I have loved connecting to the real joy of this month. Being with my family. Being healthy. Creating memories. Living our lives.
Yes, there was sadness this month—profound and deep—and it became a part of all of our lives, really. But it only affirmed the gratitude I have for my life, for my family, for my friends—all of it.
Funny how a little album can add to that, isn't it?
Here are the last pages of the album.
I definitely went more simple for the final pages. I omitted a few because there were too many non-family friends to blur out for Cole's middle school holiday party he hosted on the 22nd.
I really do want to send out some love to my dear friend, Ali. She inspires me—and a whole boatload of others—on a daily basis.
I think I'll be doing this again next year. Thanks for letting me share my album with you.
OBSERVATIONS: I wanted to keep last week's spread simple. Just photos and captions. Sometimes I think even I can make the Project Life process more complicated than it needs to be. Photos. Words. Life. Love.
Here are the pages from last week:
We spent hours antiquing in Stillwater, MN, last weekend. The reason this is highly amusing to me is that I don't like antiques. Not much at all. I think it was the company I was keeping that made it so sweet.
I'm sure that I will be light and bubbly and funny again real soon on my blog. I'm trying to understand this world that we all live in right now. I know there is so much good here on Earth.
I wanted to post the pages I've yet to share, doing a little catch up for my December Daily.
Here are the days:
This next page is a scan of the top of a box of Shiny Brite vintage ornaments I bought at an antique store in Stillwater, MN, over the weekend. There is something so cool about 1950s graphic design.
Dan and I spent a weekend in Stillwater, MN, a little sleepy town on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin, set on the St. Croix river. There was such a whirlwind of emotion for me this past weekend. In fact, when I look back to the December 13 page, my heart aches. How much we need days of normalcy in our lives. You know?
One of the things I decided to do was to get an Elf on the Shelf for our house. I'd asked the kids if they thought it would be fun when we were out last week at Barnes & Noble. They both echoed a resounding, "NO!"
But the next day I hatched a plan to go and get one, and leave them to find him when Dan and I were in Stillwater.
I left Aidan with a standard list of things to do: water the tree, bring in the paper, check the mail, etc. But I left the first note from Malachi (yes, that's his name) in our mailbox, to be found a few hours after we left town. The note was from an extremely bitter elf, who knew he wasn't wanted and just his luck, as he decided to come to our house anyway, found himself in an extremely sticky situation. (He was blindfolded and trapped in the dryer.)
Suffice to say, Malachi was a hit.
The kids were left with a challenge to one up the parents and create their own paper trail of elf-dom so we could come home and search him out as well.
Aidan took it to the next level.
She went online and got ideas for posing him. She created an Instax clue trail, complete with some serious riddles we had to figure out to unearth all of the clues. In short: it was totally awesome and she was giddy with excitement over the whole thing.
I put all of the notes and the photos into a little glassine pocket from Paper Coterie that was part of a Christmas card I received.
Each photo spelled out one letter of the key word that would help us find our poor elf.
We found him laying quietly on our basement wine rack.
My heart was about to burst, just at the fun and the joy created by my teen-aged girl.
So much to be thankful for right now. So very much.
I've thought about a song that I posted once before here on my blog, years ago, a song by Everything But the Girl, and while I know this will pull on your heart strings, I feel like in addition to sending love and hope and prayers to these families, we owe it them to try our best to stay with their pain and their sorrow.
So they can know in some tiny, infinitesimal way, that they are not alone.
I've thought of having children But I've gone and changed my mind It's hard enough to watch the news Let alone explain it to a child To cast your eye 'cross nature Over fields of rape and corn And tell him without flinching Not to fear where he's been born
It's time to hold your loved ones while the chains are loosed, and the world runs wild.
Like many of you, the past few days have left me at a loss for what to say. Or what to think. But not at a loss for how to feel.
Dan and I had a weekend getaway planned this past weekend, just a half an hour out of town, and we decided to go ahead with it, with assurances from Aidan and Cole that they were okay with us going. They were and so we went.
We spent Saturday night in Stillwater, Minnesota, at an old hotel on the St. Croix river, drinking wine, talking, crying… connecting to the profound sadness that life offers at times, and the overwhelming love, and the infinite blessings.
I still do not know what to say. I am still overwhelmed at the grief I feel and I cannot imagine how these families are able to cope.
I only hope they can feel the hopes and prayers of not only an entire nation, but the entire world.
I designed a simple card with a quote from Mr. Rogers that I read on Facebook over the weekend. It gave me comfort to think of all that light in the world; the good and the true; the hope for our humanity to grow and shine.
If you'd like to download this card for your albums, by all means, please do.
I'm going to have to share a photo of my dining room table before this project is done. Many of you may know this, but I don't have a scrap room; just a dining room where no one eats, lest they get adhesive in their food. Right now, the dining room table is a disaster—a beautiful, craft-filled mess.
I kind of like it. Shhhh. Don't let that get around, okay?
Here is my page from yesterday:
Some of you asked what kind of gold spray paint I used to coat the chipboard page. Honestly? It's good old fashioned Rust-o-leum, from the hardware store. Archivally safe? Probably not. But hey, YOLO!
Last night my kids' school held a fundraiser, an annual tradition, complete with music contributions from the students. There are a lot of musically-inclined kids at their school, and Cole is learning bass right now as part of a band. They did an acoustic cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, and he traded his bass for the bongo drum. Nice. Nothing says 'holiday' like teen angst in song.
I cut one of my Holiday J-Cards in half, after I dropped in a bit of journaling text.
When I started this album, I'll admit, I figured it would last a few days, and then I'd feel overwhelmed by all the product I had to work with.
I'm so enjoying this process. Thanks, Ali Edwards. You little holiday genius, you.
We got a foot of snow over the weekend, and there is nothing like a December snowfall (even with three rounds of shoveling snow and sore backs) to put you in a merry mood. Mind you, my commute is non-existent, so that helps a lot. I just walk up one flight of stairs. Nary a fender bender in sight for me. Love that.
And this post marks a first for me: gold spray paint. I can honestly say through the years of scrapbooking, spray paint has never made an appearance on any of my pages. Until now. First, a snow shot:
And a bunch of stamping to celebrate said snow:
And then, the gold spray paint:
I know. Glitter tape. Spray paint. Don't worry your pretty little heads. I'm not going to abandon clean lines and simplicity. I'm just making them a bit shinier.
And the wee album keeps plugging along. Here is Day 5.
I covered one of the album's chipboard pages with some paper, and added a little wooden snowflake and just kept it plain, adding stuff to the back of the page instead.
I used my mini template from yesterday's post to print out the smaller photos. Just flip the template and use a few of the photo masks, and voila.
Isn't that a fun shot? Cole helped out our friend, Leo (yes, that is his real beard!) who visits churches during the holiday season, sharing the story of St. Nicholas.
Love this project.
Check out all of Ali Edwards' December Daily products here.
I love this little album already and it's only 4 days old.
Because I am using the December Daily kit from Studio Calico, I have all this product and it's making me actually try some crafty things. I mean, honestly, the last time I used glitter tape was probably, oh, I don't know…like, never!
And the best part of this project so far has been this:
We haven't done a Christmas card in about 4 years. And we didn't plan for one this year. That said, who doesn't love a shot of their whole family around the holidays? Even if it is a total Franken-photo.
Exhibit A:
You should know that Cole was jumping up and down, trying to photobomb the shot. The fact that I caught him in mid air and in somewhat of a focus? Pure luck.
So when I looked at the shot on the back of the camera, I cracked up. Then I told Aidan, "Hey, take a shot of me!" And that looked like this:
And then I clipped and feathered and filtered (and did some head replacement for Aidan), and voila, the perfect family photo:
A Christmas miracle you say? Well, so be it.
Here are the rest of the pages:
If you'd like to make a little 6 x 4, four-photo collage, you can use this little template. Just drop your photos in, print on a piece of 4 x 6 photo paper, trim and adhere.
I've got the first few days of December Daily, my first time ever doing this project, under my belt. I've decided this year to make it a very hybrid experience. Lots of computer elements will be part of this project.
Here are the first few pages:
My Labeled Photo Sets worked great for gathering a group of iPhone photos together on a 6 x 4 canvas. I spent December 1st up at our family cabin in Northern Minnesota for a last-minute girls' weekend.
I created a simple journal card format for my daily journal entries. Ali Edwards has created custom 4 x 6 sets you can buy at Designer Digitals (Overlay Cards and Photo Templates)
I know. Please don't gasp. Yes. It's true.
I heat embossed. It's a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!
(Note: that little tree stamp is about 5 years old. It's made by Savvy Stamps, but I can't find it online to save my life.)
For December 2nd, I just used a photo and made some word strips, paired with a holiday word stamp.
Simple. Digital. Hybrid. Fun.
Tonight we are going to get our tree on a very weird, highly unseasonable 50+ degree Minnesota December day. This album project has definitely got me much more into the holiday swing.
I may not share every page from this project, but will definitely post as many as I can.
