Hi, remember me!

Wow, it’s been a long time! I took a much needed break, and now I’m ready for a new year! With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to share a bit of my Holiday journal. I try to start these journals around Thanksgiving and run them through the New Year. This journal has about 35 pages, but I’ll only be showing some of my favorites.

I made this year’s journal out of a vintage Christmas children’s story book, not too many surprises there I imagine. My only regret is that the format was too small for some of the images I wanted to use, so next year I will be going bigger. 🙂

Let’s start with Thanksgiving. Most of these images are from a planner I took apart. I couldn’t bring myself to toss all the decor, so I repurposed them here. The small  gold card is from a Thanksgiving gift I received in the mail, some super yummy bread loaves for our feast. These journals serve as memory keepers, so I try and incorporate as many keepsakes as I can.

To Christmas…

Case in point: a beautiful card sent to me by a wonderful friend, thank you Jenny!

I alternated the original pages from this book with painted pages of my own, along with pocket pages and an envelope to hold notes and memorabilia. I think the page on the right is from the Nutcracker, I tried to tie the colors in together here. The tree on the left is a napkin, the circles are punched washi paper, postage stamps, ephemera, star stenciling, and a little doodling. Doodling on my pages is still pretty new to me, but I really like the contrast.

Using kitschy Christmas decor images was the most fun. These mid-century crafty ideas were too irresistible to pass up!

Heading into the New Year, I couldn’t resist including my favorite photo from Christmas, our little elf. On the right is one of the pocket pages, perfect for storing the “Ring in the New Year” postcards from a swap I participated in.

These are some of the postcards I made for the swap. So much fun!

Here are the 3 postcards I received from the swap along with a Christmas themed one I received from a dear friend, thank you Iryna!  Love these!

Here is what I came up with for New Years. I’m busy making plans for what I want to accomplish this year. Gardening and getting my house in order are on the top of my list. This home with a snowy scene out of the window is so inspiring. On the other side of this page has the instructions on how to build one of these indoor gardens. I won’t be doing that, so I arted it up.

I made a bit of a mess with my New Years greeting, but it was fun.

Playing with images and paint and keeping it simple, I just needed enough room to journal a bit.

The last two pages of this journal. You may have noticed that my pages are becoming a tad minimalist, I’m trying out letting the images speak for themselves. Adding the doodles is really quite relaxing and adds an extra touch that seems to finish off the page.

I’m streamlining many aspects of my life this year, for instance not using props in my photos, or cutting back on outside projects. I’m hoping that I can free up more time to actually create, or decorate my house,  and hopefully share here more often. I’m also going to try a “No Spend” experiment with art and crafting supplies, except adhesives or pens, for the year.

That should be interesting, wish me luck!

So, until next time,

Happy New Year!

See you soon,

~Patty