hello 2012:

Happy New Year!

 

best wishes to all and a wonderful new year!

december daily part 2:

 

Here’s part 2 of my DD {December Daily}. Again I apologize for my less than perfect pictures! I’m keeping it real here people.

 

day: 8 candy canes

day: 9 what I wore

day: 10 toys in every store

day: 11 favorite decorations

day: 11 back, a sunday in december

 

day :12 santa claus

day: 13 advent numbers

day: 13 back, pics of old town pasadena

day: 14 the view

 

day: 14 back, purchased

 

day: 15 sudden rain

{did you see I miss marked this page oops oh well}

day: 16 enjoying the sunshine

 

 

 

  As you can see I need to get to work, this past week was a busy one! And this week it’s time to recover.

Hopefully I will get some of my creative mojo back.

I am determined to finish this project {hopefully by 2012 lol}

so until then, have you finished your DD?

merry christmas:

on thursday we went to one of my office parties,

then ventured to the beach to soak up the view

here’s a little peek of what we saw

 

planes landing at LAX

 

our tootise's via instagram

 

Merry Xmas

and of course our shadows

 

hope you have a wonderful holiday!

a couple LO's:

while working on my December Daily

I was inspired to make a couple layout's.

 

first up my recent trip to Disneyland

that I have yet to blog about... oops

 

 

You and Me:

Bella and I @ Disneyland, and who dosent love small world during the holidays

 

 

 

 

Christmas is Coming:

documenting Old Town Pasadena, before Thanksgiving!

 

have you scrapped any holiday photos yet?

 

p.s. i really need to work on better photos

december daily 2011:

I apologize now for my crappy pictures. At this point I am just trying to document the book am documenting December with… lol that was a mouth full.

 

 

Sorry to let you down the past few weeks just been busy crafting here and there. I never had a chance {or should I say that I have been just too lazy?} to post the second part of what to do with your Christmas cards, or my holiday fantasy and Disneyland. Maybe I will get to that and maybe I wont {he he}.

 

Ok here is my December Daily 2011. Today is the 7^th and I have seven pages down woo hoo for me. Here are days 1-7 and again I apologize for the un edited photos

Enjoy!

 

the cover

 

the cover page without transparancey

 

day 1: Something red

 

 

day 2: a list

 

day 3: cup of cheer

 

day:4 faceless self portrait

 

fun mail sewen together to make a page

 

day 5: pretty pattern

 

 

day : where I slept

 

 

day 7: stamped and addressed christmas cards

 

 

So I have been using pages from the album I purchased. But I get so much mail I thought it would be fun to add it, especially cause it has the date on it. So I have been using bits and pieces ass the foundation pages & I am really loving it

 

Are you documenting December?

 

any questions about this process, product used, or techniques please email me at

aimee.maddern@earthlink.net

 

cyber monday:

Anyone doing any shopping today?

I have been shopping all weekend long from my iPad! If bought a few things today while on i5 in route from Sacramento to LA. I love my iPad if anyone is worthy get them one for Xmas!

what to do with your christmas cards:

In December 2009 when it came time to take down the directions, I had 3 full shoeboxes of Christmas cards from present and past years including their envelope. 2009 was a really rainy winter here in So Cal; we had just had the station fire, & with fire comes rain and mudslides. I spent a lot of time in front of the computer and came across this post.

 

 

So every night for about a week, I punched, and cut up 3 boxes worth of cards. I punched anything that would fit in the 2” punch. Everything else I hand cut. I looked for things that symbolized, the person who gave me the card.

 

Here is what I kept in mind while cutting:

-If it was a picture card {the greatest and easiest Xmas card ever} I cut the picture as small as I could, some of these cars have multiple pictures, I cut them all/or punched what I could.

-I then labeled the back of the pictures so just in case I forgot I knew who it was.

-I liked to included the name off the card too, so that also got punched or cut

-For regular paper or “hallmark” cards I punched a piece of the card & punched the signature.

-The homemade cards I tried to use as much of them as I could, if they had a die cut on them I pulled it off carefully. These bits give your page depth.

-And for the envelopes, I cut the return address, or from a favorite aunt I cut a part with my address.

-If the envelope had a cute Christmas postage stamp I saved that, or anything special about the envelope was some how cut down to reuse.

 

 

2007 Left side Layout

 

2007 Right Side Layout

 

What it looks like in a 12x12 album

 

2007 center page

 

the back side of the 2 pages together

 

the center page backside

 

 

2008 Right Layout

 

2008 Left Layout

 

what it looks like in a 12x12 book

 

with the middle page

 

2008 the 2 back sides together

 

2009 Right Layout

 

2009 Left Layout

 

what it looks like in a 12x12 book

 

2009 the 2 back sides together

{this year did not have a middle page}

 

 

I then took my 2 12x12 pieces of card stock and started laying out all the little bits & pieces that I cut. {keep in mind when I did the cutting process I kept the years separate} Once everything fit I adhered it. I then flipped the page over and wrote the family name on each spot or used the cut up return address to mark each person or family.

 

Just this year when I pulled these pages out, I saw a picture and thought who is that, I flipped it over and the name was there!

 

What’s great about this process is you feel a lot of weight lift off your shoulders. You feel like you finally have done something with all these cards and did not throw away the time and money people spent to wish you a Merry Christmas.

It also serves as a make shift address book too.

 

{This was my first attempt at scanning 12x12 pages and stitcjing them together, the reason they arent super straight and good}

Do you do anything with your Christmas Cards?

journals: the one I made for today

I have to credit Amy Tangerine for the mini albums. Reading her any post on mini’s encouraged me to start mini books to document my adventures. I have not completely adapted to this process, I am enjoying the few I have made.

 

This summer I was asked to join a swap group {It has been so much fun}. At first to see how it would go, we just swapped supplies from our stash. When we all got the hang of it we each picked a theme, started a book and sent it on it’s merry way to gather pages from others.

 

September, we swaped a 6x6: something about us

made this mini to hold the ladies pages

 

 I was asked to make some handmade items for a holiday boutique this year. I thought to myself who would want anything I make? I don’t knit or make anything cool.

I decided to make each of my swappers a book.

They all were excited to join me with this new holiday tradition;

I decided this is what I would make for the boutique.

 

You can find this mini for sale in my etsy shop here

or visit me December 3rd at Image West in Sunland Ca.

for their annual holiday boutique

 

 

Next up I was invited to a special meet and greet at Disneyland. It’s a school night, but my bff said she would take her kids and let them miss school the next day {the event is from 8-12pm}. So I put together little mini books for us to get all the charters autographs! We will just go with the pages for the charters to sign. I have put together little kits for the kids. Once I get the photos back from the night, I will send the kits and photos to the kids and they can match the photos to the autographs and they will get to make their very own mini scrapbooks from the evening. Having this already prepared for the evening, makes it easy to focus on the evening, and gives them a project on a rainy day.

 

Isabella's autograph book

 

My autograph book

 

the foundation pages

 

Justin's autograph book

 

 

And guess what tonight is the night! See you there!

{hopefully we are still going I wrote this 2 weeks ago lol}

 

Have you been making journal/mini books?

 

It’s my new favorite thing