Happy New Year!

My son got me Photoshop Elements 10 for Christmas (I have been using 8), so I played with a picture and came up with this.  It's very nice being able to add a mask to a layer with just a click of one button!  Can't wait to learn more!

Happy new year, everyone!  See you in 2012!

Merry Christmas (a little late)

I love Christmas with all the great music, family stuff and worship opportunities.  What I don't like is putting my daily schedule on hold so we can experience all the Christmas extras.  One thing that worked well this year is taking time to do a daily Advent devotional.  I learned about the book God With Us, (edited by Pennoyer and Wolfe) at Mary's blog, A Splendid Adventure.  Two years in a row she has included readings from the book during Advent.  In addition, Lori from Elvie Studio shared about a little Christmas journal she was making this season.  I combined both ideas and created a little journal about my daily Advent readings.  I wanted to blog about it as I went along, but this will have to do.

Here's the cover

As you can see, it's just a little accordion fold booklet using Arches textwove paper

And here's a close-up of the pages.

It was a great project -- small enough not to stress over and simple enough to do each day (or almost each day).  I'm learning that time spent with God and time doing art don't have to be mutually exclusive.

I have tried to keep up with my blog reading, and have been enjoying the traditions, photos and ideas that you (my blog friends) have shared.  And I look forward to more great posts in the new year!

Project Pinterest

Katie Lloyd has been blogging about Pinterest for a few weeks, and I finally was able to secure my own account.  So now the challenge is to find something on the boards, pin it, and try to do the project.  I chose this: (originally posted here)

First I gathered my supplies.  The only thing I had to buy was a wreath form (hers was styrofoam, mine is straw -- it was cheaper!)

I stained the edges of the pages with cheap acrylic paint (to give it a more vintage look)

Then I started rolling the pages and hot gluing them to the wreath form.  At first it didn't look great.

Twenty-four hours later (with numerous interruptions), I finally finished.  I was so involved with it that I forgot to take pictures during the process.  I went through a whole 300 page book!  And this is the finished product:

and this

I'm pretty excited about the way it turned out!  Check out the Pinterest button at the left to see what others are doing!