List I noted that I wanted to finish the scarf I was working on and then make one that I could actually wear in public. Well my mother suggested not to waste wool by continuing knitting a long scarf that wouldn’t be worn so I stopped at a mini scarf which I folded in half and tonight I’ve stitched together as a gift for my long serving cuddly Sultan. Here he is wearing it at my parents as we wait to see in the New Year (off to cross off half of a Bucket List item – I’ve already started the new one).

So creativity and weddings were the order of 2011, what will 2012 have in store? Hopefully more of the same.

If Kate repeats this challenge in 2012 I’m going to find it much harder to narrow it down to 5 pictures considering I’m hoping to take one every day of the year (see here).

Happy 2012 everyone, I hope it is a peaceful one for us all.

Kirsty