pamgarrison

full reveal of my December Daily® mini kit!

It's here! The full reveal of my December Daily® 2016 mini kit. I seriously had the best time designing this kit. It opened up a whole new creative world to me- designing product in a way that I had never really participated before. I thoroughly loved it. I'm excited to be able to show you the whole thing vs. just the sneaks. I was going for a very artist inspired kit- meaning lots of designs based on artwork, be it illustrations, or stamps I've carved, watercolor art etc. etc.

This year each mini kit had the same basic elements: 4 6x8 papers with plain grid design on the back, 31 journal cards and a selection of embellishment items. In this picture I've already taken my kit's washi tape and applied it to the pink stripes on that paper. I decided after receiving the kit I liked it better that way... for now anyway ;). I think that the full page of stars is my favorite paper. That was all designed digitally. 

The 31 journal cards are made up of 3x4 or 4x6 sizes. This is side A of mine above and here is side B:

Here is the A side of the 3x4 cards in my kit. Lots of pen work, watercolors, digital design, stamp carving, illustration, etc. 

And here is the B side. I've already taken colored markers to the stars (third one top row), and used the stamp set in the kit to make the holly card (row 2, 4th card), stars, (row 3, 1st card) and snowflakes (row 4, 4th card.) I like to alter things as you know. ;)

This side of the stars is just the grey and white when the kit arrives. I used pen here but also think watercolor, gouache or colored pencils would be great. 

And here is where I was adding the washi tape from my kit to the 6x8 paper...you can see it as it comes on the last row there. Side note, how great is that Merry album designed by Jasmine Jones from this year's offerings? Love it. I also love the 2 other 6x8 albums offered. I'm a 6x8 DD album girl. 

 I started stamping the back of the B side of the cards. I used the stamp set I designed for the kit and Ali's  Crafter's Inks to stamp them and I really like them. They are very wet and easy to apply evenly, and from my experience they dried quickly on paper.   

The embellishments are one of my favorite parts of any kit and so I was thrilled to get to pick which embellishment types I wanted to be in my kit and design them. Star die cuts, some with gold foil, chipboard shapes with sayings in gold foil, star washi tape and a gold alpha with lots of repeat letters for my kit. 

I started playing with it to get some in use photos, and I can't wait for December already. I wanted to confirm for myself that my bright, festive colors would go with traditional holiday colors so I grabbed some pages from a previous December Daily® I have. Yep, to me, it totally works! 

All the December Daily® goodies are now available for ordering (shipping in October) here. You can see all the other mini kits too and see how the different designers chose to create their kits. Ali does a great unboxing of her own main kit (yes, of course I ordered one, love it!) and also scroll down to see what her favorite items from each mini kit are. I loved what she chose from mine! 

I've heard from some of you that you already participate in December Daily®, and a few friends that promise that this year they are really going to for the first time (Paige, Michelle, Amy, I'm talkin' to you!). I am super excited to see how they put these pieces to use. I've placed my order and am patiently waiting until October...no need to rush those holidays, now that I've got my plans made, I can go ahead and enjoy our last days of summer and the beginning of fall too! 

 

I'm a December Daily mini kit designer!

I am so happy to finally be able to share the news that I am one of the mini kit designers for Ali Edwards December Daily® 2016! I love December Daily®, it's one of my favorite projects I do each year, so when I was invited to design a mini kit I didn't hesitate to say yes. I knew instantly that I wanted my kit to feel fresh and festive, be fun and playful, and yet, also wanted it to mix with the more traditional kits, so it'd have to have neutral elements. I also wanted it to be warm weather winter appropriate too, for all of us that have Decembers that aren't exactly full of snow days. I love a good creative design challenge! 

Having an artsy flair, a kit that felt hand designed more than digitally created, yet with some digitally designed art as well, and being very "Pam Garrison" feeling were all up there on my list too. After all, that's one of the concepts behind having mini kit designers; offering different styles and creative leanings. I think those of you that follow me would probably recognize it as mine in a mini kit line up if you were pressed. :) (And to those of you that are just coming here for the first time due to the mini kit announcement, welcome to my slice of the web! I'm glad to be sharing in the December Daily® fun!)

I'm super excited with the way it turned out and I can't wait to reveal the entire kit to you here on September 1! These are just some sneak peeks so you can get the feel for the kit. 

If you aren't familiar with December Daily®, it's a month of December memory keeping in an album concept created by Ali Edwards. I think this will be my 5th year participating. Some albums of mine aren't quite finished yet, but most are, and I love bringing them out and looking through them each Holiday Season. Seeing Ali's is what got me started in scrapbooking/memory keeping at all, and I feel forever grateful that she thought up the concept and each year shares it in such a way that it inspires participation. It's so fun and not nearly the "added to-do in one of the busiest times of the year" that it might sound like if you've never tried it. It actually helps me be more mindful, to slow down and notice the important things. Head over to her site to see hers through the years and learn more. 

As I mentioned, I wanted it to work with the other mini kits, and of course, Ali's main kit too, so that people could mix and match as it strikes their fancy. I like it when people use the same products in different combinations to come up with totally personalized and unique feeling results. I feel that is one of the aspects of a successfully designed line. I hope that some of the pieces will be so fun to use that it will inspire participation and easily spread some joy and merriment around. I love fun products that make me want to use them, that's my hope with these. Some "let's get using this!" sparks to get you telling your stories and wanting to engage creatively.

Of course, me being me, it was hard to limit my ideas. I immediately had 10,000 and I wanted to include them all, lol. I was grateful for the awesome team I worked with who excelled at editing where I did not. The paper was one very fun part of designing, getting to choose and design the other kit components and embellishments was another. More on all that when my full kit is revealed September 1, when presale opens up for December Daily® 2016.

If you want to be on the December Daily® specific email newsletter list, you can sign up at the bottom of this page here.  A few items did sell out pretty quickly last year. Those on the newsletter know the news first.

It feels great to have my name on a product I fully believe in and love. I was stalking my mailbox once I knew it was on it's way to me and it didn't disappoint!

So excited to share more with you soon, in the meantime, they are doing a fun reveal all week of all the other mini kit designers and sneaks of their kits on decemberdaily.com I don't even know who the other designers are or what their kits look like, so I'm as excited to get that daily email and check the site for more info myself!  

Order selection period start September 1, which I know might sound early, but with shipping and prep to consider, it ends up being perfect timing. Plus, December will be here before we know it (yikes!) Hope some of you that are new to December Daily® will join me this year, and hope those that are regular participants will enjoy my kit!! I can not wait to see it's pieces in use. I'll share more of my design process after the reveal of the entire kit, because I for one love the behind the scenes scoop too. 

I'm already excited for the holidays and summer is still on it's last legs...it's going to be a fun one! xoP

It all goes by so quickly

 

Another Christmas has come and gone and all that's left now is the clean up. It all goes by so quickly.

I hope that you all had a nice day and spent it how you wanted to! Ours started a bit roughly with a four hour trip to the animal urgent care, poor pup seems to have slipped a disc. :( We were able to get home just in time to open presents, finish cleaning the house, start cooking and clean ourselves up before a house full of family arrived. As everyone was saying goodbye my daughter and I were able to go and bring the poor pup home; he's got some pain meds and seems to be doing fine now. Throwing something like that in the mix makes the day seem especially crazy. I'm very much looking forward to relaxing tomorrow!

And now that it's officially the 26th...my Painting Petals class is up and registration is open! I'm really excited to share it with those of you that choose to join in. See that sideboard in the photo above? It's full of class materials, I couldn't get it all put away before company arrived and figured it looks so pretty anyway, it could stay there. I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to that fun tomorrow too.

If you want more info on Painting Petals or to sign up with early bird discount go here! 

Xo,P

happy holidays!

Hope you all are enjoying the season!

I'm busy as a bee putting the finishing touches on the class website before it releases for sale 12/26!!

 

Wishing you all a very merry & happy holiday season! XoP

more ongoing december fun

Here's that table shown last post. Still covered in my stuff. I'm slowing working on my December album and somewhat enjoying my slow pace. "It is what it is" is on repeat in my head, not, "it's December 17th and I'm on day 11". Whatever. It's not fun if I approach it that way and who wants to voluntarily add something to December that's not fun?!? 

Speaking of adding some fun to December, don't know if you caught this in the first photo, but we've added something big to our December:

We're going to Paris for Christmas!!! Kind of crazy, but we 4 Garrisons had such a great time when we went to Rome over the holidays a few years ago that we think it'll be a good idea. I always hesitate to leave home at the holidays, but it's one of the easiest times to use our British Air frequent flyer miles, and we have some buddy passes on those miles expiring so...we're going! I hope Paris will be as incredible as we found Rome at Christmas. We plan to arrive just in time for midnight service at Notre Dame. That sounds pretty magical to me!  I'm sure that the upcoming travel plans and preparing for same have something to do with my lack of enthusiasm for holiday decorating and my desire to streamline the holiday around here too. 

The above is a page I'm prepping ahead of time...next week will be here soon enough and the travel to-do's will take first place over the December memory documenting. 

Although I said that the bad white pen writing on day 3 didn't bother me enough to fix, I changed my mind. As I flipped through the book in progress, it did annoy. I decided to make the effort to write on the photo in PhotoShop instead. I even figured out how to curve the lines ever so slightly. I couldn't figure out how to use PhotoShop well enough to make it perfect (I couldn't figure out how to change the font size or placement on some of them for the life of me), but this time I really am certain that it's good enough as is. I added a little silver star seal too. 

It's fun to go back and futz with it. 

It looks better from the page before too. 

And here is my spread for December 4. 

As I watched my daughter was look through last years December Daily, it hit me that of course, all she cares about is the photos, but the fun paper bits and embellishments make the whole project more fun to do for me. There are so many fun things in the Gossamer Blue kit. I've never used the enamel dots before, but these in the kit are too cute to resist. Plaid?!? Yes please. And now you can purchase parts of the kit too, not just the entire December Memories collection. 

I'm finding 6x8 photos a good way to get the days done this year as well as last. (I bought the tag at Ikea's paper shop in November. Although I was super excited about the new paper shop in Ikea that I made the trip for it, I was disappointed. Maybe it's better now, haven't been back for the holidays, but just letting you know in case it requires a special trip for you too.) 

And now I'm off to pick my son up from finals. Kind of nice to have that behind him for vacation as well. After his last final, both the kids are officially on school break. Now the holiday fun will really begin here. Hooray!

 

around here

December 15...

Wow. Like so many others, I find myself saying, "how is that possible?".

I remember a theory someone told me once; that because each year is a smaller fraction of our life, it seems to go faster...(or something like that. Anyone know what I'm talking about?) Anyway, it sure feels like it's accurate to me. I'm getting too old because the years are going by too quickly. 

I've been up to the usual around here...driving this guy around...

Making stuff, and moving piles around...

Being wowed by the sky - and loving the rain (even though we really need a new roof). 

As always, lots of iphone photos. Even more now, since I'm documenting our December. I really appreciate how doing the project motivates me to capture what's going on around here in a more focused way. Like this shot I took the other day of the table I was about to monopolize with December Daily stuff:

I need to take an after photo, which is still what it looks like now - pretty much the entire surface is covered. I have an issue with horizontal surfaces and excel at filling them up. (I spent an hour last night cleaning off the "game table" so we can begin our annual puzzle fun. Cursing myself for my lack of putting-away-as-I-go behavior.)

I also like that December Daily gives me a determination to keep creating, even though there are so many other things to do. At a time when so many other to-dos are fighting for a space on the list, crafting just because I want to seems a little indulgent, but crafting because I'm documenting our December seems less guilt inducing for me. 

This cutie pie finished finals and made it home this weekend. As always, we all love having her home (after that initial re-entry adjustment phase that is). ;)

Dugie is always so happy to have Ali home. (Sharing the parental focus certainly doesn't hurt). 

We had lots of fun Saturday night playing games. This one was a new favorite. And this one is going to be in a stocking here this year. I'm excited, we love games. A realtor had dropped off a box of chocolates thank you gift at the door and the kids were only too happy to dig in. They both love it. My husband is a very healthy eater, so he never wants any, and I don't like chocolate, so it's all theirs. They get so excited about it, it makes me wish I did like it. Games and chocolate, a good Saturday night.

 Before studying for finals put an end to the fun. 

I know I'm biased, but seriously, how cute is he in his glasses?!?

Holiday baking is always a tradition. These are sugar cookies with food coloring. Yum. I might have just eaten a few for breakfast actually...don't tell the healthy husband!

Here, yesterday. Lights being put on the tree, studying for this week's finals, reading for fun, the puzzle picked and waiting for the table to be cleared, furniture and things moved out of the way for the tree and not given a new place yet, a tree skirt patiently waiting to serve it's purpose, and lots of other messes of everyday life. Looking at this photo, I wish I would have straightened up first, but it's what is really going on. As soon as I'm done with this post I am going to straighten the pillows, fold the blankets, straighten the books at least. Unless I forget and move on to something else of course. 

One more sky shot taken last week. It's really been taking my breath away lately. 

And now you're pretty much caught up on what's been going on around here. Even though it's the holiday season, it's still pretty quiet and calm and the hustle and bustle of the holidays hasn't set in. I'm still not feeling in the spirit. I guess I'd need to go out into the world for reasons other than to chauffeur, but I just don't want to. I might just get away with it too...I'll keep you posted. 

Happy December 15 to you! 

 

making upcylcled ornaments

As you may know already, crafting is my favorite form of procrastination. The last two nights I've been indulging my desire to check out of my mental loop of a to-do list and craft. The simplest things bring me so much pleasure. 

I went to my favorite cardboard source- the Studio Calico boxes my monthly kit comes in. The graphics on the box make such a great backside for hanging things (meaning things that might twist when hanging, like galands etc). 

Some sturdy scissors, acrylic paint, sometimes touches of a paint or chalk pen, and a hole punch were my supplies. No templates or references, just imagination and freehand fun. Would be a great holiday craft for the kiddos too. 

If I were a perfectionist, I might take some sandpaper to the edges, but let's be honest, if I were a perfectionist I wouldn't be making ornaments out of cardboard in the dark of the night. These are perfectly imperfect which is all I'm going for. 

The ideas for using these are multiplying, I'd love to make so many more. For now, I'm going to pack them up (excellent that they are light as air) for a trip over the holidays- decorations to go...and maybe some gift tags too...

and now it's time to stop indulging myself and crack the whip a little over here! I can always make more if I get my to-dos done, right?!?

It wouldn't be the holidays for me without some holiday crafting. You too?  Have you made any holiday crafts this season? Those of us addicted to making want to know! 

 

december downloadables & a few other things of interest

 

Download PG December Memories

Here's the design I made to use with the Gossamer Blue December Memories Kit. I'm using it as a title page in my album documenting December, and you are welcome to as well, the free downloadable is available above (personal use only thank you). 

Also, in case you are new here, there are other free holiday downloadables by me here, and more here too. 

and a few other things...

I recently discovered Trouvé magazine and think it's beautiful. In their words: "celebrating the creative lifestyle and those who live it".  The first two issues of it are bundled for sale right now. Go here to learn more. 

And one more thing... my friend, artist Jennifer Mercede has illustrated a book for her friend, Shawna O'Neal, and that friend is doing a kickstarter to publish it in the USA. If you are in need of a unique gift for a young one, there are a couple more days left to check it out and support the kickstarter here. 

Happy Tuesday!

 

more december memories

Back with an update on my December documenting album, (you can see the first post here) the daily documenting of December for our family. While I've fallen behind on my Project Life album, I find one spread a day for the first 25 days of December to be pretty easy to keep up with...and fun to boot. As I mentioned before, I've got the December Memories kit by Gossamer Blue in my got little hands. I'm using other items too, like this free downloadable from Ali Edwards shown above, it was Ali that originated the whole December Daily album concept. Here it is on the back of my title page:

I wrote on the downloadable in PhotoShop and printed it on scrapbook paper.  I'll be fixing that spelling error as soon as this post is published. ;) 

One of my favorite things about an album like this or a travel journal is the layers that you can see waiting for discovery. 

The first of December is my sweet Ali's birthday. She was at school, so I had her send me photos of the celebrating she did with friends, since we had celebrated with her before it was December. I sewed the cut out photo onto my tester paper from stamp carving. It was definitely inspired by seeing Tina Azmus's page of her son, seen here. 

Here's my first day spread:

I'm getting downright adventuresome with my digital explorations, buying printables from both One Little Bird and Paislee Press and putting them right to use. The birthday stuff is from One Little Bird. 

I backed the traingle stamp paper with scrapbook paper and used a few more triangles as trees. Here's the spread for day 2:

That's a transparency sheet on the right with Be Very Merry and the cute deer from the kit on top. It was because I saw Maria's darling Merry Every Thing seen here.  

Had I known that my white pen was going to behaving badly, I would have digitally added that too! Oh well, not important enough to reprint, it'll be all the same at the end. 

Here's the spread for day three. My lamenting about my lack of holiday spirit on the left:

And getting into documenting December on the right side:

More see through elements. Fun to be catching up.  Hope to get caught up to date and share a few more December spreads soon! xo

 

seeing stars

Here's the December Daily binder I told you I was stamping inside yesterday. Stars instead of triangles...

Serious fun for almost no cost. You could even make these stars with an Xacto knife and some white erasers if you wanted to. 

It makes me very happy. The only thing I'd change if I hadn't cleaned up already is that I'd stamp on top of the silver round parts from the outside label. But I'm over it, so it'll stay this way. 

My favorite star was the one that I added extra little carves in. You can see what I mean in the blue one above.

I was thinking about adding a few gold stars but I am liking the white space, so I probably won't. 

I originally made 3 stars, large, medium and small, then broke the medium by cleaning it too roughly so turned it into a second small star. I'm not sure if it's that I'm rough, or that stamps made out of erasers aren't quite as sturdy as other carving materials. Or maybe hand carved stamps just don't last forever regardless. They worked great for this and I am already thinking of other stamps I want to carve. it's how it always goes, if it's fun, I want to make more. 

Yesterday I was at it until the sun started setting...

Might get to make some tomorrow...the weekend isn't over yet!

 

gossamer blue december memories

I'm the guest designer over at Gossamer Blue this month for their December Memories Kit.  It's a really beautiful kit with tons of supplies for those that like to document their December. Look at all that was in the box! :

I was seriously wowed when I opened the box. There is so much to love. 

I love the unique colors in the kit, especially the golden striped binder. I like to leave my binder covers plain, for stacking on shelves, and sliding in and out bookcases without knocking off any embellishments. This cover, with it's gold stripes and pretty sage green binding make it decorated without requiring anything extra in my mind. The pink and red combination on some papers, and less traditional mixes are a favorite too, as well as the products designed by designers exclusive to the Gossamer Blue kit. 

 

These colors....the minty turquoise, warm red, gold and white...I'm not usually a huge fan of red, but I'm really liking this combo this Christmas. 

So very many fun embellishments in this kit. I love it when kits have exclusive items, and this kit is choc full of them! 

And so many fun papers, with duplicates so you can try out different ideas and use different ways. 

So fun to unpack each item, taking them out of their packages and putting in something that makes it easier to use over the month. Once I'd done all the sorting, I put everything back in the box the kit was shipped in for easy access this December 

I included a few items to the box that I had bought additionally:

I love the new designer collections, Gramercy Road, On my Desk, and Get Happy over at Gossamer Blue too, and added a few items from each. 

I also added rub on stars from Studio Calico, and letterpress cards from Jamaica Makes.

With the kit unpacked and all extras gathered, I was good to go.

Let the fun begin! This will be the third year I've documented December. For those books I just put the book together as the days went by, without any planning or page prep ahead. That works out for me because I use the photo captured on the day as my jumping off point for choosing colors, papers, and  embellishments.

This year I decided to follow a few ideas I had from seeing the kit items, but make them non specific so I could still remain flexible as to where they will fit in over the month.

I took one of the paper cut out trees, attaching it to another tree sticker from the darling Get Happy line and added a paper banner cut out of one of the 3x4 cards. It'll make a very cute see through pocket item:

I like that the tree is offset due to different sizes. If I didn't like that, I could always cut it to be the same size. Here's how the back looks:

Added one of the stars from the kit...and mabye a number for the day of the month will be added. I like to have each day numbered somewhere on the page. 

I printed out the design I made for the blog hop (seen at the top of the blog post) and decided to use it as a title page. 

I was thinking about using the puffy word "magic" and puffy arrow....but then I tried this paper banner:

I like it better, a stronger statement. 

Just a fun little date number tag for the first day in the book. 

On another page one of the 4x6 papers with a paper banner on top. I'll wait to see what happens on the day I want to use it to decide what to write on the banner. I like to add some embellishments on top of the page protectors on occasion. 

Ever year I like to keep all receipts that are holiday oriented in my December book. This year I'm using one of the gold and white striped bags in the kit. I'm going to simply punch holes in the bag and slip it on the rings. I added a few different items from the kit on top which seemed a little tongue in cheek for the bag full of receipts. ;)

I have also kept a to do list in past books. I thought this striped paper was perfect for that use in this year's. A few more fitting embellishments on it seemed to make it more fun than the average to do list. 

I plan to sew these JOY flags onto the page on top of a photo when I get one that matches the colors. 

The last page I prepped was one I think will be placed toward the end of the month. I used a piece of printed transparency (Allison Kreft) that I had left over from last year, punched holes in it and put it directly in the binder. We're actually going to Paris in December (!!!) and I think the silver Joy to the World is a great embellishment for a photo of us from the trip. The acrylic snowflake is so sweet as a finishing touch.

One more day until December officially begins! Want to see some more December Memories fun?  Here are the other participants in today's Blog Hop, click over to see what they're up to in their December Memories prep:

 

 

Anabelle O'Malley

 

Beshka Kueser

 

Brenda Weaver

 

Cindy Liebel

 

Diane Payne

 

Erin Taylor

 

Eyoung Lee

 

Heather Leopard

 

Jessica Lohof

 

Jill Cornell

 

Jill Keller

 

Jina Jean

 

Kasia Przbyt

 

Katie Ehmann

 

Keisha Campbell

 

Laura Rahél Crosby

 

Magda Mizera

 

Maria Lacuesta

 

Melanie Blackburn

 

Michelle Wooderson

 

Naomi Atkins

 

Pam Garrison

 

Rebecca Luminarias

 

Tara Anderson

 

Vanessa Perry

 

Yana Smakula

 

 

 

 

 

slow down december!

Well hello there! I can.not.believe that it's the 18th of December! Can you?!?! I must be getting older, because with each passing day the calendar pages seem to be flying off with increasing speed. That shot above was taken while on a plane heading from San Fransisco to Oregon last week. Can you see the Golden Gate bridge? I was assisting Heather on one of her styling assignments. It's always fun to lend a helping hand, and see fabulous houses up close and personal, but leaving home in December is hard for me, I get back and feel behind behind behind! I took some shots of what's going on around here today to get back on the blogging bandwagon:

Late last night I made some of Rachel's  Himmeli ornaments using straws I bought at Target. Rachel is such a cutie and her DIYs are excellent, this one is no exception. 

'

I'm working on a tutorial myself for this Anthro inspired garland. Should have it up in the next day or so for those of you that love to craft over the holidays like I do. There are two other craft ideas that I can't stop thinking about pursuing too...hoping to make some time to see them come to fruition!

Before I left for work, I was on a roll with my December Daily. If you want to see more shots you can see my full book with close ups here. I've been working on catching back up:

While I was away my daughter texted me this shot- I've yet to get out and do any looking or shopping, but had I been with her, I sure would have been tempted to shop for some gifts...for myself! 

I did get outside to catch this glorious sunset the other day though:

And then, there's these that need placing on the tree:

Here's to slowing down December, one moment at a time...or giving it my best shot! xo

 

santa and elves still in workshop

This Santa is having fun crafting. Happy to have been given the excuse to play with felt and sequins, beads and old finds by my son requesting "more sparkles" on his stocking.  Here's the story of our family stockings, as I wrote it on Halloween over at the Silver Bella blog. You can see the stocking that we have used for my son for years. How cute is he that he wants more sparkle? Of course he does! Who wouldn't? So, at the last minute, I'm making him a stocking. I'm using felt that I've had (some of the best stuff was bought years ago in Martha's Stocking Kit). I'm also using bits and pieces I've salvaged from other stockings I've found at thrift stores and flea markets. Here it is in the beginning. You know I'll post pics when it's done.  Until then, here's one I made for my husband 2 years ago.

and here's the back

Obviously, I've got to get busy on my son's stocking! More when finished. Hope you are making merry memories today.

more holiday sightings

Still loving the candy jar and it's ability to transport me into a holiday mood depending on what's in it.

Other signs of the season? Gifts getting wrapped:

Have you seen this black glitter polka-dot paper made by Papayrus? It's tissue paper, but the glitter stays on really well even though the paper is so bendable. Love it.

And I'm finally sitting down to work on our cards...

I can't believe my first ever blog post was a photo of our cards last year. Last year's were far more creative, this year I'm happy to be getting some out at all...Next year I will start earlier, with everything, and I'll get to enjoy all this fun stuff longer. I will. Really, I will!! 

random bits of Christmas decor

I owe you a nice big post, but in the meantime, I'll share some bits of Holiday cheer that I happened to photograph yesterday. How we  typically decorate for Christmas is to do a few spots over the top. We buy a tree (which you can see the star on the top of it hiding where it's wired to the ceiling) and hang this winter dreams banner from the ceiling near it. I'll show you more of our tree when we finish it. Here's a few ornaments from the tree starting with a Wendy Addison heart.

I just bought this bird ornament at my visit to Paris to the Moon. I wish I remembered the name of the artist, but it's not written on the back. It's not mass produced.

I also bought this frame there, which I think is Wendy Addison's line for Midwest Importers, which nestles a Tara photo of my not so wee-ones.

And here's the front door. The wreath from last year lost it's Two Turtle Dove Swag and gained another wreath to the back, so that's a bottle-brush wreath on top of a wire star wreath on top of a silver tinsel wreath. There's some fresh garland on the door frame, with some glittery branches tucked in the middle. See what I mean about a few spots over the top? Plain and simple mixed with glittery abundance.

Happy Monday!

today's play

With two big deadlines done, I moved on to a much more fun task today...crafting! I owe Holly for hooking me up with some supplies for Silver Bella, but she wanted to be paid only in hand crafted items, so I've been trying to put a big box of unique goodies together. Inspired by the wonderful SisBoom creations, I made one of Jennifer's ornament wreaths with a slightly different take on it. Of course, when I decided that I had enough vintage ornaments to make this, I didn't have a wreath...so, I took a frame I had from a different wreath, and added some wire for structure. I wrapped pink tinsel around the outside frame as you see here, then I repeated the process with silver tinsel, tucking it in and out of my crazy wire job. The last part was the most fun, wiring and gluing old ornaments, birds and do-dads on. Fun fun.

I also did a little bit of remodeling on two more little houses. It's addicting! Here you see them before. And here they are now:

Amazing what some vintage goodies and a new roof line will do for a house.

Looks like someone else has been busy crafting today too. How about you?

more skirt love & other things

Thanks for all the tree skirt lovin'. You guys are so sweet.
I am finally coming up for air from that secret project with the December deadline. That's a sneak peak up above. And now that I'm out from under the panic, I've started to think about decorating for the holidays. Yeah! The boxes came down, and we even dug into a few Sunday night while listening to Christmas music. At one point we had on Barbara Streisand's "Jingle Bells?" which is a really fast, slightly different version of the standard. I loved it when I was a child and it seems to have that appeal, because my son feel under it's spell this year. We ended up having sing-offs, girls against boys, to see who could get the words out correctly and with the music. We girls won every time! We could even annunciate, the boys ended up slurring words and losing tempo, they never even made it all the way through the song without laughing.  I highly recommend it as far as cheap entertainment goes.

...Anyway, when I opened the boxes I remembered that last year, after being inspired by an article in Mary Englebreit's Home Companion (I think it was about Margo Tantau??), I covered a couple of ornament boxes in Christmas giftwrap instead of leaving them plain. Every year a friend sends us fruit from Harry and David and I find those boxes to be perfect for ornaments, they wrap that fruit so carefully. But that box is ugly, so wrap it I did with paper used on Christmas morning. Having forgotten about it, it was a pleasant surprise. I've seen old Christmas boxes on ebay, but never bought any, they were expensive. Maybe I'll wrap a few each year with the paper used that year, I don't know.

So anyway, on to the "more skirt love" part of the post title. Like I said yesterday, I love skirts, especially the kind you wear. At artfest one year my friend Amy took a class by Rice Freeman-Zachery on turning jeans into a skirt and then altering the skirt. Amy had the brilliant idea to make a Christmas Holiday skirt. I wasn't in that class, but once I saw Amy's skirt, I had to copy her idea. Here is the skirt I made for myself out of an old pair of jeans that I had already patched once (the rectangle patch). I used new and vintage material and of course added some pom-pom fringe as well as other trims. The little velvet bird was a gift tie-on from Martha Stewart's K-Mart Holiday line (a couple years ago).  I also made a skirt for my daughter (which I can't  put my hands on today) that she hated and never wore.  Humf.  She  was 12 at the time, I can't really blame her, it does have that  "sweater lady" look about it. Of course, I choose to look at it as more  funky, but it could go either way. I made two more for my friend's daughters, and they loved them. Here's a picture of theirs.

It's really pretty easy, so worth the effort even though kids grow out of them by the next year. Just make sure they'll actually wear it before beginning.

Well, there you go. A totally random post. Kinda all over the place, just like my brain today (or is it most days?). Hope your finding it easier to focus. One hour before the school bus arrives...must.get.something.done. (Laundry and dishes for starters, oh joy!)

i love skirts

I love skirts. All skirts. Even skirts that trees wear. Last year, at Anthropologie, they sold a beautiful tree skirt that I loved. I even contemplated buying it for a moment, although it was really expensive. Luckily, I didn't, because I would probably would tire of it, as I do most store bought/mass produced things, and then I would feel awful about the money spent. I rarely tire of home-made things, they seem to age better. Maybe the uniqueness of a handcrafted item makes it somewhat timeless in appeal, I don't know. So I studied the Anthropologie skirt and realized that what I loved most was the pom-pom fringe and hand sewn details (maybe some rhinestones? I can't remember now). I adore pom-pom fringe, always have, and hopefully always will. I came home and set about making my own tree skirt that I could add to over the years.

A simple handcrafted item that would hopefully grow more special with time, but if not, I could always move on, it cost me nothing but time and previously collected items. It's made from the simplest materials. I should have ironed it for the photos, but it really doesn't need it for under the tree, so wrinkled it is. The creamy white fabric is really the batting for inside quilts, softer than felt and having a real vintage look. It also needs no finishing on the edges, which is a plus for me. I didn't even use any sort of real measurement, just cut out a general circle shape, then folded it in half and cut again to even up the sides. It's just going around the tree after all, no need for measuring in my mind (which I hate) since I can shape it as needed once on the ground. I free hand cut a little scallop edge  and attached it with ruffled seam binding, and added some vintage pom-pom fringe. The fact that a few pom-poms were missing is ok, I'm sure I would have vacuumed a few off eventually. I cut out a few flower and leaf pieces out of felt and hand stitched them on with a few vintage rhinestone buttons. This year I might try to add a few more poinsettias or holly pieces, I ran out of time last year. The last detail I added was some vintage velvet bows made from a pile of scraps I bought at the flea market. I'm not sure why I chose to use creamy pinks and yellows and brown and mossy green, I tend to go with what strikes me when searching through collected items. Guess it was just the mood I was in. Glad I still am... I think it just sort of blends in with the tree, but if I feel different colors pulling me in the future, I suppose I could just add them in the form of ribbon or trim or felt pieces.

There you have it, our tree skirt. I'd love to see more if you want to leave a link in the comments...anyone have a flickr group out there for tree skirts? Like I said, I love skirts, mix them with holiday decoration and I'm in heaven!

house sprucing

After I saw the prolific Amy Powers post about this feast for the imagination, I happened to be at Long's Drug Store and saw that they had some holiday houses on sale. Originally they were $7.99 and now they're 1/2 off.  I bought one intending to bring it home and spruce it up a bit. Above it sits, post-sprucing, on a bed of button snow. Here is how I bought it:
As you can see, I didn't really do too much to it. I just glued on some do-dads like paper trim and wrapped the trees with a tiny ornament with a chinelle stem and snowman (flea market finds). I never would have added to a store bought ornament before, it took my friend Amy Hanna's doing it to turn that light bulb on for me. (Thanks Amy!) Somehow, it seemed to me that if I didn't love it the way it was bought, I should either not buy it, or live with it as is, as if adding to a manufactured product was not allowed. Now I think it's just fine to change up a new product, and I'm left with something more personalized that, of course, is more pleasing to me. I mention it here in case some of you are like the old me, thinking about crafting as either all or nothing, make it from scratch or leave it be. Now I see it as a fun creative quickie, and a good way to get my creativity kick-started when I'm a bit stuck.

Here's some other ways to get unstuck:

Heather Bailey, who has her new line of fabric out, started a "ga ga for garland" flickr group

Jennifer Paganelli is having a SisBoom sale and Jenny Heid was kind enough to share photos with those of us not lucky enough to live close by

Charlotte Lyons started a blog called house wren studio

Hillary Lang is generous enough to design and share an adorable stitching pattern

...and this, this is beautiful.

 

I know it's the season...

...but I just can't seem to get with it. This is actually a photo of my front door last year. I found the bottle brush  wreath at a flea market, put it inside a Wendy Addison glittered star wreath, and added a few ornaments and my two turtle doves swag to greet all that came by. I believe this year I'm going to tuck my swag in the top of the tree, but who knows. We haven't even bought our tree yet, and the fall bin is still sitting on the floor of the garage, waiting for me to go through it and pack it away. As for your two turtle dove swags, if you ordered one it should arrive today (if it didn't yesterday). They were all sent out Priority Mail on Monday. Does your Post Office allow you to bring in a bunch of boxes to mail at the counter? Mine doesn't. Let's just say I am very well versed at the use of the self-help mailing machines! Anyway, thanks again for the orders, hope you have a fun time putting yours together. Don't hesitate to add to it or personalize it too!

Speaking of kits, Ulla has a couple really cute ones for sale like this one.

The two turtle doves kit introduced me to the adorable Jenny, and she in turn told me that the fab Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom fame has started a blog as well. Finding new blogs is always a little creative kit in itself, stirring up new ideas waiting to be played out in one's own style.

Hopefully, my mind will catch up to the fact that it's the holidays before they're over. Until then, I'll leave you with a couple more shots from last year.