Last Art Journal Pages for 2025

    Hi everyone.  It's countdown mode to 2026 at this point. And I remember when it was countdown to the new millennium, and now, we're almost 26 years into it. 

    Today I want to share a few holiday pages I made and haven't yet posted. I'll be linking  them up to Sharon's Winter theme over at Art Journal Journey

    Thank you Sharon for hosting during this busy month. You picked another awesome theme and inspired us all with your wonderful art. I also want to thank everyone who joined Sharon so far this month. There's still a little more time to join in before this challenge ends on the 31st. 😏

     I  just loved this paper from Ciao Bella that makes up the background and the main image on my page. I had to ask myself what to do to actually make this page my own?

    I used a stencil and a Sharpie to make a few postmark lines, and then I stamped a few phrases. I had this interesting scrap from a die cut sitting on my work table that I added to the bottom.

    

   This gingerbread paper was actually in a package, and I saved it because I thought it would have some future use. I covered my page with a bit of it. Then I die cut (using the very old TH gingerbread die) the gingerbread man from some tan striped paper. I thought at first the tan colored paper would work for a piece of gingerbread, but it was too light and didn't look like baked gingerbread. To fix that I inked it, and then to tie that color into my background I rubbed just a bit of the same ink on my background. I highlighted the gingerbread man with my Sharpie and a white Posca pen. The potholder, bow and scarf actually came from a  Creative Expressions gingerbread stamp set. I stamped and fussy cut them, colored them in and then added those pieces. I finished my page by drawing in the rest of the cookie's details as well as  stamping a quote from the Creative Expressions Gingerbread set that the scarf, etc. came from.

   My final holiday page has an old photo that was in a paper magazine (one of those booklets of paper "items" I found on the magazine rack at Barnes and Nobel). I used that image for my background. It didn't quite fill the page, so I used some blue and white cloth trim to fill in the top and bottom edges. I then added the colored image (from an AALL& Create package) and die the words. 

  Thanks everyone for all your kind comments that made 2025 a great year of art journaling for me. ❤  I'm hoping to try some new techniques in 2026.  And hoping to finish a few projects too.  

   Have a great rest of your year if I don't post between now and the start of 2026.  

T Stands for Wrapping Up 2025

    Hi everyone. Happy last Monday of 2025. I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas last week had a wonderful holiday. After a couple of days with my daughter and son-in-law visiting, my actual Christmas was quiet. Other than making my husband and myself  a nice dinner, I had to catch up on some shoveling out and writing some New Years cards. Some made it into the mail, but not all of them. 😞

    Since this is the last T day for 2025 over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog ,I thought I would share some photos I took during the year with T day in mind, but that I never ended up sharing on my blog. Be prepared for a lot of drinks. It was fun looking back through the last 12 months of photos and all the happy moments it brought. ❤

We met my daughter and son-in-law in Manchester (about an hour away) for brunch one day last winter.

    There's a pizza place not far from my mother-in-law's nursing home where we like to grab lunch either before or after a visit with her. And occasionally after a visit we meet up with my sister-in-law (and sometimes her family) that don't live far away from the nursing home. 

   I can't remember what this pink drink was but I'm thinking some kind of hard cider. I do remember we tried this new restaurant called Evviva Trattoria, and that I had baked pasta with meatballs. I also remember it was delicious.

    The Framer's Kitchen is our local hole in the wall breakfast/lunch place. It's actually the best breakfast place in my area (or at least I think so). We went out for breakfast a few times during year.

   We'd lost power for quite a while one day last summer,  so my husband and I went to the only restaurant in my town for a burger and beer for dinner.

And here's some sugar water for the bees to drink.

    We had take out sandwiches for dinner one nice night on the dock at my mother-in-law's house.  (This picture makes me want it  to be summer again. 😏)

   And more thirsty bee photos. This time they're getting a big drink of water from the bird bath.

A couple of quick stop dinners, usually in the summer after a day in the boat.

More hungry and thirsty bees at  their sugar water. And yes, so far the hive has made it through the winter.  👍❤😀

  And here's a couple of photos from our Nova Scotia trip in September. First, an ice tea for me and lemonade for my husband at the restaurant in the Fortress of  Louisbourg. 

    And then some mini-Diet Coke bottles we picked up at a grocery store to have for our giant roadtrip. I wish they sold this size here in the US because they're smaller than our small 8 pack bottles and are really just enough when you feel like a soft drink.

A birthday celebration this past fall since my daughter's and my husband's birthdays are only 1 day apart.

And finally, last Tuesday, when we took our Christmas light walk in the snow. The farm that does the light show (Sandy Hill Farm in Maine) has a hot cocoa stand. Here my son-in-law, my daughter, myself and my husband toasting to everyone and wishing you a Happy 2026.

To a happy T day, a great rest of 2025, and a super start to 2026!

Weekend Post

    Hi everyone. Happy weekend. I hope you had a wonderful holiday last week. 

    We're now in the middle Twixtmas or what I think of as that luxurious holiday downtime, the days between Christmas and New Years. I imagine lots of other people enjoy the time between the 2 holidays, especially if they have vacation time or don't have to work. With the Christmas crazies  more or less over I'm enjoying the lights, trees and decorations, watching more TV than I usually do and reading. It's been quite chilly in my area too, so that makes another reason for lots of lounging around the house. 😏

   Plus my husband has been around and has had some time off which has been fun for us both. His big news is that in a couple of weeks he's going to go to part time work and semi-retire. I think he's having some adjustment thoughts about working less, but I think in a few months he'll wonder why he didn't just fully retire. Time will tell what happens I guess, and maybe he'll even surprise me and go back to working full time. 😮

    I have another page for Sharon's Winter challenge at  Art Journal Journey,  and I'll also be joining Gillena's Sunday Smiles. My page today is about the the winter Christmas holiday.

    When cleaning earlier this fall I found a couple of old greeting cards that had some fun dog prints. With the red check bow and the ball in his mouth, this guy made me think of Christmas and how the dogs in my house (and many other houses too) enjoy getting some fun little presents at Christmas. I fussy cut him out of the front of the card.

   I used some plaid paper and some fabric trim to make the background. The trim on the top and bottom are the same but it was hard to get equal light on both of them. I then added the dog image, some die cut black paper ric-rac as well as a fussy cut Santa image. Then I used some various paper greetings and mini-tags that I also had in my stash. 

  I thought before we moved beyond the holidays I would share a few more views from our holiday light walk last Tuesday (December 23). The walk at Sandy Hill Farm is around a mile (1.6 km), and as I said in my other post about our walk (Christmas Lights), the snow made it magical.

    I'll finish this post with the little Santa gnome I put out on the back deck. You can see he had a bit of snow on him when we left for our light walk Tuesday (the 23rd)  night.

   And ha ha, this is how he looked on the morning of the 24th. 

  It will be nice to have a bit of a warm-up a couple of days this upcoming week, but first we have to get through some ice and rain. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't lose power. Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week. 

Happy December 26

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I hope if you celebrated Christmas  (and aren't celebrating today) you had a lovely holiday. And whether you celebrate or not, I hope it was a great week. Today I'm linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

  I had a lovely and enjoyable holiday with my husband, daughter and son--in-law. They arrived Tuesday, and we had our family celebration on Christmas Eve Day.  We started out our holiday by  all climbing into the hubby's truck Tuesday night after dinner and driving through a bit of a snowstorm to go to see some holiday lights at a place in Maine called Sandy Hill Farm. The hubby and I have been there before, but not my daughter and son-in-law so this year we were able to share it with them. I've posted photos from our previous visits before also, but this year the snow made it even more magical.

   Here are a few festive views.

   Although these photos don't look like it, it was actually fairly crowded. The farm does a great job of spacing out people since you have to reserve a time online before you go. They don't sell tickets at the gate. With the snow it took us a bit longer to get there than usual, but  at the gate the girl told me that everyone was late with snow and it was better to be a little late and safe, especially since we seem to drive there when the snow was at its worse. The drive home was not even half as tricky.

    When he left the house there was barely a half an inch (like 1 cm) of snow on the ground, and when we got home 3.5 hours later we had 5 inches (almost 13 cm) of snow on the ground. The farm with the lights is close to the ocean and they did not get that much snow, maybe just a couple of inches, so it wasn't  bad walking around.

 And here's some faces for Friday Face Off. First of all a family portrait.

And then a great photo of everyone but me (because I was taking the photo).

   I have one more face to share today. My son-in-law is a pretty talented guy, and he made me a mini-Sasquatch out of a big chunk of log for Christmas. Big Cheeks also known as Wilbur stands about 24 inches (61 cm) tall.

And if you wonder why he's known as Big Cheeks just look at the back view.  😏

Grin!  I'll end with that view, so have a super weekend ahead!