Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Wordless Wednesday: 12 favorite scrapbook layouts

For this week's WW (yes I know, I missed last week) in honor of today's date 12-12-12 here's a look at my 12 favorite scrapbook layouts from over the years,  please enjoy!


"our first look at the Magic Kingdom"
from WDW album 2005


"11 years"

from our Anniversary album


"let's Eat"

from Rebekah's Baby Album


"Nathaniel's Present"

from Nathan's Baby Book (his 1st Birthday)


"many faces of Rachel"

last page in her Baby Album


"At the Beach"

from Naomi-Ruth's Baby Album


"love"

from keepsake book for Matt's 30th Birthday


"the rings & the vows"

from our Wedding album


"rain out"

from Nathan's age 4-5 Album


"from 5 to 6 and going on 7"

front page to Rebekah's album


"You're Invited"

from WDW Album-15 yr Anniversary trip


"sunny"

pictures of Rachel from Vacation album to Atlanta and PCB Florida 2007

Monday, December 3, 2012

Preserving Christmas

Do you take hundreds of photos during the Christmas Season like I do?

Well what are you suppose to do with all those photos besides posting them on Facebook?

Do you ever journal about festivities or have post-it-notes galore lining your desk with notes about shopping, parties, menus, and other important Christmas to-do's?

How are you suppose to keep that all organized or better yet, how do you remeber the year that little Sally recieved her Chatty Kathy doll or the year Aunt Lucy gave everyone knit socks?

You can do all this by PRESERVING CHRISTMAS!

Preserving Christmas? That's sounds like a lot of work, not at all. Here are some simple ideas.

* Create a Photo Book with your favorite Christmas pictures.





You can do it completely by scratch with a small scrap book and Holiday inspired papers and embellishments OR cheat a little and purchase a Holiday Scrapbook Kit. You can find them at any craft store and even Target sometimes. Most of the time you can buy them already on clearance. Pick your favorite pictures, print at home or at a store and you are set. The trick is to do right away...believe me there is plenty of time during those cold days in January. I always set a goal to have mine done before Valentine's Day.





You can also do a digital photo book on sites like Shutterfly or Snapfish. This couldn't be easier! Simply upload your photos and either choose for them to arrange the pictures automatically or spend about an hour and do it yourself.





* Photos of your children or family all dressed up or with Santa




How many of you book a photo session at Sears or Picture People to capture that perfect memory? Frame it and then what do you? I buuy a new frame each year, I have a theme of silver frames (Khols is a great place to buy frames, always on sale). I frame each year's photo (I now have 13) in a silver frame and keep them in a Christmas bin. Each year the frames come out and I display my favorites from years past and always try to mix it up from year to year. Either which photos I choose or how I display them around the house.




* Keeping a Christmas Journal





I have been gifted two different journals over the years and have them filled with notes, menus, photos, memories and more from many of our past Christmases. The last few years I have just done the photo books, but plan on making a simple homemade journal similar to the Give Thanks Book I created for Thanksgiving.

There are some great journals out there or even more simple purchase a nice blank journal and add your own personal notes, and tape in a few photos too. Continue to add to it each year!

Here are some photos of entries from two of my journals:









As always, thank you for reading and take a little time to preserve your memories!

Julie

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Wordless Wednesday-Christmas card

As Christmas now really is right around the corner, I'm sure many of you are beginning to think about Christmas cards, do I send one, do I make homemade cards, send a photo card, write a newsletter, etc...well here here are some pictures from our Christmas cards' past:



















Happy Holidays and thanks for reading,

Julie

Monday, November 26, 2012

Thanks-craft-giving! 2012

Most every BIG Holiday during the year comes with a few fun traditions, must-do's, and a few surprises too. Thanksgiving is no exception..but turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole, followed by pumpkin pie can get a bit borring year after year.

No one really wants to mess with the traditional menu, so how about adding some special personal crafty touches to your day with these simple ideas:

Just about every house has a kid table seperate from the adult table, but let's help them feel special too.

Their own turkey!



My husband, daughter and I put this together the day before out of a few paper bags, some newspaper, white craft apaper and some hot glue. We gained our inspiration from this Blog post repined to pinterest

http://www.rookno17.com/2010/11/paper-bag-turkey-and-special.html

I also put a store bought tablecloth made for coloring on the table and added these cute crayon holders:





This was a simple make out of a black paper cup, black poster board, and some scraps of craft paper. Add its the crayons and a perfect addition to the kid table!

One tradition that my family of six began 2 years ago was having a Snoopy Thanksgiving the day before. We started doing this first just a family fun night as we were counting down to a Thanksgiving break trip to Walt Disney World and it just stuck, now we serve up a pre Thanksgiving meal Snoopy Style (with the addition of some pizza too)!

We thought wouldn't it be fun to add this family tradition to our Thanksgiving Feast? After being inspired by a pinterest post about topping a cupcake with the 4 basic Snoopy Thanksgiving items: toast, pretzels, popcorn, and jelly beans; I created these appetizer cups with my daughter's help for our tables.

These appetizer cups were quite easy to put together. I googled an image I liked of Snoopy from a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, cut it and put it on store bought clear cocktail cups (with double sided tape). We then added toasted sourdough squares and the other goodies.

The last crafty gift I added to our Thanksgiving Holiday is a Thankful Book!


what a wonderful idea and way to collect a year's worth of thanksful thoughts and blessings from your family and friends that you shared some turkey and stuffing with that year. In being thankful for what I have, I made this craft (as many of the others) from things I already owned. The heavy cardstock spiral and thanksgiving stickers and scraps I all found in my scrapbooking supplies. I found inspiration to make this book from remembering Thanksgivings of the past and  how we'd write our "I am thanksful for..." on little peices of paper ot construction paper leaves and then never really having a way to keepsake them. Plus thanks to the pinterest public I saw someone else's book of thanks:

http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2011/11/our-book-of-thanks.html


Here are a few pictures fom the inside and the first entry from this year. We took a group shot which I will add later.




I hope I inspired a bit of crafty giving this Holiday season, from my home to yours.

And please remember the point of crafting nd/or preserving memories is NOT to add more to your "to-do" list, spend extra money, or to make a grand presentation...but it is suppose to be an outlet, expression of YOU to others. Find inspiration from books, movies, art, magazines, pinterest or wherever, ENJOY it and SHARE with others.

thanks for reading,

Julie