I made these tonight for our Christmas presents and thought I’d share them with you.

If you want to download the large size click here. When the large size opens, RIGHT click it and choose “save image as”.

I printed mine on cream colored card stock to make them look vintage.

I added a page to my site with a gallery of a lot of my art journaling pages.  I had hoped to write captions on each one explaining what I used to create the page. Well, after writing captions on over 100 images, the service I was using didn’t work on the page. So I had to upload all the photos again, only to discover that the only way to write captions was to load each image individually.  ARRGGGHHH!  So, I’ll try to write the captions later when I”m not so tired.  In the meantime, if you want to see the pages, go here.

I’m going to ask my Santa to give me an art course for Christmas.  I know there are many.  I’d like one for art journaling, layering, collage – something along those lines.  What course have you taken that you’d recommend? Is there a class that really inspired you, or caused you to shift in your art?  Or was just fun and worth the money?  Please leave comments with your suggestions.

I mentioned earlier in the month that I am participating in the National Nonstop Journaling Month.  The goal was to do something, either write or create art of some kind, in my journal every day.  I have gone crazy and been doing so much journaling. It has been a great month!  This challenge got me writing regularly in my journal and now I know why I need to do that.  And by creating art in my journal it inspires me to paint and do other creative things, too!

So far I have already done 80-something pages!!  Many of them are just writing.  I did painted backgrounds and just wrote on them.  But I will share a few of the pages where I did more than just write.

This was a visual journal type thing I made many  years ago.   It represents all the people past and present that made me who I am.  During the process of creating this collage, I realized how many people had been, and still were, in my life that weren’t helping me grow in a positive way.  Around that time, I saw a quotation that said something like, “Surround yourself with people who love you.”  I thought that was ridiculous.  To think that someone could control who was around them seemed impossible to me.

I will be 60 years old this coming Sunday. I was in my 40′s when I made that collage.  The years from then to now have afforded me some amazing opportunities to learn about myself and discover abilities that I had didn’t  realize I possessed.  Of the things I’ve learned, one of the most life-changing is that we can control the kind of people that surround us.

Since that time, I have been divorced and remarried, my kids have grown up and left home and   I’ve moved many times, including two state-to-state moves.  The people physically in my life have obviously changed but more importantly, I have chosen to nurture only those relationships that help me be who I really am. And now, as I approach my 60th birthday and the upcoming holidays, I am taking time to reflect upon who is in my life.

It is amazing that I truly am surrounded by people who love me.  There is no one in my life that brings me down, criticizes me, yells at me or demands anything of me that isn’t true to who I am.  I didn’t just wake up one day and surgically remove those people from my life.  I just sought out love and support so gradually my “tribe” shifted.  It required that I learn to believe that I’m worth loving but I did that, step by step, through writing, talking, reading and listening to loving people who offered encouragement.

It’s exciting to know that for the rest of my life, I will live in love.

All week I’ve been fired up about Christmas.  All my family will be joining us here for Christmas this year.  I’m making some gifts as well as some decorations for our home.

This is a wooden candle holder I got at Target for $1.  I painted it, put ribbon around it and glittered some tealights to add some sparkle.  I wanted just a dusting of glitter but don’t know how to do that.  All I know to do is coat it with glue and sprinkle the glitter on.  Can anyone help me where the glitter isn’t so thick?

Here’s a close up so you can see how thick the glitter is.

These are a couple of ornaments I made for a swap I’m in.  I used to be so busy I couldn’t play in any swaps, but since my life is calmer now I like being able to participate with other artists.

Next week I’m going to make some Christmas placemats.  I’m going to embroider a primitive snowman design on muslin then sew them up.  I haven’t embroidered in many years, and my sewing skills aren’t the best.  Those pesky details get me everytime!  Wish me luck!

I got “The Complete Book of Papercrafts” at the library yesterday, and I don’t know when a book has inspired me as much as this one.  It covers paper mache, papermaking, and all sorts of crafts with paper.  The paper mache how-tos are marvelous!  I am going to make some paper mache bowls just because they look so cool in the book.  They also show how to make boxes, and small chests of drawers, picture frames…just amazing!

For years I have searched and found copyright free images on the internet.  Now there are so many blogs that offer free downloads, that the search is made much easier.  I’ve found some blogs that offer wonderful, high quality images and want to share them with you.

Grenouilee lots of games and book illustrations.  Mostly French

Living Locurto Cards, labels, templates, mostly new (not vintage)

Bibliodessey hi res scans from books.  Not all are copyright free, so check before using.

Just Something I Made Graphic designer that shares her finds, as well as many of her own designs.  She offers blog graphics, labels, all sorts of wonderful things.

Meggie Cat Images, templates, all sorts of things

Vintage Printables great selection of vintage images, cards, etc

The Vintage Moth Vintage images as well as newer designs for web and print

Graphics Fairy Tons of vintage images.  Some days she posts more than one download.

In the spirit of giving, I’ve scanned some of my own ephemera to share with you.  Click the images below to open up the larger, high resolution image to download.

When I was growing up, once a week at school, we had the opportunity to buy war bonds.
We would take a dime to school and buy and stamp and put it in our little books.
I’m sorry to say that I don’t really know what the purpose in these was.
I just thought it was cool to get stamps and put them in the book.
This particular book was my first husband’s when he was a kid.

This is a book I bought at an estate sale.  I can just imagine young women
in school to learn to be stenos or secretaries, so proud of their
typing book.   Can’t you just see their prettily manicured fingers
type- type- typing away to get faster and faster?

Some art journalers have started a journaling equivalent to NaNoWriMo (National Nonstop Writing Month).  The idea is to create a journal entry every day in November.  This is a wonderful way to get in the habit of journaling every day.  If at the end of the month, you don’t like it, that’s okay, but a month is long enough for you to determine if journaling every day adds anything to your life.  (And, I”m betting it will!)

Dawn has set up a prompt every day, if you need inspiration for your daily entries.  Check out her blog each morning for the prompt.  She also has created a Flickr group for those who’d like to share any of their journal pages throughout the month.

I am participating and have done two pages so far, but they were just writing so I”m not sharing them.  I will, however, share the cover of my NaNoJouMo journal.  I painted a comp book for this project.

Even though this is November 3rd, you can still play along.  Just start today!!!

Wow..it seems like forever since I posted here.  The wedding was wonderful!! And so is married life.  You can see a slideshow of wedding pictures here if you’d like.  But here are a few.

My two sons, walked me down the aisle.  I felt so loved and supported by my boys.

And my girls were sooo  supportive, too!  Paige, on the left is Laddan’s girlfriend, me, then Margarita is my daughter-in-law (Lanny’s wife) and Amber on the right is Tyler’s (my new stepson!) girlfriend.  In the front is my granddaughter, Bella, the flower girl.  The girls were so helpful and encouraging and got me ready!

Here we are saying our vows.  The church is just breathtakingly beautiful, but you can’t really see it in any of these pictures.  It was a pretty wedding.

I had to reduce the size of these pics for the blog and the quality isn’t too good. The one below makes my eyes look all funky, but here we are, married!

The grandkids had waaay too much fun throwing the bird seed. 

So, now I’m settling in to being a housewife which I haven’t done in a very long time.  I like it, but feel like I need brushing up on my homemaking skills.

Mister started his new job  last week, so we’re both getting used to a new routine.  We are so happy to be together and look forward to many years together.

P.S.  I changed my blog layout so I could use my new stripey sock picture.  That’s my legs at the wedding