Skip to content

Catching Up

  • by

I finally made time today to do a little catching up on my Christmas Journal. I have the journaling done for four more pages, but they’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’m off to wrap stocking stuffers, and to be sure I have enough for Matt’s stocking.

WrapLO
Memory Box patterned paper, cardstock from my scrap drawer. 

AuburnLO
Anna Griffin patterned paper, paper punch, Amuse Creative Candy, photo template from CoffeeShop

SpecialGiftLO
Template: Liv.e Design (Storyboard Album)-JessicaSprague.com

MusicLO
Patterned Paper: Cosmos Cricket “Jolly by Golly,” Making Memories glitter alphabet stickers, holly sticker from stash.

CookiesLO 

Photo template from “Playing with Paper set no. 05” Little Dreamer Designs, puffy alphabet stickers from Making Memories, Jolee’s sticker, Bazzil cardstock.
  

Projects

  • by

Tracy and I got up early to frost cookies this morning, and the package for Sarah and Adam is ready to be mailed early tomorrow morning. I unpacked my goodies from Papertrey Ink this afternoon and did a bit of organizing. Tonight I finished a few projects that I needed to have ready to give on Wednesday. I made notepads for a group of women I work with each week when I volunteer and packaged them with a colorful pen to match and some candies.

Notepads 

NotepadsClose 

NotePadsPackage
I’m really happy with how they turned out. I love this stamp set (Take Note) from Papertrey Ink. I also made one for my SIL to go with her Christmas gift.

BookPad
 Yesterday I went to a Hero Arts party at the local stamp store. I had visited most of the blogs on the Hero Arts Blog Hop so I had a list of stamps I hoped to buy. I was lucky enough to find all four of them. They had a Make & Take which I enjoyed doing. When I got home, I decided I didn’t like the way the message covered the bottom of the card, so I took it off, added a ribbon, and a pretty button from the vintage Ripe Avocado buttons from Papertrey. You really can’t see it in the photo, but the button has a bit of glitter on it to match the glitter on the grasses.

HAMake&Take
This posted a bit darker than it is IRL.

And finally, I played with one of my new Hero Arts stamps. It’s a lift from Laura Griffin. I loved the brown background with the bright red poppies.

Poppy
The sentiment is from Everyday Classics (Papertrey) on an embossed Spellbinders tag. There are tiny pearls in the center of two poppies and three at the end of the tag.

I finished editing all the photos I’ve been taking for the Christmas Journal. Tomorrow’s “Layout Day,” if I don’t get distracted by the Christmas list!

   
 
 

Moxie Fab: All Creatures Great and Small

  • by

Here are two cards for the Moxie Fab challenge. I was inspired by the Crate and Barrel (love this store) plate for the first card.

HolidayCardinalPlt8p25inF9
 

Winterwishes1 

All Papertrey ink except for the Midori ribbon and Amuse Creative Candy.

HelloFriend 

Again, all Papertrey Ink except for the Fiskars border punch.
 
 

Embellish #2 and Lunch Out

  • by

As I was making the first card for the Embellish four color snowflake challenge, I remember my Spellbinders Snowflake dies which I used for one of my Christmas cards last year, so I decided to make another card.

Embellish#2R 

Embellish2Detail
Cardstock (Papertrey Dark Chocolate, Aqua Mist, Lemon Tart, and Kraft), Spellbinders die, Nestabilities Circle and Scalloped Circle dies, Patterned Paper (Papertrey Bitty Stars), Stamp (A muse), gems (Hero Arts), ribbon (Michaels)

A friend and I had lunch today at one of my favorite restaurants. We discovered The Gate House Cafe this summer and have never been disappointed in our meals. Today was no exception, great salads, wood-fired pizza, and this fabulous mulled cider:

Ciderw
I’m not typically a fan of cider, but this was so delicious I’ll be hunting for a recipe on the web!

Snowy Night

  • by

I have another card to post for the Embellish challenge (strange since the color combo is so not me), but none of the photos I took tonight are very good, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. It’s snowing here; my favorite kind of snow, white and fluffy. I took this shot of the tree on our patio with my point and shoot. The flash went off and caught all the snowflakes in the air. Probably not a very good photo technically, but I like the effect. 

SnowyPatioTreew
 

Embellish & Hero Arts Challenge

  • by

Snowflakes_4ColorChallenge

Between baking several batches of cookies, I managed over the course of the afternoon, to get a gift card holder done for the Embellish Four Color Snowflake challenge as well as the Hero Arts gift card challenge. It’s my take on Jennifer’s gift card holder. When you pull on the bow, the gift card emerges. I reduced the card size by 15%. I would never think to put these four colors together, but that’s the point of participating in a challenge. I have to admit, I’m pretty happy with it.

EmbellishGiftCardHA 

Cardstock (Papertrey Dark Chocolate, Kraft, Lemon Tart, & Aqua Mist), Stamps (Hero Arts: snowflake border, PaperTrey Snowflake Serenade: sentiment), paper punch, Ink (Papertrey Dark Chocolate & Tea Duo Chai), pearls from stash.

Two More JYC pages

  • by

Thanks to Amy, I rediscovered the digital templates a classmate from Cathy Z’s Design Your Life class created. I used it on this page and resized it to fit the 6X6 album. I wish you could see the photos better, however. They’re pretty small. I added Making Memories glitter letter stickers and a piece of ribbon from my stash.

ShoppingLO

And a very simple page with some of my favorite ornaments.

OrnamentsLO

Reclaiming My Time

  • by

When I worked full-time, had two active and involved teenagers at home, and volunteered at church in a variety of capacities, I used my time very effectively. I’m not so sure that happens now that I’m retired. I am getting a lot of things done that were on my To Do When Retired list, but there are an equal number of things I’m not getting to at all. So I was interested when I got an email about a BPS class called Reclaiming My Time. I thought about it for a long time, then by chance I found the instructor’s blog: karinka. Once I started reading her blog, I knew I’d like the class. And I do. The exercises are very enlightening, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time on it the last few days. I’ve already made some interesting discoveries, and done a lot of thinking about how I want to use my time in 2010. That, of course, is the point of the class. I made a quick cover for the binder where I’m keeping all the handouts and my worksheets.

TimeBinder
The image on the binder comes from one of the handouts. It’s a photograph of Karen’s mini-book. I don’t think I’ll work on that until I finish my Christmas Journal. Speaking of which, I have the photographs and ideas for five more pages, but have been busy with other activities for the last couple of days.

I did make two cards a couple of nights ago with the Making Memories Mistletoe collection. I didn’t use much of this for my Christmas cards this year, but I know I’ll still like it next year. I decided to make a couple of Thank You cards as I know I’ll need a few of these after the holidays.

Thanks

 

ThanksCardinals 

All the materials are Making Memories. I didn’t like this one as much until I added some red stickles to the berries on the patterned paper. The letter stickers on both cards are glitter stickers–a little hard to tell in the photographs.

Winter Morning and Sinterklaas

  • by

This is what we awoke to this morning. Alas, by noon, it was raining and a generally dark and dreary day. More snow and high winds are predicted for tonight through early Friday, so it looks like winter is on its way.

WinterMorning12.9w 

Sinterklaas also arrived on our street on Saturday night. I took a photograph of his gifts to us for my Christmas Journal.

Sinterklaas

More JYC

  • by

Since I’m not necessarily following along with the prompts (this being journal #4), I’m not numbering the pages either. Maybe I will when I’m done, so I don’t quite know how to title my post. More Journal Your Christmas seems to cover it. Today I got two pages done, one totally digital. The second one has my “real list” in a pocket (neatly copied over) with the things I’ve done crossed out. I dated it so I’d know where I was at this point in the year if I was ever curious. The first layout shows the new decorations this year. I fell in love with these candles from Target and bought them as soon as I saw them. Good thing, I haven’t seen them there in a while. Last Sunday, the red pillow went on sale and I scurried out to pick it up. The new wreath came from a local garden shop, and I just love it. I added the red berries. You can’t see it in any of these photos, but our tree skirt is also red with white appliqued snowflakes.

DecorationsLO6X6w
This is one of the templates Shimelle sent us. There’s a white border around all of it. I added a pale grey border so I’d know where to cut, but it doesn’t seem to show up here.

JYCList 

Patterned paper (Basic Grey & KI Memories), puffy letter stickers (Cloud Nine Design), felt tree (Hero Arts), buttons (Paper Trey Ink), library pocket (Bazzil), star pulled off another sticker of unknown origin.)

JYC

  • by

It’s been a busy couple of days. Lots of baking for church–a youth bake sale yesterday, and I’m the “cookie lady” for tomorrow night’s Session meeting. I baked a good part of Saturday and again this morning. There are photos, but they’ll probably end up in my Christmas Journal and get posted then. I did get a couple of projects done today including another 2-pager for the Christmas Journal.

GoneJYC5

Patterned paper (Memory Box), Velvet letter stickers (American Craft), tag and ribbon from stash, envelope from a Studio Calico kit, felt snowflakes (Hero Arts), pearls (Amuse and Hero Arts)

The packages are “gone,” and Sarah and Adam will be “gone” for Christmas, so it seemed like an appropriate title. The envelope has the receipts for the packages. I thought I might be interested some day what it cost in 2009 to mail their gifts.

JCY Day 4

  • by

I have one more Christmas card to share. I needed a card for a stamping friend who had seen almost all of the cards I’ve made. This is almost an exact lift of a card by Steph on A Passion for Papertrey. I hadn’t used these holiday papers yet which is kind of a surprise since I love Scarlet Jewel and Ripe Avocado together.

TisTheSeason
All Papertrey Ink except the gold cord (unknown) and the Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Yesterday Tracy and I headed out on a little road trip. The purpose was to go to Rooster Hill (a winery on Keuka Lake) to see if I could find a couple Christmas figures for my hanging kitchen shelves. I found some really cute ones there in August for the fall. I didn’t find what I was looking for but came home with a really cute figurine of sheep and stars–two favorites. I’ll post them with the Christmas decorations, although I think I can leave them out all year. We stopped at the Loomis Barn, a genealogy museum in Penn Yan, and finally in Phelps at the Flint Creek Brewery for dinner which turned out to be a great find.

JCY4 

Template by Jessica Sprague, Spiceberry paper by Memory Box, felt tree by Hero Arts, and pearls from my stash.
  

JYC Day 3

  • by

Today’s prompt dealt with Christmas cards. We send a lot of them, both locally and out of town. I used to think it was excessive, but most people (so they say) appreciate the homemade cards and those out of town enjoy finding out what we’ve been up to during the last year. In turn, I look forward to getting cards and letters in the mail during the holiday season. Today’s layout couldn’t be much simpler. One advantage of the 6X6 album is there’s not a lot of room for embellishment!

CardsLO
 

JYC-Day 2

  • by

I substituted for my friend in her special needs classroom today, so didn’t get to this prompt until after dinner. I did have a chance to read the prompt before I left, and as I drove to school I decided what story I wanted to tell. I combined the prompt about weather with our search for a Christmas tree. This year weather played a big part in our annual tradition of cutting down our tree.

JYCLO2w 

This is a two-pager since I had a lot to say and wanted to use four different photos. It’s perfectly straight IRL, but doesn’t quite photograph that way.

JYC Day 1

  • by

FirstSnoww

We awoke to our first snow this morning; December 1st seems like an appropriate day for it. I am not a skier or a fan of cold weather, but this seems just right now that the house is decorated for Christmas. Our spirea are about the only bushes with leaves left on them, and they look very pretty with the snow. 

Today is the first day of Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas class. I made this page after reading her email, and have yet to read the prompt and ideas for Day 1. As I suspected, the 6X6 album size is going to be a challenge. Fitting journaling and a photo on the page is tricky, and I think there’ll be more 2-page spread this year than usual, especially if I have multiple photos.

JYC1