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! ♥