Christmas Journal Title Page

Well, I've managed to pretty much stay on track with making my Christmas Journal pages, but life has gotten in the way of me doing much blogging about my pages. I just HAD to make the time to share my title page, though, because I love it so much. Earlier in the month, I participated in a Christmas Inchie Swap through Christian Paper Artists. On Saturday, I received my 24 new inchies. Aren't they all wonderful??? I decided to use them to make the title page for my Christmas Journal, and I think the page turned out very well.

Maybe one of these days, I'll actually get the time to show some of my other pages.

Ali Edwards was the person who first pointed me to Shimelle and her "Journal Your Christmas" project, and now I'm trying another of Ali's suggestions: "one little word." You choose one word to focus on for the entire year. I've decided to focus on LOVE. Such a small word with such power! I want to increase my love for God; for my wonderful DH Mike; for my 3 amazing children, Jarrett, Kendra, and Keegan; for my extended family; for my coworkers and my students; and for myself. I think right now, the best way to increase my love for myself is by taking better care of my body. It's only 39 years old, but it's the only body I've got. I really miss working out; that stopped a year and a half ago when I went from being a stay at home mom to a part-time teacher. I hope to get back into regular workouts. So here's to LOVE. May you all have a happy, loving 2009!

Christmas Inchies and Christmas Journal

I made these inchies for a swap that Corbi is hosting on the Christian Paper Artists email group. I made 6 of each of these inchies, and I will get 24 different ones back. This was my first time making inchies for a swap, and they are addicting! The top left one is a Creative Memories Christmas sticker on some mulberry paper. For the top right inchie, I painted cardstock with Twinkling H2Os then used a rubber stamp to stamp a swirl design. I let it dry a bit, then put glitter around the edges. Obviously not all the ink was dry, because the glitter stuck to some of the swirls. Oh well - the more glitter, the better, right??? Then I put a Creative Memories ornament sticker on top. Bottom left: I started with a dark red cardstock square, cut patterned paper into a 3/4 " fancy square with a punch, then cut a 1/2 inch square of solid green, and glued a button on top. Bottom right: painted cardstock with emerald Lumiere. Cut circles out of some paper I had marbled using shaving cream and a few red nailpolish colors. I attached the circle with a gold brad, and wrote "J" and "Y" on either side of the brad, so it says "JOY". Then I attached a bit of gold German scrap paper to the bottom.

In other news, I've decided to do Shimelle's "Journal Your Christmas" project. I'm doing this in an 8 X 8 scrapbook. Most of the products I've used are miscellaneous things I have. I also used several new products from the making memories line, FaLaLa. Although I've managed to keep up to date with my scrapbook pages, this is my first chance to blog them. Here's Dec. 1:

Journaling reads, "I have always been a journaler. I got my first diary when I was 9, and 30 years later I’m still recording my thoughts, fears, and celebrations. Last year I started a visual journal to document the journey of buying, gutting, and totally rebuilding the inside of a house on 2.75 acres.

I was online over Thanksgiving Break and I came across Shimelle.com. When I first read Shimelle’s description of “Journal Your Christmas,” I thought it was a great idea, but where would I find the time? Besides the usual Christmas busy-ness, I still have a non-functional kitchen, laundry room, and master bath. And if I’ve got time to spare, I really should be painting some more molding for the half of the house that doesn’t have baseboards and casings yet. And painting the hallway from the foyer to the garage. And unpacking a few more boxes. And the list goes on and on….

That’s when I realized that this is EXACTLY why I should be doing this “Journal Your Christmas” project. I desperately need some me-time in the midst of a very crazy season of my life. I need to forget about the house for a few minutes each day. I need to sit back and reflect on why Christmas is so important to me: celebrating the birth of Jesus, my Savior.

So this is my Christmas present to myself: committing to at least 15 minutes a day, no matter how busy the season becomes, for reflecting, writing, and scrapbooking."

Here's Dec. 2. I cut out the snowflake and put some silver glitter on it:

Journaling reads, "I love the snow…in December. It’s the bitter cold of January and February that I can do without.

A fresh snowfall brings such stillness and peace, muffling sounds. It’s so sparkly on the trees and ground.

Yesterday afternoon I enjoyed watching the kids (along with Canyon and Immie) go sledding for the first time in our new backyard. Mike even got in on the fun, snowmobiling with Dean between our yard and his."

Here's Dec. 3, with a picture of my happy family on Thanksgiving and a picture of our house:

The journaling reads, "One of the many things I love about the Christmas holidays is the exchanging of Christmas cards and correspondence. We’ve been sending out photo cards for most of our marriage. We try to get all five of us in the picture, but there have been some years that we’ve had to use a photo of only the three kids. We also send a letter to friends and family who we don’t see very often. Each year my goal is to get the cards in the mail during the first week of December, but that is not usually my reality.

It’s always so fun to receive cards from others and catch up with them. I especially enjoy the pictures, seeing how children grow and how adults mature from year to year. There are some people who we haven’t seen in person in a decade or more, so those pictures are especially meaningful. We hang cards on our ornament-shaped card holder; letters go into a basket."

Dec. 4 (I really like the paper I used on the left side):

I took this picture 2 years ago, when my husband and kids gave me a digital camera for Christmas. I had fun experimenting with it. When I read Shimelle's prompt, I decided to print this out. It's just some beaded garland sitting on a piece of gold organza fabric. In the picture, you can see the shimmer of the fabric.

The journaling says, "My ideal Christmas would include:
All gifts bought by Thanksgiving
All packages and cards mailed the first week of December
Christmas Eve service at our church
Waking up in our house Christmas morning to a light dusting of snow: enough to make everything pretty, but not enough to make the roads dangerous
Family time seeing what Santa put in our stockings and exchanging gifts among the five of us
Christmas Dinner with the entire extended family
Reading the Christmas Story out of the Bible
Dessert: a piece of Mom’s apple-cranberry pie with whipped cream on top, various cookies, Mom’s homemade fudge and caramels, shishkie topped with apricot preserves and whipped cream (to actually eat that yummy Slovak pastry again would be ideal indeed!)
No-one expecting us to travel anywhere over Christmas break
Snow and still warm enough so the kids can play outside over break"

Here is today's journal entry:

The journaling says, "I bought this advent calendar before the kids were born. It looks like a book, but it opens to a pop-up scene of a Victorian Christmas. There are little doors and windows to open each day of December. It was in storage once the kids were born, until about two years ago.

This has been the Advent calendar we’ve used since Jarrett was quite small. Each day, someone takes the person, animal, or item out of its pocket and places it on the Bethlehem morning scene.

We received this beautiful signed book last year from Pam, John, and Ryan. Each day’s page has a door. Behind the door is a gorgeous illustration and part of the true Christmas story. This year, Jarrett, Kendra, and Keegan have been taking turns reading each door’s message."

I apologize if, when you double-click on the pictures, they do not expand. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. I'm probably inadvertently doing something wrong when I upload, so if you know how to always make them expand when someone double-clicks, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks!

Fay's CQ

As promised when I posted the picture of my CQ ornament, here's the 7" square mini-quiltlet that Fay in South Africa sent to me. It happened when she joined the CQ email group I belong to. Someone else was talking about "squishies", and she wrote in asking what a squishie is. (A baggie full of fabrics and embellishments that crazy quilters sometimes send each other.) Since she was new to the group, I emailed her privately and offered to send her a squishie. She's such a sweetie, because after I sent the package to her, she sent one back to me. There were some awesome African fabrics and beads, laces, the above CQ, and a CD of pictures of the animal reserve she lives near.

Vive le France ATCs

Anna with Christian Paper Artists is hosting another ATC swap; this one is "Vive le France." I was so excited when I first read about it, but then I didn't kow what to do. Mike and I visited France two and a half years ago, on the first trip we chaperoned through his high school. I fell in love with France: Paris, the countryside, the Cote d'Azur. How to translate that into an ATC? I decided to concentrate on Paris, using some pictures I took of some of my favorite Paris places. Going clockwise from the top right is Notre Dame Cathedral, Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Museum, and Arc de Triomphe. I printed the photos in sepia tone to give them continuity and to make them look a little older, like memories.



I apologize for the slightly fuzzy picture; the brad in the left corner (from JoAnn) sticks out, so the ATC wasn't laying flat when I scanned it. I'm having issues with my digital camera, so I can't just take a photo and upload it.



For the base of the ATC, I painted a thin wash of Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint over a page from a French book I picked up at the used bookstore in town.

I made five of the same ATC for this swap. Can't wait to get some from other artists.

CQ Christmas Ornament

I made this crazy quilted ornament for a swap Lisa D. is hosting through the Quiltropolis Crazy Quilt email list. The ornament is about 4 1/2 inches in diameter.



The center gold fabric is a piece of silk that I got from Fay in South Africa. (I'll have to post a picture of the crazy quilted mini-quilt that she also sent me). The top red is cotton velveteen. I had bought a few yards about 8 years ago, planning to make a Christmas dress for my daughter Kendra ~ she was 3 at the time. However, I was so exhausted due to being pregnant with my 3rd child that I never got around to making it. When I started crazy quilting 2 years ago, I started cutting into that velveteen, since there's not enough of it to make Kendra a dress now that she's grown into an 11 year old. It was just sitting in my armoire, begging to be used! The other red fabric and the greens are poly satins that I've collected.



On the left side, I attached a button cluster with some gold beads. The seam treatment is a piece of ribbon I got at Hobby Lobby. The top red has a small lace motif which I painted using my (favorite) Liquitex "Iridescent Rich Gold" acrylic paint. I attached it to the velveteen using an iridescent-type white bead. The feather seam treatment has yellow-ish clear beads. On the right green fabric, I stitched a swirl motif out of Carole Samples' wonderful book, Treasury of Crazy Quilt Stitches, then I added a few red and gold beads. The bottom seam has green buttonhole and lazy daisy stitches to look like flower stems and leaves, and gold bead flowers.

I added a pretty, sparkly gold braid to hang the ornament, but it got cut off in the picture.

It was such fun to make a small CQ project. In fact, I've started making one similar to this one, so I can keep it. One of these days, I also need to take some pictures of the big crazy quilt that I finished in January.

Give Thanks

These ATCs are serving two purposes. I made them for the "Give Thanks" ATC swap that Donna is hosting at Christian Paper Artists. Then I saw that the current theme at SaltFaith Challenge is also "Give Thanks."

It's so easy to forget the wonderful gifts God has given us through His Son Jesus: eternal life, an abundant life here on earth, the Holy Spirit. I've loved this verse from the Psalms for a long time. God's unfailing love is what makes everything worth while. When I start to get bogged down with the things of this life, these verses help remind me of all the good things that I do have.

For this swap, we are each making 9 ATCs. Donna had said that if less than 9 people sign up, we would get more than 1 ATC from some people, so we might want to make some of the ATCs different. I made 4 of the first version, and 5 of the second.

I live in the midwest and we are in the middle of all the leaves changing into their glorious autumn colors. So I naturally associate leaves with the Thanksgiving holiday.

For the background, I mixed Lumiere in metallic russet and halo blue-gold to get the brown color. The text was printed on cardstock which I painted Irish Mist Twinkling H2o (gotta get some sparkle in there). For the leaves, I first painted a piece of watercolor paper with a wash of yellow, orange, and red watercolors. Then I used a small leaf punch to punch out the leaves. Finally, I added a "trail" of microdot stickers by a.muse, to look like the leaves are falling.

I'm back...and Going Green ATCs

We finally moved into our new house two weeks ago!!! We thought we would only live in our temporary house for about a month, but construction delays kept us out of the new house for three months. Actually, the new house still isn't finished, but it's far enough along to move into.

Since we didn't have internet at our temporary house, I've been unable to post in all this time.

While I was gone, I received these gorgeous ATCs from the Going Green swap that I participated in back in August:




This was my first swap, and I really enjoyed seeing the different techniques the other women used. I'm working on ATCs for my next swap with this group, Christian Paper Artists. I'll get those posted when I finish them.

I'm not sure how to get my pictures to expand when you double-click on them. If you know, please share the secret.