The first days of December

 This month has started off spectacularly; I've managed a night out with my friend Jen, some really touching moments shared with my girls, and of course, a few cards and scrapbook pages have made their way out of my paper stash. I even managed to kiss a nutcracker!

The other day I woke up with the image of a fire built out in the snow on a cold winters day, with trees in the background and the sentiment, "Nature lends to each season a beauty all its own." You can see that card in the third pic down on the right, or just click on the purple Instagram camera at right  to see the final vision and my alternate version in much clearer detail.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to create what my mind had, well, in mind, but both cards turned out awesome. I have been using my Cricut a lot more this year but it is still hard for me to envision how to use the hundreds of images I have available to me!

So, how will I capture the memories that are already fading as fast as the seemingly never ending turkey supply? Well for the first year, I'll be participating in Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas forum/class. I'm excited because it will help me with my lifelong hurdle of journaling and my hesitancy to do so, as well as helping me to capture and retain some of the  reasons why I do so love this season.

I've always loved creating my own handmade Christmas cards for friends and family. Selling my cards has somewhat impaired my usual thoughtfulness in this area though! Sometimes I just feel that taking a picture and texting a card front is a good way to brighten a friends day, when before I would not hesitate to simply send it off in the mail. I love picturing the receiving end... whether its someone who purchases a card of mine on Etsy or in one of the shops in Gig Harbor, or the person is standing right in front of me, I'm always smiling knowing that they got something so non-corporate!

When I first started dating Ray, he found out that he WOULD be sending my handmade cards to his clients. Now years later he has cut down his sending list, but I still make him get his cards from me. It is a little bit of myself going out in each envelope to spread some holiday cheer. I love thinking that maybe mine is the one they just can't bear to throw away and keep for no good reason like I have done with so many cards over the years. I'm still looking for ways to use those old cards haha.

Now, if I can just remember to SEND the cards I'm making out to my friends instead of just writing about doing it...

thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing what comes of my JYC experience with you!

Let It Fly!



There is a crispness to the morning air that lets us know fall is on the way in and summer's on the way ...out. Waaahhh! Gosh we certainly enjoyed a beautifully sunny summer though here in the Pacific Northwest. There were only like five days of rain? That's all I remember anyway lol.








There is a lovely banner which reads Family hanging in my craft room that I see everytime I enter the room. It was pretty easy to make, and I've always wanted to make another, so decided the change in season was the perfect occasion. Love the way it turned out! I used a sample pack of Close to My Heart papers for the backgrounds and for the strips of paper that were transformed into 'yo-yo's- the fanned circles behind each letter. One way to almost guarantee your project will have a cohesive look is to use papers by the same designer or company. The colors will all be very similar and the paper will share the same weight as well.

The girls accompanied me on the way to drop off these banners and stock up my card rack at Gig Harbor's CopyIt..MailIt on Judson Street. Once we were done we had a little time to explore the waterfront while we waited for dad to take us out to dinner at the Peru restaurant by Fred Meyers. The dock at Jerisch now has life jackets available for every size person and the kids enthusiastically donned water safety gear. Ray asked later, why did they have those on? And I responded, because they could! Truth be told neither of them can swim and on top of that there is a big sign on the dock explaining that most people who drown don't intend to get wet... so yeah, get those life preservers on if you can!

  

While my cricut does make mass producing a breeze, I made the most of my time and cut all the triangle banner shapes for another, even cooler banner at the same time, and used up the rest of that sample pack of papers. Yea! Another something that I don't have to put away :-)

Living in Washington my whole life, I'm a big Hawks fan, and ever since their Super Bowl win last year, it seems like the whole states got Blue Fever. What better way to show off some spirit than with a cute banner!? On this one there are sparkling green letters and sequins in grey and green too. The banners were still looking a little plain so out came the decorative edge scissors in scallop shape, and added silver glitter paper strips to the top.

 

Gotta make one of these for my Pops in Jersey!



Scrapbooking "Off the Grid"

I love it when I see a magazine feature or advertisement or card in a shop that inspires me, don't you? Picked up some "vintage" scrapbooking magazines from a friend last week and yesterday afternoon a layout featuring a grid of 16 squares with rounded corners caught my eye. Funny, this layout was actually a lift of another scrapper's layout! So I guess its a pretty good design in terms of its adaptability.

On my desk's to do list this last week has been some photos taken last December, over at my wine-loving friend Becca's. Every year she bakes, like, a hundred cookies and her family decorates them all in one night. This is like a dream event for me! But how could I go and leave my little ones both at home... we don't exactly promote sugar ingestion in our home, but this is the kind of traditional holiday gathering that I grew up with.

Rainier and I met my mom over at Becca's and ended up bringing our own cookie dough along for the fun. Delicious, healthy, and easy to make, these cookies even appeal to regular cookie eaters :-0 Just take a banana, mix it with some nut butter, oatmeal, a dash of vanilla and I think that's it! You can add cocoa for extra yum. There may be more to it, I haven't made them since December so I'm a bit mucky on the particulars.

Sprinkles of raisins, currants, and almond slivers had my toddler in decorating heaven along with the other kids there that night. Including some very large kids home from college, haha! I was feeling very MOM like, with my glass of wine, overlooking all the festivities... but you know as soon as a seat opened up, it was ON for me to get my sprinkle on! I felt kind of bad because we wouldn't be eating them, but we thought of a great way to pass on the goodness; send them for fellowship after church the next day :-)

Matting my photos really helped them to stand out against a very busy background. Adding some cooking themed stickers for embellishment made the layout a lot less serious and I was able to pass on the few not used for Rainier to use on her own project. You'll be able to see this entire layout, with a cool use of a negative die cut, in the next issue of DieCutCrazy.
Can't wait that long for some die cutting inspiration? Check out the April edition, now available on your Apple device and as a PDF as well! And, you can see another grid style scrapbook layout opposite this page:

Wait! Don't throw that away?

I admit, I have a problem throwing away little bits of pretty paper. So I'm not surprised that I was inspired to create my own version of enamel dots with this tiny punched circle from a cricut cut tag I used.

It doesn't look like much, but you wouldn't believe how proud I am of this little shiny dot and it's friends!


They were really easy to make, I just  added a blob of Close To My Heart's Liquid Glass to the top and let it dry overnight on a shred of wax paper. I wanted to be sure it was really dry before I touched it because sometimes I get over eager and ruin things!


This isn't a project I would necessarily recommend, as it was a tad tricky getting the paper to come off the glue tip without spreading sticky all over the place, but it was fun, and now I know how to make a very coordinated little blingie for any layout that "needs" it. And since you bothered stopping by today, now you do too!