December Planner

A couple of weeks ago I talked about changing up my December Daily project this year since last year's is still in the WIP (work in progress) basket.  Well, I've started working on the divider pages for the album and I think it's going to work out great.  Here's a peek-a-boo at four of them:

For the album, I took a three ring photo album I had picked up a few years ago.

It was pretty darn cute already:

but I covered it with one of the papers from Crate Paper's Joyride line:

It was a tight fit on the 12" paper, so I covered the inside seam with a thin strip of coordinating paper:

The floral is part of the original album--perfect!

Each of the divided sections will hold assorted page protectors (5x7, 3.5 x 5, 4x6, trading cards, and any others I can scrounge up) that will be perfect for photos, memorabilia, journaling tags, etc.  Even as I am typing this, I am thinking of more dividers to make.  

Here's the text for the one's I have so far and a little description of what that section will hold:

The title font is Crystal Wilkerson's Playful; the subtitle is Pushkin

Calendar {the hustle and bustle of the holiday season}

     holiday parties, Christmas pageants, school parties

Traditions {the little things we do each year to make the season special}

     photos of any and all traditions: Santa visit, gingerbread house; music score, list of favorite holiday songs

Gifts to Give {making a list and checking it twice}

     storage for receipts (handy when needed, and fun to look back on), photos of gifts, wrapping paper    

     swatch

Wish Lists {Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is...}

     copies of the lists the boys write, photos of them writing letters to Santa at the mall

Recipes {crisp apple streudel and schnitzel with noodles, these are a few of our favorite things}

     recipes from the holidays, cookie baking photos

Greetings {a little smile, a word of cheer, best wishes for the coming year}

     copy of our holiday card, holiday card list, cards from others

Decorations {deck the halls with boughs of holly}

     photos of our decorations, tree, and the process of putting them up.

I am super excited about this album.  I love the organized format, the amount of information it will hold, and that it is also a scrapbook of our memories.  And most of all, I love that I can capture it all and enjoy it without the lurking feeling of being "behind" on the daily entries.

Framed Butterflies

Played around with my new eCraft this morning and created this super quick and easy butterfly deco piece.

I simply used scraps backed with cardstock for stability.  I am amazed at the teeny detail this machine can cut (check out those antennae!).  I cut the butterflies at a size 2 and placed them in a 5x7" frame without the glass.  The wings bend up, but I didn't capture it well in the photo.

Inspire Co.

I just stumbled upon an absolutely amazing blog, and I want to share it with you.  It's been a little while since I spent some time just hopping along from place to place on the web, and I am so glad that I chose tonight to do it!  You must, must, must go check out this beautiful home of Amy Powers.  She's been blogging since 2005, so I am very well running the risk that I am the last crafty person on the planet to find her site.  It's a risk I'll take, because her online magazine is just too fantastic not to know about.

And this little project is moving to the top of my to do list:

Wordle

 

{click on image to see it bigger}

Just playing around tonight, taking a break from a day of creating, and I discovered this little website.

You can type in a bunch of words, or feed it from your blog, or any website with an RSS feed and create this funky little piece of word art.  Isn't that fun?!

First eCraft video!

Woohoo!  I am over-the-moon excited that my eCraft arrived at my doorstep on Monday night!!  Here's my second video clip (the first will never see the light of Vimeo {sniff} b/c I recorded it in the suped up crazy high-def million res mode and the file was like 11 trillion gig!).  Oh well, it was just corny me taking my machine out of the box and making my first cut.

In this vid, I show you how I got the best results cutting three different types of paper: thin patterned paper, Stampin' Up! cardstock, and glittered cardstock with beautiful results.  Enough of me talking, here take a look, and I'm warning you, I'm a little wordy--my next vids will be less talk and more action!


eCraft demo on 3 papers from Michelle Neddo on Vimeo.
Cutting settings for SU! cardstock, DCWV glittered cardstock, MME patterned paper