I'll be the first to admit that I have to be the most impatient sewer ever! 30 minutes into a project, I want it done. So, don't look too closely at any of my projects, that impatient traight of mine often shows itself in the *quality* of the sewing!
Sharing 4 more days of this year's December Daily.
note to self - next year refrain from adding photos of the back of the car containing Christmas presents until AFTER Christmas morning in case 8 year old happens to look through the December Daily again....
December 17th Gotta capture the everyday happenings around the house too. This is usually where you'll find us on a weeknight - in the kitchen doing homework with the boys.
December 18th Lots going on last Friday. Jack graduated from the 6th grade DARE program, a program educating kids on the dangers of drugs, alcohol and violence. I included the program from the graduation as well as pictures of Jack in the middle of the program.
On the night of the 18th we got together for 2 sets of friends and their families for a family party. We had dinner and played bingo. Each family brought a present from each member of the family. When a bingo game was won, the winner could pick a wrapped present (kid's pile and adult's pile) or 'steal' a present that had already been won from someone else. It was a blast!!
December 19th On the 19th Nick's mom had her annual gingerbread house making party for all of the grandkids - something she's done for the last 6 or 7 years. The kids love it, they always end up eating more candy than ends up on their houses, but that's part of the fun.
December 20th Photo of our family room. I've been wanting to get new stocking for the last few years and hadn't found exactly what I was looking for. Found some this year, spent a few hours sewing white glittery and silver jingle bells to each one.
Ahhh. Off to start the wrapping. Why I leave it to the last day, I'll never know. That and get ready for the Christmas dinner at our house tomorrow night for 30 and then to Nick's Aunt's house for her annual Christmas Eve party.
On Sunday the 13th I dragged Nick along with me and did the majority of our Christmas shopping along with a pre-holiday trip to Costco. In Utah, Saturday is the crazy day to do any and all shopping, with Sunday usually being pretty quiet. Combine that with a snowstorm and it was the perfect day to mark lots of things off of the Christmas shopping list.
The envelope holds all of the receipts from the day. A good way to remember years later all that we bought, as well as a good spot to keep all of the receipts just in case!
Another tradition - Fingerprint Art. This year marks the 3rd year of Fingerprint Art. Jack decided to opt out this year, guess 12 (almost) is beyond this! Each year we pull out this book for ideas. It's a great book. At 9, Sam still loves making these little drawings. Combine that with the 3,954,812 different inks that I have, and he goes to town. This year's drawing, a ski slope, complete with skiers, a chair lift and a technique a la Sam - an ink tree. Yes, he called it a technique. Well, he's my son now, isn't he?! He used cat's eye inkpads to 'stamp' the tree. He even inked the edges of his artwork. Well, he's my son now, isn't he? You can see the boy's Fingerprint Art from the last 2 years here and here (I framed these two in 12x12 frames and hang them every year for the holidays).
December 16th
Photos of some Christmas decorations around the house. The 3rd pic - yes, I realize that's a letter E. No E's in our house when it comes to names. I have lots of old vintage letters that I display around the house. Maybe 1 or 2 K's, but mostly fun old random letters that really don't stand for anything. I used an old metal slide on this page to mark the date. Found a few of these several years ago at a store in Arizona, down to my last one.
One more day of work tomorrow, then I'm off until the 28th. YIPPEE! Still lots to do to get ready for Christmas, including the dreaded wrapping of the presents. Anyone else besides me leave the wrapping to the very last minute and then kick yourself for waiting?!
Jack's DARE graduation at school on Friday morning (more about that later this week), followed by work, followed by a Christmas party on Friday night, followed by a deep clean of the house on Saturday morning, followed by a few hours of Christmas shopping (I'm done!), followed by the annual Gingerbread House party that Nick's mom hosts for the grandkids every year, followed by dinner out with Nick and the kids, followed by The Christmas Story dvd (of which I managed to fall asleep 30 minutes into it a 7:45), followed by a deep clean of my scrapbook room on Sunday while Nick took the kids to see Avatar, followed by a whole lot of work on my December daily mini book.
Yes, productive weekend, if I do say so myself.
So I have lots of December Daily to share over the next few days.
December 9th
I bought the gold wire garland somewhere, sometime ago and it's been floating around in my scrapbook room ever since. Makes a fun little addition to the bottom of this page about decorating the tree. Now wait. No. We didn't put up our tree on the 9th, that would only give 16 days with it up before it would come down the day after Christmas, and that's FAR too much work to only have the tree up for 16 days. It goes up Thanksgiving weekend. I decided last year that it's ok to include photos from days that aren't actually in December, so I did.
December 10th
December 10th. Or in this case, 10.8. Just so happened that the 10th marked 10.8 pounds lost for me. I started Weight Watchers. Again. AGAIN. Started back in November. Right after coming back from England. When I weighed in, I was at my heaviest. Ever. And the way it goes with me, when I start gaining weight, I get cranky. And feel horrible. And it affects everything I do. E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. And that's not good.
So, I joined up. Again. Funny thing is I know the program like the back of my hand. This will be the 4th time I've done it in 15 years. My first time was before Nick and I got married. That's when I hit my goal weight. I didn't have as much to lose back then as I want need to lose now, but that's ok. Because I've started again. And I'm back on track. And I've lost 10.8 pounds so far. During the holidays, people! YAY! The back side of this page (not the backside of ME, silly!) has a screenshot of my account online at Weight Watchers showing my 10.8 lb loss. I'll spare you from that sight.... both the backside of the page and the backside of me ;)
December 11th
I included the Christmas lists the boys did this year. Jack stopped at 10 things on his list. Sam was going strong at 15, then petered out. Notice they're Christmas lists and not Santa lists. It never came up. Back to December 7th, Jack knows the downlow on Santa. But I threatened him within an inch of his life if he tells Sam, so he's sworn to secrecy. Still not sure whether Sam knows or not. As long as I think he doesn't know,it's all good.
December 12th
Ah, my very favorite part of the holidays, making Woopie Cakes. These are the best things ever. The recipe was included in a Paper Crafts publication I was involved with last year, Paper Crafts Gourmet.We made them for the 1st time last Christmas and they were a hit. A HUGE hit (refer to December 10th above...). I added mint extract and crushed candy canes to the frosting and they were heavenly. So we made them again this year. (yes, I do realize I'm talking about making cookies just after I talked about Weight Watchers) This time I set a certain number aside for us (so I could have my 'cake' AND eat it, too) and wrapped the rest up to take to a Christmas party.And when I say wrapped, I mean I put them in a cute container, tied a big ribbon around the container and then put them in the fridge in the garage. So they were FAAAR away. Out of sight, out of mind. Hey, a girls got to do what a girls got to do. I wish I could say I have the willpower to leave them out and not eat them, but I don't. So I didn't.
And that's it until tomorrow, when I'll have the 13th through the 16th.
Back again to share a few more days from my December Daily mini book.
December 6th I used a vintage playing card for the center of this page. Sam's bday was a several day celebration since I was out of town on his actual birthday. We took him to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner on the 6th to celebrate.
December 7th I think this has to be one of my favorite pages in this year's book. As I was tucking Jack into bed this night, he let it out that he knew Santa wasn't real. WHAT?!!! Ok, so he is almost 12 years old. And he gives us a run for our money with science and history and well pretty much you name it, so the chances that he would still believe in Santa at 12 was slim to none. Ok, none. But still! On the back of the page I had him write his take on the whole Santa thing. Used a brochure I picked up from Starbuck's that was perfect for his writing. I used one of Teresa's 8x8 transparencies as an overlay and added the title and the Jenni Bowlin ticket to the front of the overlay. I'd used pages from an old dictionary in a few classes I taught this year, had a few left. Irionic that one of the pages I had left had the word belief at the top, perfect for this page!
This is what Jack wrote on the back of the page - "It's a nice tradition but it just doesn't make sense. I mean what kind of person gives out free stuff for his eternal life? What elf works all year for nothing? And what non-genetically enhanced reindeer can fly? See my point".
So yah, that's Jack in a nutshell... Almost 12, going on 30.
December 8th Such a crazy, snowy day. As I was leaving the house to head to work, I heard on the radio '17 and heavy snow'. They weren't kidding. Two hours later, I pulled into the office. What's normally a 40 minute commute took 3 times as long. I wanted to pull my hair out! Had my camera with me in the car and took advantage of the many times I was stopped on the freeway to try and get a decent pic of the traffic!
And made this - How about the bunny ears sticking out of Jack's head? Decided to leave them because that is SO Sam. We'll just say it's a peace sign (fitting for the holidays...).
Uploaded the jpg to Costco and ordered 5x7 prints for $.39 each- And they'll be ready to pick up when we hit Costco tomorrow morning.
Start to finish, less than an hour.
Next stop - office supply store for 5x7 envelopes, print labels, buy stamps and mail. All on Monday, leaving 11 days to spare before the holiday.
Here are my December Daily pages for the 3rd, 4th and 5th -
December 3rd I started a birthday tradition for the boys 4 or 5 years ago. On their birthday-eve after they're in bed, Nick and I decorate their bedroom door to look like a giant present.
They both love it!
Sam's birthday is on the 4th, but since I was going to be out of town on his birthday I surprised him by doing it on the 3rd instead.
December 4th I used the 'bookmark' from the December issue of Real Simple magazine on this page. I always forget how much I love this magazine!
Nick took the boys and one of their cousins to the Jazz basketball game on the 4th for Sam's birthday. I included the game tickets on the back of the page, and used a border sticker wrapped around the page to hold the tickets.
December 5th Good friends of ours had their annual Christmas party on the 5th, so I included the invitation as the base for this day. Nick went to the party, but I was in Tampa for work so I wasn't able to go. I did a 'he said' 'she said' version for this day, and included photos of a palm tree in Tampa in the rain and a photo of my hotel room.
And that the idea of a December Daily is to capture DAILY happenings.
And to do that, you kind of need to do it DAILY.
Well, yah.
Been a tad bit busy.
I thought about scratching it off of my To Do list this year, but I had such a fun time putting one together last year that I couldn't cross it off. So when I went out of town last Thursday to teach at the Expo in Tampa, I thought that would be a perfect time to put the bones of the mini book together. So I lugged 3/4 of a suitcase full of stuff.
Can I just say - I have no idea how you ladies go to a crop! How in the world do you ever decide what to take?
So I left with 3/4 of a large suitcase full of scrapbook stuff and after 3 nights of making a BIG mess in my hotel room, I came home with the cover and a few pages of this year's December Daily done and 3/4 of a suitcase full of scrapbook stuff (minus a few mere pieces of paper and embellishments - good thing I took 3/4 of a suitcase full just in case...).
Here's this year's cover -
Opted for an 8x8 this year. Last year I used thick, clear acetate from Clear Scraps for the front and back covers. Really like how that worked out last year, so I did it again this year - it gives a little bit more sturdiness to the mini, and that proved to be a good thing last year after I upgraded to my 3rd size of O rings - 3 inchers!
You can get a better feel for the cover in the 2nd picture - I added some of the embellishments to the clear acetate and then others to the patterned paper underneath the clear acetate.
Here's December 1 - I found myself with Que at the vet at 8 am that morning. Over the weekend he had pulled about 50% of the hair from his tail. The outcome? A prescription for kitty downers - the vet figured nothing was wrong (minus the fact that it took the vet plus 2 lab techs to hold Que down in order to check him out), just a little anxiety.
Here's December 2 - front and back. I'd like to include more photos of decorations around the house in this year's book, and this is the start.
I'll be back tomorrow to share the 3rd, 4th and 5th. I figure after this weekend, I'll be caught up on the days I've missed so far. And if all goes well this weekend - between the sledding, getting the Christmas cards printed and mailed, making Christmas cookies with the boys, and going to Nick's company Christmas party on Saturday night - I just may get the rest of the shell pages done.
When I was teaching earlier this year at the Expo in Ontario, California I met Erica in one of my classes. Erica owns yourscrapbookstash.com - an online store selling kits along with lots of great scrapbooking products. After class we talked for quite a bit about her store, the industry and scrapbooking. She talked about a fun idea for a recipe book that she had for a kit and how she thought our Nook and Pantry line would be a perfect fit for the project and asked if I would design a project with the kit if she put it together.
Fast forward a few months later and voila! Here's the recipe book I put together -
She has a great collection of products in this kit, including 8 Nook and Pantry papers, a sheet of Element Stickers, 2 sheets of Alphabet stickers, Nook and Pantry Take Notes, Chipboard Alphabets, baker's twine, Maya Road kraft envelopes, fun recipe cards from Elle's Studio, a Maya Road Chipboard Calendar with acrylic base and more fun little goodies. The kit is loaded!
Here are a few pictures of the inside -
You can find the kit here under Kits by YSS.com along the left hand side under Manufacturers.
For the past 5 years or so we've decorated the boys' bedroom doors the on their birthday-eve, after they've gone to sleep. We 'wrap' it to look like a giant present and then attach fun goodies to the door. They look forward to it every year.
This year I did his door on his birthday-eve-eve. I'm in Tampa for 4 days teaching at an Expo (last trip for the next 7 weeks - yay!) so I'll miss his actual birthday. Between Nick and my mom, they'll keep him super busy with birthday celebrations over the weekend until I get home on Sunday for our family celebration.
Took this yesterday morning at 6 am with my iphone, so it's not the greatest photo ever. Did a little editing with a fun iphone app called Camera Bag.
Howdy friends! It's Wednesday night, heading into a loooooong 4 day weekend here with Thanksgiving tomorrow. Looking forward to tackling a loooooong list of To Do's this weekend. Also looking forward to lots of time with family and friends.
One of the things on my list of things to do this weekend is to get all of my class tools together and organized for 2010. These last few months have been a bit of a whirlwind with kitting and teaching so things are WAY more unorganized than I'd like!
Part of that process has been uncovering extra class kits left over from several different classes I've taught this year. Class kits that are just sitting here taking up room. Not doing me any good.
Good news, they're for sale! I'm listing 3 different class kits below - photo of the finished project, description and price. If you order more than 1 class kit, I'll take $5 off the price of each additional class kit.
Xmas Traditions - $30 Traditions - they're what the holidays are all about. From making gingerbread houses and Christmas cards to setting treats out for Santa on Christmas Eve, these annual rituals bring back memories of holiday's past and those to come. Whether your Christmas traditions
have been passed down from generation to generation, or they're brand
new, traditions are the cornerstone of the holidays. With this kit you'll create a jolly 6"x6" mini book documenting your favorite
Christmas traditions using BasicGrey's Eskimo Kisses line.
Summer Fun - $43 As we're heading into Winter in the Northern part of the world and shoveling snow in the bitter cold, my thoughts can't help but drift to the warm, long, sunny days of summer and the fun things our family does to pass the time. With this product-packed kit using Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line, documenting your favorite summertime activities or vacation may be just the thing you need to pull you out of the winter doldrums!
You Make Me Happy - $25
What makes YOU happy? A person, a place, a thing? With this kit you'll play with stamping/inking, pen work, cutting &
distressing techniques to create a 12x12 double page spread about what
makes you happy, using BasicGrey's Indian Summer line. This kit includes 2 full sets of chipboard alphabets, Woolies, and papers from the Indian Summer line.
All kits include color, step by step instructions. Kits are limited in quantity.
If you're interested in purchasing a kit or kits or have questions, shoot me an email at laylekoncar@yahoo.com
Happy Thanksgiving to my U.S. friends. Not from the U.S. - happy Thursday to you!
I have some fun layouts to share that I made using the November kit from Crazy Daisy Kit Co.
Ooh, I loved this kit! It was chock full of owls. I'm a bit of an owl fan. Have been since I was a little girl. My Grandma collected owls her whole life, so I guess you could say it's a trait I inherited for her. That and my hankering for red wine...
But I digress.
Owls and blues and browns and oranges. A great mix of colors and products for fall. Even some classic BasicGrey Ambrosia, mixed in for good measure. Ooh, now that's a line that I wish I was around for when working at BasicGrey...
Awesome!
I've actually created a Shutterfly book before ... but I haven't taken
the time to do another ... it has something to do with the fact that
more than 75% of my time is spent deciding which pictures to use and
editing them correctly ... it's a lot of time ... but a coupon just
might be the right incentive :)
Ok, that statement could go into 1 million different directions, better narrow it down, and quick, before your minds start running away...
And some of you - I'm scared where your minds just ran!
Let's try that again. I've always wanted to make a photobook.
One of the things on my 'rainy day' to do list (yes, I have one of those lists too). Never seems to be rainy enough to get to it, though.
Until today.
Yes, yes, I know. I scrapbook. It's my job. But come on. There are
FAR too many photos to ever scrapbook. Ever. And sometimes it's just too
daunting to take a look at a subject - like a fabulous vacation - and
even think about scrapbooking it and the 84,562 photos that go along
with it. Are you with me?
That's where a photobook arrives to save the day.
A few months back I was contacted by Shutterfly and asked to review their photobooks on my blog. They sent me a code for a free photobook so I could play and then tell you guys what I think. And then give a few away. So here goes.
Hello? Rainy day, why haven't you come sooner?!
Seriously.
Maybe I've been living under a rock.
The Shutterfly photobooks are the coolest things. Ever.
And I'm not just saying that. Shutterfly asked me to give an honest, unbiased review. And that's what I'm about to give you. Straight up.
The process was super easy - step by step - to walk you through everything.
You upload your photos.
You pick a book size and whether you want a hard cover or soft. If you choose hard cover, you can choose from leather, suede, satin, cloth, hard photo, or padded photo cover.
You pick a style - you can choose from hundreds of pre-defined styles or create your own.
You pick your text, size and text color.
And off you go.
Adding photos to your book is super easy. You just drag and drop from the photos you've uploaded to Shutterfly.
You can select the # of photos you want on each individual page - from 1 up to 14.
You can even select from many, MANY different backgrounds for each page. Same for photo edges.
Although I decided to edit my photos in Photoshop prior to uploading them to Shutterfly, you can even edit your photos during the photobook process.
You can crop, rotate, & reduce red eye. You can change the photo to black and white, sepia, saturate the photo with more color, apply a soft focus and even apply an auto-correct so it does the editing for you.
I'd say the process from starting the book to receiving the order confirmation from Shutterfly for my finished book was about 4 hours.
Now before you freak out and say you don't have 4 hours, listen up.
At least 3 (or more!) of those hours were spent deciding which photos I wanted to use and editing them in Photoshop. I could have easily pared that down to an hour, at most.
If you're really strapped for time (or looking for something quick and easy), there's a feature called Simple Path. With Simple Path, you just upload your photos, pick a Photobook size and theme, and then Shutterfly auto-fills the pages of your book for you in chronological order, automatically selecting the photo layouts and backgrounds.
I kept my book super simple to focus on the photos - black pages with large photos, white borders, no text. But you can get as creative and colorful as you want.
Prices range from $12.99 for a 20 page 5x7 soft cover book to $54.99 for a 20 page 12x12 hard cover book. And right now, Shutterfly has a special for 20% off their photobooks AND free shipping with orders of $30 or more.
Soooo.....
Do I recommend it? Yes.
Would I do it again? Yes.
Will I do it again? Yes.
I have so many cool ideas running through my head right now of great photobooks to make. Some for me, some to give away as gifts. Just in time for Christmas
For you digi gals - this is right up your alley! Just create your own awesome pages and upload them as photos.
Need inspiration? There is a HUGE community gallery at Shutterfly where people have uploaded their photobooks to share. You can even copy a book - the design, style and format - all you do is add your own photos and text.
Now for the good part.
Intrigued?
I would be.
I have 2 coupons from Shutterfly to share with 2 random lucky winners! One 5x7 and one 7x9.
Just leave a comment on this post by midnight MT Friday, November 20th and I'll draw and announce the 2 lucky winners on Saturday the 21st. Fine print - *coupons must be used by November 30th*.
It's looking to be a nice, lazy, relaxing day. Ran all of my errands yesterday, 4 hours worth. That way I can stay in my jammies today....
I wanted to share another layout I made using our new Origins line -
Many, many months ago, Lisa from Inspired Blueprints (a super sketch site) contacted me about being a guest designer for their site. With all of my teaching and travels, I kept having to put her off, but finally this weekend I was able to play!
I rarely use sketches. Don't know why, I just don't. But whenever I do, I always ask myself why I don't use them more often. They're a great way to jump start a layout.
Here's the sketch the layout was based on -
You can check out the Inspired Blueprints site here to see other fun interpretations of the sketch!
Back to the layout. I think one of my favorite things about Origins is that so many of the patterns remind me of vintage, kitschy kitchen wallpaper!
I've been playing around with editing my pictures in Photoshop lately (always trying to learn more about that monstrous program and all it can do!). A year or so ago I picked up some free, awesome, Actions here at the Pioneer Woman website. If you haven't checked out her website before, you must.
Oh yah, and be prepared to spend some time there while you're there!
I combined a few Actions on the photos layout to make them look a bit older to go along with that vintage, kitschy feel.
The signs in the pictures are signs that we see every year when we head up to northern Idaho for a week in the Summer. Every time I see them, they bring back the best memories.
Maybe it's just that I remember that I 'think' I do. Jack whizzed through 3rd grade 3 years ago. Sam's in 3rd grade now.
One of the things that stands out for me about third grade are times tables. Learning memorizing my multiplication tables. 0 through 12.
Sam's in the midst of it now. And he's been having a tough time. He started in 2nd grade and is still working on them now. We tried flash cards, we tried doing them over and over and over and they just didn't hold an interest for him.
A few months ago a friend at work told me about a software game she bought for her daughter called Timez Attack. I forgot about it until a few weeks ago when Sam was home for the week with Swine flu. As he started feeling better, he started getting bored. Really bored.
So I went online, bought the full version of the game and downloaded it.
And he started playing.
And he's been playing since.
And he loves it.
And yesterday he had a test on the 2's at school, and he got 100%.
If I had known about this game when Jack was in 3rd grade, I would have bought it then. It's that good.
The game is a video game with a cute little green monster that takes the kids through each level - 1 through 12. You have to get 100% on a level before you can move to the next one.
As far as Sam is concerned, it's a video game. He's working on passing Level 4 now. On a Saturday...
There's a free version on the website that you can download and try. If you really like it, you can pay for and download the full version. Works on both Mac and PC.
Awesome book! Thanks for the chance to win one!