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Journal Your Christmas: Part 3

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I spent three hours at lunch today with four good friends. It was a great way to spend our first wintery day. I did get one more page for the journal done tonight and a couple of thank you cards, all of which will show up here in a day or two. For now here are the pages I promised yesterday.

12.13

Betsy and Skylar came to dinner. We feel so blessed to be near by and get to see her nearly every week. I have new photos to share of her as well. Journaling reads:

What a blessing Skylar Rose and Betsy are to our family! Although she’s too young this year to understand Christmas, we know what a special joy she’ll be bringing to all our holiday celebrations. She is the sweetest baby ever!

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It’s not often I have a page to add with the prompt about visitors, but this year my brother spent a weekend with us and we had great fun.

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I extracted part of a template by Ali Edwards for this page. The journaling reads: We were delighted to discover that Colgate Rochester Divinity School was hosting a carling party and bell ringing concert today. Our street dead-ends on the CRDS property so we had an easy walk up the hill to listen to the bells and sing carols along with our neighbor, Paul, and about 300 others.

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This was a fun page to do. I used one of the October Afternoon Holiday Style journaling cards to write out the list of things I still had to do. The houses are from a sticker sheet from the same line, the clouds are from Studio Calico, and the Filagree Border is one of the two new ones I just got from Papertrey Ink.

Journal Your Christmas

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I’ve had some time the last two days to get a few more pages done on the Christmas Journal. Rather than work sequentially, I’ve been doing the pages I had photos for, or ones I had written the journaling for already. Since there are several of them, I’ll post a few tonight and the rest tomorrow. It’s a rather electic scrapbook as I’ve been choosing papers based on the photos rather than sticking to a particular set of papers or a consistent template. I’m quite enamored of some of the Christmas Journals I’ve seen this year that have a more consistent look, but I’m not sure how well I’d be able to stick with them. Food for thought for 2012. 

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The idea for this page came from a prompt I received from Tracey Clark about holding onto gratitude. The journaling reads:

Thanksgiving is the holiday where everyone focuses on their blessings, but, truly, Christmas seems like just as good a season to take stock of all I am grateful for.  The list is too long for this entry, but the top three are . . .

 FAMILY–I am more appreciative than ever of time with family now that both Sarah and Matt live miles away. This holiday season would seem much bleaker if it weren’t for a large extended family that is here and will make Christmas Day a rousing, happy holiday.

 HOME–Having done so much work on our house this year, I am truly grateful for a beautiful home, a fabulous new kitchen, and wonderful neighbors.

FRIENDS– We are truly blessed with many friends with whom we share joys, tribulations, fears, and celebrations. Our lives are enriched by our many close friends with whom we share meals, events, and travel. Our book group, our fellow bridge players, my blogging buddies, and our church community add such richness to our lives.

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One of the articles in a recent Creating Keepsake magazine was about using calendar pages in your scrapbooks. I had this page from a Papertrey Ink calendar I didn’t use this year and decided it would be a fun way to document the social events of the holiday season.

12.10
I lifted the idea for this page right off Miriam’s blog. (Thanks, Miriam, I like it a lot.) Tracy and I were bemoaning the fact that it didn’t seem much like Christmas this year, but in addition to the fact that neither of our kids were here, we also skipped a few of the annual traditions. We’ve decided we won’t do that again.

12.11

For both Advent and Lent our fabulous church choir presents special music. Since we live in a town with a renowned music school, our choir director and organist (who also teaches at the Eastman) has access to wonderfully talented muscians who accompany the choir on these occasions. This year it was two brass choirs, and was not to be missed! I included the page from the bulletin that describes the two pieces they sang. Our church is always beautifully decorated. I wouldn’t take a photo during any service, but I did get one of the chancel area before the service began.

We had a fabulous Christmas celebration with our family. I turned my point and shoot over to Jessie, Tracy’s cousin’s daughter who took over 250 photos. She recently sold her camera and is saving for an DSLR. She had a lot of fun, and I got to relax and enjoy the family. I have them uploaded, but it will be a while before I get through all of them and decide which 5-10 photos I want to use for my journal.

 

Journal Your Christmas

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My first Christmas Journal was made in 2006, so this is my sixth year and it’s a project I still enjoy. I’m much more relaxed about it than I used to be, and by the end of the season I always have a record of our holidays. Some days I write the journaling based on a prompt. This year I’m receiving Shimelle’s prompts (as always) as well as prompts by Tracey Clark through Paper Coterie. Some days I’m too busy to even read the prompts so I come back to them later, and some days I have my own stories to record. In the midst of getting Chrismas cards finished (I made 50 of them this year), writing the letters to out-of-town friends, cooking for our holiday Open House tomorrow night, and the usual meetings and appointments, I squeezed in time to make the first three pages. They’re all going in a Doodlebug StoryBook 3-ring 8X8 album that has two kinds of page protectors–regular and a photo page where I can just slip in extra 4X6 photos.

12.1Manifesto
I don’t always include Shimelle’s Manifesto, but I liked this year’s and decided it would make a good first page. It took me forever to come up with this simple page design!

The next page actually happened in November, but it was our first Christmas activity, and our only one with Sarah and Adam this year, so it had to be included. 

AshlandParade

The journaling reads:  The Friday after Thanksgiving is Ashland’s annual Christmas parade. Someone had told us everyone in Ashland turns out for it, and that seemed to be true. The weather was perfect, and it was lots of fun to watch Mr. and Mrs. Claus pull the switch from the balcony to turn on all the Christmas lights. It’s easy to see that this will likely become a new tradition for Sarah and Adam and their family.

12.2Weather

Journaling:

Today’s weather report on Channel 13 reminded us that last year we’d already had several inches of snow by now, and by the 7th of December we’d had 24 inches of snow. I remember that last winter seemed like it lasted forever. No wonder. 

This year was the mildest November on record since the 1800s, and I’m not sorry. I’m enjoying walking outside without freezing, and without slipping and sliding in heavy boots. I’m glad to be finishing up my shopping without worrying about whether the roads are passable. I love pushing the grocery card on dry pavement. I’ll be happy to see a coat of snow on the ground on Christmas Day, but I can easily wait until then!

I’ll be back later today with my blog post for the Scrap-Mart Christmas blog hop.

Journal Your Christmas, Finally!

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This was my fifth journal, and frankly, the most difficult one I ever did. As soon as I saw Ali Edward’s set-up for her December Daily, I knew I wanted to give it a try. If I had thought about it more carefully, I would have known it was overly ambitious. I liked doing a 90% digital album (a new experience for me), and I enjoyed using Ali’s templates and overlays. Finally, however, I had to admit I couldn’t complete a two-page spread for even 25 days. So I put a disclaimer in the front of the journal and called it done.

Disclaimer

Will I do another journal next year? Probably. I’m always happy to look back at the differences from one holiday to the next and the special events that are unique for a given year. I’ve certainly covered our traditions and customs in earlier journals, so from now on I’ll stick to the new and special events of the season.

I had some nice red chipboard in my stash that I wanted to use as the cover. I couldn’t decide how to decorate it, but finally used one of the KI Memories overlays I had cut for one of the transparency sheets between each layout. I added the Paper Source ribbon and some new American Craft Thickers that came in my last Scrapbook Circle kit.

Cover

Here are about half the pages from the journal.  I didn’t take photos of most of the transparency pages which lie between each layout.

Day5

On some pages I added an embellishment, but I kept them to a minimum to keep the journal from becoming too fat. Sometimes I used patterned papers from my stash, but most of them are digital papers.

Day6

This page comes from one of Shimelle’s prompts about Christmas cards. I make all of mine and took a photo of the basket where I was keeping them and a collage of some of the cards I made this year.

Day8

Another page from one of Shimelle’s prompts; this one from an In Focus prompt about the view from your window. I really enjoyed the In Focus prompts and know I will return to them during the year—lots of inspiration and good information about photography which wasn’t part of the first few years I participated in Shimelle’s class.

Day13With

This page has the transparency over the photo page. I wanted to document all the time I spent in December in physical therapy for my sprained ankle. My very competent, and cute, therapist was happy to pose for the photos.

Day15

This page documents an unusual event. On December 15th, Shimelle’s prompt was about unexpected visitors. I had to laugh. We’d been up since 4:00 am that morning because our carbon monoxide dectector went off for the second morning in a row. The second day we decided we should call 911 and in just a few minutes our wonderful firemen arrived. It turns out the dectector had gone bad, but as the firemen said, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Day16

Here’s a page I’ll do another year, just a list of all the activities that were on our calendar for the month of December.

Day23

I did this layout after friends of ours told us they’d given up hanging stockings and exchanging gifts. Although, we too, need to simplify and pare down our possessions, I am not ready to give up the joy of finding just the right item for stockings or of wrapping gifts for under the tree.

Day25_2

This is one of my favorite layouts because the template allowed me to get so many photos on it. All in all, making the journal was a satisfying experience, and I was very proud of myself not to get caught up in the need to complete every page just because I had the transparencies cut and decorated!

 

Happy Mail and Journal Your Christmas Days 1 & 2

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If you’re looking for the Scrap-Mart Blog Hop, it’s the post below this one. Thanks for stopping by. I must say this blog hop broke a record (that will likely not be matched) for comments on my blog!!!

When I got home from California I had two pieces of Happy Mail. One I knew about and the other was a surprise. Before I left, I was lucky enough to win a random drawing of two new stamps sets from Wplus9 Designs, and I’m looking forward to having a chance to create with them.

Wplus9HappyMail

And the surprise was Happy Mail from Big Picture Classes. I updated my profile on their site and was lucky enough to get one of their fifth birthday happy mail packages. I especially love the little notebook.

BPSHappyMail
I promised myself I would not get behind with my Christmas Journal this year since I decided to do a December Daily format. The last couple of years I didn’t hold myself to daily pages, and it was a lot easier. I have the photos, but no pages done for Day 3 or Day 4. I decided to use the same format Ali Edwards was using and I wasn’t really sure I was going to like it, but so far I’m pleased with the results. I’ll follow along with Shimelle’s prompts as they appeal to me, but since this is my fifth Christmas journal, prompts about some topics have been covered in full in previous years. I’m also using photos from the prompts from Picture the Holidays with Tracey Clark.

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This is the first page. I’ve finished a transparency with a number for each of the days from 1-25. The green cardstock is the back to the first two-page spread.

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I like Shimelle’s manifesto so printed it as the first page of this two page spread. The second page is a hybrid one. I printed Ali’s overlay and then printed my photos and placed them on the page. Here’s the journaling.

Day1Journalingw

For Day 2 I went digital and printed both of my photos for the left-hand page and added a border cut from some October Afternoon paper. The right-hand page was also created digitally. I add a white rectangle to the bottom of the overlay so I could journal before I printed. The photo is the prompt, “Framed,” from Picture the Holiday. The transparency lies between the two pages. I decided not to create a set of similar tags for the number tags, but used up a lot of my Christmas stash and some number stickers. The tag is a Papertrey mat stack die that was stamped and the circle tag with a two was layered on it.

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The top photo is one of the poinsettias on our hall dresser reflected in the mirror that hangs above it. The bottom one is of the Christmas lights layed out on the floor before Tracy put them on the tree.

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The journaling reads: “I found out today that my ankle is probably broken, but since I’m not in lots of pain, I don’t see the specialist until Monday. Sigh. I hope I’ll get an air cast so I can drive! Today’s photo is from the Picture the Holidays prompt: Framed. I’ve been using my tripod this week, and it makes a huge difference.”  As you can tell, I’m not focusing on any particular topic, just some photos from the day and a bit about what’s happening.

Here’s a peek at the stack of transparencies. I have the chipboard cut for the covers, but haven’t decided quite what to do with them yet. I haven’t decided how to bind the journal either. This is not the way I usually operate, but I’m feeling just fine about it for now.

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Picture the Holidays and Journal Your Christmas

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Today’s prompt for Picture the Holidays was to think about the things for which you are grateful. I have a long list of things for which I am truly grateful, and what I captured certainly does not come at the top of the list, but it is something that stood out today. Before we left for California I decorated the house for Christmas. After arriving home at 2 am this morning, seeing the doctor and getting X-rays for an ankle I turned in California, sorting through 11 days of mail and catalogs, purchasing a Christmas tree, and buying groceries for an empty refrigerator, I am so grateful I had the foresight to decorate the house. Our house is perfect for Christmas decorations and walking around the house today I didn’t feel tired or grumpy, but was filled with anticipation for one of my favorite holidays.

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I finished the first page for the Christmas Journal tonight, but will wait to post it tomorrow when there is better light to take photographs. I had most of the transparency pages completed but wasn’t sure how I wanted to use the Ali Edward overlays, so it took several tries before I came up with something I like. I’m still not totally sure how this will all come together, but I am determined that I will get it done day by day!

Here’s another shot from today that didn’t make it into the Christmas Journal. It was raining cats and dogs this morning, but by noon it had changed to snow. We got several inches of wet, heavy snow. What a contrast from two days ago when we were in sunny San Francisco admiring the flowers!

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Journal Your Christmas 2010

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I’ve completed four Christmas journals and although each one is different, I love them all. Only the first one followed the prompts in Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas class, and it’s the only one with a page for each day of December. After that I combined a variety of prompts or made up my own. Looking back at them, I’m so glad I kept track of the little things that made each holiday season a bit different. Each of my albums have been a different size and a different format, and I like that, too.

  ChristmasJournals

Every year I try to decide how I want to proceed. I’ve never really followed Ali Edward’s December Daily process, but her initial post really inspired me. Combined with Shimelle’s class (free every year after the first one), Jessica Sprague‘s notebook “Holidays in Hand” which I completed last year, and Tracey Clark’s upcoming class Picture the Holidays, I think I’m going with a December Daily format this year.

I’m also going to use the same set-up Ali showed on her blog:  transparencies followed by a journaling and photo page. I downloaded the journaling/photo pages over the weekend from Designer Digitals and will use them either digitally or print them out; probably a combination of both. I went through my Christmas stash and found a few transparencies as well as a few in other collections that should work well. Now I have my eye out for the rest I will need to purchase. A few years ago I purchased some lovely red chipboard which will be perfect for the cover. I need to get all of this put together so when we return from California (arriving here a few minutes after midnight on December 1) I’ll be ready to go.