Make Something Every Day: Day Eleven

Today we made our annual pilgrimage to visit Santa Claus!  We go to the same place every year and Esme looks forward to it very much.  This year she asked Santa for a Stacie Doll.  He asked if she had more on her list and she said no, so he promised to bring her some surprises, and Mrs. Claus said she and the elves would help pick them out.  

While we were there, Esme got to dip some candles.  She chose to make one red and orange the other purple and blue.  I told her we can use them on our table for Christmas dinner. 

I love hosting Christmas dinner and last year I was super sick so I didn't get to cook at all.  My mother in law brought us dinner, and then my whole family still came and visited us and we had dessert together.  My family still visiting even though I couldn't make them dinner was one of my best presents ever.  

Make Something Every Day: Day Five

Between work, Math tests, and swim practice, Esme and I didn't have much time at home together today, so we decided on a nice easy project tonight.  We played around with our crafty supplies to make tags that could either be used for scrapbooking or Christmas projects.  Esme decided to make hers ornaments.

I've used things I've been into lately for scrapbooking: doilies, aluminum duct tape, felt, other fabrics, and twine.  Esme used punches, which are one of her favorite scrapbook tools.  She also used colored pencils and ink pads quite a bit.

Make Something Every Day - Day One

Esme and I have decided to make or bake something every day from now til Christmas.  We have so many projects in the works, we want to get some done.  We want to make some Christmas presents and decorations too!  We decided to make my mother-in-law a book for Christmas.  Here is the title:

My mother-in-law is hard to find the perfect present for, so we wanted to give her something really special.  She got two new kittens this year that Esme adores so we thought this would work.  We've been talking about it for a few days and filling out our ideas, so tonight we sat down together and wrote the text.  I printed it with spacing so that over the next few days Esme will be able to complete the illustrations.  It's a lot of drawing for her - there are ten pages.  

We also started reading this advent book my mom sent to Esme.  We will have a Bible quote and little reading every day.  Today's is Luke 2:8 - "In that region there were shepherds."

Christmas Cutie

This is an older layout, but looking through pages on some other websites I was reminded of this look and how much I like it. I love the combination of all kinds of different elements clustered together, surrounded by negative space.

I have been scrapping tons of photos of my nieces and nephew lately. When I first started my oldest niece's album, her dad thought I was giving them the album. I was like, yeah, when I die! These are my memories of my niece - I want to keep them! I'm already on volume 2 for both her and my nephew. I have been on a scrapping roll lately and I'm enjoying it very much.

One of the best things a scrapbooker can ever has is a crop group with members who really care about each other, and appreciate each other's artistic talents. I was very, very lucky to meet my friends Ellen and Stephanie this way. Even though our group disbanded, we have remained friends and just recently started scrapbooking together on a regular basis again. I am so happy to have this back in my life! We each have our own distinct style and I love how I could spot their pages in a crowd. I love how we're always ready to share with each other and introduce each other to new things. It's not easy to find good friends anyway, but to find friends who are also awesome scrappers is nearly a miracle! I love you guys!

I did this layout at Ellen's house last night - the first of many of Chloe's first Christmas!

I recently had an interesting conversation about the "preciousness" of really nice, quality, and often expensive art supplies. Do you really want to use that pricey canvas for a project you're not so sure about?? It's hard for me to loosen up and experiment when I know how much these nice, big, extra-nicely-wrapped canvases cost. Donna Estabrooks had a great idea on how to loosen up with some things not-so-precious. She'd heard about people painting grocery bags to repurpose them as gift bags, so we gave it a try as part of warming up for a class. These photos show the two sides of my Whole Foods bag. This was soooo fun and freeing!! I highly recommend giving it a try if you're having trouble breaking out and letting loose! There are so many possibilities for these. Plus, even though my friends and family do enjoy passing the same gift bags around year after year, I know most of them would be excited to receive a gift in packaging I'd made just for them.

Christmas Presents and a Painting

I was very lucky to receive some arty gifts this Christmas, including an easel, and a mat cutting system. Hoping Ethan will learn to use the mat cutter and become my mat guy! I am just not very good at things that require such precision. Thought I would share another piece that includes him - this is one of my favorites from a new series I'm doing of post-industrial areas. This is a building in the crumbling downtown in our city and that little green speck on the lower left gives it it's title - "Ethan on the Street." This painting is done with kind of a different technique - it is paint pen on one side and acrylics on the other of a transparency. I've been inspired by Ludwig Bemelmans, author and illustrator of the Madeline series and hope to finally open my Etsy shop when I have four finished. Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!