Art journal challenge page for December

I had mentioned in this post "I see a wish" that my new friend and journal buddy Stephanie and I have been challenging each other to do an art journal page a month.
December's challenge was to use a Christmas song/carol on our pages as well as a border.
I chose Winter Wonderland for my title...I love that song, and around here in the winter...it really does look like a winter wonderland.
The inspiration for this page came from my Christmas cards I sent out this past Christmas.

I have been playing around with adding more texture to my pages.
Usually my pages are pretty flat, but I am having fun and like the look of the texture.
First I added some music note tissue paper and then added colour with my Faber-Castels gelatos and my Tim Holtz distress crayons.
Lastly I added some texture paste (which is like dry wall compound) with a stencil.
Being that my texture paste is light based and not a heavy based, the colour from underneath came through.

For my journaling, I used some of my letter stickers.
I had coloured the smaller stickers with my Copics as I didn't have the colour I wanted.
Now don't you just love those silver glitter stickers!!!

I used my Stampin' Up build a bird punch to make the cardinals.
The tree was a stamp, that was to tiny, so I just extended the branches with acrylic paint.
I used Aleene's True Snow to make the snow...I have had this product for over 15 yrs and was surprising shocked that it wasn't dried up, it was just like it was the day I purchased it :)
Lastly I added some which speckles with a toothbrush and watered down paint.

And here is Stephanie's page :)
She joked with me that she was going to do "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer", lol.
I think "Let it Snow" was a better choice though ;)
I love the brightness of her page and that not only did Stephanie use music note tissue paper for her background, she also used a music note stencil and added her texture paste over it.
I also like that her snowman is made with text paper.
Beautifully done Stephanie :)

Here are both of our pages together :)

I love how different our pages are :)

Our challenge for January is to use a girl image on our pages.
I know it is short notice, but join in if you would like, we would love to see your pages.

I hope you all have a very Creative day :)

Tracy :)

Wisdom Teeth all gone

Such a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
My oldest daughter Ashley bought them for my youngest daughter Kristy.
Why you may be wondering....

My poor Kristy had to get all 4 of her wisdom teeth removed today :(
Ashley rushed over as soon as we got home to see how her little sister was doing.
Kristy handled it pretty well, except one of the medicines they gave her (they told us this would happen) made her really emotional...it broke my heart to see her so sad.
But she got snuggle with her nephew Sawyer and that made her feel a lot better.

Kristy is doing great now that all the meds have come out of her system and is enjoying lots of pudding and jello :)

Tracy :)

Movie Night...Hidden Figures

Tonight my daughter Heather and I went to the movies.
When she told me she wanted to see this one and shared the trailer with me, I wanted to see it as well.

The movie was "Hidden Figures".
It was a great movie.
I had me laughing, tearing up and rooting for the ladies.
I would highly recommend it to everyone.

What was the last movie you saw at the theatre?

Tracy :)

December's layout from SCT planner sketch

I have been making scrapbooking pages!!!
Mind you, all of them have been of my little cutie Sawyer.
One of my many goals for this year is to do more scrapbooking.
To help me with this goal, I have challenged myself to do all of the monthly sketches in my Planner from SCT creative planner.

We have a beautiful book filled with Christmas stories.
And every year my daughters and I would read a story a night, until Christmas.
So I have continued the tradition with my grandson Sawyer.
I read him "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve.
I love the border as it is the last sentence in the story.

I used these very old rub-on I had in my Christmas stash.
The rub-on pulled apart....but I salvaged it :)
All of the papers are from a Recollections pack...I love the sparkle to the border.

I used this reindeer paper clip I bought last year from Stampin' up.

I used this sketch from the SCT Creative Planner.
I changed up the layout a bit to suit my photos.
I kept the border strip to the side, but turned the rest of the layout.

There is a second page to this one, but I used the layout for February for that one, so I will wait to share that one ;)

Here is the planner that I am using for my creative planner this year as well as where I found this sketch.

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

My 2017 Planners

Here are my planners that I have been using this year...so far ;)
I picked up the Recollections planner and a planner from Scrapbook & Cards Today.
I usually use a Day Timer planner, but thought I would change it up a bit this year.
I liked the layout of the Recollections planner as it seemed like it is geared more to lists...which I enjoy making.
I am using this planner for Home, Family and Personal.

This Creative Planner is just that...I am using it for my creative ideas, goals and challenges.
I usually cut this planner out of its rings and re-punch holes for a different notebook to put them in.
Here is how I have used this planner in the past "Creative Planner"
I also picked up the stamp set from SCT...you can never have enough planner stamps ;)

I had picked up some of these planner stickers.
The only thing about these stickers is that they don't fit the spaces in the Recollections planner...but nothing a bit of trimming couldn't fix.
I wish I knew how to make my own stickers as there are a few that I would love to use daily or weekly.

Here is a video on my planners :)
If you would rather watch the video on my YouTube channel...here's the link "Tracy's Treasures24"

I hope you all have a very Creative Day :)

Tracy :)

The Midwife of Venice...A book Review.

Like last year one of my Goals was to read one book a month.
I only read 7...but that may have been 7 more than if I didn't have a goal :)
I am happy to share with you that I have completed my 1st book of the New Year!!!
321 pages to this book.

But to be fair, I started reading this book before Ashley had Sawyer, but because of the content of this novel, I had to put it down.
I was only a few chapters into this book, but I couldn't read any further at that time.
It is about a Jewish midwife from 1575, who attends a noble woman...which at the time was forbidden.
I enjoyed this book and read it all today, so an easy read.
A bit predictable, but still a good read!
The back of the book

I hope you have a creative day

Tracy :)

Christmas Gift Tags

I know I said one of my goals this year was to not play catch up, but....
It seems like that is what I am still doing, lol.
But I still want to share what I did with you all, even if it is past the Christmas season.

My friends and I wanted to do a Christmas gift tag swap.
It was actually my friend Lesli from "Vintage Scraps" that wanted us to do it.
Then she got busy, so I kind of took over....I tend to do that, lol.
So each of us had to make a set of 3 tags for everyone that was joining in on the tag swap, and there were 9 of us that were in the swap.
Here are my tags :)
Sorry for the bad pics, but I had to take screen caps of my video, because I forget to take photos, lol.

I made these banner tags with card stock I was gifted from Paper-garden.ca.
This paper was very heavy, so perfect for this, and you could do lots of layering without the paper buckling from the weight.
I picked up these K&Co. medallions from the dollar store and just backed them on the red cardstock.
I think these ones were my favourite.

Made these for the Coffee lovers in our group...which is most everyone besides me, lol.
But I think of them as Hot chocolate cups ;)
I cut them out with the Tim Holtz coffee die.
I cut 2 of the lids out for each tag, as I wanted the backs to be finished as well.

This one was fun.
I had a Stampin' Up get together last year and we did a card using one of their dies.
When the demonstrator was going to throw away the negative part of the die cut paper, I grabbed them all knowing one day I would use them.
A year later and I did!!!
I put some pattern paper (the green Merry Christmas) paper behind the negative image and voila another tag.
I did add some embellishments that I have had for over 15 yrs to the edge, inked it and called it done :)

I didn't have enough of the Stampin' Up die cut pieces, so I wanted to make a tag similar in style as that one.
So I used my punch of a deer head to punch out the shape and added the pattern paper behind it.

Lastly I made gift card holders to put all of the tags in.
I thought that once they use the tags, the gift card holders can be used as well....a gift with in a gift ;)
Everything I made, I made with my scraps :)
I even snuck some of my scraps out of the "to be donated" pile, lol.

I even made a video :)
If you would rather watch my video on my YouTube channel as it will give you the full width of the video...I need to learn how to fix that on my blog, lol.
Check it out here "Tracy's Treasures24"


I had a lot of fun making these with my friends and will share with you the ones that I had received in a later post :)

Hope you all have a very Creative Day

Tracy :)

Dashboard for my Recollections Spiral Planner.

I went to a class at Michaels.
I never usually take classes but my new Art Journal buddy Stephanie was teaching and I wanted to support her.
We made a dashboard for our planners :)
The class was free and we were to bring our own supplies.
There were 5 in the class and we all had different planners, so each dashboard was a different size and because we brought our own papers and such, they all looked different as well.
I really enjoyed it, thank you Stephanie :)

I am trying the Recollections spiral planner this year (I will share more on my planner in another post).
I usually use my DayTimer, but thought this looked like a fun one to try :)
So lets continue with the dashboard shall we?
I used a grey cardstock for the base (looks black in the picture) and then adhered some Heidi Swapp paper on top of it.
I didn't want to adhere the backs of the post its on the paper because if I wanted to change out the post its, it would rip the pretty paper, as I am using my ATG to adhere them.
So I used a clear sheet of sticky Avery paper on the Heidi Swapp paper.

I was thinking of using velum, but I didn't like that it muted the pink paper.
The quote on the top left corner is printed on velum, see how the paper is muted behind it...ya, thats what I didn't want ;)

Now for the back of the page.
I completed my dashboard at home.
If I remember correctly, there was suppose to be a pocket on the back of the dashboard.
So I mounted the pink paper on the grey cardstock and then adhered the 3 sides leaving the top side open.
I just added some washi in the pocket.
I didn't put the sticky paper on this side, as I'm not planning on adding the post its on this side.

Now because it is a spiral planner, you can't add pages....or can you ;)
I used the packaging paper as a template on where to punch the holes, you could also use the front cover for this.
Then I cut slits from the edge of the paper to the punched holes.
This way the dashboard (or anything you want) can be added to the binding.
It can be removed from the binding, as well as turning the pages easily.

Here is what our dashboards were suppose to look like if we used the supplies that they called for.
This is Stephanie's, pretty isn't it.

I thought I would share with you why I don't normally take classes, just so you know I'm not snobbish on them, lol.
I like to look at a project and figure it out myself.
I also don't follow directions very well and go my own way, and would feel like I might me insulting the teacher if I don't follow her instructions.
And lastly, while I am figuring out how to put the project together, I come up with different ways, or different ideas.
See, I'm not snobbish, just stubborn ;)

I hope you all had a very Creative Day

Tracy :)

Working on my December Daily

Is anyone else working on their December Daily?
I bought this 25 days of Christmas kit from the Crop & Create a few years ago.
I made this book May of 2015 to use for last December.
But if you remember, I lost all of my photos from December of 2015, so decided to save it for this year.
Guess what....I forgot all about it until last night, lol.
So I decided to work on it, all I have to do is print out the photos and add them to the already completed pages.

I have a Selphy printer...actually I have 2 of them.
My husband purchased the newer one (it is a wifi) and this is the first time I had used it, shhhhh.
I was pretty excited that I didn't have to put my photos on a jump drive to transfer them to the printer to print them out!!
But then my problem was how to print a 2 UP or a collage like this one.
I have a couple of apps on my phone that I use for other projects, but for some reason I couldn't get it to work how I wanted.
Finally realizing I had to play with the ratio, I am happy to say that it works!!!
Then I kept getting a watermark this the apps logo "PhotoGrid" on the bottom right corner.
After printing a few pictures and hiding the logo with embellishments, I found a button on the app to get rid of the watermark, lol.
It was a process, but I think I have finally figured it all out and am ready to complete this project.

There are so many photos of my grandson Sawyer, I should re-name it Sawyers December Daily, lol.

I hope you all have a very creative day :)

Tracy :)

My Christmas Cards

Even though one of my goals this year is to not play catch up.
I haven't shared with you a couple of my Christmas projects :(
So I thought I would make an exception to this new goal of mine for my Christmas projects ;)

Another goal I have for this year (and the last couple of years) is to keep Christmas simple.
This means I am keeping my Christmas cards simple and making them all the same.
I figure I can go all out and be more detailed on my Birthday cards I send out :)
Any way.... I saw a tag on Pinterest by Julie Day and loved the simplicity of it.
So I recreated it with my supplies.
Honestly when I first made this card, I didn't like it at all.

But once I stamped the snowflakes (which were not on my inspirational piece) and added the sparkly stickles on the background I liked it a lot better....so much so I was inspired to do an art journal page from my Christmas cards...but more on that in another post.

I also did a quick video sharing how I made these cards :)
If you would prefer to watch the video on my YouTube channel, just click on the link "Tracy's Treasures24"

I hope you all have a very Creative day :)

Resolutions

My wish for you all, is to have a Happy and Healthy New Year.

I checked my goals list I set for myself last year and have to admit, I didn't accomplish them all.
But what I did do was work on them.

I wanted to read a book a month..
I didn't read all 12 books, but I did read 7.
I wanted to walk 10,000 steps a day...
I didn't do 10,000 everyday, but I did walk 20,000 or even 30,000 in the summer months.
I wanted to create an art journal page once a month....
I didn't do one a month, but I did make 4 and found a new art journal friend in the process.
I wanted to organize my whole home.
I didn't do the whole house, but the areas I did complete are still nice and organized.

I posted this as some may think that I failed at my goals.
I don't see it that way, I think of it as moving forward.
If I didn't have these goals I may have not accomplished as much as I did :)

So set goals, even if you don't achieve them the way you hoped to, you still have done more than if you didn't set these goals :)

As for setting goals or Resolutions for 2017.
I am adding to this list :)

I hope you all have a very creative day.

Tracy :)