December Daily 2010

Yes, you read that right... I am a little crazy, posting about a December Daily AND a Journal Your Christmas book. But hear me out. It's a little experiment. For Science!

Ahem.

Basically, this December Daily book is going to be for documenting the crazy random happenstances of my daily life this month. The Journal is going to be totally and completely Holiday focused. See? I have a plan. It totally makes sense.

The book is made from a Making Memories 9x9ish album (Great Escape kit). Most of the papers are from Basic Grey's Jovial line. The transparencies are Hambly, Teresa Collins and Making Memories.

Initially, I thought Jovial would be a challenge to work with, but I loved the colors and how untraditional they were. (And since there was no pink or purple I was totally willing to give it a try.) I thought they would be perfect for an everyday life book, that had just a bit of a holiday twist.

Here's a slideshow of the Flickr set I started (since 50+ pages would be a bit much to load on one post).

A few things about this book. One, it's pretty huge, both in terms of page size and number of pages. I did that on purpose so that I could make sort of "proper" scrapbook pages in it. I want this to be a bit less "matchy" than my week in the life book. I'm going to paint and sew and go a little crazy in here. There will probably be vintage book pages and who knows what kinds of crazy labels and stickers. I may take things out and I'm definitely going to be adding to it. It's going to be great. 

The second thing is that you may notice there are no page numbers.... That is intentional. I absolutely have plans to use up some of my wonderful grey numbers, but at this point I have no idea how many pages I am going to use up each day. You know I always take a ridiculous number of photos, and so I wanted space to well, have space. No worries about page limits = more sanity. We'll see how it goes. 

So are you getting into the holiday spirit yet?

Holiday Journal 2010

Hurray! It's almost time to Journal My Christmas!

In fact, I have the first prompt for December sitting in my inbox right now. I am exercising extreme will in not tearing into it right now. I have a very good reason you see. Because right now, I'm sharing my very first holiday journal!

Oh yes, say hello to my little classic Christmas album. I used some delicious Making Memories red paint to pretty up a Maya Road binder. And then I filled it with patterned papers from Making Memories, Teresa Collins and one sheet from Girls Paperie.

I am so proud of myself for using up some of my precious "stash." I went with a really classic red/green Christmas look, because the book is very much focused on the holidays. This is in contrast to my December Daily book which has a totally different vibe (still editing photos on this one.. hopefully up later tonight).

Also, if I don't finish it this year it will still be totally relevant next year. I used up at least three different Making Memories collections in this book, and I'm quite happy to see they all go together. Note to Making Memories: keep it up. I like the fact that this stuff keeps coordinating.

The cover of my book is still unfinished, but I have a little done for now, so I'll call it good until I get some more time. Ignore the paint that got splotched on that front paper... I'll be covering it up later. ;)

4x6 is such a lovely and manageable size.  I'm super excited to get crafting with this thing.

Here's the plan. There will be no stressing. There will be mistakes, but I will work around them. I will have fun. I will celebrate the holidays and document them in this cute little book. I may or may not use pictures. I will use my own handwriting (and probably a typewriter) and really really focus on journaling.

Are you excited? I totally am.

Now off to get those photos of my December Daily book posted. Mwahahahaha.

Holiday Tutorials Redux!

One of the benefits of blogging for a few years is that occasionally you can recycle posts. Hah!

To be fair, these are pretty cool posts... so I hope you re-enjoy them. :)

Hopefully I can get my act together and get the rest of my planned tutorials up for you. I like to think of it as tradition, to share something crafty and tutorial like during the holidays. Though.. this year it will depend on many things... like getting a time turner for Christmas (just kidding).

Until then.. hope this sparks some holiday creativity for you.

Winter Snow Scene Under Glass

Holiday Bottlecap Magnets (I really need to re-photo the tutorial here)

My Winter Forest

Yarn Ball Ornaments

Also sort of related, the bubble magnets post

Hope you enjoyed them. Now back to the crafting mines so I can make more for you. Bwahahahaha.

This week...

Okay, so my recent blog posts have been sketchy at best. This last week has been super crazy busy. Let's do a little recap.

First, early last week we had a serious snow fall. This allowed me to work from home two days in a row. One of the days our internet was out, so we escaped to Greg's parents' house to use their internet and drink hot cocoa. And Greg's mum made cookies. Mmmm.

I got a rather nasty cold... and made the mistake of going into work. I was promptly sent home.. which was good.. Things are rather fuzzy for a few days there. 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. Greg's parents did most of the cooking for dinner, but since as an American female I am genetically programmed to cook on this holiday, I got up and made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. And then of course I made the traditional fruit salad of my people to bring over for dinner.

I didn't take a lot of photos during Thanksgiving. It was more about being in the moment than documenting it. I was trying that out quite a lot this last week. 

I took a vacation day and had Black Friday off. The boy was occupied by gaming with his friends, so I decided to brave Downtown and do a little shopping. I would normally have avoided physical shops, except one of my super secret Christmas errands required my physical presence at a location. ;)

Saturday was for lazing around the house with the boy and then visiting the Picasso exhibit at the SAM in the early evening. It was amazing. 

(The Picasso peep was at Cafe Ladro, across the street from the museum. I thought he was pretty great.)

After the museum, we went over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving 2: The Revenge. We watched bad 80s movies and ate lots of yummy food.

Today was about cleaning and getting ready to return to work tomorrow. At least, I tried.. and then I got bored with being practical and decided to get coffee and go to Pacific Antiques Gallery. It's good that I did, because I got the best deal ever on this little stamp carousel. Twelve bucks for the carousel AND some vintage stamps. Mega-score.

Also I worked on my December Daily book. It's coming along rather well. I'm going to pick embellishments and get some journaling spots ready. 

Later this evening we went go Greg's parents' house to celebrate his brother's birthday. There were Wii games and pie. 

And that was pretty much how the week went. Phew... see? Busy times.

Hope your week was nice too. :)

Journal Your Christmas

Alright, so now that Thanksgiving is over, I can freely talk about Christmas stuff without getting in trouble with the Christmas police (Greg).


One of my favorite things about the holidays is a festive little online class called Journal Your Christmas hosted by the fabulous Shimelle Laine.

Here's a description from her blog:
"Every year, Journal your Christmas includes daily prompts from the 1st of December to the 6th of January, the twelfth day of Christmas. The 37 illustrated PDF files are delivered straight to your inbox so you can read them over your first cup of coffee and mull over each topic for a full day. There’s also an archive of the class materials online in case you can’t get to your email or in case something dreadful happens to your computer. And like every year, you can go it alone or be as social as you like, with a private discussion forum where you’ll find other Christmas journallers who will cheer you on and share your excitement, but if you prefer to stick to the prompts only, that’s completely fine too. And like every year, if you’re participated once, you can join us every Christmas for as long as you like at no extra cost."

I signed up about two years ago, and since then have only, shall we say, been auditing the class.

This year I'm feeling ambitious. I'm feeling good about scale. I learned a ton of stuff from completing my LSNED book (and looking at all of Alissa's past books). The key, I think, will be making it really all about the journaling and sticking to the prompts. I'm also super determined to use up some of my Christmas stash.

So, I'm hoping to get both my little JYC album and my December Daily book put together this weekend.

Right now I'm in the photo-editing mines... I got a deal where I can get a bunch of free prints from snapfish, so I want to get a big order in. :)

Hope you are well.

Steamcon 2010 Photos

Finally got a chance to edit all my photos from SteamCon II. Steamcon is a convention for folks who are Steampunk enthusiasts.

And in case you were wondering what steampunk was...
"Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s.^[1]Specifically, steampunk involves an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century and often Victorian era Britain—that incorporates prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them; in other words, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne or real technologies like the computer but developed earlier in an alternate history."

Basically, we dress up in cool costumes and hang out with fun people. There is art to see and shopping to do. There are interesting panels on history and airships and how to alter clothing. It's fun. It's fantasy. There is a tremendous sense of fun and DIY in the community. And it's totally nerdy.

Greg and I worked together on building a brass hand for his costume this year (and he totally had to use my pink cropadile). And I made a clockwork brooch, altered some goggles and made myself a feathered fascinator, just to name a few of the crafty things we did to prepare.

There will be more detail of the story, once I share the minibook I'm working on. Once I get the photos back from the printer, I should be able to finish it and get it here on the blog within the next few weeks.

Until then, here are the edited photos that are going in the book.

Hope you are having a great day!

snowed in

well... we got some snow. and as per usual, the first snow of the year basically shuts down the city.

it's strange to see snow so early (before thanksgiving!) but at least I am able to work from home...it feels weird, like a holiday, but not. 

our internet went out, so we are currently hanging out at greg's parents. This is a winning ploy, as we are currently baking cookies and having tasty coffee.

stay cozy and warm!

It's Christmas. At least, at Starbucks

CKC Seattle Recap

All photos in this post were taken using the ShakeItPhoto app on my Ipod Touch.


Friday

At 7:00 am on Friday morning I hopped on the train to catch a bus to downtown Bellevue. I arrived at the transist center a little after 8:00 am. I grabbed a wrap and a big coffee at a conveniently located Starbucks and headed down the block to the convention center.

I picked up my class tickets and vendor faire passes and settled down to plan my schedule and eat some breakfast.

My first class wasn't till 9:50 am, so I decided to hit up the vendor faire when it opened at 9:00 for us early entrance folks. I got in line at about 8:30 and it was already super long. Some women had been waiting there for hours already. Crazy!

This is me waiting in line. Coffee has not yet quite been absorbed. I got into the vendor fair and right in front was the famous dollar scrapbooking booth. There were a bunch of Karen Russell Creative Imagination products, so I got sucked righ in line. I got some papers, some rub ons and a little minibook. I also snagged a cute little Heidi Swapp crank-rolling sentiment stamp. I spent about five dollars. Score!

The checkout line took about 20 minutes though. I also made a quick trip to the Technique Tuesday booth and snagged an adorable number background stamp. I'm glad I did, because it sold out while I was in the checkout line. Huzzah for early entrance!

My first class was actually a Technique Tuesday class, based on an Ali Edwards layout and featuring a stamp set that was designed by her. I always find the TT classes to be of good value, and this time was no exception. We didn't finish the project (of course) but the instructor was funny and I did learn a few new stamping techniques.

My second class was a big two-hour class taught by Tattered Angels. It was a project based class, and I was excited to try it out, even though the project was mostly pink. ;)

The class kit was HUGE. It had the project book (a file folder minibook thing), a few different colors of Glimmer Mist, a bottle of Glimmer Glam, a spray mask, and a whole bunch of other goodies.

The instructor Annette was very funny and knowledgeable. I had a great time. My hands were purple and pink from all the spray ink by the time we were done.

I took a brief break for food (because by that point is was after 1:00 pm) so I didn't faint from hunger. I then decided to brave the vendor faire for a more in-depth shopping expedition.

I spent quite a bit of money at the Tattered Angels both (as one might expect). Everything was either on super sale or clearance. That is the great thing about attending the last CKC of the year I guess--none of the vendors want to take any of the old inventory home with them!

I took a walk to escape the madness of the convention for a bit, and then decided to head over to Paper Source and Barnes and Noble for some additional retail therapy.

I went back to the convention at 6:00 for another class, which was sponsored by Studio Calico. So... I really had mixed feelings about this class. The positives were: good value in product received, design of class layouts were very cute. The giveaways were fun. Negative things were: Didn't really get the Studio Calico feel. (and speaking of this, NONE of the vendors at the vendor faire had SC product. What's up with that?) Would have liked to see SC products used in the class. Sure, there was a unique SC stamp in the kit, but that was the only SC product there. Why were we using Maya Mist instead of Mr Huey? Also, despite the fact that I'm sure Davinie is a very lovely and sweet woman, and makes some lovely pages, as an classroom instructor she was neither engaging nor dynamic, and didn't really take ownership of the class... Probably because of this, the class was VERY short, probably only about 25 minutes long.

In my very personal opinion, if I was a new to Studio Calico person, this class really would not have inspired me to either really check out their products or to become a member of their community. So, marketing failure.

That being said, I am still a fan of SC, but I would have to give this a thumbs down recommendation for any future classes they teach, unless they seriously step up their game.

After that, I got a ride over to the Hilton (on a shuttle, since it was a long walk to the hotel) and went to the crop. This was a really bad idea on my part. I was tired, going by myself, my bag was really heavy, and I kind of just wanted to go home. Let's just say that you can OD on a hobby, and it's not a situation I would try to repeat. I'm glad I did it for the sake of knowledge, but I don't think I would ever sign up for a CKC crop again unless I was A) staying at the hotel where the crop was, and B) going with friends.

I stayed for about two hours and then called it quits. I really didn't get anything done, and the swag bag was full of old things that were SO not my style. I donated the rest of the bag to the ladies at my table. The shuttle had stopped working by the time I left (the last one didn't show up) so I trekked back to the transit center and caught the bus back to Seattle.

At least it was a lovely night.

 

I got home and showered and threw on jammies and passed out. And that was day one!

Saturday

Saturday was a bit more relaxed, though I did have to get up pretty early. My first class was at 8:30, but because weekend parking was free, I drove out to Bellevue (much more luxurious) and parked at the Bravern. I attempted to get coffee there, but the only coffee shop wasn't open until 10:00 am. This is how I knew I was in the suburbs. ;)

Fortunately, my friendly local Starbucks was open early.

The class this morning was another big two-hour one from Tattered Angels. This was a technique focused class, not a project one though. I had the same instructor as the day before and it was still fabulous.

We completed a whole binder worth of techniques. It was glimmer-madness. In a good way.

 

I did one last lap of the vendor faire, and then headed up to Trophy for my victory cupcake. I got hazenut and chocolate. And I halved it with Greg, so it wasn't such a bad thing. ;)

And... here's a bonus video (for sticking with me through all these bad lo-res photos). It's kind of a "haul" video. Enjoy.