random reflections

Journal Your Christmas

Tomorrow Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class begins again. This will be my seventh year doing the journal, and I've never tired of it. Earlier this week, I brought out the first six journals which reside in a basket in our living room during the holiday. I flipped through a couple of them, and it brought back memories of things I might well have forgotten if I hadn't captured them in the journals. Over the next month, I'll probably read through all of them again.

This year I actually did some preparation ahead of time. During the October Papertrey release I saw a Simple Stories album that seemed just perfect. It's an 8 X 6 two ring binder, and it might become my new favorite size for single topic scrapbooks. Here's the spine and cover.

The cover is a simple circle cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities and a piece of Teresa Collin's Christmas paper from last year. The holly is cut from felt with Papertrey's Holly Jolly dies. The title is created with my old favorite SEI alpha stickers.

The binder comes with several patterned paper pages:

They seem perfect for Christmas, but I decided to embellish most of them. I've left some (above) to embellish as I go along.

A piece of Washi tape, a circle of paper from the Merry Mint pad by American Crafts, and an American Crafts sticker.

More Washi tape and Crate Paper Thickers by American Crafts.

The border of the paper is just about the same red as the stamped banners, but sure doesn't look like that in this photo. The banner was stamped and hand cut using Papertrey's Countdown to Christmas stamps--the only new addition to my Christmas collection. The twine came in a Studio Calico kit. I also used the stamp set to create the numbers for the daily pages:

The frame and arrow are die cuts by Papertrey Ink, the button was from my stash. There'll be a photo in the frame eventually.

I saw this idea somewhere and thought I'd pinned in on my Pinterest board, but I don't see it there. This is a Starbucks sleeve from last year, and I'll be using it for journaling. If anyone knows the source, let me know.

One of the things I like the most about this scrapbook is the divided photo pages. I bought some of Ali Edwards digital  journaling cards, printed them out and found some subway art on the internet as well. 

I'm hoping this will be easy to assemble as we go through December. Several years ago, I gave up trying to respond to all of Shimelle's prompts or to do a page for every day. Shimelle has updated the prompts for this year, so I'm looking forward to some new ideas. Mostly I just want a record of our time as we travel through the Advent season.

 

 

Gratitude Journal: Part 3

You can see the beginnings of this project here and here. When I began the Gratitude Journal, I made a list of words that represented things for which I am truly grateful. While Sarah and Caleb were here, I looked for opportunities to capture photos of them with words I had chosen. Now that they’ve gone back home, it’s back to creating photo opportunities for some of the rest of the list. It hasn't been nearly as easy to keep up with this since they've gone home. I only have four more pages to go, but there are too many for one post, so I'll start with these for today, and finish it up in a day or two.

11.14 OK, so I really don't like flying, but without air travel I would rarely see either of my children. So, yes, I am grateful for air travel!

11.15 The first full day since Sarah and Caleb left. It's a good thing the sun is shining! I am always grateful for sunshine in Rochester.

11.16 Papercrafting has brought me a lot of joy---the ability to creat hand-made gifts, make new friends through blogging, and new opportunities for sharing my passion. (These are the gift tags I made for the family gift exchange this year.)

11.17 Ten years ago I wouldn't have believed the amount of traveling we've done since we retired. I love seeing new places, visiting friends and family, and learning so much about this country. (This is the next trip planned out. We're driving Tracy's mother's van to Florida for her in early January, stopping to see friends in the Cheasapeake Bay, Charlotte, and Stuart, FL before we head to Fort Meyers for a few days.)

11.18 We've belonged to Third Presbyterian for over 30 years. Here we've found friends, support, and opportunities for service.

11.19 I missed Sarah and Caleb the minute I left them at the airport. Thank goodness for Face Time and the ability to SEE them as well as talk to them.

11.20 This man is the best thing that ever happened to me. Kind, patient, loving, supportive, forgiving--the list goes on and on. Lucky me!

Papertrey November Blog Hop Challenge

It’s once again time for the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This time the challenge is to use cover art as an inspiration for your card. I was immediately attracted to the light colored “OZ” on the black paper and started with that. Here's the inspiration photo Nicole posted on the Papertrey blog:

I originally thought I’d add a sentiment in a variety of colors, but loved the tree so much I decided to keep it simple with a red banner. I love the white embossing on black. The berries were colored in with Smooch Lipstick which has a subtle glow to it IRL. 

The tree is from one of my favorite Christmas sets, "Believe," and the sentiment is from "Stylish Sentiments Holiday." This is an A2 sized card, so even with the overhanging banner, it will fit into a standard enveloope. Although embossing tends to be more time-consuming (and messy) than I want to do for the many, many holiday cards I make each year, I may make a few more of these before I'm finished.

October: Capture Your 365

Before November ends, it's probably time to get my October 365 layout posted. All the supplies except the envelope I used for journaling are from the November Studio Calico kit. 

I printed the journaling out and tucked it in the envelope this month:

October was iPhonography month in honor of my new iPhone5, and with hopes that I’d learn a bit more about some of my apps. As always, life gets in the way, and I relied mostly on apps I already knew, although I did master HDR Fusion and spent a lot more time with Instagram. I edited almost all the photos on the phone, and relied on Snapseed and Photogene. Editing in Elements is far easier!

Bill passed away peacefully on October 2nd. He was 91 and lived a full life, yet none of us were ready to say good-bye. Scott and Greg flew in for the weekend, and we were able to have some good family time. His memorial service will be next month.

We spent the first weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake with Karen and Mike. . . a new B&B which we loved, a fabulous new winery (Southbrook) and a wonderful production of "Ragtime" at the Shaw Festival. 

I went on the Kelby photo walk the 13th of October, but still haven’t edited the photos, and ended up choosing one from the canal for that day. On the 16th we went to Sauders in Seneca Falls, and to the Merry-Go-Round Theater with Mary and Jim for a production of "Nunsense." Mary and I heard Jeffrey Brown at Arts & Lectures. We attended an opening at the Eastman House with Bill and Beryl on the 19th, and won at duplicate on the 20th--a nice surprise. The Children’s Sabbath was October 21st, and I attended a morning prayer service at the Board of Education, church, and then a Presbytery-wide Youth Service in Brockport that afternoon.

The highlight of our month were visits from Sarah, Caleb, and Matt. We had a wonderful weekend -- dinner at Mario’s, going to church, a family dinner, and getting together with Betsy and Skylar. Our Halloween Open House was lots of fun, and Caleb was the cutest pumpkin ever! Lots of the photos this month were of fall foliage, and I got lots of great ones along the Erie Canal while walking with Tina and Debbie, at Tinker Park, and on Irondequoit Bay.

I finished The Oath and Sabbath in the Suburbs both of which I loved, and The Unexpected Guest--easy read, and completed 21 cards and 5 layouts. 

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the month since they're so hard to see on the layout:

A fall display in Niagara-on-the-Lake

High Falls, Rochester, NY

Highland Park

Caleb and Grandpa leaving church

Get Well Wishes

Three of my good friends have recently had surgery. All of them are recovering nicely, and I thought I'd share the cards I sent them.

"On the Couch Additions" and "Chair-ished" are two of my favorite stamp sets for folks recovering from surgery. The card is from Paper Source and the patterned paper from "Snap" by Simple Stories.

This friend was definitely in need of some sunshine. As she noted, in August the foot surgery and a three-to-four week recovery didn't sound too bad, but now not being able to move around, drive, or take care of projects it's not looking quite so good. I was glad to pull our the "Hello, Sunshine" stamps, as this was the perfect sentiment. A felt sun (Heart2Heart die #6), a Papertrey button, and an old card from the stash (Savvy or A Muse?), and I ended up with a pretty cheerful card.

The card was cased from this card by Kimberly Crawford. It was the perfect sentiment for our cousin's daughter who had rather dreadful complications from her surgery, but is now doing great. The paper is Cosmo Cricket "Boyfriend," the little clothespins and twine are from Michael's, and I generated the sentiment on the computer. I  bought her a couple of journals since she's a writer and decided to make my own wrapping paper.

I used Hero Art's Scattered Leaves and a variety of Tim Holtz Distress Inks, utilizing the the rock 'n roll technique with some of the leaves. It was quick and easy. Something I should do more often.

2012 Gratitude Journal: Part 2

Here are the next few days of my Gratitude Journal.

11.7 The love between mother an dchild is one of our most precious gifts. These two warm my heart!

11.8 It's lots of fun watching Caleb learning new things. I'm always grateful for my opportunities to continue learning--there's never enough time to learn it all.

11.9 Books have always been so important to me and to Sarah. I hope Caleb finds the same pleasure in them when he grows up.

11.10 Technology pervades my life and most of the time, I'm very grateful for it. I would have never guessed I'd enjoy e-books as much as I do, and Sarah's another fan.

11.11 I'm so grateful to those who have fought time and again for my freedom. This is the newly dedicated Veteran's Memorial just outside our community garden.

11.12 No words are needed--such a beautiful baby and one of our greatest blessings.

Hope you are having a lovely Saturday. I'm off to a cooking demonstration at one of my favorite specialty shops. Last week they shared appetizers, and every one of them was delicious. The focus today is roasted vegetables--one of our favorites.

2012 Gratitude Journal: Part 1

Once I read about other's plans to create a gratitude journal, I knew this was something I wanted to do. I needed to keep it simple, and my first thought was to combine it with my Capture Your 365 project with a photograph and a word or two. That's how it started, but yesterday when I was putting it together, I decided I wanted to journal a bit about each entry so I added some tags with journaling on both sides.

Here's the journal. I found this charming photo album in my stash and knew it would work perfectly. The old typewriter key alpha was just perfect--another item from the stash.

The title page was created on an Archiver's journaling card. I cut "grateful" with my Silhouette and used stamps for the date.

Here are the first two pages. Each tag slides in between two photos and the journaling for each is on one tag, so I wanted to keep all the photos back-to-back. This quote by Lemony Snicket was in Real Simple magazine this month, and is just perfect as an introdution.

Here's a look at one of the tags. Since it's difficult to avoid a glare photographing through the photo sleeve, I'll post the photos and the journaling directly to the blog, but you can see what it looks like here:

I decided not to worry about the orientation of the photos so some are landscape and many are portraits. But that doesn't bother me in the least.

So here are the first few days. I'll be back tomorrow with another edition.

11.1 There is nothing better than the laughter in my house when both of my kids are home. Caleb just adds to everyone's delight!

11.2 Blessed is how I feel to have Sarah and Caleb here for an extended visit.

11.3 We saw these blocks in a toy store last spring and knew we had them in the attic. Although Caleb's too young to build with them, tossing them about has been one of his pleasures.

11.4 It's been a long time since Sarah, Julie, and Stephanie have been together. What lovely young women they have become!

11.5 Ellie was here for dinner, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to capture the four generations together.

11.6 Although I was delighted to have President Obama re-elected, I would be grateful for my right to vote regardless of the outcome.

I'll be back tomorrow with a look at the next few pages.

Still Here

Yes, I'm still here, and I'm trying to get around to blogs for a few minutes each day, but I haven't wanted to take the time to post recently since our time with Sarah and Caleb was nearing the end. Sarah, however, came down with a nasty cold on Tuesday. Yesterday she felt so rotten she cancelled two meetings--one with a pastor advisor/friend and one with her grandmother. Her grandmother suggested she stay a few extras days and offered to pay for the change fee. It turned out to be quite a hassle, but Sarah finally found a new flight home for the same price as her original one. Lucky us, she'll be with us for another week! It proved to be a good decision as the same night, we found Caleb's first two tiny teeth emerging which has caused a bit of disruption in his sleep patterns. It hasn't, however, altered his happy disposition. Here's one of my favorites from yesterday, playing with a basket of Bill Dings--toys we saved from Sarah and Matthew's childhood, and one I remember from mine as well.

Needless to say, crafting time has been put aside for the most part, although I do have some earlier projects to share and will try to get them up this week. I've also decided on a format for a gratitude project for November (thanks Amy and Mel!) and will try to get some photos it soon.

Here is a card I made the day Sarah and Caleb arrived for good friends who just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.

I think it's a bit easier to see the metallic paper (silver and blue) in the close-up. I think both are by Bazzill, but I'm not sure. I try to buy a few sheets of it whenever I visit Buffalo Stamps and Stuff, but it has no manufacturer on the paper itself. The dies are By the Number and the sentiment from Big Birthday Wishes (Papertrey Ink), and the gems from Hero Arts.