Saturday, December 17, 2011

December Daily - December 7

Hi! My girlfriend got in from Ireland on Wednesday, so we've been busy with family and holiday stuff and I haven't had a chance to post! Finally, here's Day 7 for your viewing pleasure:

I decided to highlight my Christmas village collection on the 7th. I have mentioned before that I have several paper bag pages throughout the daily and I'm keeping little trinkets and whatnot in those. This one contains a Starbucks coffee cup sleeve and a little list that I'm listing the pieces of my village on.




I used decorative tape to kind of bind the bag to itself, making it more of a pocket sized opening, rather than a full on bag opening. This seems to keep things in there a little better, instead of them falling out.







I got the Merry & Bright stamp in my last Studio Calico kit and just in time. I also did a little faux stitch border around the edges of the second page just to add more interest. I used my old Zig pen in Blue Jay.




supplies: patterned paper - Cosmo Cricket, Echo Park; stickers - Echo Park, October Afternoon, American Crafts, SEI stamp - Studio Calico, twine - Doodlebug Design, coaster - Red Bird Inkfloss - DMC, other - paper bag, decorative tape, ribbon

I'm only done through December 9, peeps...I'm still taking pictures and keeping track of the days, but I won't have a chance to really work on anything again until January and at that time, I'll post the remainder of my DD in a chunk or two.

I'm really loving how the whole thing is coming together! It makes my heart smile. Here's a couple of shots of how chunky this little book is getting. It will also give you a little insight as to where I take my blog photos! hehe






I will post December 8 when I get another chance.

Thanks for reading and commenting!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

December Daily - December 6

I'm back with another December Daily installment. I'm not too too far behind now, though my girlfriend gets in Wednesday night, so I'm sure I'll be very behind for the last 10 days of the project since we have many many plans!

This was another Ellie centered day! I put a bunch of my old Christmas stuffed animals under my tree, knowing full well she'd want to come in and play with them. This day she found "Ugly Antler Bear", which Lisa coined "UAB". I totally stole that anacronym and went with it! I caught Ellie smiling away, giving UAB some cuddles as she watched Mickey's Christmas Carol in my room. I thought what better pictures to help me tell the story of how UAB came into my life.



I used one of the Hambly overlays for the first time. It was a little intimidating because I wasn't (and am still not...) quite sure what to do with them. They definitely look cool, but I think I still have some figuring out to do in future instances.



I used another one of the little cutie envelopes from the Studio Calico December Daily kit, as well as an older Sei tag and some Sticko number stickers circa 2002.








Supplies: patterned paper - Cosmo Cricket; stickers - Echo Park, Jenni Bowlin, Authentique, American Crafts, Sei, Sticko; overlay - Hambly Screen Prints; flag - October Afternoon; other (source unknown) - tape, mini envelope

Tomorrow's a jam packed day, but if I have a minute or two I will try and toss December 7th up here for your viewing pleasure. Thanks for reading and have a great Saturday!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Birthday Dinner - Studio Calico

Hey all...Still working on the past few days of my DD, but should have more up for you tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a layout I created using the December Studio Calico kit "Brooklyn Flea"

As I may have mentioned before, I take WAY too many pictures of every single event. What's worse, is that I feel a pressing need to scrap them all. I've gotten better over the years and know how to get rid of the really horrible ones (which is still hard, but digital photography has made it easier). Therefore, no more blurry pictures in my layouts or photos of my loved ones making unintentional funny faces. My point being - I'm almost at the end of my stack of my birthday photos from this year. I'm so pleased!

Birthday Dinner




Supplies: patterned paper - My Mind's Eye, Crate Paper; cardstock - My Mind's Eye; spray ink - Smooch Spritz; chipboard letters - American Crafts; buttons - Crate Paper; date stamp - K & Co; tag - Ormolu

Thanks for reading!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

December 5

Hi everyone...I've been so busy the past couple of days that I've not only not had a chance to post til now, but I'm already 3 days behind on my DD! Eeeek!

Monday was another multi-page entry. Starting with this first page which highlights a couple of photos of the sweet coloring job my little niecey did with her Santa Claus picture. I used another coaster and misted both that and the journaling with silver Smooch spritz. The flowers are from Recollections and I threw in a couple of October Afternoon stickers, as well as a little red ribbon. As always, the foundation pages are all from Cosmo Cricket.



The tree in the front yard still has some gorgeous fall colors going on, so I highlighted that here. I opted to not mist this journaling block and adhered it with a few staples, as well as the other little red ribbon.



The next page is just filler to cover the back of the photo. I used my fave Jenni Bowlin doilies with some Echo Park brads. More Cosmo Cricket paper and the title block is Echo Park.



Finally, just a simple little page showing Ellie coloring her Santa Claus picture. Mister Huey Holly Berry spray ink, some more Recollections flowers, and a couple of stickers from October Afternoon (and I think....it's older) Daisy D's.





Thanks everyone so much for reading and all of your positive comments and encouragement!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

December Daily - December 4

Sunday the winter weather here in North Texas finally creeped in! It was cold and cloudy and rainy. And it’s stayed that way since. But I’m sure by Saturday we’ll be back to beach weather. No…I jest, I jest.

It was another stay at home and be lazy kind of day. I find that I have a focus for each day of what I want to capture and then one or two other little nice things creep in and I have to include those too. The plan for December 4 was to get pictures of the family Christmas tree and highlight some of the ornaments that have special meaning to me. But….Parrish also made German pancakes, which I hadn’t had in years and Ellie came to my room for a visit and became mesmerized by A Christmas Story, so I couldn’t let those things go unnoticed.

I really like how the whole mini is coming together. I love all the little chunky embellishments and the oddly sized pages. I really liked adding little things to the paperbag and sticking a picture of Ellie on the back. It all makes me pretty happy.

The first “page” is part of a brown paper bag. When I was building the foundation, I had already put the vintage “Merry Christmas” tag onto the bag, so I just jazzed it up a big with another pink and red felt flower, another button from Pebbles, some ribbon and a piece of a border sticker.




I carried the ribbon all the way around and put Ellie watching A Christmas Story on top of that. Pretty simple. Inside the bag I plan to just stick random holiday stuff I pick up here and there. So far, I have the sales pitch from a Bath & Body Works coupon. I love the idea of looking at this book years from now and seeing how different our ads were now compared to then.




The next page, I finally got around to using one of the big coasters by Red Bird Ink that were included in the SC DD kit. I sprayed it with Mr. Huey’s Holly Berry AND some silver Smooch Spritz. I added a couple of Echo Park chipboard elements as well as my journaling about the photo on the opposite page (journaling sprayed with the Mr. Huey’s, as well). I found some old tape in my stash and used it to make a kind of arrow pointing towards the photograph in an attempt to tie the two together. This is also the page I tabbed using a couple of tab stickers from Cosmo Cricket which I placed back to back and using my fave October Afternoon mini market stickers for the numbers. The foundation is still the Cosmo Cricket Dear Mr. Claus paper.




On the back – some photos of my sister and I and her delicious German pancakes. I kept this one pretty simple, still sprayed the journaling and throwing in a chunk of the paper from the November SC kit. I think this one is by My Mind’s Eye. I used some of the Authentique word stickers that came with the SC DD kit as well as another Echo Park chipboard sticker. I love these chipboard stickers, btw. I already had a set of them before I got my kit and I’ve been using them like crazy. The whole Season’s Greetings line by Echo Park is amazing.




Final page – here I highlighted my favorite ornaments on the family Christmas tree. I took all of these pictures with my IPhone and Instagramed them, because I love those crazy little old timey filters. I used the Earlybird filter on all of these. The little sticker down in the bottom corner is an old Daisy D’s with a very old Basic Grey “4” on top. Then I combined my final Pebbles button, a couple of chipboard elements and a brad all by Echo Park and stuck some cutie word stickers on top of that from October Afternoon’s Holiday Style line. You might also notice that I’ve already tabbed that page with a 5, since December 5 starts on the flipside.






Overall I’m really enjoying this project! I’ll be back tomorrow with more. Have a great day!

Monday, December 5, 2011

December Daily - December 3

Saturday was just a quick page, because frankly, I needed a break after the amount of stuff I had wanted to include from Friday. It was a pretty low key day anyway, so just a quick picture that my sister took of Ellie’s tree and a couple of shots I took of them getting the decorations out.







Supplies: stickers - SEI, October Afternoon, Echo Park, American Crafts, Authentique, Basic Grey; Flower - Jillibean Designs; Patterned Paper - Cosmo Cricket; Echo Park

Back tomorrow with December 4!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

December Daily - December 2


Friday was such a busy day! After work, I met up with my family for dinner and fun night at Six Flags’ Holiday in the Park. I also included a family tradition that was started up again when I came home. We have a toy that is kind of like “Elf on the Shelf” for us (though we started it long before any of us had heard of Elf on a Shelf) where we randomly put “Toby” our wonder toy somewhere unexpected. I came home Friday night to find Toby taking a snooze in my bed, so of course, he and his story had to be included. I printed the title on a regular old office-ink jet printer-transparency. I attached it with a couple of staples and a paper clip before attaching the day 2 tab to the transparency itself. The number sticker is from Echo Park and the tab – another one of my SEI oldies from several years ago.




I used some hidden journaling for the Toby story for a couple of reasons. I attached the journaling on the other side of the craft paper with some Hambly washi tape and a couple of staples. Also on this page, a picture of Ellie in a cute little swing ride she got to ride on all by herself! All the chipboard elements and the “Christmas” cut out are from Echo Park. The border sticker and patterned paper on this page are Cosmo Cricket.









I had a lot of journaling to include, so I added a piece of cream colored cardstock (that I sprayed with the same Mr. Huey’s holly berry as Thursday’s page…I see a trend forming throughout this project). The front side is the story of a very eventful and awkward visit to Santaland at Six Flags. I included some stickers from echo Park and October Afternoon, as well as another one of the Pebbles buttons.








The back of this page is the overview of our evening. I included some little pictures, because I like the way they look. I used some border stickers from Cosmo Cricket and more Pebbles buttons to fill out the side of the page.




Finally! The last page for December 2…I can’t believe how much I added to this book just for this day. A bunch of pictures from Holiday in the Park. I was able to use the cute little tickets from the SC kit and really like the way it looks. All the other accents and stickers are from Echo Park, with the exception of the number sticker and the twine. The twine is Doodlebug and if my brain doesn’t fail me, the number sticker is an oldie from Basic Grey. Oldie as in first line they put out back in the early 2000s.






I really like how these pages turned out, even though they took me a lot longer than I would have liked to complete, but it was definitely worth it.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

December First

December Daily Day 1




I have to say after completing my first day, I’m definitely a believer. I’m more in
love with this project than ever!

I couldn’t believe how quickly this first page came together and I’m digging the overall style of the page. Kinda like a magazine column. It makes me happy, anyway. As a mentioned several posts ago, when I made the foundation pages, I primarily used Cosmo Cricket papers, but also threw in some Echo Park and some old Daisy D’s from my stash. I did all this before knowing about the existence of the Studio Calico kit, so I will use the album either for another project or for next year’s DD.


I took all these photos on December 1 and did the journaling once I had those taken and printed out. I had anticipated just taking some pictures of my tree and hopefully getting Ellie to look upon it lovingly, but didn’t even think about how my sister, Parrish (Ellie’s mommy) had gotten a super cute advent calendar so she and Ellie could start this Christmas tradition.




I will preface the rest of this with this little tidbit: We have an interesting living situation currently as it is me, Parrish, Ellie, and our mom and dad all living in the same house. It’s not the most desirable of situations, but for the time being anyway, it is the most practical and is surprisingly far better than I thought it would be when I made the decision to move back home this year. I say all that to say this: the big giant blessing out of all of it is getting to see my little musher grow and change every day. How many aunties get that privilege??? Thus, we all got to participate in the Advent calendar activity.

I included in my journaling how Parrish wrote activities for each day on little slips of paper. Of course, Ellie, being only 16 ½ months old, can’t read them, but she did have that little slip of paper clutched in her tiny hand for quite some time after they removed it. Tonight’s activity: listening to Christmas music. But just listening to the music wasn’t enough for the Horton family, oh no…silly dancing had to be involved. Ellie has taken to doing the cutest little squeal when I spin her around, so we danced and spun and acted crazy and we didn’t get any fantastic pictures of it…mostly pictures of me smiling and Ellie clinging onto me for dear life.

I read an article in CK a few months ago describing how to print multiple small pictures on a 4x6 photo sheet using Microsoft Word, so I’ve had fun playing around with that my last few layouts, including this one. The top two pictures were taken using the Instagram app on my IPhone. LOVE it! I had hoped to take all the pictures today using the app, but it didn’t work out how I’d hoped.

Once I had those all sized and printed up the way I wanted them, I journaled and added little caption tags for the photo. Those were printed out, cut out and spritzed with Mr. Huey’s Holly Berry…the special edition spray from the SC December Daily kit. I just happened to pull out the little mini envelopes from the kit and found this tiny Ellie picture fit inside them perfectly, so was thrilled to be able to add that to the layout.



The little sticker at the bottom and the “1” were part of the foundation, so I worked around those. I recently reorganized my stash and have a little drawer of just holiday stuff and found these Making Memories “Happy Holiday” fabric tags in there. They are way old, probably from 2004 or 2005, as is the SEI (are they even still around???) tab sticker I used on the left hand side.



I think I’m going to try and tab most, if not all of my pages, as I go through the
month. I like the idea of being able to see the days add up as I progress through the album. Finally, I filled in a little hole between photos with a cardstock flower sticker and a chipboard “cheer” sticker, both by Echo Park. I also used a couple of the buttons by Pebbles that were also included in the SC kit.





This has been a super long winded post! Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend and Happy December!!!

Sunday, November 27, 2011

December Daily

I thought I would share my thoughts about my upcoming December Daily and what I will be including in it as this seems to be a source of bafflement and stress for a lot of us!


Ellie under my Christmas tree 2010



This is my first year to do a December Daily and I decided long ago to start it on December 1. Next year, I may rethink this and start the week of Thanksgiving since for me and most other Americans, this is the gateway to the holiday season. I have so much going on this holiday season, I will definitely have a lot to document.

Now I want to take a moment to mention something that is on my mind: I know I’ve heard a lot of people say over my many years of scrapbooking that they don’t know what to document in a scrapbook (and more recently in a DD) if they didn’t or if they currently don’t have kids and that makes me feel so sad. I don’t believe for a second that a person has less of a story to tell just because they don’t have kids. I don’ t have kids of my own yet (and yes, I definitely want some little kiddos someday soon), but I think my life is every bit as interesting and worth documenting as those who do have kids. I have an amazing family, a wonderful girlfriend, a crazy dog, a great job, and fantastic friends. And this year, I have SO many things to look forward to during the holiday season – this will be my niece’s second Christmas (and I’m lucky enough to get to live in the same house with her this year) and my girlfriend is flying over from Ireland so we can spend Christmas together for the first time. So much fun!

So, here’s a brief rundown (with dates, mind you!) of what I intend to record in my December Daily this year. Some dates still have some holes, but I will get those filled in.

December 1 - my Christmas tree
December 2 – Gift wrapping
December 3 – Six Flags Holiday in the Park with the family
December 4 – Family Christmas tree
December 5 – My Dickens Village Collection
December 6 - TBD
December 7 - TBD
December 8 - TBD
December 9 – watching Christmas movies
December 10 – Church Christmas Cookie Wonderland
December 11 – Mom’s Christmas Cantata
December 12 – Our outdoor lights
December 13 – Mom’s Santa Collection
December 14 – Lisa flies in
December 15 – Christmas shopping with Lis
December 16 – my class Christmas party
December 17 – Ellie’s Santa picture, Christmas lights
December 18 – Christmas Cookie Wonderland at Home
December 19 – My wishes for the future
December 20 – Traditions – new and old
December 21 - The things I love about Christmas time
December 22 - TBD
December 23 – Ugly Sweater Party with friends
December 24 – Christmas Eve festivities with family, Ellie opening her Christmas Eve presents
December 25 – Our couple Christmas together, big family Christmas, Horton family Christmas

I really just have 4 more days to fill in and I know things will pop up that I will be able to add in. I’m hoping to attend some Christmas concerts and craft fairs at some point this month so that will be good filler! I have an idea brewing for the 22nd, but I’ll keep it to myself for now. Also, these dates aren’t set in stone for me. I may have something really cool going on on December 4 and decide to postpone the Family Christmas Tree to a later date, but for me it’s important to go into this project with some semblance of a game plan.

Meanwhile, I may not be able to blog everyday of December, but I will try to keep you posted every 3 or 4 days at the very least. Hope everyone has a great week this week and thanks for reading!


My Grandparents' Christmas Tree - 2008

Friday, November 25, 2011

It's the Holiday Season

Howdy folks! I've been busy working on projects for challenges over at Two Peas in a Bucket and wanted to get them all done before posting them in here. Up first...something I rarely do...cardmaking:

Merry Christmas

This one was made with Echo Park's Season's Greetings collection (and some red twine - my new favorite thing!! twine!!!!!! by Doodlebug) It was a pretty quick little project.



Pizza Planet

Is it just me or does this happen to everyone? You either have a fantastic idea for a layout and when you get it all done, it doesn't seem nearly as impressive as it did in your mind? Or....and this is much, much better than the first option....you have absolutely no idea what you are doing with a layout, think it's going to be totally lame, and when it finally all comes together, you are taken aback by your own genius????

Usually it is Option A for me...but I really wasn't sure how this next one was going to turn out and overall, I don't think it is too shabby at all. This one was for a challenge posted by Jen Chesnick in which you were to use tags. I always think tags look cool, but don't usually have any idea how to incorporate them on my stuff, so was pretty impressed with myself when I put it all together.



I used all kinds of goodies for this one: corrugated alpha - Jillibean Soup; letter stickers - October Afternoon; patterned paper - Cosmo Cricket, October Afternoon, Lily Bee Designs, Jenni Bowlin; twine - Doodlebug Designs; stamp - Lily Bee Designs; ink - Jenni Bowlin; tape - 7 Gypsies; flower punch - unknown.

So Thankful

This one was for a color challenge. I have a fairly new found fascination with using circles or partial circles on my layout, so this one was pretty fun.
I also actually pulled out an older paper from my stash by Scenic Route. This is something I haven't done in awhile, because I'm trying to use up my newer stuff first while it is still trendy. I was glad to find something older that I really liked and that fit in with the challenge's color scheme.



Supplies: patterned paper - Basic Grey; Scenic Route, October Afternoon; letter stickers - October Afternoon; stickers, buttons - Basic Grey; twine - Doodlebug Designs

The Adventures of Ellie

I think of all six challenges and their outcomes, this one was my favorite. This was a scraplift challenge and my inspiration was this amazing layout by Jen Jockisch. I've been making use of my printer and photo paper to actually print out my own photos this past week. Who'd have thunk it??? I've never had very good results in the past with photo printing, so have always gone the old fashioned (relatively speaking) route and used a photo service for all my photo printing needs. I think those days are officially behind me. I say all that to say this: I was very excited with how the two pictures of My Musher came out when I printed them. They kind of remind me of a photo strip, so that makes me happy.



Supplies: patterned paper - October Afternoon, Basic Grey, Crate Paper, Lily Bee Designs; brads - Making Memories; die cut frame - Crate Paper; butterflies - Pebbles; stickers - October Afternoon & Crate Paper; letter stickers - Basic Grey & October Afternoon; twine - Doodlebug Designs

Christmas Goodies

Another fun challenge - this time about food. I love taking pictures of food. I have pictures of food I've made for dinners, pictures of food from vacations, and pictures of Christmas treats that I bake, so this was a great way for me to highlight the stuff I baked up last Christmas.



Supplies: patterned paper, chipboard stickers, border stickers - Echo Park; letter stickers - Echo Park & Authentique; twine - Doodlebug Designs

It Is the Little Things That Mean So Much

I used my Instagram app on my IPhone to take and alter these pictures. I was super excited about discovering this thing. Thank you, Kelly Purkey, one of my scrapbooking heroes! I used an ampersand mask, spritzed my paper with spray ink by October Afternoon, and outlined it by handstitching with white floss.




Supplies: patterned paper - October Afternoon; ampersand mask - Studio Calico; letter stickers - American Crafts & October Afternoon; butterfly - Jenni Bowlin; tab sticker - October Afternoon; brads - Basic Grey, Echo Park; spray ink - October Afternoon; floss - DMC

That's it for today. I'm going to be busy working on a top secret project for my girlfriend, which obviously I will not be posting here for secrecy's sake. I will also be beginning my December Daily next week - whooo hoooo! - and hope to post updates to that every couple of days. Meanwhile, I will try and get a couple more projects done and uploaded for your viewing pleasure by the end of the weekend. Thanks for reading!