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.

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.

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.

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.

 

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

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!

 

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.

 

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.

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.

 

 

This year’s journal design really started with two 6X6 paper pads I purchased a month or so ago: “Spiceberry” by Memory Box and “Snow and Cedar” by Poppy Stamps. I also have a partial pack of Basic Grey “Waisal”. So I decided on a 6X6 album. The only place I could find a 6X6 album locally was Hobby Lobby. I would have preferred a 3-ring album, but they only carried post albums. The red was way too bright as the color scheme for this year is more cranberry and olive than the traditional red and green, so I bought a black album. I had a few ideas about decorating the front, but ended up with something more traditional and formal than usual, and totally unexpected. When I went through my stash of Christmas goodies, I found some felt sticker embellishments that I think are Little Yellow Bicycle. The ribbon I bought this week at AC Moore and the number stickers are Making Memories as is the stick pin. After looking at it for a few hours, I’ve decided I’m pretty happy with it, even though it is so different than what I envisioned.

 

Here’s a close-up of some of the papers. I also have more of the felt stickers which I’ll use as they seem appropriate.

This will be my fourth year to participate in Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas class. Yesterday I took down the basket that I set out each Christmas that holds all three previous journals. I looked through each of them and am so glad that I’ve recorded the events and experiences that make up our holidays each year. I hadn’t forgotten that Adam and Sarah got stuck in New Jersey last year and Tracy had to make the six hour trip down to Newark Airport to get them. I had forgotten, however, that when they left to fly back to California, Rochester was experiencing winds up to 60 mph. I’m very sad that they won’t be here this year, but traveling during the winter holidays certainly is iffy.

My first album is documented in the side bar of the blog. I thought I’d post a few photos of 2007 and 2008 here so you can get a taste of how different these albums can be. I bought a 6X6 post-bound album at Hobby Lobby yesterday for this years album. I don’t do a lot of prep work, since I won’t necessarily do a page every day. Between Shimelle’s prompts and the prompts from Jessica Sprague’s new course Holidays in Hand, I’ll have plenty of inspiration. I also subscribe to Ali’s blog and get inspiration from her December Daily album.

Here are all three journals:

 

The first two were pretty traditional 8X8 albums. Last year I did an acrylic album which I loved.

Some pages from 2007:

 

 

The apparent blotch on the page is actually my shadow!

 

And from 2008:

 

I had totally forgotten about our stolen tree last year!

 

Some days I did two-page spreads, others were only one page. Although the overall colors stayed pretty consistent if I wanted something different for a page, I didn’t worry about it.

 

The back of the Sing page is an envelope that hold a Children’s Sermon that was preached during Advent last year. It really spoke to me, and I asked for a copy for the album.

 

This is actually two pages, a Hambly transparency with the title and number on it, overlayed on the photo collage. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have some of this year’s journal to share with you. I bought a black album since the only red was too bright for my color scheme this year. I hope to get it decorated tonight or tomorrow.

It’s hard to believe, but Christmas is just around the corner. There have been years in the past when I have completed most of my Christmas shopping by now. But this year, I had barely begun before today. It’s true that the busier I am, the more organized I am. It’s not that I’m not busy now that I’ve retired, but it’s a different kind of busy. I’m no longer captive to others’ schedules, and it’s really been lots of fun.

I was, however, somewhat shocked to read on someone’s blog this week that there are only 30+ days to get your shopping done if you need to mail packages. For the first time ever, I do need to mail all of Sarah’s and Adam’s gifts to California. So today I got a good start on the shopping. It was in the 50’s; highly unusual for November in western New York, so it was a great day to be out and about. When I got home, I pulled out my Christmas Planner. I made this four years ago, and it has proved incredibly helpful.

 

There are six sections: Gifts, Cookies, Cards, Menus, Decorating, and Receipts. In the Gifts section I list each gift I buy. It’s very helpful to be able to look back and see what I’ve purchased other years. Last night, when I asked for ideas for stocking stuffers, Adam told me I’d always done a good job, “just do the same again.” It was good to be able to see exactly what that was. The other sections have similar lists. Under Decorating I list the new decorations I purchase each year. The Receipts section is one of my favorites. It has an envelop for each person or group of people so if something needs to be returned after the holiday I know exactly where the receipt is.

 

The Christmas Planner has turned out to be one of the most useful projects I’ve ever made.