Christmas Favorites {parade}

Enjoy this little parade of my favorite things this Christmas.
I am finally on Christmas Break.
I plan to do lots of crafting over the next two weeks. ;-)
Hope to pass on some inspiration to you. XOXOXO

All images from We Heart It.

Christmas Lights Photo Collage

Two photo collages in one week!! :-) I am addicted to them....I took all of these pictures at one house! Enjoy!

Million Dollar Fudge Photo Collage

Photo Collage for December Daily...from December 13th...In case I haven't mentioned it...the way I try to do my December Daily is to keep track of the journaling and photography throughout the month, but once I get my photos developed and have a chance to sit down for a long period of time {hopefully over Christmas break} I try to put most of the pages together at the same time. So this photo collage was from my day of making Christmas candy with family. One of our traditions is to make fudge....the recipe is 'Million Dollar Fudge"....SOOO delicious.

Anyway, it is quite a long process with lots of stirring. I tried to photograph every step....but as you can see from the collage, some of the photos are out of focus (did I mention that I was also trying to spread peanut butter on crackers and take pictures without getting peanut butter on my camera! ;-) I don't really care that some of them are out of focus, I love this composition! Hope you enjoy it too!!

By the way, I have had some people ask me about how I do my editing. I am totally a photoshop wimp. I can do a few basic things but it is super complicated to me. So....I have a couple of basic editing things that I do in iPhoto (adjust the white balance and the contrast) and the rest is done with a program I downloaded called CameraBag....OR....for this photo collage, I use an online software called Picnik....I upgraded to the premium subscription, it is totally worth it. Many of the filters are similar something you could do in photoshop, but it is SUPER user friendly. Hope this helps!! Good luck with your editing fun!

An early Christmas present!

Look what my sweet mentor and friend Leslie got me for Christmas! I am in love!!!





Its the last Saturday before Christmas....doing anything special? I hope to spend the evening with my dear friends and family!! ;0)

A few cards...

With the left over paper from my Project 52. I love taking scraps of paper and turning them into cards, it is soooo fun!!



I feel like I am a bit rusty....having only made Christmas Cards lately!! ;-)

Ornament {parade}

Here are some ornaments that I think are super cute this year. If I could have 5 Christmas trees, I think I would. I would love to have the following on separate trees:

1. little woodland creatures like owls and deer, a rustic motif with snow, acorns and pinecones
2. covered in glittery colorful glass bulbs (like mine now)
3. handmade ornaments: crocheted, paper, fabric, ribbon
4. vintage Christmas ornaments
5. white tree with all white and silver ornaments and a splash of red

*sigh*

Guess I will have to dream till then!
All images from We Heart It.

Wrapping UP

Not my presents! I am wrapping up Project 52. Wow, what a year it has been. I have been really good at staying on top of my journaling this year!! I love this 8X8 calendar album because it allows me to create one little page a week and write a bit about each day. (I bought another one for 2010) Daily writing varies, sometimes it is a list of things that happened, sometimes I just write one word or phrase, but it helps me to know what was going on every week this year.

I am not looking for scrapbooker of the year with this, I love to scrapbook, but this is mostly just a chance for me to play and use up some of my favorite photos alongside the journaling that corresponds. Here are a few pages from this fall:







My goal was to use up some of those great papers that I buy and never know what to do with...and also to use a lot of stickers if at all possible.

Style School Inspiration Binder

Along with starting a folder on my computer, signing up for We Heart It and stuffing my [heart] folder with tons of photo-goodness, I am also creating a real binder to keep all my magazine clippings filled with things that inspire me for my Style School homework. You know what? Prior to doing this homework, I had stacks and stacks of things I had found in magazines but I just didn't know what to do with it all. It was completely unorganized.




At a crop a couple of weeks ago, I lugged it all in with me armed with cardstock, scissors and glue and I started making little collages and hole punching my favorite things for my home, wardrobe and other areas of inspiration.





Wow-zers!! Such a fun book to make. I think we will eventually make a binder as part of the class, but this one works for now. Behind the tabbed sections are pockets of clear sleeves so that I can stuff things in there and sort them when I have time.

This will be a great place to turn when I am not feeling my creative juices flowing. I can flip through this book to get some ideas. Recently at a unit meeting for my Close to My Heart team we talked about the power of subliminal messages. We watched this video.


Yvonne discussed how our brain is like a computer, it is constantly gathering data whether we realize it or not, it is storing visual images.





Some people are really good at accessing those images and sometimes the images are just running in the background. We talked about how as artists (crafters) it is okay to surf the blogs or look through magazines in order to gain inspiration. Our brain is recording data and even though we may not copy an idea exactly, a particular color scheme or design layout is recorded for later use. Of course, we decided that too much blog surfing doesn't get anything done, a fair amount is generally good for stimulating creativity.

Just passing some inspiration your way....hope you are staying warm! And if you are snowed in, you might consider putting together your own little inspiration folder! ;-)