Christmas Journal 2007

I created my Christmas Journal cover yesterday.
I used Making Memories St. Nick paper, Making Memories ready-to-glitter stickers, A Rhonna Christmas buttons and the label is a stamp from Pink Sugar Pop which you can buy here. Love their stamps.

Just a little side note, I purchased my buttons from Acherryontop.com and they shipped the items promptly. It was my first purchase from them and I was extremely pleased with the service.

My first page was also made with mostly Making Memories products. I used one of their chipboard trees from their Christmas Chipboard value pack that you can find here. The date stamp is a fontwerks datekeeper stamp. Love their stamps too! That will be my unifying page element this year along with 3 buttons. I used the prompt for this year but changed a few "I may"s to "I will".

My day two page uses St. Nick paper again. I cut out a little snowman from some Basic Grey Frosty paper from last year's Fruitcake collection. I outlined the snowman with Crystal stickles which I just started using and LOVE! I hand cut the scallops on my page. The snowflakes on the red paper are stamped with Snowflake stamps from the Snowburst collection from Stampin' Up.

The journaling from this page reads:

To me, the perfect Christmas weather is a fresh blanklet of snow with the sun shining. Since we live in Spokane now, the chances of that are much greater. I don't enjoy driving in it but it is so pretty. Crisp and white... it just nakes every thing feel clean and new. The kids love playing in the snow and as soon as the first flake falls, they are outside.

Christmas Journal 2006

I never got around to posting all of my photos for last year's Christmas journal so I thought I would post a few shots that I took today. It ended up being very thick because of all of the pockets, chipboard, etc. One of the pages was a photo printed directly onto a transparency. The photo wasn't related to a specific prompt but it was a really great photo of my daughter in the snow so I couldn't resist using it. I have always thought that Rhonna Farrer's photos printed onto a transperancy were cool so it was my first attempt and I loved it.

This was the cover. I love the "joy" bling.

I love this side view of the journal. You can see the ribbon and tags I used. I also did some other elements that extend off of the page. I really experimented with different techniques that I had seen others use but that I had been afraid to try. You can see in the side view that I painted the edges of the inside covers. That was a lot of fun too.


This photo is a random shot of two of the interior pages. The date stamp is the same on each page. I got it in a kit from Jenni Bowlin. You can buy it here. Love it! The circle stamp around it is a 7Gypsies 97% complete stamp, I believe. Using the same date stamp on each page gave the journal a unifying element. I also used a lot of Basic Grey papers but mixed in other papers that complemented them. The main reason I chose a paper was that I liked it so I didn't get to caught up worrying about whether or not it matched all of the rest.

Christmas Decoration

I love this! Not a very good photo but that's okay. I have been meaning to make a Christmas collage since I saw the fabulous one Ali Edwards did that you can see here. I bought a few extra frames so that I can make some smaller pages. So easy and so fun.

Its That Time of Year Again...

And I am sooo excited! What time of year, you ask? It's time for Shimelle's Christmas Journal! I finished last year and had so much fun doing it. This year, I am going to go with a completely different look and size. Last year my journal was approximately 5"x7 1/2", if I recall correctly. I am considering doing 6"x12". I haven't worked with that size before and it seems like it would be fun to do that. The daily prompts start Dec. 1st. Join us!

We've started getting into the holiday spirit at our house. I took Lisa Damrosch's Make it Merry class at
Big Picture Scrapbooking and our first project was to make a holiday planner. Lots of fun. Now I am slightly more organized... I just need to actually start planning! Emilie and I are working on week 3's project which is a countdown calendar. It's great fun to have a little one to work on Christmas crafts with because she really enjoys it.

Another project we have started is Tia Bennett's Button Tree. Thanks to Ali Edwards for posting this project. Love it and very simple to do. Emilie is 7 so project is very easy for her. We are waiting for more buttons so that we can finish. We actually bought 3 styrofoam trees and weren't able to finish one! I thought I had so many buttons that we could do all 3 but apparently not.

Tis the season for crafting!

Days 16-19

I love the cute Santa. It's from Jenni Bowlin from her Mistletoe Junque box.

This was all about the perfect gift. I had professional black and white photos of the kids taken and gave them to my parents and both grandmas. The photos turned out well.

This page is also about perfect gifts. (sorry about the glare on the photo.) I saw someone else put photos off the page in their work and liked the idea. I think it was Stacey.

This page is about the Christmas menu. It's actually a smaller side pocket page with a few tags for journaling.

This was a fun one to do. I cut this Santa out of a store bought Christmas card. My letter to Santa is tucked inside the green pocket. Thanks for looking!

Happy New Year

I know, I know...I'm a bit behind the times. I have finished my Christmas Journal. I decided to end it with New Year's Day. My journal is getting huge! I already moved up to 2" binder rings! This has been such a great experience. Thanks so much Shimelle for such a great class. I have really enjoyed seeing everyone's journals as they progress. I haven't had time to comment but everyone's work is wonderful. Here's days 12-15. Sorry the photos for day 12 & day 15 are blurry.

This Was Fun

Thanks to Georgia for posting this on her blog! This was fun.

You Are a Minimal Christmas Tree

You're not a total Scrooge, but you feel no need to go overboard at Christmas. Less is more, and your Christmas reflects refined quality.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

Day 11: Oh Christmas Tree

We went to cut down our tree last Sunday so Day 11's topic was fitting. The photo on the left is my hubby cutting down the tree. I left I photo mat on the right page for a photo of the lighted tree. The kids and I decorated it yesterday. There are 2 hidden tags: one about real vs. fake trees and the other about our tradition of new ornaments every year.

My grandma started giving me and my sister a new Hallmark ornament every year when I was 5 or so. Now the kids get one every year. I also worked on an album this past weekend about my fave ornaments from a class I am taking online at Big Picture Scrapbooking. I've nearly finished the framework (I ran out of Heidi Swapp chipboard stars) and then I need to take the photos and do the journaling. Once I have some of the pages completed, I'll post them here.

Day Ten:Wrapping

Loved this one! Quick and easy and a lot of fun! I don't really enjoy wrapping presents. Just seems like folding laundry to me. I've wrapped a total of 2 presents so far this year. I love to order gifts online and have them giftwrapped so that I don't have to do it.

Day Nine: Family Traditions

This page has tags for different types of family traditions so that I can add more tags as I think of more traditions. One is about gifts. The journaling reads...

We open most of our presents on Christmas Eve after dinner. The kids are in total agony by the time the adults finish our meals. We pass one gift at a time to everyone and then open the gift. The only gifts opened on Christmas Day are Santa Claus.

This was a great journal topic. I really had fun with it!

Day Seven: Shopping

This page has a pocket for tags with gift lists on them. The gifts need to stay a secret you know! :)

Day Six: Good vs. Not so Good Memories

Day Five: Countdown to Christmas

Day 5 is all about counting the days to Christmas. This was so much fun to make but I spent hours on this layout. I don't usually spend this much time. It was absolutely worth it. I started the layout as just squares with numbers and then my husband made a comment that seemed to be a challenge to me. Of course, it really was just a passing comment about opening doors and I took it from there and ran with it. Each square is a different paper except the solid is the reverse side of some of the patterned papers.

Each page has two doors that open to reveal a photo of my family.

This page has a pocket for a tag about the advent calendar we had when I was growing up and the one we have now. I made 2 tags so that one side could have the journaling and the other side could have a photo of the advent calendar.

When I was young, the Advent calendar was the start of the Christmas season! It was such a huge part of our holiday!

Day Four: Perfect Christmas

This post was all about the perfect Christmas. Shimelle challenged us to draw a picture in our journals but for some reason this layout popped into my mind immediately. I did freehand the tree and then cut it out of Basic Grey paper. The black stickers are 7 Gypsies, another fave of mine.

Day Three: Christmas Cards

I haven't been very good about getting Christmas Cards out the last several years but this year I did manage to get some photo cards made at Costco. Now, if only I would get the stamps I ordered online last week from the post office, then I could actually mail them. The layout has a pocket under the green ribbon for me to stick one of the cards inside of it.

Day Two: Weather

It's all about the weather on this entry! I remember now that the reindeer rub on is from Fancypants as are the snowflake rub ons from this page. Love these rub ons! The glitter Joy is a rub on from Making Memories. More Basic Grey paper. A Heidi Swapp gem is in the center of the snowflake in the bottom right corner. I cut out two snowflakes from the Basic Grey Snowed In paper and then I layered the two with pop up glue dots. Lots of fun! The letters in the title are Making Memories shimmer stickers.

Day One Manifesto

This is the manifesto page. It states my commitment to taking the time to journal each day. Love it. The scalloped paper is Karen Russell for Creative Imaginations. I cannot remember off hand who makes the reindeer rub-on but I love it! The letter stickers are from the Basic Grey Fruitcake line.

Title page

Here's the title page. Most of the patterned paper on the page is from Basic Grey's Fruitcake but there are a few pieces of Basic Grey's Blitzen line as well. The name stamp is from Jenni Bowlin. The "Noel" and "Merry Christmas" chipboard stickers are from Making Memories. The chipboard star is from Heidi Swapp. I painted it red. Love using stamps and paint on my pages.

Christmas Journal

I am participating in Shimelle's Christmas Journal class which you can join here or view everyone's work here. I joined a little late so I spent time catching up this past weekend. Here's the cover. I didn't like the first try so I redid it yesterday. This is much better than the original attempt.

Ali's Week 2 Newsletter Challenge

I subscribed to Ali Edward's weekly newsletter and I'm lovin' it! I really enjoy the way Ali expresses herself in her layouts. This week her challenge was to create a layout using what your family did last month as the content. I don't ever do layouts that contain only words and no photos so this was really fun to do. I used items from one of my Jenni Bowlin kits and added some basic grey letter stickers ( for the names). Patterned paper is Scenic Route from Jenni's kit; pink stencil stickers are Heidi Swapp from Jenni's kit; the white flower came in one of Jenni's kits; and the white pen is a uni-ball Signo gel pen from Stampin' Up.