December Daily 2010: Sneak Peeks

de·cem·ber dai·ly

[dih-sem-ber] [dey-lee]
–noun –adverb
1. the twelfth month of the year, containing 31 days. Abbreviation: Dec.
1. every day; day by day

Origin:
Ali Edwards 2008

Yesterday I mentioned that my mom and I were able to spend some quality time together while I was home this past weekend. We spent a good part of Friday and Saturday working on our December Daily albums which I first posted about here. It was so fun to work with my mom on this new project because she is new to scrapbooking and gets so excited when she learns something new! In the first image, I'm sorting out the holiday themed papers that I brought and in the second image, my mom is just getting started! She was definitely a trooper this weekend! I'm so proud of her. :-)

Below are a few sneak peaks from my December Daily album. I'm still working on the "body", and hopefully will be done soon, so I can focus on filling it with festive holiday memories!

Have any of you created a December Daily before? If so, what was your favorite part of the process? And do you have any good tips for a first timer?!? Do tell...

A Weekend to Remember

re·mem·ber

[ri-mem-ber]

–verb (used with object)
1. to recall to the mind by an act or effort of memory; think of again.
2. to retain in the memory; keep in mind; remain aware of.
3. to have (something) come into the mind again.

Origin:
1300–50; ME remembren < OF remembrer < LL rememorārī, equiv. to re- re- + L memor mindful ( see memory) + -ārī inf. suffix


This long holiday weekend was a much needed break from all the hustle and bustle that is my life! It was so great seeing family & friends. I was able to catch up with my best friend and spend some much needed quality time with mom! We ate lots of yummy food and slept in with no worry of having to be at a certain place, by a certain time, or waking to the sound of a really loud, annoying alarm. I cherish these moments, because they are so far and few between. But as they say, all good things must come to an end, so welcome back to the grind! I'm hoping we are all able to settle back in with little difficulty.

Here are some images from my holiday weekend, enjoy;

 34th St. Preparing for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (11/24/10)

 34th St. Preparing for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (11/24/10)

 Friendsgiving (mushroom soup shots...very yummy) 11/24/10

A glimpse of our Thanksgiving table (11/25/10)

A Message of Thanks

image: Thanksgiving 2009 with the in-laws

thank·ful

[thangk-fuhl]

–adjective

1. feeling or expressing gratitude; appreciative.

Origin:

bef. 900; ME; OE thancful.

The hubby and I are headed up to Massachusetts today to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family but I wanted to leave you with a message of thanks in honor of this wonderful holiday! I want to say Thank You, to all of my readers. It means a lot to be able to share my thoughts & creations with you. I know my blogging tends to be sporadic, and not at all continuous, but my goal is to work on that through the rest of this year and into the New Year, so stay tuned!

I would also like to say that I'm so very thankful for my wonderful husband, you keep me "together" and sane & spoiled- if it weren't for you I'd be lost, I love you so much! I'm thankful for my very special mom, who is also always there for me, whenever needed. I'm also thankful for my immediate and extended family, they are the best family one can have, love you all! I'm thankful for great friends who are always there to make me laugh, to have great talks and show me a good time! I'm thankful to have a nice place, a job and a car to get from point A-B. But most importantly, I'm thankful to have life, because without it, none of the other things would matter.

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy this time with your loved ones because these are the memories to cherish!

Birthday Wishes

Supplies: Textured Cardstock- Bazzil; Patterned Paper- Sassafrass; Ribbon- Making Memories;

Distress Ink- Ranger; Stamp/Button & Embroidery Thread-Other

home·spun

[hohm-spuhn]
–adjective
1. spun or made at home: homespun cloth.
2. plain; unpolished; unsophisticated; simple; rustic

Origin:

1580–90; home + spun


This birthday card I created a while back and thought I would share it with you today. I used the Studio Calico Back 40 kit. I really like the patterned papers that have the decorative scallop edge, they're perfect as a finishing touch! This patterned paper is from Sassafras and I love their papers, they always have a homespun feel, very vintage. The patterned paper is attached to the card using a zz stitch with a ribbon running across the center attached at the sides with zz.

The sentiment was created with a stamp on a piece of textured card stock that I shaped using a tag stencil. The border was made using a glitter gel pen and Tim Holtz's Ranger distress ink. The button is attached using ivory embroidery thread wrapped and tied into a bow.

Below is a color palette I've created inspired by this card. Maybe it will inspire your next project! Enjoy!

Album Project

Supplies: Flowers- Prima; Letter Stickers- American Crafts (thickers); Rhinestone Flourishes- Prima; Rhinestones- My Mind's Eye; Transparency Papers- Hambly & Best Creation Inc.; Floral Patterned Paper- Basic Grey; Circles Patterned Paper- Hambly; Cardstock- DCWV (Matchmakers)

al·bum

[al-buhm]
–noun
1. a bound or loose-leaf book consisting of blank pages, pockets, envelopes, etc., for storing or displaying photographs, stamps, or the like, or for collecting autographs.
2. a printed book containing an anthology of writings, reproductions of photographs or artwork, musical compositions, etc.

Origin:

1645–55; 1955–60 for def. 2; < L: neut. sing. of albus white, i.e., a blank (tablet) painted white for writing on


Recently I've been working on a new project, a scrapbook for a friend documenting her trip to Florida with her boyfriend. The challenge is not to make it too feminine, since it's essentially for both of them as an anniversary gift. Of course I reviewed the supplies that I chose with them both before beginning and there were no complaints (see above), which is a good sign! I want it to be pretty, but not "girly" if there is such a thing, anyway, I'm working on it! Here's a preview of the first page...

I created photo corners out of buttons with embroidery thread wrapped around them.

Here I made the butterfly embellishments out of a stamped image, added color using colored pencils and used rhinestones for the body. 

I stitched the flying path for the butterflies using embroidery thread, following a swirl line that I sketched out by hand first. Also the sides of the ground paper is painted with Tim Holtz  Ranger distress crackle paint in tattered rose & distress ink in shabby shutters.

Supplies: Cardstock- DCWV (Matchmakers), Patterned Paper- Making Memories; Transparency Paper- Hambly; Letter Stickers- American Crafts; Crackle Paint- Ranger Tim Holtz; Distress Ink- Ranger Tim Holtz; Butterflies- Stamped Image; Embroidery Thread, Rhinestones & Buttons- Other

For the title, I cut out a decorative border from a Hambly transparency paper and then layered on thickers letter stickers by American Crafts.

I'm still working on this, and the deadline is fast approaching! Trying to prioritize and make sure everything gets done in time, the Holiday season sure keeps us busy! Thanks for stopping in & come back soon!

December Daily 2010

de·cem·ber dai·ly


[dih-sem-ber] [dey-lee]
–noun             –adverb
1. the twelfth month of the year, containing 31 days. Abbreviation: Dec.
1. every day; day by day

Origin:
Ali Edwards 2008 

Last week while I was blog surfing, I came upon Ali Edwards' site and discovered the December Daily Project. I immediately fell in LOVE with it! Its exactly what I've been looking for, to capture the special happenings of the holidays! This is an album created just to document the 25 days leading up to Christmas, or it can be whatever you want it to be. Some people choose to create an album about the 12 days of Christmas or the whole month of December, it's your choice, but it's a GREAT way to capture the holidays all in one place! The idea is to get your album ready before December even starts, so that all you have to do next, is add your photos/journaling throughout the month with no added stress of creating the album as you go, isn't that the perfect scenario?!? It think so!

I stumbled upon this kind of late in the season, since most scrappers start thinking about December Daily in October, but either way, I'm glad I did! I called my mom to get her in on this, since I've been trying to get her into scrapping for the last year or so, and she was delighted to join in! I'm really happy because it's a great way for us to spend time together and start a little holiday tradition of our own. We live 4 hours from each other,  and it's hard to spend so much time together, but when we do, I like to make it quality time.

So this weekend I started creating our albums right away so that next weekend during Thanksgiving break while we're at my parent's, mom and I can decorate our albums together, it's perfect timing! I'm so excited and she is too!! Here they are so far...


 I made both albums out of chipboard that I cut by hand with the good ol' exacto knife and ruler-they are my favorite, trusty tools!

 This is my album, it has 4 chipboard pages with tab separators for each week in December because I decided to make our albums for all 31 days so that we can keep documenting right to the end!

Our albums side by side, as you can see, I wanted to keep them a little different, so mine has the tabs and my mom's just has the chipboard pages separating the 4 weeks. I'm thinking of adding ribbon tabs to her album so that the reader can easily navigate through it and the two will still remain different.

These pages are where we will add our photos and journaling, they are inspired by Ali's pages here. Each page has the day of the week and "December Daily" at the bottom inside a journaling block. The outer boarder is dashed lines to represent a stitched look.

I can't wait to start adding different ephemera to this album to make it come alive!! I already went through all of my holiday stash I've collected through the years and I have A LOT of stuff!!! I will upload our progress as we go so check back! :-)

Off the bookshelf

art·ist   

[ahr-tist]

–noun

1. a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

2. a person who practices one of the fine arts, esp. a painter or sculptor.

3. a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge of design, drawing, painting, etc.: a commercial artist.

4. a person who works in one of the performing arts, as an actor, musician, or singer; a public performer: a mime artist; an artist of the dance.

5. a person whose work exhibits exceptional skill.

6. a person who is expert at trickery or deceit: He's an artist with cards.

7. Obsolete . an artisan.

Origin:

1575–85;  &lt; MF artiste  &lt; ML artista  master of arts.


I've been in a bit of a creative rut as of late and can't seem to bring myself out of it. Fortunately for me, one of my wonderful friends recommended this life changing book to help me get back in the groove and jolt the endless flow of creativity (which we all possess in one way or another). She has read this book and so has many of her acquaintances and they all swear by it, so I thought, why not?!? I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain at this point. So The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is currently on my "reading list". If you know me, you know that I'm always "reading" something or something(s) and my favorite are books that you find in the self help section or craft section, go figure! My favorite book store in NYC is Strand, it's CRAZY!! As they say, 18 miles of books, both new and used. The best part is that you pretty much always find the book your looking for, used and 1/2 the price! If that's not an incentive, then I don't know what is!


Anyway, I picked up The Artist's Way a few weeks ago at Strand and have already read the first part. It's already very interesting and has so many great reviews that I can't wait to really get into it and learn more about my creative self! I already strongly recommend it to any artist out there...it's worth the purchase and the time! Once I finish it, I will be back with my thoughts, so stay tuned!


Inspirational Quote; "For every success a thousand failures forgotten lie. For every failure to try, a thousand successes prematurely die."- Anonymous


Now, on to the other "something" I'm currently reading; Love the one you're with by Emily Giffin. I've recently started reading novels again, after my long hiatus with just the how-to books and magazines. I'm loving Emily's books! See, I like chick flicks AND chick lits (as they call them) so natural, she's one of my favorites! Her stories have the perfect mix of love, suspense, drama and happily ever after which= books written just for me (and maybe you too)! If you haven't already, check them out and let me know what you think! So far I've read; Something Borrowed, Something Blue & Baby Proof, (note that you should read Something Borrowed before Something Blue, or else you will be pretty confused).

Well that's it for now and enjoy the good reads!

The Pen Pal Project (Post #1)

pen pal 

–noun
1. a person with whom one keeps up an exchange of letters, usually someone so far away that a personal meeting is unlikely
2. Also called: pen friend  a person with whom one regularly exchanges letters, often a person in another country whom one has not met
 
Origin:
1935–40, Americanism

A few weeks back, while hanging out around the apartment, my mind started to wander and I began to think about communication outside the realm of the web. How did we get by without it? How did our lives function from day to day...there was no email, no social networks and definitely no websites. How did we send information, give information, look-up information?!? Dare I even utter the words; fax machine, phone book and yellow pages! These once daily necessities, seem so foreign now in a world where we don't even have to memorize important phone numbers because our cell phones do it for us, almost instantly. What happen to the simple days, when you had to stop at a pay phone to make a call, or reach out to a close friend via written letters. It's called personal communication, the type of interaction we once had, but seem to have lost, almost completely. The saddest part of it all, is that we are also losing the last generation that still holds onto most of the simple ideas...our grandparents.

This is when I got the idea of having a pen pal. I always wanted one when I was younger, but never had the chance. As fate would have it, I was visiting my favorite blog one day and the post was about her pen pal and being paired up with one if interested. I was delighted, it was like a dream come true-someone heard my thoughts, AMAZING! So naturally I jumped at the chance and now I'm officially a pen pal! I just received my "welcome" note from the creator, with an envelope and my pen friend's address. Its so exciting to get personal mail, other than bills or advertisements. It's refreshing, a personal note that's tangible, with their handwriting (which can tell you so much about a person). There's something about the "real thing" that all the advanced technology in the world can't replace! I'd rather sit with a friend in a cafe catching up over a cup of hot tea (since I don't drink coffee), than meet them on the web for a video chat, its impersonal and still makes you feel far away from each other.

So I'm very excited to send the first introduction letter to my pen pal, soon. I hope that we can become great friends, learn about each other's lives, share in wonderful experiences and keep a tiny part of those simpler days with us...for a long, long time.

Do any of you have or have had a pen pal? If so, I would love to hear about your experience! Don't be shy...introduce yourself!