Friday, January 6, 2012

It's Done!

I finally finished my December Daily and we are only into the first week of January....for me I think that's pretty good! =) I love love love the way my album turned out this year. Of course I know I say that every year but this year's book is a bit different than the ones I have done previously and I really am loving the way it has "morphed" into something so much more than just a bunch of photos from the month of December. If I had done this when my boys were little perhaps getting different photos every year would have been different but because my kids are older, we tend to not take so many photos so I was always afraid they would become the same from year to year. This year however, my wonderful sister, Linda signed us up for "Journal Your Christmas", an online class taught by Shimelle Laine over on her site http://www.shimelle.com/ . It was a wonderful class. We received prompts everyday of things that we could journal about. Things that would evolk memories of stories that we might want to tell. So this year my book not only has photos in it, it also has stories. Some of the photos are even of me when I was a child. It's my hope that my family will love to look at this book and read about some of the things that are and were important to me.


I used mostly the Teresa Collins Christmas Home line for my book with a smattering of Echo Park Christmas Dots and Stripes, of course cardstock and my cricut with some assorted random embellishments thrown in for good measure. =) My cover is a lift of something I saw on Teresa's blog...with a few minor modifications. Everything else is my own design. I really decided I liked the 8x8 size as it gave me lots of room to play with. I added lots of pages when I needed extra space for more text or photos.I hope you enjoy looking at my album...I sure had fun creating it.


The photo booth was a BIG hit at the Costco Christmas Party








I actually took these photos of my tv while watching
White Christmas.










Had fun playing with my camera on these.



Love our then and now photos =)


This was last years tree on Christmas Eve but I loved the
photo so included it

Ok so in mosts people's world this doesn't work in a
Christmas book but when you work at Costco...trust me it works =)

Loved this sentiment on the new Teresa Collins Cricut
Cartridge that I got for Christmas. =)



I love Jason's artwork on the envelope, had to add it to my book. =)

This year Jeremy and Holly spent Christmas in AZ, thankfully
Karen Ferrin posted some photos that I could use. =)

Love how my living room looks all decorated for Christmas



Sunday, January 1, 2012

12 Layouts from 2011

     I hope you all have had a Happy New Year. I've had a lovely day. We started out popping in at a neighbors home for brunch. The company was great but sadly we had to leave before the yummy food was served so to make it to church on time. After church we came home and I finally finished my December Daily 2011. I love the way it turned out. You all will have to wait a bit longer to see it as I still have to photograph it. I love the way I blended my usual December Daily with Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas prompts. Linda signed us both up for the class and I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing about my Christmas memories as well as adding photos. It has been a lot of fun.
     It's that time of year again....time for me to pick my favorite layouts for 2011. This year I decided to do one for each month. So without further ado here are my favorite layouts from last year.
Jan. I had the BEST time seeing the floats...even if it was
pouring rain!

Feb. I love how I made the guitar embellishment
to mimic the Teresa Collins paper


March - This is our friends daughter, I did it for her
 mom for a gift

April - So proud of these boys!

May - This is such a special photo of Linda
and Me with our Dad

June - I did this one for a contest at Memorable
Seasons. Old photos of Jason I had never scrapped

July - Love Jason's GENUINE smile here
I don't often get that!

August - This photo just brings JOY to my heart
I love our new daughter Holly

September - My handsome son and adorable daughter-in-law

October - I love that I can go back and play with older
photos in my editing software...it makes them new again

November - Linda and Me

December - This one wins by default it was the only
photo I scrapped in December. I am totally in love
with the Teresa Collins Carolina Breeze paper. The
design was from the very talented Stacey Michaud

Happy New Year

 Cliff and I spent a quiet night in this year. We weren't even sure we were going to make it until midnight but we did. I took a few photos more than last year so I actually have something to document our evening. Last year all I had was photos of the tv and the ball dropping in Times Square. lol

Hope you all had a wonderful New Years Eve and I wish you all the BEST in 2012
Love this! Not bad for a self-portrait with glowy tv lighting.


Jase before he left for the New Years Dance

GOT NOG??