december 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd

five more days of my 25 days of december album !!

december 18th features a photo i took in walmart of michael pointing out to me what he told santa he wanted for christmas.....



the entry for december 19th highlights the fact that blake could not keep his little hands off our christmas tree this year. i took a picture of one of the candy canes from the tree that i was constantly picking up off the floor because he kept taking them off and playing with them.





i put some pages together out of order and then realized that i had a blank page that i needed to fill. it worked out great because i found this poem earlier in the month while surfing around the internet that i really liked and wanted to incorporate into my album somehow. and now i had the perfect spot! the website is the idea room if you're intersted and want to take a peak - lots of interesting stuff there.....





the entry for december 20th featured our christmas card from this year. i was a little late getting them out, but they made it to their destinations before the 25th! i used some leftover stamps as page accents too.....







one large photo is featured on the pages for december 21st. this was the day that michael had his christmas party at school and they spent the morning making crafts. he came home with a page full of goodies and i took a photo of all of them on our dining room table. the journaling features the poem that accompanied the special reindeer food they made - michael was really excited about having that!



and the last pages featured in this post are from december 22nd. these are just snapshots of some of the christmas decorations from around our house. it's a two page layout with part of a christmas card we received that i really liked (look at that cute wreath one the door) in the middle for kicks!











thanks for stopping by and i'll be back sometime soon with the last three pages!!

scrapbook page to framed photo art

just taking a break from my 25 days of december album posts to talk about another scrapbook layout i did as part of an assignment during ali edwards' online class at big picture scrapbooking called yesterday and today. (unfortunately this class has ended, but it was amazing!!)

throughout the class we created layouts that featured photos and stories from the past and from today. the layout that i'm discussing here came from week 6 and showcases a visual evolution of my family - pictures of my great, great grandparents on my father's side, my great grandparents on my mother's side, all the way through to today of my little family. i am lucky that i have hundreds of old family photos from both sides of my parents family tree. originally the hardest task was selecting my favorites to feature on the layout - 26 in all.

i loved the layout so much that i decided to create something similar and frame it. so i did! and i liked the framed piece so much that i decided to create another one and give it to my parents for christmas. and i did that too!

the hardest part of the whole project was finding a suitable size frame. the original layout was two 12" x 12" scrapbook pages and it was rather difficult to find a frame that is 12 x 24 inches. i looked online and in all the craft stores around town and ended up finding a 13 x 25 inch frame at wal-mart of all places. it worked perfectly!

the only other change i made from the original layout was that i used fabric as the background instead of cardstock. since the entire layout would be in a single frame, i did not want a seam running down the middle so i decided to use a solid piece of muslin fabric.

here is page 1 of the original layout.....



and here is page 2 of the original layout....



i started with this frame from wal-mart. the frame itself is 13 x 25 inches.....



i did use two sheets of white cardstock to cover the mat included with the frame because i wanted it to look smooth through the muslin.



then i covered the cardstock and the mat with the fabric tucking the ends underneath and securing on the back side.



close up shot of the fabric. very neutral....



then i pretty much just treated it like one big scrapbook page!





and here's the final framed "layout" (the lighting is horrible - sorry). a visual evolution of me!



the journaling on the bottom row....when i look at thoses photos i see my family. when i look at these photos - the faces of the people who belong to me - i see my past, my present and my future. when i look at these photos i know that i exist because of the choices made by all of these people. when i look at these photos i see all the people that are part of me and part of my personal journey. when i look at these photos i see a visual evolution of my family. when i look at these photos i see the passage of time and i see life.

thanks ali for this amazing layout! and thanks mom and dad (and the rest of my extended family) for all the old family photos!

december 15th, 16th and 17th

i hope everyone had a very merry christmas! i certainly did! and all the excitement of santa visiting, grandparents visiting, presents and new toys is starting to subside some, but there's still a lot going on around here.

i'm still chugging along on my 25 days of december album - still a couple of days behind with plans to have it completed by the end of the year. below you'll find the next three pages. enjoy!

the layout for december 15th displays some of blake's artwork from school (scanned and reduced in size to fit my album). blake is three. i love this one and it will probably be framed and added to our growing collection of christmas decorations - rudolph in a snow storm! love it! the journaling talks about the boys christmas art work being one of my favorite things about the holiday season.









the entry for december 16th is all about michael's visit to the santa shoppe at his school to buy gifts for the people on his christmas list. he was so excited when he came home that night that he made paul, blake and i open our presents immediately. the journaling tells the story and explains what a great job he did picking out gifts for everyone and how i could tell he put a lot of thought into the choices that he made.

and the entry for december 17th explains that for me it didn't really feel like christmas until i completed a big project i was working on at work. after months of working on it and a looming deadline right before the holiday break, i was putting in lots of extra hours to get this everything wrapped up and december 17th was the day that i finally signed off the report and it was officially complete.

i'll be back soon with the rest of the album i hope!

december 11th, 13th and 14th

three more days...and yeah i know you want to know where december 12th is....i realized when i went to post here that i haven't finished with december 12th yet so i'll post it next time ;-)

december 11th....momma (me) got a new coat! and it was on sale! very happy with my purchase. so much so that i decided to make it my entry for the day!



december 13th.....here's the journaling....

Today was just cold and wet – most of the day in the 30s and light rain all day long. It was a good day for sleeping and watching TV and that’s pretty much what we did. Paul took this picture of me, Michael and Blake curled up on the couch this evening watching Behind the Magic Disney Holidays – a show on HGTV about how they decorate Disney World during Christmas. Because Michael has been to Disney World he recognized a lot of the places and things in the show and we all decided that we wanted to go visit during Christmas one year. Then Blake headed off to bed and Michael and I headed upstairs to watch Christmas at the White House. I made a deal with him that he could stay up and watch it if he promised not to fuss in the morning when it was time to get up. He agreed. The show was basically an interview that Oprah conducted at the White House with President Obama and the First Lady, but it showed how they decorated the White House for Christmas, the National Christmas Tree (which we saw when we went to Washington DC earlier this year) and the big White House Gingerbread House. After it was over, Michael said he favorite part was getting to see the Obama’s dog – Bo. He thought it was cool that he knew how to give high-fives!






and december 14th is about all the christmas magazines i seem to have accumulated this year....

december 9th and 10th

more updates on my 25 days of december album. still coming along nicely and i'm thinking that i might need to get some bigger rings to hold the pages together!

december 9th....just a simple snapshot of blake and paul playing on the floor....typical evening sight....the photo is a little blurred but i still like it....



december 10th. today was a big day because we went to visit santa at the mall. i had a lot of journaling to include and a picture that i wanted to cover a page so this one ended up being a two page layout with some "filler" stuff included....

december 6th (redo), 7th and 8th

i'm still here and am still keeping up with my december daily album although i am running a couple of days behind. i'm not letting that stress me out though - no stress allowed! i am really enjoying this project and my album is coming together quite nicely. definitely something i will want to do in the years to come.

i've included december 6th (redo), 7th and 8th in this post. these are all relatively simple pages, but they do tell the story so i'm happy with them.

december 6th is actually a re-do of the page i orginally posted here. the more i looked at this page the more i just didn't like it. i also did not like the fact that the original page did not contain any journaling which i later decided was necessary. so here is the before....



and here is the after....much better don't you think??



december 7th. this photo was taken while michael and i were at home depot running errands. i turned around to find him checking out all the christmas wreaths. it was a funny sight as he was really checking them out. i like how the photo turned out as its actually quite festive...even though you can't see his face...





and december 8th. this is a very simple layout featuring a photo of our christmas tree....