gingerbread and bratwurst? (oh ja!)

we are officially into christmas vacation now, and the normally home-loving jeff has become a fireball of holiday activity, so i'm not sure how many more of my december daily pages are going to be made and posted before the big day. but that's ok; because there's NO statue of limitations on papercrafting! today, however, he's immersed in a marathon of marketing and cooking so i'm sneaking in a couple more while i can:

dd17: christmas lights and gingerbread

we live pretty close to an open-air shopping mall in bucks county, pennsylvania, called peddler's village which hosts a number of yearly events, our favorite being the annual gingerbread house competition. we usually meet up with our friends kim and dave during the holiday season, have a nice dinner together, and then go check out the amazing gingerbread creations, enjoy the display of holiday lights, and maybe do a little shopping. this year all of that happened on wednesday night and was absolutely awesome, as usual. for my page i printed a small instagrammed pic of one of my favorite g-bread houses and turned it into flip-card to hold my journaling. then i mounted it on a full page (5x7) print of faux-bokeh holiday lights that i made by putting a pretty strong dose of pse9's "palette knife" filter onto an ordinary photo i took that evening. i had to play around with saturation and light levels a bit, and of course it's a total cheat, but i'm FINE with that, lol!

on thursday we drove up to bethlehem, pennsylvania, to visit the annual holiday event they call "christkindlmarkt" which is kind of half high-end craft fair and half holiday party. jeff and my mom are both big fans of this yearly treat (well heck, so am i!) and have been known to wax lyrical about the amazingly creative artisans who display their work, the live music provided by a variety of local groups and the awesome decorations, all set against the unique backdrop of the historic steel stacks, but don't be fooled, because i'll tell you right now, in reality, the two of them are all about the bratwurst, which is admittedly wonderful, and served in the bavarian-themed food court! :) :) :)

dd18: christkindlmarkt see-through pocket page

i'm a big fan of including "real life stuff" in any journal project, and i tend to collect paper ephemera wherever i go. at christkindlmarkt i bagged a few brochures, a vendor's map of the artisan booths, a menu, and a postcard of the steel stacks at night which was handed over to me in the very cool clear plastic bag from the artsquest visitor's center. i was especially psyched about the latter, because it allowed me to neatly include all of the above AND a few photos i took on the day. score!

well i guess that's it for today, except to wish you a fabulous friday, darlings! ♥♥♥