PAD 1-9-09

Prepping for my first mixed media acrylics class on Monday. Spent WAY too much money on paint.

PAD 1-8-09

Ok, so it turns out I rather suck as this Photo-A-Day thing. Two days in a row now I have missed opportunities to take awesome photos of our daily lives, I have just completely forgotten to do it when the chance arrived. Yesterday, we went to our normal Wednesday lunch restaurant (we do this every week because both my hubby and I work from home on Wednesdays) to find it closed. I mean closed as in the signs were removed, not closed as in we'll be open tomorrow. No warning, no nothing. Do I think to take a picture? Not a chance.

And today I went out to lunch with the "gals" from work. Just to let off some steam. Take a picture? Nope. And to top it off, even if I HAD thought to take a picture, I had left my camera's memory card in the card reader of my computer...so I couldn't have done it anyway...

*grumble*

So today, you get a picture of me.....Bloggin':

PAD 1-7-09

I just finished reading this series today, started just before Christmas. Not my favorite, but not bad. Started the next trilogy immediately afterward.

Holiday 2008 Album

Remember, you can click on the pictures for larger versions to see detail and read journaling.

Front Cover -
I created a frosted mirrored cover for my album. Instructions for creating the cover can be found here.
When I pulled off the adhesive backing of my Grafix Metallic Silver Film I discovered that the side with the adhesive was also mirrored. I simply covered it with a transparency. I added ribbon to the inside of both covers using double sided cut-to-size adhesive. I ensured good contact between the adhesive/ribbon and adhesive/transparency by using a brayer.

I created opening pages for each month, the first page is the opening page for November. November 7 -

I journaled about our search for the "perfect" artificial Christmas tree. November 9 -

A picture of me finishing up the skeleton of the Holiday album. The facing page includes some short journaling and the date. November 14 -

The journaling is a list of our favorite Christmas carols, the facing page includes a picture of me practicing one of them on the piano. I cut the music paper into a scalloped circle using my Cricut.

November 21 -

The left page is a picture of all the new ornaments I bought this year.

November 25 -

The right page is a picture of us watching our traditional Thanksgiving TV specials. On the back of the right page are some pictures of some of my favorite scenes from those specials.November 27 -

A picture at my grandmother's house on Thanksgiving.

November 28 -

Pictures from a Black Friday hike with my parents.

Dateless -

I have one or two dateless pages, this is one of them. I created a pocket with patterned paper from Rusty Pickle. Inside the pocket are tags with every one's Christmas lists.

Opening page for December.
December 7 -

Picture of our undecorated Christmas tree -

December 8 -

Some journaling about the debacle that occurred when trying to purchase the "perfect" artificial tree (which we ended up returning). If you read the journaling, the Charlie Brown coloring book pages will make sense. These are followed by the "after" shot of the Christmas tree.

For the word "after" I outlined ghost letters with gold stickles. I absolutely love the effect.

December 9 -

Close ups of the ornaments on our tree.

December 13 -

A picture of the wrapped gifts under out tree.

Inside the envelope is a swatch book of all the wrapping paper I bought this year.

December 14 -

One of the Christmas cards I made this year. I adhered the back of the card to one of the envelopes I used and punched the binding holes in the envelope.

And a copy of the newsletter I included with the card.

December 15 -

A picture of my husband cooking, and some of the gluten-free, dairy-free foods we made. For journaling, I created my own "12 days of Christmas". My favorite is "5 pounds of mashed potatoes".

December 17 -

Pictures of some of my favorite scenes from our traditional Christmas specials.

If you're interested in how to create these film strips digitally, like I did, I will be teaching this technique this month.

December 20 -

A picture of the house we rented in N.C. The journaling about the trip is tucked behind the photo. I noted the date for this page using a Garfield cartoon from my desk calendar.

December 21 -

Journaling is about the drive we took along the Blue Ridge Parkway and the waterfall we hiked to. Pictures of the Smokey Mountains and the waterfall we hiked to are adhered back-to-back (with corduroy fabric between) on the right page.

December 22 -

A picture of downtown Waynesville on the right page. Pictures of what I bought on this shopping trip are adhered to the back side of the right page.

December 23 -

Just of photo of us drinking hot cocoa, making s'mores, and hanging out.

December 24 -

Pictures of the gingerbread houses we made are on the left page and a picture of me in front of the tree is on the right page.

December 25 -

A picture of my niece playing Santa and a picture of Randy and I.

The right page folds out to display a panoramic photo of our stockings.

December 26 -

A picture of us on the left page taken during a short hike and pictures of us tubing on the right page.

I rubbed embossing ink along the edge of the right page and melted glittery white embossing powder to it to give a snowy look.

December 27 -

A list of what we got for Christmas. On the back of the insert is a list of what we got everyone else for Christmas.

December 28 and 29 -

Hanging out and playing Scrabble and cards with Mom and Dad.

December 31 -
A quite New Year's Eve...dinner and a movie. Followed by the January opening page.

January 1 -

A few resolutions and a picture from a hike we took.

Dateless -

Christmas cards we received. I tucked them all in a clear storage folder I received with a Making Memories stamp set I bought. I turned my favorites toward the front and back of the folder.

Back Cover -

Whew! That was a lot of work. Although I so glad I did it as I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE RESULT.

PAD 1-6-09

In unrelated news, a small tornado appears to have touched ground in southwest Florida. However, the tornado appears to have only affected one room in a single apartment building. Oddly enough, the tornado appeared to be mostly composed of Christmas craft detritus and craft store shopping bags...More at 11:00.

PAD 1-5-09

Make mine a Grande-Decaf-6 Pump-Vanilla-Soy-No Foam-Latte.

PAD 1-4-09

Finally finished with my Holiday 2008 album. Really love it! Hope to get the page by page posted tomorrow.

PAD 1-3-09

1 game of one-on-one Super Scrabble...
2 hours...
1 exact tie...604 to 604.

PAD 1-2-09

All dressed up with somewhere to go....

We had a nice dinner out tonight at a pricey place we don't get to go to very often.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I have so much planned for 2009, I don't know where to start....

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First, I'm doing PAD 2009. PAD stands for Photo-a-day. The basic premise is that you take one picture, every day, for a year and compile them into one album that becomes a "snapshot" of your life for a year. Creating Keepsakes has compiled a PAD kit called "Project 365", however, I have decided to create my own version of the album. Mine will consist of 52 bound manila folders (letter sized office folders), one for each week of the year. I plan to alter each folder to create a very unique art journal of my 2009.

I will be blogging my daily PAD photo all year. Here is today's: This is a rather friendly armadillo we met while hiking at Alafia River State Park. I actually had to move out of his way so he could continue rooting for bugs in his preferred direction.

I will also be blogging my weekly altered folders, so stay tuned. At the end of the year, I will show you how to bind all of the folders into a book with chipboard covers.

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Second, I will be starting my 2009 technique series shortly. The subject of the January technique series will be.......(drum roll).......DIGITAL. So during the month of January I will be presenting 3-5 digital techniques for paper scrappers. You'll definitely want to check these techniques out, even if you're not tech-savvy. They're easy techniques that give you cool results. Again, stay tuned.

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Third, Have you picked your "One Little Word" for 2009 yet? If you haven't heard about this project, see Ali Edwards' post here. My "one little word" for 2009 is EXPLORE. This word has two major meanings for me this year. First, I'm determined to get out and explore the place where I live a little more. Hiking today in a park we've never been to, for example. Second, I want to explore my creativity and artistic ability a little more. To that end, I will be starting mixed media painting classes in January. I'm sure I'll be blogging more about those!

So, what's your "One Little Word"?

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Fourth, I'm diligently working on finishing my 2008 Holiday Album. Look for a post of the completed book soon.

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Lastly, I want to talk about New Year's resolutions, but I think I'll post about those tomorrow as this post has already gotten out of hand.

Happy New Year!!!!