Easy Ornaments

I've had a box of 6 clear acrylic ornaments for a few years & hadn't done anything with them.  I also had some Tim Holtz Adirondack Alcohol Inks (only 4 colors) that I hadn't used yet.  For information on the Alcohol Inks go here
www.rangerink.com/products/prod_alchoholink_adirondack.htm
So I got them together and now I have 6 new ornaments for the Christmas tree!  If you notice the whiskers and part of a paw you'll know once again I was getting assistance from one of my cats!  One of them has already tipped over the tree - fortunately the tree has no decorations yet as we always set it up for a week for them to get used to it & the attraction to fade....At least one cat is now avoiding it all together!

December Daily/Project Life - preparation & plans



Daily Journal Cards

 I wanted to share with you some of my preparation for my December Daily/Project Life pages that I've been working on.  I had saved this free printable file from Cathy Zielske awhile ago and thought this would work well for my daily journaling for December Daily.  To see Cathy's post and download the files go to her blog
http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/12/a-year-of-tags.html

So far I've cut the individual tags out and stamped the date on it. 

I'm not sure what else I'll be doing with these at this point.  Probably will distress the edges and decorate the top part - maybe to match the daily sheets from Ali. 




Close-up - daily journal card



The other item I have put together is my worksheet for the month.  All I've done at this point is print out a blank calendar and fill in the events that we are planning on doing/attending.  As you can see the weekends are pretty much filled but the weekdays are mostly empty (I work full-time days).  So now I have an idea of what days I need to focus on non-event related photographs.  On the back of the sheet I've written some things I definitely want to take photos of such as wrapping gifts, decorating the tree, etc.  I also have planned out two series of photos I want to include in my pages - these may end up being two different collages.  One is "how it all comes together" - this would be a series of photos getting ready for the holiday - decorating the house, shopping, wrapping, baking & those types of things.  The other is "Christmas past" and these are photos of ornaments/decorations/traditions that I've had since I was a child

My worksheet for daily photos

.  These will include a photo of the coffee cake & cookies we have each Christmas, the Advent calendar, and figurine candles that were my grandmother's.  So that's where I am right now.  How are your plans coming along?

Festival of Trees

Since I'm still working on some projects and need to take photos of some finished Project Life layouts I thought I would share photos from our trip to Erie, PA to see the Festival of Trees at the Bayfront Convention Center.  This event is an annual fundraiser for the Miracle Children's Network hosted by St. Vincent's Auxillary.  I can not imagine the hours that were spent creating these amazing trees.  Its hard to say which one was my favorite.  There were 2 snowman - in the bottom photo he's created with silver, white and blue balls and in the other one he's made of balls of white wool.  And these weren't the only trees that had top hats for the topper!  Hope you find some inspiration for your tree trimming!

Second Red Lead order

Red Lead PaperWorks had a sale and I can't resist picking up some items I didn't get with my first order.  You can see how they packaged my order in the top photo - I love that its like getting a present!  Just a nice extra touch, as is, the extra little items they send you!  In the middle photo I've placed the reindeer on my window sill for the time being.  I hope to use these in my Tim Holtz Configurations - not sure just yet when that will happen.  The bottle brush trees and strand of beads will be set aside for that project as well.  The little gingerbread men will be used on my December Daily/Project life pages along with the 3 stamps.
If you'd like to check out Red Lead PaperWorks click on their web address in the Links section below.

Project Life Tuesday

 
 I've been inspired by Jessica at The Mom Creative to work on my Project Life so that I'm caught up by the end of the year.  You can check her blog out at http://www.themomcreative.com/ and follow the progress of her Operation Project Life Tuesday.  She also discusses a variety of topics and provides a lot of good information and links. 
The photo on the left is the left side page of the most current week that I have done.  This is the last week in September.  I frequently use the small pockets in the middle to cut one 4" x 6" photo in half & place it side by side.  You need to trim a little from the top and end but it works really well I think.
                                                                     

The second photo shows the right hand side of the week & as you can see I have a lot of items just punched and placed directly into the album.




                                                                                                                                                                               In the third photo I've turned all the items that are on top of the right hand page protector.  There are two more cards (one was too large for the pockets and was punched & placed directly into the album) & 2 photos along with movie ticket stubs, library check-out list, & a restaurant receipt.  On the left you can see part of my calendar page from my Ditto album.  I use that to keep track of the things we do or that I want to write about.

Life Jessica I'm pretty thin on journaling throughout the album and plan to add more.  I'm happy with where I am with this album - its so much more than I would have had with a "traditional" album.

the creative process??

So this is what my table in my craft room looks like this morning!  In parts of the room it looks like Christmas has exploded all over! And of course, Santa has his elves and I have my helpers too!  This is Patch, one of two cats.  And they both love to check out what I'm doing and think my "toys" are better than their toys.  And you can just see a little bit of the dog bed under the table for our dog, Lily.  She's not quite as interested in the creative process as the cats!  Thankfully. Here are a couple more photos of the pages in my December Daily/Project Life album.                                                                                                                            

I love how easy this page was.  A piece of cardstock and 3 pieces cut from Simple Stories' 25 Days of Christmas collection.   This page is located in the week of Christmas for my favorite Christmas Day photo.  What I am now finding so exciting right now is wondering how these "foundation pages" will change once I add the photos, journaling and final embellishments.   Right now feels like the 'present shopping' phase and afterwards will be like the 'present opening' phase!  Pretty cool!

On the left side is one of Becky Higgins Design A pages with just a few of the 25 Days of Christmas collection pieces.  This page will be filled with photos and other pieces of the collection or embellishments once I finalize the layouts.  On the left side is a 6" x 12" page protector with one card piece from the 25 Days of Christmas.  Right now I'm thinking I'll use this for memorabilia - ticket stubs, etc.  We'll see how it actually ends up.
Are you doing December Daily, Project Life or both?  I'd love to hear what you are working on.

Winter wreath

For the second year in a row, two of my co-workers and myself put together a wreath for our hospital's Auxillary's Holiday Fair.  This year, as you can see, we decided to work with black, silver and red.  We each look for items and then when we think we have enough we start putting it together.  Fortunately, Linda is a great bow-maker so she always does our bow.  We don't usually end up using everything we each get but always can find other projects for the items.  Doesn't take long and raises funds for the hospital. 
I'm hoping to make another wreath in a couple of weeks - this time a real one from scratch.  The Jamestown Audubon is offering wreath making and paper making workshops and I'm hoping when I call they will still have a spot for me!  What activities are you planning for this winter/holiday season?

December Daily & Project - Title page and more.....

 Here is my title page for the December Daily section of my Project Life album.  As it stands right now all of the elements are from Simple Stories' 25 Days of Christmas collection.  The calendar block in the top 4" x 6" pocket allows the kraft cardstock of the following page show through.  The top vertically oriented pocket on the right side of the page protector has a 4" x 6" transparency overlay in it with a sheet of white paper (for now).  The bottom vertically oriented pocket is empty and both pockets will eventually hold some photos. 

 Besides the 25 Days of Christmas Collection I am using Ali Edwards' December Daily 8.5"x 11" overlays.  I am not a digital scrapper so I printed the overlays on to kraft cardstock from the pdf files that are provided.  You can find these at http://www.designerdigitals.com/    On the right is one of Becky Higgins Design A pages.  You can find Project Life information on Becky's blog at http://www.beckyhiggins.com/  As I mentioned in a previous post while I use mostly Design A pages in my Project Life album I need to add page protectors that have vertically oriented pockets as well.  In this page the elements are all from the 25 Days of Christmas collection.  What I wanted to point out with this photo and the following photo is that on the right side you can actually see elements on FOUR other pages.  The red/white stripe page is the next set of 8.5" x 11" December Daily pages, the red flower below the "TOGETHER" card is the next vertically oriented page protectors and the red flower with the white paper is another transparency overlay on the fourth page!  Just like with acrylic albums you can have layers showing through and adding depth/dimension to the look of your project.  Love this!   

I received a question about my 8.5" x 11" pages.  The flow of my pages are like this
*Design A page
*December Daily pages in 8.5" x 11" page protectors  (however many days in that week=number of pages
*WRMK page protector with two 4" x 6" vertically oriented pockets
*December Daily pages
*Repeat starting with Becky Higgins's Design A page protector
I hope that helps clarify the page set-up. 

A closer look at a Design A page

 Would love to hear about and see how you are doing December Daily.  Please leave comments and/or your blog address.

A closer look at a December Daily page (Day 12)



December Daily and Red Lead PaperWorks

I've been doing some shopping in preparation for December Daily and one of the places I went to online was Red Lead PaperWorks at http://www.redleadpaperworks.com/
The items in the photo above all came from Red Lead.  I love the feeling of Christmas' past I get from their products and webstore.  The images in particular I remember from my childhood.  Great way to bring back memories!
Watch for these items to be showing up in my December Daily/Project Life album and a few other projects in the future.

Project Life and December Daily

Are you doing a December Daily album along with Ali Edwards?  Are you also doing Project Life?  Are you doing two separate albums or, like me, incorporating December Daily into your Project Life album?  Over the next few days I'll show you my progress in developing my December Daily pages in my Project Life album.  I'll also show you some of the items I've using.  This is so much fun!

I am starting with Ali Edwards' December Daily Layered Templates.  I originally purchased the 6" x 8.5" size but didn't like the size so I  purchased the 8.5" x 11" size as soon as Ali developed it.  I am not a digital scrapper so I like that Ali offers pdf files with some of her Designer Digital designs.  Above you can see that I printed them out on kraft 8.5 x 11 Reflections cardstock that I purchased at Michaels (one just opened up here a few weeks ago!).  I added a piece of printed paper (see next paragraph for details) to the rectangular box next to the number 1 and placed a wooden snowman that I found at Michaels (12 cents!) in the wooden products section.  So far I've done pages 1 through 13 so I have more to do.  Pretty easy so far! With the 8.5" x 11" kraft cardstock I have a variety of options for the  photos I put here.  I can get two 4" x 6" horizontally oriented photos in the space remaining.  I can place a 5" x 7" photo here or a cropped 8" x 10" photo (anything 8" x 8" or less will fit here).  There may be other options but I haven't thought this through any further.  I'll be checking out other options when I print my photos through Shutterfly.  I'd like a collage photo somewhere but that may be on 12 x 12 layout added in somewhere.  This is what makes Project Life so great - its flexibility and adaptability to what you have or what you want to do.

My second product choice was Simple Stories 25 Days of Christmas Collection.  I love the Simple Stories Collections.  They are perfect for Becky Higgins' Project Life page protectors and other We R Memory Keepers page protectors.  I use mostly Becky Higgins page protectors for my Project Life pages but since I have many vertically oriented photos I decided for this project to alternate this We R Memory Keepers (WRMK) page protector with Becky's Design A page protectors.  The WRMK page protector also has room for a 2" x 12" paper strip to the right of the holes.  The Simple Stories Collections come with 12" x 12" sheets that you cut apart for the pieces that you want.  There are various choices that you can make depending on what page protectors you want to use.  You can check out 25 Days of Christmas and the other Simple Stories collections at http://www.simple-stories.com/
I'll replace some of the items in the pockets in the page protector above and put in my 4" x 6" photos.  The item in the lover right pocket is a transparency that will go over the photo I place there. This collection allows me to move things around until I'm happy with what I have.  I will add more embellishments and journaling once I have my photos in place. 
Thanks for stopping by!  I look forward to your comments and hope you stop back or become a follower to see more of my December Daily process.

Free holiday downloads

Today, I only have a link for you to some great holiday downloadables http://www.landolakes.com/
I ordered their holiday brochure and received it in just a few days and now I'm deciding what delicious holiday items I'm going to try.  Besides ordering their holiday brochure I just finished downloading some cute gift tags that I can use for presents and baked goods.  There are also fall and Thanksgiving items that can be downloaded and printed.  Placecards, gift tags, pennants and much more.  I like that these are quick and easy - all I need to do is use my paper trimmer to cut them out now.  I'm making some banana bread this morning and I'll be freezing it for gifting at Thanksgiving.  What are your favorite items to bake for the holidays?

Giveaway winners!

Thank you to everyone who visited my blog yesterday for the One Little Word Blog Hop!  The winners of my giveaway are:

Julie Ann

Amanda (ScrappnBee)

Please email your snail mail addresses and I'll get your goodies in the mail.

Thanks again to all!

One Little Word Blog Hop - November 1st

Illuminate
One Little Word 2011

First off I'd like to thank you for visiting my blog.  I know there are a lot of blogs out there and you only have so much time to be hanging out in cyberspace!   To thank you for your time I'll be giving away two little goodie bags of embellishments.  To be entered into the drawing just leave a comment!     Check back on Wednesday, November 2nd for the 2 lucky winners' names. 
So, on to our October prompt........
At the beginning of the month it feels like I have all the time in the world to work on a fairly simple & straightforward prompt from Ali to take 9 photos that show how your word is part of your life or the meaning your word has brought to your life.  Ali asked us to think about what we would specifically like to happen in the next 3 months of this year.  I took these 4 photos at the beginning of the month and then lost track of my word as I became immersed in other projects. Right now, it feels like the month just zipped right by and here I am,  unprepared, for another blog hop!  Since I missed one month totally I've decided I'm participating each month whether I'm prepared or not. 



October 2011

So I'm still on the lookout for 4 more photos for this prompt.  The card in the center spot holds a quote that I came across that really spoke to me.  It says "When I shine it lights the way for others".  I'm not sure who the author is - I'm going to have to research it.  I'm determined to make sure everything is finished up by the end of the year and soon it will be time to start thinking of next year's word.  If you are planning on joining us for One Little Word next year check out http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/ and sign up to recieve their blog posts so you get their latest news and class info.
ADDENDUM:  For Julie Ann who asked for more information on my photos (thank you! for making me stretch and think!)-
Julie Ann - the photo of my shadow I felt represented me in the dark looking to the light which is how I felt at the beginning of the year - I was looking for answers to a variety of things.  The light bursting through the trees in the early morning seemed like the way I felt when answers came to me this year).  The other 2 photos were taken as I played with photos of light and to me just represent our days and life - they each have some confusion and murky areas and then areas of light.  I never take photos like this and wanted to include them to remind me to try different approaches. 

Next on the hop is: Amanda at           http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/

The full blog hop list:

Margie              http://xnomads.typepad.com/

Julie Ann            http://julieannshahin2.blogspot.com/

Lisa                        http://backtoallen.com/writers_blog

Sam                        http://learncreatedo.wordpress.com/

Jenn                        http://studiojenn.blogspot.com/

Cheri                        http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/

Jan                        http://mysimplelittlelife.typepad.com/

Debra                        http://blakleyhomeplace.blogspot.com/

Nikki                        http://www.inkyart.com.au/

Monica            http://questtoperfectimperfection.blogspot.com/

Rebekah            http://istampscrapcraft.blogspot.com/

Lynn                        http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com/

Amanda            http://scrappnbee.blogspot.com/
Jill       http://jillconyers.typepad.com/