Remembrance

Day 32 - Day 37

The last of my Christmas Journal pages and the cover.  Once I finished all the pages I sewed fabric strips to all of the edges to make the binding stronger and hopefully the pages won't pull away from the spine.  I'm thinking of using large eyelets in the cloth spine and then tieing the pages together on the outside of the spine with strips of ribbon and torn muslin.  We'll see.  I'm still scared to try which is so silly but once I start punching holes for eyelets in the cover I can't turn back!

   

Day 25 - Day 31

More Christmas Journal pages. 

 

Day 19 - Day 24

I was doing so good there for awhile wasn't I?  I was updating my blog every day and posting my latest journal page?  Oh well.  Christmas was wonderful.  I loved journaling my Christmas.  I did actually complete every prompt and I made a fabric cover for it.  I'm just a bit stumped as to how I want to bind the pages into it so here I sit two months later afraid to make a big ol' hole in my fabric cover cuz what if my plan for binding is doomed to fail.  But it's getting a little ridiculous - it's almost Easter.  I need to just do it already!  While I'm working up the nerve here's some more of the pages.

Day 18 - Dinner Menu

Come and get it!!!!!!!   I kept this one simple.  Lots of journaling, a few stickers and a pretty vintage image from Kim. 

The Food:  Here, There and Everywhere in Between

Probably the best thing about traveling on Christmas Day is the fact that I don’t have to worry about doing any of the cooking.  In the days before Christmas I bake cookies like a maniac to give as gifts and to bring with us on Christmas Day to our families.  And I make a big breakfast on Christmas morning.  But that’s it for me and holiday cooking.  When we get to Kathy’s house we feast on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli-cheese casserole, stuffed shells and meatballs and a slew of desserts like pumpkin pie, apple pie, brownies, cookies, cream puffs and éclairs.  We just about have time to roll ourselves away from the table to exchange some gifts, before we have to say our goodbyes and head out to my Mom’s house for dinner number two.  The crazy thing is, during the long drive there, we often have to make a pit stop at a WaWa or gas station convenience store so Fred and I can get a Diet Coke.  We have a strange obsession with always needing one when we’re driving anywhere.  It’s a sick obsession, we know this.   When we get to our destination, my family is often in the middle of having dinner since we tell them not to wait for us and we won’t be hungry.  Still, it doesn’t take much convincing to “get a plate and just have a bite or two.”  Mom’s menu always consists of filet mignon, twice-baked garlic potatoes, 7-layer salad, turnips, corn and asparagus.  Plus another onslaught of desserts like apple pie, carrot cake, raspberry cheesecake, cookies and tiramisu.  We don’t even try to roll ourselves away from the table for at least a couple of hours.  Then we settle ourselves for the ride home with a diet coke and a plate or two of leftovers beside us.  

Day 17 - "When I Saw This ...

...I thought of you" was the prompt for today.  Describing those gifts you've given or received that were just about perfect for the recipient.  This prompt must have been fate to have arrived in my inbox today.  In fact, it was late in arriving so I had just skimmed the subject over at the class forum without really reading it but the main idea of it was rattling around in my brain when I heard the dog barking downstairs. I rushed to see if it was the Fed Ex man bringing an important Christmas delivery.  The Fed Ex man had left something, but not the something I was expecting.  Instead what I found were two envelope mailers jam packed with old photos of my niece and nephew and sister. My sister has mentioned a time or two that she wishes I would make her a photo album and so I've been bugging my niece to secretly send me pictures for ages so I can make her one as a surprise.  Since I've got my sister Nancy in our family's Secret Santa exchange, I can't NOT make her a book, especially now that I've got the goods to do it, even though they did get here with only a WEEK before Christmas! 

   

Day 16 - A Moment of Clarity

Sitting down today to make a quick list of the simple things that I'm thankful for this season and an even quicker page using the list I made:

* family and friends   * fragrant Christmas trees   

* holiday memories   * a comfortable, warm home

* new cookie  recipes to bake   * candy cane kisses

* a little dog that snoops for presents 

* wrapping the last gift   * Christmas music

The page is the back side of yesterday's watercolor paper.  A leftover strip from a previous day was added to the bottom to hold my title and then I just added my date marker and my list with some words cut from an old book.

Day 15 - Over the River & Through the Woods

Yes - we do go to Grandmother's house.  Well, we used to.  This is the first year where my Mom is not having dinner at her house.  It's just been getting to be too much for her so my sister Ellen will be hosting the festivities at here house.  Every year we talk about making the decision to alternate Christmases between my family's house and Fred's family's house, and every year we both decide it just wouldn't be the same if we didn't go to both.  It's exhausting however and I have a feeling that one of these years we're going to have to cut down on the Christmas Day traveling.

For this page I used a small piece of ColorWashed watercolor paper.  Can you tell I'm loving the watercolor paper in my journal.  I folded over the end and stitched it to strengthen the binder edge and then I added some vintage lace, some buttons and my date marker.  I decided it was a bit bright to go with the facing page so I took a paper towel and swiped some gesso over the whole thing including the lace, buttons  and date marker.  I love how the gesso looks on the buttons. 

"On Christmas Day we're traveling and visiting a lot more than we're at home.  The morning is ours alone for presents under the tree and a huge indulgent breakfast; but then we pack up the car with gifts and trays of cookies and we hit the road.  First to Fred's sister Kathy's house where we hang out for the afternoon and feast on turkey with all the trimmings.  The time flies by and we're saying goodbye and heading out for dinner number two and dessert with my side of the family."

Day 14 - Christmas Carols

I've only been out Christmas caroling once in my life and I didn't like it a bit.  It was cold, dark and by the end of the evening it had even started to rain.  Bah humbug!  I'll take my Christmas carols sitting comfortably in my own house thank you very much.

For this page I made a pocket out of the vintage sheet music and made some tags to slide in there with my journaling on the tag portion and a photo of the cd cover from my ipod screen as the tag topper. 

"I don't need the holiday season to listen to Christmas music.  Sometimes I play it when summer is in full swing.  I have my tried and true favorites like Bing's Merry Christmas album,  It just isn't Christmas until you hear "White Christmas", "Mele Kalikimaka" and the Andrew Sisters belting out their rendition of "Jingle Bells."  I also like to pick up something new each season.  This year it's Josh Groban's Noel cd.  The best thing about Christmas carols this year is being able to carry them around with me everywhere I go!"

I took the title for my page from my newest favorite Christmas Carol - Angels We Have Heard on High from the Josh Groban cd with Brian McKnight.  And it's hard to see but in the white space in the middle of the page the person who this sheet music once belonged to had penciled in a quote which I really liked so I didn't want to cover it up. "Music the greatest grief can charm, And fate's severest rage disarm."  And the penmanship is so neat.  Must have been a Catholic Schooler. 

Day 13 - Christmas Presents

The Christmas Presents - how do they get to us from the tree.  Love this one.  Brought back so many great memories of gift-unwrapping frenzies.  Back in college I had a conversation with some friends about this subject and one of my friends related how she and her two brothers wouldn't get to open their presents until after Christmas dinner.  They would gather in the living room by the tree and her mom would distribute each gift in rotation among them, collecting the paper in a trash bag as they opened each one.  I remember feeling so sorry for her.  She never got to experience that dazed happy feeling of sitting amidst a mountain of torn wrapping paper and unraveled bows with static tinsel clinging to her flannel pjs. 

For this page I used another one of my soot-stamped ATCs.  My chipboard letter set is running low on several popular letters so I had to mix up the fonts a bit.  I painted them with Copper and Gold paint dabbers to coordinate the different letter styles and put my journaling on a library card tucked into a library pocket.  And then, everything is inked-up naturally because a page without inked edges is naked to me and not a good naked.  The challenge was to use a tag so I put a couple of those on there and then another one of Kim's german scrap Santas.  Here's the journaling inside the pocket:

"Growing up in a family of twelve, it seemed the only way to have any semblance of order on Christmas morning was for each of us to have a designated pile of presents under the tree.  Once your pile was located, the unwrapping frenzy would begin and the living room would snow wrapping paper and bows for quite some time.  It was so much fun!!  Even though there are just four of us in our household, I still make piles under the tree.  I love to see the kids determine which one is theirs and then I watch the paper snowstorm ensue."

Day 12 - Christmas Past

This prompt had me wanting to go drag out all the old home videos because I remembered one of Sam and Jim sitting on our bed in their pajamas and singing Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.   I think they were two and three years old.  It's so cute it makes me laugh and cry.  But I know I'd never find it as my resident videographer is not an obsessive-compulsive labeler like I am and it would take me a week to go through them all.  Last year I bought him a VCR/DVD player/recorder so he could transfer all of the home movies onto DVDs but he's still up to his neck in that project.  I have a feeling if I open up the box he's working on the planet might implode so I resisted the urge to go through the tapes and I made this page instead. 

The page is the back of the ColorWashed watercolor paper from the day before with a german scrap Santa compliments of Kim (Thanks Kim - I LOVE these things!), rubons and my black pen.  I slipped the day marker into a glassine envelope because it was looking distracting next to my happy Santa.

"What I miss the most ... First we'd hear two little squeals, then the thumping of four tiny feet clamboring up the stairs.  Next, two little bodies climbing on us in bed.  Two sweet faces with adorable bedheads, urging us out from warm, cozy covers saying, Santa Came - it's time to get up!"