Holiday Journal

Last week when I was on vacation I spent a little time finishing up my holiday scrap journal. Using these plastic pockets made it go quickly, but I did put in a few other pages where I didn't use the pockets. But everything being small-rather than 8 x 11, made it go fast.

There was a method in my madness. What I didn't want was to be finishing up this album late in January-and totally sick of it at that point!

My winter page at the top is just a piece of paper with a stamped poem (I added that). And these little 2x2 inch pockets with words- this is the back of a page! On this particular set I fill each pocket with the same paper.

Here's the front. I printed off lots of mini photos from my holiday to put on each little card.

It took some thinking from me how to set up this book and not make it page after page of the same things, and since I usually (actually never have) worked in this format, I had to do some mental  engineering how to actually put it all together. But I will admit, it it did go fast, and I accomplished my goal to getting it done!

Maybe not the most creative, but definitely fast.

I'll leave you with a couple more pages.

Thanks for visiting!

A Little More Holiday Journal Views

Last  post for a few days. I finish up with work at school today at noon  and then I'll be busy sipping eggnog, eating holiday cookies, and being an elf and helping Santa. Of course with all that work I'll be having some cheery holiday fun too.

Besides the holiday, it is also very exciting to be  on vacation for the next week and a half too. 

No big plans, but I am not too worried that I won't enjoy my downtime and find plenty to do.

So, before I sign off let me say

So whatever you believe or celebrate,

let me wish you peace.

 And thanks for giving up a minute to stop by.

Travel Journal

We're off on our family vacation at the end of next week. I can't wait. This year we are flying out to Seattle, Washington and then spending 10 days doing some road tripping and exploring.

I spent yesterday inside with the AC running because it was pretty hot outside. I put together my travel journal for the trip. I had started the cover- painted it, and then I rubbed some brown ink over it to get rid  of a bit of the brightness and give it more of an older distressed look.
I hand painted the picture in the middle of the mountain. Not sure Mount Rainier or Mount Hood or any of the mountains we will see will look like my mountain, but it does look abstractly like Mount Shasta in Northern California- which is part of the same Cascade Mountain chain. So maybe. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get all the mountain details exact, but I still am happy with the way it works on the cover. For the forest around the mountain I just brushstroked lines of green in 3 different shades-that part kind of works. All the rest of the cover is stickers I scavenged from my stash. I used to be a big scrapbooker. I actually like to scrapbook-my pages always look more journaly than the typical scrapbook page. I just haven't done as much scrapping as when my daughter was little because I've discovered how much I LOVE to play with paints, stencils and stamps.

Here is my inside cover.  I used the same green and blue paint to cover all of the cardboard pages within the book. This is a Maya Road book I picked up with a 4 ring inner binder to hold pages. It came with a lot of these bulky pages, which I like, but didn't want to use throughout the whole journal.  I used one at each end and then added one in the middle and made my own pages for the inside. Some of my inner pages are just cut pieces of paper, and some are pages I had (also from scrapbooking) that just needed some slight fixing. I also added some envelopes for pages and even a small flat paper bag I had. When I make a journal like this I often hit my stash a lot. You can see that here also. I love the saying above the word July. I recently picked up this set of travel stamps from Technique Tuesday and I think this is my favorite one in the set.

While cleaning out my classroom at the end of the year I came across a bunch of old slides that a retired teacher had had and his replacement had decided to throw away. I grabbed a bunch, not that I can use them in my classroom but figured they would make great embellishments on pages. That's where this little piece of film came from that I used on this page.

An October Afternoon page I had in my stash that I sprayed with ink, added the star, stickers and little cardboard dots (also from my stash).

Not the clearest photo, but you can see some of slides I brought home from work. Thought I would put them to use here.

A couple more fixed over pages for the journal. I have a lot of blank pages in this book and these half done pages too. I need to be able to actually keep the trip journal once we are there!  I will fill in and add things while we travel and then finish up the book once I am home. I bring my supplies- pens, Sharpies, a glue-stick, double side tape roll, scissors and a hole punch, in a little metal lunch box that goes right into my suitcase. It is amazing how little you can actually work with and how many periphery items you manage to accumulate at home when you don't need to keep it to a minimum.

One last page to show you. (Sorry this has been a long post today!) I know we will make it to at least 1 air and space museum in our travels, because my husband is really into that kind of thing. There are 2 he is talking about visiting, so maybe I will need more than this page. I just used some paper from my stash and these embellishments from my stash. Most pages I can't start to fix up since I am never exactly sure what it is we will end up doing.

Ok, time to take a breath and give my fingers a rest.

Thanks for stopping by.

Doors

Yesterday was so much fun. I came home from work and played for several hours in the playroom.

I mentally needed that playtime.

I find if I don't get art time for several days I start to get distracted and lose my focus to do other things.

Then I just get plain cranky.

Funny how somethings can be so important to your mental health.

Are you like that or is just my own weirdness?

This is my original background. I used some Distress paints and a Crafter's Workshop stencil.

Its called well rounded.

Then I stamped this awesome B-Line image several times in brown ink.

Doors of the world.

I love how it blends into the background yet gives it a little bit of a pop.

Then I added this lovely bicycling lady.

She's from a set of stamps in the Travel Girl line from October Afternoon.

She's lots of fun.

Here's the top edge of the page. You can really see the doors here. And my writing. At the top you can see the word open which I repeated. I made them by using these little circle stickers that have been in my stash for years. 

I'm happy with how those little circle letter words look against the checkerboard Dylusions border images.

I'm off to open those doors.

Well, off to work.

Glad its Friday.

Glad its almost the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Holiday Journal Pages

Just a few snapshots from my holiday journal today.

Not too much to say otherwise.

Love how this page came out.  I worked on it quite a bit before it got to this point, but adding the thin green ric-rac finished it in a surprisingly good way for me. Tags are from October Afternoon.

This book has pages that open and close and flip over themselves. The left side closed over the right. I embossed the tree scene at the bottom at the bottom, and I decorated the letters in the jolly word on the left.  Both background papers are from October Afternoon.

There's a learning curve on this kind of book for me, working in different sized pages and the limitations that come from small pages, especially when you want to add photos.

You can see the page on the left isn't quite finished- needed that green ric-rac. The page on the right gave me some space to do a bit of journaling. 

That's all for me.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Stars

My holiday journal is full of stars.

And I don't mean those in the sky or those highly paid Hollywood Divas.

These are layered tags I made using October Afternoon flour sack elements. And a few stamped words, some gold Stickles,  and a couple of letter stickers.

How about a die cut hollow star (Quickutz) and an October Afternoon sticker in the middle?

And using those same star die cuts in color and decorated with Stickles?

And some more October Afternoon flour sack stars. I colored the edges and used them as a banner border.

I think stars are great to use any time of year, but Christmas time is especially good for them.

You  can probably guess that but looking at this snapshots.

Have a happy Wednesday.

Holiday Advice

A  piece of holiday advice in this snippet from my holiday journal.

This advice stamp is from Technique Tuesday.

I try to follow that advice because I feel like it can get a bit over whelming at this time of year.

Why we think Christmas has to be a certain way and involve certain activities...whatever those activities and events are for you, and why we let society in general make us think that we need to do these things,

it is just plain crazy.

OK, I will admit it

make me think that way.

 I am as guilty as anyone-thinking the holiday needs to be a prescribe formula.

You know, buy the gifts, wrap the gifts, do the tree, decorate the house, bake some cookies, go to the holiday parties...I love Christmas and all that goes with it but blah, blah, blah.

So 

when I should have been doing some pre-holiday chores

This what I did -

Most of the items on this tag are from October Afternoon.

Here's a close up.

So tell me, have you been feeling like you should be doing something for the holiday but deciding to do something else instead? Are you a last minute kind of person? 

Not me-at least the last minute person part, but I am feeling in pretty good shape right now and I loved that.

So it is less than 1 week until  Christmas.

And counting today-

3 days left of school until vacation.

And yesterday my favorite craft store was having a 1 day sale (part of their 12 days of Christmas sales) where all wood mounted rubber stamps were  70% off.

Yes, you heard me right-

70%.

Of course I had to go buy a few.

It was a lot of fun.

OH yeah!

Thanks for spending a few minutes of your day with me.

From the archives

So today I have a couple of tags from the archives to show you. I have some new work to photograph and post, but at this time of year, getting the right natural light to take decent pictures  is hard. It is dark when I leave at 6:20 for work and dark enough by 4 p.m. not to be able to get a decent shot. Hopefully this weekend I can squeeze in enough light to get those photos taken.

I love this tag on the top here-love the black and white background (Tim Holtz/Stamper's Anonymous) and how it is so much like a vintage newspaper add. The flower is Darcy's and the card is from October Afternoon. By the way- have you seen that October Afternoon offers Santa Sacks on their blog? Pretty good deal if you don't mind taking a chance to see what you will get. 

This tag has green inked background and some dark green pine images stamped (also Tim Holtz/Stamper's Anonymous). Then I embossed some heavy clear plastic packaging.  Snowflakes they are die cuts from Cheery Lynn Designs and the ornament is from Sizzix. I added the 2 punched deer (Martha Stewart) and the gemstone heart and the little oval die cut (Sizzix) with the word stamped on it.

So last night's hockey game was SOOOO painful. Maine got a goal with 5.8 seconds left in the game to tie 2-2 but then the refs disallowed it as they said there was interference and contact with the goalie. Didn't look bad to me...(OK, I am biased), but it was one of those emotional roller coasters-from an exciting high thinking we would go into overtime to down in the dumps when we lost. Another game. Sigh! Maine is doing so BADLY! this year. And we made the NCAA's last year. Goes to show you how little it takes to change the results.

One a happier note-we are heading out to get our Christmas tree today. It is COLD!!!!! Brrrrrrr! Will bundle up but will be a nice way to spend a cold Saturday afternoon and evening, drinking tea and putting up our tree in a nice warm house since the wood stove is cooking away.

You know it is suppose to be in the 50's tomorrow? Can't even hit 30 today.

Once again- just like with hockey games, it doesn't take much to change the way things go.

Stay warm.

Have fun.

Enjoy your Saturday.

10 Things Friday

Here's my weekly list- the holiday one
1- A snowy morning...maybe we'll get a white Christmas!!!

2-Vacation starts today! I really need some down time! Plus my hubby is off next week too and Katie is home...she just works a couple of days at Target. We'll be chillin' and relaxing and having some fun.

3-It is the holiday weekend!!! Tonight we meet my in-law family for a fun dinner out. Tomorrow we are going to my mom's to have dinner with my family. Then Sunday we sit home and just have a fun day home.

4- Haven't had much studio time this week what with Christmas activites and work. But next week I am home to play a lot...if I feel like it!

5-My fav craft store had these amazing sales this past week but who has had time to go? Its not right near me (like an hour away)  amd with 1 "thing" on sale a day you have to pick what is the "thing" you really want to make the trip. Along with the time, who has all that extra cash right now? But I wish...

6- I'm feeling pretty ready for the holiday...can you ever be totally ready...but it comes and you are as ready as you will be.
7- I can't believe we are just about at Christmas and the end of 2011. Where did this year go to?
8- I got a Santa Sack from October Afternoon whose products I love. What a great collection! Lots of holiday papers and items along with other items...will be great next week...when I am on vacation...and finishing up my holiday journal. I am definately going to check it out next year because I got so much stuff for $40.
9-So Wednesday this week we were raw and cold and had this icky rainy that froze all over the roads. Yesterday it was in the 50's and sunny. And now we're into winter and it is cold and snowy! This weather is something else.
10- Fall is officially over and it is now winter! I am not anti-winter, but it is just too long here in New Hampshire. I would love winter if was over by February. By March 1 at the very latest. But, I can't control that and winter is here so I just have to roll with it. And right now, I am just so much in the holiday spirit that I am not noticing the shorter day...and just think- since we are past the solstice...the days are actually getting longer now. It might be a bit...but it is a nice fact to know.

***
Got to show you a bit of holiday art too!

These are all some different kind of pages from my holiday journal. Here's a tag I made that I used with a page...I started by rubbing some Distress Stain over a tag and gave it a rough kind of look. Then I  stamped a Hero Arts snowflake stamp with Versamark and used some crystal clear embossing powder. Then I added the Jingle Bells image from October Afternoon. Then I added a die cut poinsettia flower, but just 1 layer of the flower cut with on checked red paper. I stamped the circle merry image (also Hero Arts) with red on white paper and then punched it out with circle paper punch.  I used a black Sharpie on the edge and added it over the flower. The little reindeer along the bottom are from a Flourishes clear stamp set which I colored with some Copics. Finally I added  this Jingle Bell cardstock square, which I have had forever and really can't remember who made it. It was sitting in with some other Christmas pieces I have been collecting...you know how it is, you use  a few pieces one year and a few another and the packaging is long gone in the trash.

 

Here's a VERY simple page. I took this image  and stamped (in white) these 2 sayings. The Be Good for Goodness Sake is from Technique Tuesday and the Saison de Noel is from a set by Aladine stamps (a cool French company. Then I stamped the heart (Hero Arts) and added another stamp the Aladine set.

That's it...and as you can see- pretty simple but works.

Finally, this page. We had met Katie and Brian at IHOP one night so I printed off their menu from the internet, added a journaling tag and a Cavallini stocker-but Santa needed to say something, so I stamped the words (Technique Tuesday) and colored in the words...then I doodled a box and cut it out, which I like and I think this page works well.

Simple, but gets the point of the memory across.

Anyhow...

Have a great Friday.

And as this santa says

"Ho! Ho! Ho!"