december "daily" journal

i say "daily" only because i didn't really journal every day as it happened.  i was on a roll with my daily september and october journals but i kind of lost steam by november. and then december just showed up out of nowhere and in a blink it was gone again!

i love journaling in this haphazard kind of way.  just taking photos and slapping them onto a page with some fun decorations (tape, labels, stickers, cut-outs, etc) and then writing a little bit about the photo or what happened that day.

cavalini stickers.  love.

so, since i didn't really start my december daily until, like, over half the month was already done, i just put together a little page (with the help of my google calendar!) of the little things that happened each day.  i will go back later and print out any photos i have and stick them into the journal to illustrate the events.

i like to write more in my journals, especially when documenting big events like birthdays and christmas.  it's nice to break up a big block of writing with colorful photos and stickers.

i love peek-a-boo pages, too. love having multiple layers so you can kind of see what's coming next.  it adds depth and dimension to a 2-D project.

i like using a variety of colors for holiday projects besides the typical or traditional color schemes.  for my december daily i chose red, green, blue, pink with little bits of gold and glitter.

hope you had a merry christmas and here's to a wonderful new year!

christmas card

i love a good challenge.  so i decided to enter boch's creations christmas card challenge sponsored by stop and scrap.  i used cardstock and ribbon by stampin up, patterned paper by anna griffin, scalloped bird tag by cavalini & co, and button embellishments by sassafras lass.  the challenge and giveaway is open to all, so if you're feeling crafty,  why not give it a try!

Holiday Shop Update & Giveaway!

I've updated my Etsy shop with vintage paper goods, vintage Christmas ephemera and embellishment packs and vintage mixed-paper recycled journals and scrapbook mini albums.  Yay!  Blog Readers, enter code BLOG2011 at checkout for a 20% discount on your order!

I absolutely love vintage Christmas cards.  The one above is a sweet angel, embossed and made to look like a patchwork quilt.  I could see this in one of my holiday journals or used as an embellishment on a scrapbook page.

I've restocked the Christmas journals/mini albums.  Each journal/album comes with a little stash of goodies tucked into the back pocket so you are ready from day 1 to start recording those holiday/everyday memories!

The journals are filled with my favorite vintage paper: pages from holiday books and kids workbooks, ledger and graph paper, as well as current favorites such as brightly colored scrapbook and handmade paper.

 The journals also come in shades of wintry blue for those who prefer a more subtle winter pallet.  Pages are also embellished with labels and stickers from the Cavalini sticker tins.

And these are my favorite!  Precious packs of my favorite embellishments, perfect for holiday crafting!  Each pack has a glittered gift tag, and an assortment of vintage and new paper and ephemera.

here's a more detailed photo of what is in the ephemera packs: patterned scrapbook paper, handmade paper, vintage dennison seal, scalloped cardstock, glittered Christmas tag, vintage green-and-red playing card, vintage book illustration images.  Each pack comes tucked inside a glassine envelope.

Well I am excited for the holiday season to begin!  

Have a Happy Thanksgiving (if you're in the U.S) and have a wonderful weekend!  I'll be drawing a name from the comments on Tuesday, November 29th.  One lucky commenter will win a mini journal and ephemera pack of their choice!   All you have to do is leave a comment and tell me, what are you most thankful for?  

Christmas cards & holiday crafts

my lovely friend Kisa volunteered to take our family portrait this year for our christmas cards. besides taking absolutely gorgeous photos, she saved me the trouble of having to hop back and forth like a crazy person between the camera and the family huddle like i do every year! (thank you mama!)

there were many lovely ones to choose from, but i chose the above photo for our card this year. i like the way we are all gathered and the colors were really warm and cozy. and because our cat cesar decided to join us! AND it is also the only photo where we are all looking up at the camera and smiling and not blinking or making a weird face. (that's just inevitable, there's always those photos where everyone is smiling except ONE person (ahem, zach!) or looking away (sureya!), or biting their nails (maya!) or trying to hide her beautiful smile (brielle!) or talking during the photo so you end up with an akward open mouth (uh, babe!), or you're making a quizzical face at the camera because you're trying to ask the photographer a question (he he, me!) although, i have to admit, i had to photoshop the above photo to get everyone to kind of be looking at the camera and smiling. (i hope no one notices!) ;)

today the girls and i started on some holiday crafts. i saw this lovely idea over at gennine's blog for making your own printed wrapping paper, so we decided to try it today. maya had a wonderful time printing with apples and celery stalks and then free form painting her own designs. even sureya got in on the messy fun and painted a little bit. (mostly she painted her hands and her belly, but she did get some paint on the paper!)

i'm trying to take photos each day this month and actually journal a little every day (i'm inspired by ali edwards' december daily and one of my favorite blogger/artists hope of paper relics). i would love to do some journaling each day, too! and something arrived in the mail for me this morning that would be perfect for this daily project!

i entered a giveaway over at saturday morning vintage (one of my favorite blogs and shops!) a while back and i received my lovely lovely prize in the mail today (thank you xenia!)! it combines the three words from my winning entry: dennision, sewing and ledger. i think this will make a perfect journal for my daily december journaling, don't you?

i hope you are all having a lovely december so far! i can't believe the holidays are fast approaching. i almost wish december were twice as long! it really is my favorite time of year.

special coupon code for my blog readers (yes, that's YOU!)

just finished my first round of holiday updates for my etsy shop. and i wanted to give you, my lovely blog readers, an early christmas gift (or, if you don't celebrate christmas, an early birthday present!). and that goes for first time visitors (lucky you!) and those who are too shy to comment (you're here with us in spirit and that's what counts!) ;)

if you go to my etsy shop, and enter the coupon code: BLOG20, you will receive 20% off your entire order. this is good through Monday, November 29 (11:59pm PST).

i've updated the shop with holiday themed mini journal/scrapbooks in red-and-green (for the traditionalists) or a wintry blue-and-white for something a little different.

this little journal made it into my first Etsy Treasury!

all my journals come with ephemera tucked into the back pockets so you are ready to go as soon as you receive it. ephemera may include stickers, labels, vintage and scrapbook papers, tags, etc.

i also have ephemera packs that go great with the journals or you can create a card or ATC (artist trading card) and mail it in the glassine envelope that is also included! perfect for art-on-the go, mail art, or stocking stuffers for your favorite artist (or just a little treat for yourself!)

ok, it's waaay past my bedtime. i think i might just watch the sunrise on this fine Thanksgiving morning!

happy turkey day, everyone! and thanks again for stopping by. i love your comments and i do try to visit everyone who leaves evidence that they were here. i hope wherever you are, you are happy, creative and surrounded by love and loved ones.

xo,

nicole

ETSY shop update & it's finally feeling like FALL!

i've been working on some new upcycled mini journals for my etsy shop. i finally am getting into the holiday mood, so the new journals all have a wintry and festive feel to them. lots of red-and-green (brights and muted) as well as cool, snowy blue-and-white.

i've packed these journals with my most treasured vintage, handmade, and recycled paper. for vintage paper, i use music sheets, atlas pages, children's books & workbooks, coloring books. recycled paper includes used and unused ledger pages, "junk mail" (my favorite are the paper source catalogs. the colors are bright and the paper is thick!), and graph paper (which also falls into the vintage category, too).

i'm loving all the color combinations. i've also never been an either-or kind of gal when it comes to colors! i really love traditional christmas colors as well as more off-beat brights and more muted, vintage tones.

most of the christmas images came from an old magazine called "christmas ideals." it was full of wonderful images, poems, stories and songs all printed in blue or green ink. and i also recycled holiday catalogs (it feels good putting "junk mail" to good use!)

i have a lot of old children's books and workbooks from the 5os & 60s but the paper is too frail to include in my journals as pages. so i made some high-quality color copies on my printer on the back of my favorite scrapbook paper and, voila! i was able to include some of my favorite images, plus the copies retained the aged and textured look of the originals.

i've got a christmas tune in my head, but the words are changed to: "it's beginning to look a lot like AUTUMN!" there are leaves of all colors sprouting on trees and scattering in the wind like butterflies.

when i go on an afternoon walk with the girls, i hear the satisfying CRUNCH of dried leaves beneath our feet (although, since it's california, we're still walking around in flip flops! an odd sensation, but i love it still!) the smells are returning, too, like sweet, smoky fires, rotting pumpkins, wet leaves in the gutter. it's like a second spring of sorts, but with smells of decay and death instead of blossoms and life.

we took a little walk today to get some lunch near the university. we stopped for photos in the late afternoon sun and i played with my new point-and-shoot camera (it's a sony cyber shot dsc-t99)...still unsure if i like it or not! :(

(i love pictures of my girls, though! they are fun subjects!) most of the images, though, i have to do a little touch-up in i-photo (mostly with getting the color to look right).

maybe i should just read the instructions. i've never been a by-the-book kind of gal, i really like to just feel out new technology on my own (it should just be totally intuitive and user-friendly in my opinion, anyway!). but i was able to take some great photos! :)

and on another slightly-related topic (it has to do with journals, at least!), i received the mother of all art journals today! (it's 11.7" x 16.5"! the regular moleskines are about 5" x 8") i recently attended journalfest and i saw someone with the most amazing journal in one of my classes (orly avineri's "mapping me"). it looked like a super-sized moleskine and i immediately thought, "i must have one!" i asked where she bought it and she said Amazon.com! so after a little searching, i found it! it comes in regular drawing/sketching and watercolor paper! they are about $26 each (free shipping on Amazon!) but totally worth every penny, in my opinion! my quest for this amazing journal also lead me to the most wonderful blog, notebook stories. it's about, well...JOURNALS and the people who love them. if you are a fellow journal junkie like me, i suggest you check it out!

ok, that's all for now. the monkeys are getting restless and it's time for dinner. oh, and i keep meaning to blog about our homeschooling adventures, but i'll save it for another day.

everything is working out good so far! maya is loving her new educational environment (her home, and the whole world, really is her "new classroom.") and little sureya is getting in on the act, too, emulating her older sister by "reading" books and "doing homework." so cute! :) i've heard when you homeschool, the younger ones start in on the learning really early. i remember that from when maya was 2 or 3 and she would want me to assign her "homework" because she would see her older brother and sister doing their homework after school.

well, that's all the fun for now. i'll be updating the shop tomorrow AND i'll be attending the cavallini & co. warehouse SALE this saturday. i will be sure to post ALL the goodies i find! :)

12 Tags of Christmas

I've been taking a break in between the Painting Layers class with Misty Mawn to make some Christmas tags a la Tim Holtz. Each day Tim posts a new tag with step-by-step instructions. These are my versions, inspired by his tags. They're a lot of fun and quite addicting. The one above has a little mini charm/ornament/pin attached to it. I think it would make a cute and quick stocking stuffer or gift topper.

Still working on my collage paintings for the Painted Layers class. This painting is almost done, just have to paint in the face. Or maybe I'll just leave it like it is. We'll see...


It's nice to have several projects going at once...keeps my art brain more balanced, I think. ;) And it's easier to start and stop the tag projects in between late-night feedings and soothing a teething baby back to sleep!

More painting...this one needs a little stamping and texture added, I think. Not quite finished. Chirstmas is quickly approaching. We're cleaning up the house this weekend so we can bring in our tree and get out the decorations and get this holiday into full swing!

Merry Christmas

Ok, it's a few days late...but since I'm having a hard time moving on from the holiday season, better late than never. ;) We spent a lovely week-and-a-half in Arizona visiting my mom for Christmas. We took a trip up to Flagstaff to sled in the snow, we baked cookies and hung around the house in our PJ's all day--it was a wonderful, restful, joyful vacation to say the least.

My mom's tree was decorated in old wooden, hand-painted ornaments from my childhood. It's funny how the little things will bring back a flood of memories from Christmases past.

I was looking forward to a break from the cold, winter weather we were experiencing back home, but it was actually COLDER in Phoenix...crazy weather! But we did have plenty of days of sunshine and bright, big, blue Arizona skies with syrupy, neon orange marmalade sunsets. (No photo! Insert imaginary sunset *here*)

Even managed to get some art journaling in at the airport while we waited to embark on our journey and again once we arrived at my mom's house. I was inspired by the wonderful art in the new Art Journaling magazine.


We're back in California now, enjoying the mild winter weather (no snow!), getting ready for Christmas part 2 and 3 (one for us and the kids and another with my dad and stepmom). The sparkling string of lights on my porch will stay lit until January 1 (and probably will stay up for the next 6 months, until I remember to take them down!).

Christmas only comes once a year, who says we can't make it last as long as we want? ;) Curl up with a hot cocoa, peppermint stick and listen to the music from A Charlie Brown Christmas. We can stay in denial for a little while longer, can't we? ;)

Merry Christmas and Happy 2009!