december daily kicks off... and free is (STILL) good!

when i was making this page last night it finally dawned on me why i've been so obsessed by the concept of december daily and/or keeping a pre-christmas journal the last couple of years: it's pretty much the grown-up papercrafting equivalent of an advent calendar, isn't it? with one fun, special, glitter-encrusted page to assemble and reveal each day. OF COURSE i want one!!! so here's page one:

base collage: torn scraps of doodlebug and best creation glitter paper, basic grey notebook printed paper, vintage sheet music and doilies; top layer: teresa collins transparency with a strip of hambly, mambi silver chipboard letters, basic grey old skool alphas, photo printed on kodak premium glossy paper

ok, yeah, there are A LOT of layers, and doilies feature prominently. remember all the crazy doily collages i made for ICAD over the summer? well, it turns out i was just warmin' up! :) in this case i had so much fun making the base that in the end i didn't want to cover it up too much, so i put my photo and lettering on a piece of transparency to float it over the background.

most years my first bit of xmas decor is a holiday plant of some sort, that i can buy just before thanksgiving without feeling like i'm jumping the gun. often it's a poinsettia from the grocery store. this year it's a christmas cactus from home depot, which obligingly began to bloom over the weekend.

the torn paper is pretty much all scraps: some glitter paper, some notebook paper, some vintage sheet music, doily bits, etc; roughly torn and stuck down (working from the bottom of the page to the top) then machine stitched. i find making this sort of collage almost hypnotic, which, i suppose, is why i do it so often.

in case you're wondering where "free is good" comes in, just a reminder that SOS179 is an extra long challenge, in honor of the thanksgiving holiday, so there's still a whole week in which to join in! this time, my free thing was a beautiful piece of white-on-white cardstock packaging that enclosed an older set of pink paislee mistable papers. i chose it because i *THOUGHT* some of the background was going to show in my collage. in the end, i covered the whole page, but free is still good, right?! :)

still feasting...

...over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ that is; we continue to celebrate all the foods of the holidays. there are sooooooo many tasty treats at this time of year, it sometimes feels very difficult to make good decisions (restraint is HARD, darlings!) but luckily on christmas cards, we can go as wild as we want without caloric repercussions!

patterned paper: echo park, my mind's eye, doodlebug; mini bingo card: jenni bowlin; digi santa pocket scrapbook card (printed on kodak premium glossy paper): katie pertiet, designer digitals; dimensional chipboard sticker: echo park; candy and cocoa die cuts: october afternoon; woodgrain sticker and happy holidays card: my mind's eye; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine 

i've used the fabulous current (nov 21) sketch at stuck on u sketches, which works rather nicely on both cards AND layouts! i think it's quite a fun coincidence that the "happy holidays" sentiment card being beneath the santa card, and all of them being clustered on the strong horizontal line, makes it look like santa is emerging from a particularly festive and well decorated chimney! :)

stephanie has also made another a lovely "christmas feast" card to inspire you, why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check it out!

free is good!

it's also the subject of this week's challenge at shopping our stash: we want you to make a project which incorporates something you got for free... and please be sure to TELL US in your post what it is and where it came from!  it just so happens my mother recently gave me a couple of the most wonderfully kitschy red doilies, made of some sort of funky plasticized paper, that i absolutely fell in love with; so my choice was pretty clear, and the embellishment for my december journal cover was completed in record time!

funky red vintage doilies of mysterious origin that my mom found in her dining room cupboard; flowers cut from an old christmas card; lace cardstock paper by k and co; red chipboard thickers; hambly snowflake transparency; chipboard book covers wrapped in vintage music paper; little scrap of pink tulle i found; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

as you can see, just remembering how much fun i had doing december daily last year was enough to make me cave pretty quickly on the subject of whether or not i was making a december journal for myself this year. because of course just making the blank books for my etsy shop wasn't quite satisfying enough, i really wanted one i could keep and work in, so i whipped up one more 5x7" ringbound book. i had some pretty cool vintagey things leftover, so most of the pages are made up of scraps, old greeting cards, sheet music, etc. there are also a few "outtakes" from the other books: pages accidentally trimmed too small, or ones with the hole punched in the wrong spot. there's nowhere near enough pages here, but i know from experience that there'll be days i'll want to build something from the ground up, so i didn't get too caught up in the numbers.

did you notice the "over cover" built on a piece of transparency? i suppose, since this is my own book, i could've just embellished the music-wrapped chipboard, couldn't i? but i had a piece of hambly snowflake print that was serendipitously the perfect size, and i couldn't resist.

should i be embarrassed at nabbing the very coolest vintage ornament page from one of my old christmas ideals magazines to use as endpapers? naaaaaaaaaah. there are at least three styles of bauble in this photo that i actually own, and since they'll be hanging happily on my vintage tree again this year, clearly i HAD TO have this photo page for my own book! 

being as thanksgiving weekend is nearly upon us here in the states, bringing its heaping helpings of travel and family and food and fun with it, this challenge will span two weeks; thus you'll have twice as long to jump in and play! meanwhile, be sure to check out the awesome work of my sos teammates! ♥

xmas books-a-million!

ok, technically, there are only six, but "books-half-a-dozen" sounds waaaaaaaaaaaay too lame, so i took the liberty of exercising a little artistic license! the six books in question are part of some december journal kits i've put into my etsy shop, they look a little something like this:

book covers made of heavy weight chipboard and covered in vintage sheet music from my stash; each music cover has an "over cover" made of a 5.5 x 7.5" piece of hambly transparency that i've decorated with bits of vintage illustration, cut up christmas cards, washi tape, prima, basic grey and petaloo florals and velvet leaves, bits of ribbon and doily... pretty much anything pretty and xmassy that fell under my eye was fair game! :)

they have 25 pages each, made up of some vintage papers backed with patterned paper, some double sided cardstock weight christmas patterns, pocket pages (also made from double-sided cardstock patterns), and some larger old christmas cards trimmed down to fit the 5 x 7" page format. i also made mini christmas ephemera packs (quite a bit smaller than my regular sized ones) to include with each journal, there's a selection of different sized, shaped and themed holiday book pages, music paper, postcards, decorative seals, and even some music-bedecked chipboard reindeer that i diecut especially for this.

i made three of the books in landscape orientation*...

...and three in portrait orientation. this is the size and shape of the december daily book i made and worked in last year, and it seemed like just the right size to be able to fit in lots of nice bits and bobs; but not so big that i felt like i was struggling to fill the pages.

i've been on the fence about whether or not to do december daily again this year, but the more i look at these the more i kind of feel myself leaning towards, "yes"... hmmmmm... where did i put that extra music paper...

*there being quite a few primary school teachers in my family, we refer to these as hotdog and hamburger, lol!

anyone for a christmas feast?

ok, yeah, i know, here in the united states we have a thanksgiving feast to enjoy first, but today is friday, and at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ between january and november, friday means, "it's time to make a christmas card!" we've got a brand new theme this week, would you believe it's our last official prompt of the year? how is that even possible?! i have no idea, but i can tell you that the feeling of, "omg! it's the middle of november already!" is easier to cope with when you're sitting next to a box with 48+ finished holiday cards in it. anyway, in honor of thanksgiving and the rapid approach of the official holiday treats season, we are looking for cards that have some sort of FOOD on them: christmas cookies, plum pudding, a wassail bowl, buche de noel, gingerbread houses, the grinch carving a roast beast; you get the idea, right? there are lots of fun ways to take this. i went with sweets, because... well... i almost always do... in both art AND in life! :)
 

patterned paper: hambly, we r memory keepers, making memories; sentiment sticker: fancy pants; florals: prima, making memories and recollections; very cool plastic-but-really-looking candy cane from miss ros, ta v much!; scrap of seambinding of unknown origin; white glossy cardstock: paper accents; adhesives: elmers gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

i used the gorgeous current cardabilities sketch (#111) to help arrange my card:

i've still got a little stash of hambly paper and transparencies that i'm not so much hoarding as using judiciously. but then, i'm pretty sure that's what all hoarders think, isn't it? (uh oh.) the amazing miss stephanie who knows me very well indeed-- and yet still likes me, bless her!-- has helped to increase it this year, so it may be a while yet before i really feel the absence of that fine company, but it's still quite sad when something fab reaches an ending, don't you think? on the other hand, it's all the more reason to enjoy and appreciate good things while they last! i knew i wanted to use one of the VERY realistic candy canes (they are actually twisted strands of some sort of high-end plastic and thus quite lightweight!) that my lovely friend ros sent me a year or two ago, and when i found the hambly holiday paper with the candy jars, it seemed like the perfect match!

meanwhile, the aforesaid stephanie has made the most awesome and original card you can imagine... or maybe you can't imagine it... so really, you should just go see it, darlings, at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥!

more miscellany

designing:
...a new header for the blog. this one's got A LOT of color, doesn't it? maybe too much? i dunno, but it was so much fun to aimlessly play around in photoshop on a recent road trip (don't worry, i was a passenger!) and the result definitely brightens up the top of my page. the background is a real-life collage i made last summer, scanned and forgot about; i found it in a file on my laptop whilst looking for something else entirely.

planning:
...a LOT of small crochet and knitting projects, maybe too many to realistically complete before christmas. but then i always get carried away by "project lust" especially around the holidays! at the moment i'm working on another version of a crocheted rainbow purse for a special young lady; it's loosely based on the pattern for this adorable change purse, which stephanie* found for me.

listening:
...to the roof literally being ripped off our house (!!!) and replaced with a new one; one that doesn't have badly retro-fitted, leaky skylights. it will be so cool to only worry about my *HAIR* the next time it rains! (ps: holy wow, roofing guys work HARD, in all kinds of weather and crummy conditions, twenty feet up in the air; yet another job you could not pay me any amount of money to do!)

teaching:
...my first-ever "victorian christmas" card class last sunday at paper anthology in kenvil, nj. i had the nicest group of students you could possibly imagine, who made the whole experience SO MUCH FUN! i'll be teaching the same three cards again on wednesday, december 3rd and saturday, december 13th; i'd love for you to come!

admitting:
...quite sheepishly... that a typography junkie like myself had never heard of corita kent until i saw this morning's google doodle! (how was that even POSSIBLE?!)

watching:
...the delight with which my husband is preparing to cook TWO thanksgiving dinners, two days in a row. we'll be at his parents' house in maryland next thursday; then home again on friday, where we'll be joined by most of my family. i should mention that all of the above was his own idea, it's something he's done other years, and it's kind of like his own personal version of playing in the world series or running a marathon. except his sport is *COOKING*!  (mine is washing dishes, lol!)

finishing:
...holiday journal kits to list in my etsy shop. i LOVED working in one of these last year for december daily, and i had a blast making something similar for the lovely amy tsuruta, so i'm pretty excited to be able to share them! each one will feature a little collection of holiday ephemera, some music paper, and a hand-made ring-bound book with 25+ pages composed of a mix of vintage christmas illustrations, christmassy patterned papers, and write-able patterns (like stripes, notebook patterns, graph paper, etc) for journaling. at the moment i'm covering the chipboard covers with vintage sheet music; then they'll get with fun endpapers, and a remove-able decorated cover that's built on a sturdy piece of transparency. so folks who want to jump right in with a pre-made book, can use the cover provided; those wanting something more personal can re-purpose the transparency as a page, instead, and build their own collage on the front of the book! hoping to get these into the shop over the weekend.

wishing:
...everyone who reads this an absolutely lovely rest of the week, darlings! ♥♥♥

*amongst her many other talents, stephanie is world-beatingly good at finding and pointing out things she knows her friends and family will love. she also provides a more general service for the world at large with her awesome link love posts every thursday. obviously you should be reading her blog EVERY day, but if you want to know a great day to start, i'd go with thursday. hey wait a minute... TODAY'S THURSDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (gee... what are the odds...? off you go!) :) :) :)

47 patterned papers on ONE card??!

ok, yeah, i realize that sounds like AT LEAST forty too many... even for me! :) but there's a method to my madness, i promise. so bear with me for one second whilst i explain that this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called, "thankful" and we'd like to see either thank you cards OR a thanksgiving themed project. now that's out of the way, here's my card:

patterned paper scraps of waaaaaaaaaaaay too many manufacturers to even consider listing, but really, you can use absolutely ANYTHING at all that you have; black foam thickers: american crafts; glossy black cardstock: ranger; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape runner, sewing machine

see? admit it: it's not nearly as nuts as you thought it was going to be, right? i'd love to claim that *I* dreamt up the whole idea, but actually i saw this amazing piece of paper sculpture on pinterest and found out it was by a french artist called maud vantours*. my first thought was, "what an amazingly simply but dramatic thing to do with paper!" but-- obviously** --my second thought was, "that'd make a great card!"! the original uses all solid papers, arranged in a similar clustered rainbow design. but the name of the blog is "shopping our stash"; the point is to creatively employ stuff we've already got; and this might be the best way ever to use up a LOT of really small patterned paper scraps. which, believe me, i've got!

admittedly, it's not what you'd call a fast process, to fold each scrap into a neatly pointed triangle and attach them all in cascading layers. also, your finished card will be HEAVY... this one measures 5x7 and weighs nearly two ounces without even an envelope. but this is exactly the kind of repetitive task that i find relaxing rather than tedious; plus, as you can see, even a maximalist like myself wasn't tempted to add anything but the most spare of sentiments to the finished panel! for a less intensive construction process, i suppose one could just cut and layer flat trianges (or circles or hexagons!) but i have to tell you that the texture of this thing is actually even cooler in real life, and i'd be reluctant to give that up for the 21-cents an extra ounce of first class postage will cost.

if you're interested in seeing a step-by-step demonstration of how i put this thing together, plus a second (similar) card version, scroll down to the post below for a little mini-tutorial. meanwhile, there are plenty more SOS design team members, whose ideas and energy make me feel extremely THANKFUL each and every week, so why pop over not see what they've made for your inspiration? ♥

*to see more of maud vantours' bold masterpieces of creatively cut, folded and stacked paper shapes, click the geometrie section of her blog and be sure to scroll all the way down!

**because hey, that's what i do, i make cards! :)