December Daily 2017 Unboxing

I have so much to share about December Daily this year, but before I get ahead of myself with all of that planning and miss the joy in some of my favorite months of the year (hello September and October, you know I'm looking at you), I thought it best to begin where I always do, with a look back at some favorite from previous years and an unboxing of new supplies!

Yesterday, fueled by the excitement of receiving a big box of new goodies from the awesome Ali Edwards, I pulled out my albums from the past two years and spent some time with their stories. I cannot tell you what having those days documented means to me, especially as so much of last December was one long, last goodbye to my warrior mother, who left this world as the year ended. Though some of the pages tug deeper and tougher than others, there's so much goodness, so much life tucked into those pockets and fold outs of photos, and having those to turn and remind me of the "why"s behind all my "what"s is incredible.

I thought it might be fun to share some of my favorite pages with you, as well as a peek at how I used some of the product from previous years before diving into this year, so I've got a video walkthrough through both my 2015 and 2016 album favorites.

I'm in utter awe of those who rock videos like effortless goddesses, and I am lucky enough to know so many amazing women who do so, but friends, I am not one of them. I talk too much and get off topic too easily, as if we're old friends sitting down for coffee or tea, but less charming than you imagine, I get overly excited and hold something too close without realizing it, I likely say "umm" and "awesome" and "perfection" more than any human should. These are not the videos of a master, but they are the work of a maker, one who had to be stubborn enough to reshoot them three times after three different technical issues, who had to figure out how to edit out a random "oh poop" when the can of peas she was using to weight something down rolled into the shot, and one who got up cheerfully at 4 AM to write this post only to find the internet down, AGAIN. Here's the thing, they're honest, and they're done, and I could bust out an operatic aria with the joy and relief I have from being able to type that. I tell you all of this in case you, like me, watch what others create and share and are mesmerized by their magic and cheer them on so hard you lose your breath, but then wonder, why is that so hard for me to do, too? Sometimes it just is - we'll get better - you're not alone. 

If you're anything like me, all of that past documentation has you itching to dive in again, so without further ado, here's a video unboxing all of those new Ali goodies I couldn't help but hint at in the first video:

You've still got time if you want to add to your box in her shop, but don't wait, these supplies are golden, and they go fast. It's the stories that count, but good supplies can help get you there, too, and Ali makes some of the very best around. 

Ellen Hutson Blog Hop: No Peeking!

Hello and welcome from the Ellen Hutson CLASSroom blog!  

For today's mini hop, I am so excited to get in the holiday spirit a bit and share one of the stamp sets I designed for this release - No Peeking!

I used this sentiments set to create a simple, colorful card as well as a set of gift tags created with the Concertina tag dies.

For the card, I used my favorite new technique of striping white cardstock with colorful washi tape as a base.  I embossed the sugar and spice sentiment stamp on a piece of red paper with opaque white powder so the words would really pop.

I couldn't wait to pair Julie's Concertina tag dies and sentiment stamps together, but was lacking colorful cardstock, so to give myself a base, I played with watercolors in various colors, making my own colorful paper.

I used the same opaque white embossing powder for the sentiment stamp, and I LOVE the result.  Now I want to made a whole basket of gift tags to use this season.

And last, but definitely not least, I wanted to use the Baker Lady stamps to make a gift for a young baker in my life, so I created a simple recipe card template in Photoshop, leaving a space to use the stamps on the side.  I made sure to leave all the stamps in basic waterproof black ink so that they are color and paintable for a gift that's also a fun activity.  I think a set of colored pencils along with these cards is perfect for my young budding baker friend. Adding one of these watercolor tags was the simplest, and sweetest packaging.

You can grad the No Peeking set by clicking the image below:

I have so many more ideas for how I want to use this set, especially alongside the Baker Lady, but for now, there's plenty more inspiration on the hop, so head over to Julie's blog to see what lovely things she's created!

Derwent Watercolour Collection, Set of 24

VersaFine Ink Pad, Onyx Black

Scrapbook Adhesives 3-D Foam Squares, Small Black

ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Marker, Set of 24

Stampendous Embossing Powder, Detail White, 0.76 oz.

Ellen Hutson Blog Hop: Baker Lady

Hello, and welcome from Julie's blog!

I am so excited for today's mini blog hop, because it means I get to share the newest Leading Lady, the Baker Lady!

I made a short walkthrough of the newest stamp set along with a look at all the cards I've been making with them:

I love that I can use the accessories that go along with the Baker Lady on their own as well as with the lady herself.  I created a cluster of these baked goods and kitchen tools for this card:

Of course, she does make a card even more special because I can customize her to look like my friends! I've been trying to learn and practice from all of the awesome coloring tutorials on Ellen's site, so though I need to keep practicing, it was fun to try to make this lady in the likeness of my friend Angie.

You can grab the Bakery Lady stamp set and matching dies in Ellen's shop by clicking on the images below:

Now it's time to head over and see what amazing creations Amy's been up to!

Derwent Watercolour Collection, Set of 24

VersaFine Ink Pad, Onyx Black

Scrapbook Adhesives 3-D Foam Squares, Small Black

ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Marker, Set of 24

Right at Home

I had so much fun playing with the Happy Mail stamps sets from Right at Home that I had to pull myself away from my big yellow table so that something, anything else on my to-do list could get done. 

I used the Happy Mail, Happy Mail Year 2, and Happy Mail Year 3 sets to make a stack of envelopes for all the cards I've been learning to make this year that have so far sat homeless on my desk.  Who knew making envelopes could be so fun and addictive?  I'm pretty it's these sets that made these projects so much fun.

I love using small stamps to make my own patterned paper of sorts, so I did just that to create some fun designs.  The fact that these sets have so many awesome buildable elements made it easy to add pops of color and dimension with ink, and I LOVE that.

Plus, the fact that I could punch out that little circle with my 2.5" punch easy-peasy? PERFECTION.

Those little envelopes slay me.

I'm such a sucker for lots of color on a white background, but I had a blue green envelope on the side of my table that was calling to me while I was making these envelopes, so I played with some little 1.5" stamped and punched white circles in side the simple black inked cirlce "frame" and I love how it turned out - different, but really fun. 

Right when I told myself it was time to stop for the day, I remembered I needed an envelope for a little note I planned to slip into a friend's mailbox next week when I'll be close to her home, so I grabbed the flowers to make a simple, but colorful border, and made sure to use the adorable "not a bill" stamp to flag it as something good in her box (though I'm certain that most companies aren't using floral envelopes for their bills these days).

I'm so thankful to Nicole for sharing her awesome designs with me and encouraging me to play - I loved every minute, and I am already looking at which other stamps I need to add to my collection to make more envelopes!

Catch Your Breath

There is nothing, nothing, like a little bit of rest, or a self proclaimed time out to take a break before getting back to this business of life. For those of us who have had a busy past few months, or for those who have been taking it easier and enjoying a bit of relaxing, the latest kit I designed for Feed Your Craft was inspired by the importance of taking a minute to just breath, and really, to...Catch Your Breath.

I'm pretty over the moon for this one, with a stamp set full books, plants, reminders to rest, an embroidery hoop, and a planner, and cards holding some of my very favorite words, and new designs in colors that will soothe, but not bore you. 

I used the kit to create my Project Life pages for the past few months, and I am so in love with how easily it all worked together.

I also used the stamp with a bit of watercolor to add a bit to my commonplace book, and now I want to use it for so much more.

Wondering if this kit is for you? If you missed it, I made this handy dandy flow chart to help:

You can grab your kit here, and don't forget to head over to Elise's blog to see her gorgeous pages! Thank you for your support on this release - we couldn't do it without you.

Leading Ladies: The Plant Lady

It was so fun introducing you to the Leading Ladies collection I've designed with Ellen Hutson last month with the Crafty Lady, and it's been amazing to see all the incredible things you've been making with her! 

Today is another exciting release day over at Ellen Hutson packed with a GORGEOUS stamp and die set from the lovely Julie Ebersole, as well as the next Leading Lady!

Without further ado, I introduce to you the Plant Lady. She's a lover of all things growing and blooming, and though at any given moment her thumb might be more turquoise than green, she's got big garden dreams. She loves to dig in the dirt, but she also appreciates a grocery store bouquet in a favorite vase as much as the next girl. 

Here's what I love about the Plant Lady - no matter how many vegetables grow, flowers bloom, leaves wilt, or buds refuse to open, she romaine's calm - she's all about good chives only. (Okay, okay, so maybe my humor needs a bit of work...)

More seriously though, the Plant Lady is just as focused on growing friendships and encouraging others as she is on growing plants. 

I used the Plant Lady Says phrase set to put more of those fun accessories to work to create a few cards for a couple amazing ladies in my life:

And I think I might make another of these to keep for myself as a reminder:

And, because this is my first year trying out my plant lady status with a garden of my own, I made a few tags to add to the harvests we've been sharing with others (though, to be fair, I might have taped one of these to my mirror as a pep talk the other day...)

Sow good, right? :)

Next up? Pairing these phrases with Julie's amazing rustic floral set. It's so dreamy. 

Alright, it's time to play!  Don't forget to grab your sets int he Ellen Huston shop!

This post contains affiliate links.  Looking for the supplies I used to make these projects? Find them here:

Derwent Watercolour Collection, Set of 24

VersaFine Ink Pad, Onyx Black

Scrapbook Adhesives 3-D Foam Squares, Small Black

ZIG Clean Color Real Brush Marker, Set of 24

On Still Keeping a Notebook

“It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one’s self back in that kind of
mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. ”

— Joan Didion, "On Keeping a Notebook"

It wasn't until I was taking photos of my most current commonplace book that I realized I've been keeping these notebooks for just over twelve years. It feels almost unimaginable that my notebooks would be middle schoolers now, should they have been children, which honestly, as people so often describe things they love and put lots of care into as their babies, they might likely be that for me. My dog-eared copy of Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem reminds me that I was an undergrad when I first read her essay, "On Keeping a Notebook" - a piece that was offered to me by a kind professor who likely hoped I'd leave her office and stop my random dialogue on my discovery of these things called commonplace books if she sent me away with something to read that might make it all click. She was right, as she so often was - I read the essay, underlined over half of it, and it all clicked. I've been keeping a notebook ever since.

The truth is that I keep lots of notebooks - in part because I am a lover and collector of them, paper always being my poison of choice, and in part because they each hold something different for me. Notebooks, like loved ones and good books, can't be everything for us all at once, it's okay to need different ones at different times, to carry them close and love the for what they are, instead of what they aren't. 

My commonplace book, however, has always remained my foundation, the one notebook that's always near, a collection of life's fragments, and a place to keep what's yet to make sense to me, but urging me to pay closer attention. The notebooks themselves have taken so many different forms over the years, from binders of scrap paper and ephemera, to hand bound books, to the gifted and ornately covered ones, and the most common slim black Moleskine cahiers. What remains the same is what they hold, or maybe more accurately what they do - they serve as a place to gather myself, the quotes I read, the lines I write that have yet to find a home as anything longer, small drawings, scraps of paper, bits and piece of artwork made by dear friends, magazine and newspaper clippings, and sometimes, though more rarely, photographs that capture what I could not put into words on the page.

What I love most about these books is what they are not - they are not always neat, or well designed, though their pieces, in images and words, are often so lovely and so important to me that I think them more beautiful than some of my best intentional work, but that's a personal matter, I guess. Sometimes the pages are filled with lines and lines of text with only the color of the varying ink to pepper the page with personality, and sometimes they are a collage of color, every little bit oozing vibrancy; I love both ways equally. They are not diaries, per se, and there are very, very seldom any dates beyond what I mark as the beginning of the notebook. These pages are not meant to do what my other forms of memory keeping do, and there's nothing within them that was added in an effort to remember a time of my life exactly as it was.  

Instead, these notebooks offer me something more - something you can't know you're making until it's done, maybe even until time has passed, and you look back with a seeker's heart, and a scavenger's eye. Whatever the magic combination is, I know this to be true - keeping a notebook, continuing to keep a notebook, reminds me of where I was by showing me what caught my attention, what caused me to pause, to think, to take note, to be HERE.

What I've noticed lately after starting my most recent commonplace book is that it is evident in these notebooks when in my life I was looking for more from where I was, needing to find more from the world around me, because those years hold many more books that others, their pages brimming with bits. This might be one of those years, I suspect, one notebook started just before the new year already full, this new one finding me with more pieces to add nearly every day. I kind of love that there's room for both, that it's okay if after this one is full it might take me two years to fill the next, that I capture what needs to be caught, and let the rest go. There's room to participate in our lives in so many ways, room to do it all different every time we begin, and I'm grateful for all of it, especially what happens in these pages.

And now, a little bit of practical work: I mentioned that my notebooks take many forms, most commonly housed in the simple Moleskine cahier style, but any notebook will work - if you choose to start one, pick what's more comfortable for you (stitch bound, binder, spiral, lined, blank). My newest is taking the form of a binder, much like one of my earliest ones from oh, 2005, I think. I took a cheap small three ring binder from Target, covered it simply in fabric, filled it with a mixture of lined, blank, patterned paper, scattered in some bits and pieces of ephemera and envelopes that I'd been hoarding for way too long, and called it good. It suits me right now, all the fragments I'm working within and around, but I know that there's a good chance my next book will be back to the plain and simple style, because my head and heart are just perfectly indecisive that way. Here's a view of what's inside so far:

To make things easier on myself, I keep the supplies I use for my commonplace book close, which, because this one has been full of so many more pieces, means having practical pieces like glue, staples, tape, and of course, pens, but also all of the little scraps of paper, etc. that I've been collecting that I like to use inside.

I keep these supplies in three small pouches so that I only have to grab the one I need, with the most common being my basics (adhesives, core pens, etc.), and then one for my paper scraps and other ephemera, and one for my overflow writing utensils (markers, hi-lighters, pens, pencils, etc.).

Because I'm crazy, and organizing these bits of my life makes me ridiculously happy, I keep all three pouches in a large, slim zipper pouch so that if I want to take it with me somewhere it's easy to grab, and if i'm just using it at home, it's all in one place.  Nobody's got time to search all over for supplies. 

Here are a few images from some of my notebooks throughout the years - all very different from this current one, but all holding some of my most favorite scraps of life:

It seems like such a small thing, this act of keeping a notebook, but looking back through years and years worth of these volumes, I am so grateful I started, and even more so, that I keep them going.

Benjamin Poe

Dear Ben,

We're celebrating today because it's official, and that's important for a thousand different reasons, but you've been family since mere hours after you were born, and really, deep down, it feels like you've been family even before that. You were born into bravery, and while I cannot yet articulate to you how important and powerful that is, all you need to know now is that two mothers loved you so much that they chose you over everything else. Two women, one I know and love, and one I can only be eternally grateful to from afar, put aside their fear for as long as they could to ensure that you made your way home.

This week we Skyped during bath time and you clapped the water with your hands with such conviction and rhythm that all I could do was remember the way your mother did the same thing when she was a baby. Your grandmother and I would sit around the tub and do everything we could to make her laugh so that she'd splash some more, and every time her chubby baby hands hit the water, we'd clap and cry out, and she'd laugh even more. I listened to you laugh and watched you look toward your mom and dad, and I knew, again, as I have from the minute I saw you in their arms, that you were all meant for each other. 

Tomorrow your mom and dad will be a mess of tears and deeps sighs of relief, so much has been taken from them these past few years, and in the flutter of it all, you might wonder what's happening, so here is what I'd like you to know when you look back at photos of this day you likely won't remember: you are loved by a tribe who comes to you not by way of blood, but instead by way of a choice, a choice made so completely that it hardly seems like one at all. It's a kind of magnetic connection, one which pulled you into a mix of people who are all so beautifully and completely different, and all committed to you and your life, and to helping you make your way. 

I have a photo of your grandmother, my mother, holding you not too long after you were born. You're looking up at her as if she's the most magical and confusing thing you've ever seen, and because you won't be lucky enough to remember this yourself, let me tell you she was both those things, and so much more. I remember feeling so grateful that she stayed with us long enough to meet you, to hold you, to see your mom hold you, and to say with complete certainty that you'd been on your way along, and thank god you'd finally made it. Sometimes I think that you were her last, best gift to us, one immensely bright light coming into the world as another was leaving it, both of you with the ability to make your mom laugh so hard I bet she almost pees herself more times than she'd care to admit.

I tell you all of this not because it's easy, but because it's true, because when you wonder how you got to where you are, I want you to know that it was because of love, and that the same love that brought you here, will take you everywhere you need and want to go, you need only to be brave enough to accept it. Ben, I believe you are brave enough to be whoever you want to be in this world, and if you forget all that is possible, if you forget how brave and mighty you are, I will be here to remind you, and to love you to your next step. 

Oh, Ben, the world is better with you in it, and your parents lucky to have found you, and you them (you really did win the lottery in the parent department), and I wish I were there with you today to watch your little scrunched up nose twitch when you laugh, but distance is only miles on a map, and I will be loving you from here so much that I'd wager you can feel it any time you like.

Happy Adoption Day, Benjamin Poe, the paperwork now says what we always knew was true - you're one of us, and we couldn't be more thrilled. 

Love from the woman who will spoil you for life even when your mom yells at her not to with her scary voice,

Aunt Brandi