December is already around the corner and this year i´m also planning to make a December Daily album. Like i did last year i will try to combine a bit of Ali´s December Daily and a bit of Shimelle´s Journal your Christmas.
The basis will be a "December Daily" because I feel more relaxed and free to reflect what happens every day but JYC is full of inspirations and prompts that really help me when i get stuck, and anyway you can always add extra pages with the prompts you like more.
I´m still looking forward to receive a package with some Christmassy stuff but in the meanwhile i´ve started to gather supplies among what I already have, trying to envision what I want to achieve.
My album size will be 8x8 but I will insert different sizes and shapes. And the color scheme will tend to be black, white, beige, red and lime green, although I won´t avoid any other color spots if it comes up...
The funniest issue is that, I confess, i´m not a big "Christmas time" lover (I used to be in the past, when I was a child or when I was studying at the University far away from home and came back… but not lately).
That said… I ADORE this project that I started doing 2 years ago (i have to say that being mama to a little girl helps too)
Here are some pics of my finished last year journal

And some of my gathered stuff so far for this year…

now... ready, steady,go!!!

so here it is! almost without noticing. summer has gone and it begins to look like autumn, although the weather here is still quite warm and the trees keep their green leaves concientiously.
i realize i´ve been a bad, very bad blogger these past three months, but...well, i´ve done things.
i´ve made two summer albums, one of them is kind of a mix between a journal and an art journal with some touches of a scrapbook and the other one is more graphic and simple, inspired by this from molly irving and this one from ali edwards
both are still in progress and i need to add some touches here and there and most of the journaling.
i´ve also made some minialbums to give as presents (but i don´t have pictures to show you...)


so, back to autumn again: i´ve been looking forward for this and now i´m prepared and very excited to start the new class with ali edwards "yesterday and today"
i´ve been devoting a lot of my spare time to hiking and walking and because i have less time for scrapping, lately i tend to simplify my projects and make a lot of them digi or hybrid (although PAPER will always be my great love!) and i think that ali´s class is going to help me with this process very much .

ah! and i´ve prepared a "mini" to fill out during my favorite season "on the go" as i did with the summer one

brown and purple seem to be nice colors for this autumn!
have a nice weekend!

hello summer!

neither yellow has ever been my favorite color nor summer my favorite season, but this time i want to celebrate both making a journal to capture bits and pieces for the next three months

and talking about yellow, everything seems to be yellow around me lately, and although actually i´ve always thougth of yellow as a color for sad sentiments, recently i´ve found something brigth and energizing in it as well

...this blooming Hypericum perforatum (St. Johnswort) is saying hello to summer

...i´ve been reading this book again, after more than 15 years that i read it for the first time, and if yellow really means sadness, this book is the saddest i´ve ever read not only in the story but in the language it is written...it´s a beautiful book anyway. just a couple weekends ago i were in the village were the action took place in the book and it´s so perfectly described i could feel the story as if i´ve lived it!

...and i´ve been hiking again this weekend. besides the big amount of yellow flowers here and there, crops and plants are starting to turn yellowish everywhere so... yellow again!

finally i made this digi layout (although i´m not used to) with a neruda´s sonet that i found some days ago, with a free digital kit from 2Peas in a Bucket, more little touches of yellow

definetly my heart is looking like yellow, but i´m not sure which of the two sides is predominating...

happiness is...

lying on the grass after a long walk

under the shadow of an old romanesque hermitage tower

in a hot day

feeling the breeze on your face

not thinking of anything else

it is said that place had a kind of magic...

note to self:
btw, never ever underestimate the power of your mobile phone photocamera, sometimes it works better than your dSLR (and there is always photoshop that can fix the rest!)

supplies: patterned paper CosmoCricket, rub-ons LilyBee, felt butterflies Heidi Swapp, stickers October Afternoon

yesterday, a friend sent me an email with the story of two birds that really touched my heart and i´ve made this page in my art journal inspired in that story

this post by ali edwards about colors and color combos has also inspired me, and i´ve used pinks and browns and mauves from the photo above i took last week.

i´ve recently found that no-so-perfect photos can become cool enough just by using a bit of photoshop

adding texture layers or using photoshop actions allows you to bring some "magic" to your more or less ordinary pictures

and, although paper and glue and pen is what i love {most of all}, some "hybrid" touches are quick and easy and very useful when you don´t have too much time or you can´t take with you all your supplies everywhere

some stories don´t really need much more to be told and sometimes you don´t know exactly what to tell or simply you can´t ;)

flying over the mountains

lately you´ll find me here here
or here
rather than playing with scraps on my messy desk.

it´s not that i don´t like scrapbooking anymore, it´s just that time is limited (sadly) and i haven´t got enough of it to do everything i want. and i´ve learnt that you have to take advantage of circumstances and opportunities when they arise.
i need some fresh air and i´m fit enough to do this kind of things so i´m giving it a try! and really, it makes me happy.

but it seems that next weekend is going to be a "stay-at-home" one, so probably i´ll be able to make some projects with all the photos i´ve been gathering and all that papers and stuff piled on the self. i miss it, too.

walking again

patterned paper: pink paislee, sassafrass, love elsie; letter stickers: american crafts. tfl!

one of my latest favorite ways of spending my free time: walking and hiking. it has always been something that i´ve loved but there was a long time that i didn´t practice it, and now that i´ve done again... i´m happy, and i can´t stop.

that means i have less time for scrapbooking and crafting, but i try not to forget it because i love it, too.

this is the simplest first page for my "wishes" album

digital frame: kitschy digitals; letter stickers: american crafts. tfl!

and this is one of those wishes

cardstock: bazzill basics; paterned papers: 7gypsies, sistv; letter stickers: american crafts, making memories. tfl!

and of course, i wish this would be a great weekend for everybody!!

change?

my second card for emily´s project 52Q-2: am I afraid of change?


"no" is the answer, although it depends of what kind of change it was obviously, in general not only i´m not afraid of change but i actually need it from time to time. changing allows you to grow and experiment new things and sometimes even to rediscover something you had forgotten. and as scientifics say it contributes to keep your brain cells active and alive. live itself is continually changing. there are just a few very few things that i wish they could remain unaltered forever. so yes, i happily embrace change!

i wonder...

52Q is the challenge that emily falconbridge proposes for this year, 52 questions to be answered in a kind of "art journal style", every week she will post one question for making a little "piece of art" (tag, card, art journal page...) answering it and i hope this is a little something i´ll be able to accomplish throughout the year so...let´s try!

thus for the first question this is my answer:

i´ve used a regular index card, some paint and stickles, stamps, letter stickers, small paper scraps and a butterfly punch. the question is in the front page (as emily suggested) and the answer is in the back. there are still some blank spaces that could be filled up as they come to my mind...

besides i´ve made a cover with 2 painted pieces of cardboard canvas and some letter stickers, binded with 2 rings, where i´ll be including more cards every week.