Hold Dear

circle journal madness

Okay so the fog is lifting. I am feeling like getting back to my crafty life. To celebrate (yay!), I have a few things to share with you.

First, I finished the last LO in the Circle Journal group I've been participating in that Andrea is hosting. This LO was in Claudine's journal and her theme was favorite recipe or favorite cookbook. You may recall I started out with these pages. Here's what I did to those painted up babies...

Okay so this isn't so much a recipe as a strategy for a food combo. But it's an amazing food combo from one of my favorite restaurants so I hope Claudine approves. :-)

And in the mail today, I actually received my Circle Journal from Andrea's group! What fabulous good Circle Journal karma that was! Oh how I love this part...you know, when you get your journal back after being off on it's journey for months and months? Remember what the journal looked like when it started on it's journey. Well, here's what it looks like now!!!

Everyone did some pretty fantastic work in this thing! Check out what the sign in page looks like now...

Isn't this so cool?! I am SO loving the way this all turned out! Thanks again to the fab Andrea for doing it again and hosting a terrific Circle Journal!

Also, in the mail today (it was a FAB mail day!), I received my journal from Stephanie! We were partners in Heather's Spring Journal Swap. Oh man...it is SO cool! But that's gonna get a post of it's very own. Stay tuned! :-)

Circle Journal Fun...

I finished up my LO for the Circle Journal group I'm participating in that Andrea is hosting. It was Cheryl's journal and oh boy I LOVED what this girl did! She took an old insurance policy wallet that had the original envelopes and created her journal from that. SO BRILLIANT! To see the full journal, check out Cheryl's blog here. So instead of each participant completing a page, we each got an envelope. The theme is "Destination" and we are to alter our envelope and then write a letter about where we're going in life -- our dream destination! I told you, this circle journal is very cool!

For my envelope, I just HAD to take it out of the book. I wanted to do some sewing on it so I also unglued the envelope so it would lay flat. I used Scrapper's Solution which I only recently discovered. Love this stuff and now I use it all the time!

Okay...so here's the envelope, in progress...

Then here's the completed envelope with lots of stitching and junk. I was really pleased with how this all came out. I liked it so much I even just ordered me up a fresh batch of Moo cards with this on it! :-)

...some of my favorite bits...

And then the back.

For my letter, I started with a cool piece of scrapbook paper and then altered it all. Here's the outside, folded...

...and the inside. I wrote some stuff on it but it's just blah blah blah about goals and what not so I decided not to bore you with it all. :-)

Okay, so on to the next project! I have in my possession Rena's "Hope" journal from the round robin that Elise is hosting and I just received the hostess herself's circle journal, Andrea's. Her theme is "Color!" And it's another really cool one! Oh boy!

Oh in movie news, I watched Mrs. Palfrey at The Claremont last night. LOVED it! What a lovely lovely movie. Kinda sad at times, but SO uplifting at other times you appreciate where it takes you. Thanks for the recommendation Mom!!! I tried to watch La Vie En Rose this weekend too but we couldn't get the subtitles to work. Dangit! I'm gonna give it another shot though...it just looks so good!

Cheers!

Good Circle Journal Action...

Howdy...we've been having a terrific weekend over here at Casa G.

Friday night was date night so just me and my best fella went out for a little din din at a place called MuuMuu's and then went to the movies to watch In Bruges. Pretty dang bloody but man what a fabulous story. And SO funny!

Saturday the weather was just beautiful. Glen and I did some marketing, went to Borders and then in the evening, I got to go over to "play" with Andrea. Claudine was also there and then another very nice gal named Mary Ann. Lovely lovely and I made a real good dent in my fatbook pages, one of my many projects. :-)

Oh and also, in today's mail I received a very special package from my friend Gina! OH MY! I'll post more about it once I take pictures! Oh and I also have something very SWEET to show you that my pal, Lilli, sent me too! Such blessings!!!

Anywho, today has just been an easy cheesy kind of day. Read the paper while sitting in a nice sunny spot with some good coffee. Then I had a FABULOUS massage by a good friend of ours, Harriet, who recently completed her courses. Excellent...with lots of deep tissue. Harriet came to the house to give me the massage and there were a couple of times when Atticus jumped up on the table and nestled in between my feet. So cozy and so danged cute! There was even a point when he jumped up on my back while Harriet was working on my legs. I was SO praying he would start doing his "kneading biscuits" thing on my back! He didn't...but how Heavenly would that have been! LOL! :-)

Okay...so on to some art...I have a few pictures of some LOs I recently completely for Elise's Round Robin group and then one for Andrea's Circle Journal group.

For Elise's Round Robin, here is the LOs in Sherri's journal. Her theme is "Wonderful White."

Page One....

I'm sure it's because I've got spring fever, but when I thought of "white," it made me recall how lovely it is to walk through a garden full of white flowers, at dusk. The flowers just glow!

And then, of course, white makes me think of snow. We don't get snow very often here in the northwest so when we do, it's a treat, even though it buggers up the commute to work. I still love it because it just quiets the world and has a very calming effect.

Another LO completed in Elise's Round Robin group was Deborah's Something Vintage Something New Something Retro Something Blue. How cute is that theme? :-)

I had lots of fun with this one!

I found a couple of ads in a 1953 Life Magazine that just begged to be included, particularly since Deborah had mentioned how she got a kick out of the old ads that showed women cleaning their bathrooms all dressed up!

I also completed a LO in the Circle Journal group that Andrea is hosting. This LO is for April's journal and her theme is "Travel."

I chose to journal about our trip to Scotland in 2000. This was a very special, very fun trip.

 

Okay...time to go get. Miranda's coming over in bit to hang out and watch The Oscars with me! Fun! I hope you have a fabulous evening!

oh boy

Circle Journal Oh Boy Oh Boy!

Hi there...

So I signed on for another round of the fabulous Shopgirl's Circle Journal escapades! I had so much fun last time and got back the most GORGEOUS chunkied up book that I just had to join in again! The more you get to know me, you'll know that I just HATE to miss a party! :-)

My theme for this Circle Journal is "Inspiration." I'd LOVE to get back journal full of pictures, words, scribbles, and thoughts that inspire people. I'm hoping to see the things that would be in their Inspiration Journal!

Here's my cover...

This is a book I had made about two years ago when I first bought my Rubicoil. I loved how it came out but the book had the "so special" syndrome. You know that one? It was so special that it just sat on the shelf unused? :-) Well, I made a little label for it, made up some new pages and wha-la! A Circle Journal was born!

The very first page is my favoritest quote of all time that probably forever inspire me to be true to myself.

Then the sign in pages...the last Circle Journal had some crazy cool sign in pages so I didn't to try and do something different this round.

The next two pages are the welcome and instructions.

Then on to the pages of things that inspire me. Just lots of chatter...pictures, words, paper, bits, and doodling. I used some pictures that are currently in my Inspiration Book and then some are straight out of my pile of stuff waiting to be pasted into my book.

Then the last page of my LO is a saying that is on a plaque my sweety sister Simone bought for me when I was visiting my family back in December. 

I love this saying. It inspires me to TRY, regardless of what that little internal critic says.

The last picture I want to show you is what my journal looks like now. Even before anyone else starts adding stuff to it, it's already starting to get all chunked up! Yay!! I'll be taking it over to Claudine's tomorrow night on my way home from Jury Duty (I got on a trial! Cool!) and then the journey will begin!!!

Come on, girls! Make it chunky!!! :-)

Thanks again Andrea for hosting another round of Circle Journal fun!!!

Take care, pals!

Round Robin...

I've been blabbin' on and on about the Mermaid Swap I'm hosting for my last several posts so I thought I'd give you a break and talk about something else. :-)

I joined in a Round Robin that my friend Elise is hosting. I met Elise at last year's Art and Soul. She had hosted a Fat Book I participated in and we connected, I'm sure, because she is an articulate, beautiful, thoughtful soul and, happily, I tend to gravitate towards those types.

We started the Round Robin in early December but due to the holidays, we didn't have to mail the next round January 12. Here is my book. The next book I had was my very dear and cute cute cute friend Malou. I had lunch with Melissa and got to hand the book to her in person. Malou's theme was "Home." For some reason, I had trouble getting started on this one. I'm sure it was just because there has been so much activity in my life lately and I just couldn't find that sweet spot where the inspiration comes. However, after celebrating Mr. G's birthday this past weekend, it started to click for me. Here are my pages...

 

 

The note inside the little glassine envelope describes how I felt when we bought our house. Happy would be a good word to describe it!

   

This is a collection of pictures from our Photo Booth shennanigans.

So I have the most amazing weekend planned! Usually when Glen is out of town (which he is now), I like to stay home during the weekend. I like to cozy up and do nothing for the whole weekend except do my crafting, snack at irregular hours, burp, fart, you know...just having me some "me time."

This weekend, though, I have lots of fabulous plans! Friday night my sweet friend Heidi is coming over to play! We're going to go out to dinner and then she's coming over to my house to craft!! FUN!

Saturday, I am meeting my friends, Leah and Jennifer, for lunch and then we are going to a class together called, "Creating A New Life." I'll be sure to share with you what that's all about!

And then..then...then...after class? I am going over to Andrea's house!!! Claudine coming over too and us girls is gonna snack, drink Grapefruit Martinis and do some Show and Telling of all our recent crafty projects! OHHHH I'm so excited! I ADORE hanging out with these ladies! BTW...Andrea just posted that she is starting up a new Circle Journal! I joined her last one and it was oh so fun! If doing a Circle Journal is on your list of 2008 to do's, then this is the one to do!

Okay...I'd better get...gotta go do some chores before the Sandman sneaks in here. He's been visiting me early this week! :-)

circle journal - last LO!

Boy life sure is traveling at WARP speed these days! SO much going on! I got lots done this weekend, mostly in preparation for Silver Bella, and I'll be sharing LOTS with you but for today's show and tell...

I give you the last of the LO's for the Circle Journal I'm participating in that the lovely and talented Andrea hosted. Thank you SO much for all your hosting prowess, Andrea, and for your efforts to wrangle this thing to a close!!! The last LO here is actually Andrea's! Her theme is "When Words Fail, Music Speaks."

Way back when I first heard Andrea's theme, I knew my LO would be either about my favorite singer Jeff Buckley or about my favorite song. "In My Life" by a couple of lads you may have heard of, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. :-) I went with my favorite song which is, in my opinion, the most perfect and best song ever recorded in the history of the Universe. This is my "stranded on a desert island and can only pick on song to listen to forever" song. Oh but first...

SPOILER WARNING FORMALITY...CIRCLE JOURNAL AHEAD! :-)

The journaling inside is a letter to John and Paul telling them how their song "In My Life," saved my marriage, which it did. :-)

I will get this baby in the mail tomorrow and on it's way to Dana. This CJ thang is done and dusted...well for me anyways! Ya-hooey!

Okay so I got some other news...you ready for this? Miranda slammed a car door on her hand this past Saturday and broke her middle left finger. OUCH OUCH OUCH! She said when it happened, she just starting screaming, "F..., F..., F...!!!" (you can guess the word!) Her friend Jessi had to come around and open the car door to get Miranda's finger out! Okay...this has got to be THE test of parental separation...hearing that your child has hurt herself and that she had to wait six or seven hours in the ER and you're not within hugging distance! Thank goodness she's okay and is on antibiotics and Motrin. My (almost 21 year old) baby! :-(

Circle Journal...

So there's still some activity goin' on with the Circle Journal I've been participating in, which is being hosted by Andrea. I received mine back and oh man! How fun to get it back all filled out, stuffed full of some very sincere and heartfelt words. It makes me so happy to see the whole "things I hold dear" perspective by other people. Thank you SO much Andrea, Claudine, Dana, Jenna, Elizabeth W., Elizabeth M., Shelley, Samantha, and Sheila for making this so fun.

So here's what my CJ looks like all chunked up! Yay!

And then here's my LO for Dana's CJ. Her theme is "favorite quotes" and her book is 6 x 6. SO lovely. This theme was SO easy for me because I have a very favorite quote. I've talked a lot about it before so I won't go into it, lest I bore you. Here's the left side of the LO...

The little card pulls out and the journaling reads...

When I first began to explore "my style" as an artist, I truly felt like it had all been done before. I thought I would never be able to discover an authentic style and that it would always look like I was copying other artists. This quote profoundly reminds me that as long as I create from my heart and from my own experiences, "my style" will shine through.

Here's the right side which includes the quote is my guiding light...

Oh I forgot to mention that Rhonna is doing another 21-day Challenge. It started this past Saturday. Even though I'm joining in late, I'm still gonna join in. I have got LOTS of habits to start and stop! How do I pick? :-)

Hope you're having a great week!!!

circle journal.

Oh boy oh boy! I got another LO done for my Circle Journal group hosted by the lovely and talented Andrea.

This one was Jenna's CJ and her topic is "L*O*V*E is." This is a very important topic to me. I am very much a fan of love. In fact, one might even say I love love. :-)

I love my life, I love my family and I love my husband. I have been especially loving him this past week after this story. Glen knows Mary, Tim's wife, pretty good. He met Tim a few times and attended the funeral. Very very sad.

Anyways, I certainly don't mean to be a downer but when these things happen, it stops me in my tracks. I get a bit emotional and become very thankful for all that I have and who I have in my life.

Oh yeah...SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT *** CIRCLE JOURNAL AHEAD!

Since dear Mr. Scanner is still on vacation, here's a snapshot of the two side together. The text on the card on the left (that's Glen's parents on their wedding day in 1952) reads "my true love's heart was made from true love." Corny, I know but this is what it feels like to be loved by Glen.

The journaling on my wedding picture (taken 1984) reads, "Glens parents were as in love and devoted to each other as two people could be. He grew up with love and knew what it looked like. After we dated for one week, Glen asked me to marry him. I said yes. That was 23 years ago and it just keeps getting better!" :-)

In some other fun news, I spent a bit of time today getting some things together for the Cupcake Swap I'm participating in which is being hosted by Tammie. I'm also putting together a care package for Wendy! Good times! Oh and I also started "Eat Love Pray" today. It's good already!!!

See ya, pals!

circle journal.

***** Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert *** 

*** Circle Journal Peeky ***

Ring a ding ding...I finally finished up my LO in the Circle Journal the lovely and talented Andrea is hosting. Be sure to check out her Etsy shop!

This LO is for Sheila's CJ and her theme is "Happiness is..." Whoo-hoo! This one was another fun one. I just love going with the first thing that pops in my head when I hear the topic and so far I've been happy with the results. Okay, so now I can get this one in the post and look forward to the next one. Only three more LOs to go! Wah!

So I know the picture is kind of wonky but, bear with me, the ink cartridge on our printer was running low and so this is how it printed. The thing is, I really like it! It looks altered so I decided to work with it!

I also added a transparency in between my two pages.

And I just LOVE how chunky this CJ is looking! (Sorry it's so blurry!) How fun! I hope mine comes back all chunked up like this one! :-)

See you good people later! Hope you have a FABULOUS week!

circle journal action.

Hello My Friends! Tonight was a very productive night for me. I have to come clean and share that I was behind with my Circle Journal hosted by Andrea. I was very busy spending time with Lilli and her husband and taking some vacation time. But I jumped right on it tonight and finished it!

The Circle Journal I had was Elizabeth M's and her topic was "Let's Eat!" Oh boy! I'm a girl who definitely knows how to eat! :-)

*** SPOILER ALERT***   ***IMPENDING CIRCLE JOURNAL GOODNESS AHEAD***

Elizabeth gave us each a recipe card to use as our sign in "page." SO cute. She also gave us each a sweet little package of blank recipe cards! Thank you Elizabeth!!!

Left side - my yummy recipe for hmm hmm hmm hummus!!!!

This is one of my all time favorite recipes!!! There's a deli in town called Elephant's and they make the most amazing tomato-orange soup. One Heavenly Tuesday, the recipe appeared in the Food Day section of the Oregonian. That was a very happy day. I keep photocopies of it so I am always prepared to share it. Since we don't do dairy in our house, we use soy butter for the butter and Silk Half and Half for the Heavy Cream. In the days when we did eat dairy, we used to float thin slices of Cotswold cheese on top. Oh. My. God. SO good!

The images I used for these pages are color photocopies from a 1934 cookbook I found at at a junque shop. It didn't have a cover but I still bought it (I think it was $1) since it had these amazing images in it! LOVE 'EM!

So yippee skippy, this CJ is happily on it's way to Dana! This weekend I am working on March's justjohanna Design Team assignment and then I need to play catch up on Emily's Playing Card journal! Eeeeeee! So much fun and art on my horizon!!! :-)

Oh and I still have LOTS more pictures to share with you from Lilli's visit!! Busy busy busy! But no school for me until April 2 so I have time to play!

circle journal.

So just in case you were wondering, I'm still doing the Circle Journal that Andrea is hosting; however, Andrea added in a little break to give folks a chance to catch up. Worked out PERFECT for me since I had the March justjohanna Design Team projects due last week. So I have Samantha's CJ right now. Her CJ topic is "This Journal Brought to You by the Letter C." This was fun and the pages in this CJ so far are cute cute cute!!! For this LO, I wasn't feelin' the scrapbooking thing and went with something more along the lines of this latest bit of inspiration I've been enjoying. Isn't she wonderful??! I hope I don't get kicked out of the CJ club!

Before we go further though...

***SPOILER ALERT***   *** IMPENDING CIRCLE JOURNAL VIEWING!!!***

Left side...

Right side -- and yes, dorky me, I included that last picture I took of myself with my new glasses. :-)

This was lots of fun! I used Making Memories acrylic paint diluted with Golden Glazing Medium. I used my all-time favorite pen, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen. I did all the drawing first and then painted right over the top of it.

So this baby's on it's way to Dana. Can't wait to get the next one!!!

Hope you have a wonderful, artsy-filled week!

circle journal fun.

Hello My Lovelies! Sorry I've been away! I've just been spending my time doing other things...primarily cleaning up my studio!!! I'm having a VERY special visitor in March and I want my studio to be in tip top shape!

Also, I had THE REAL root canal done today. Piece of cake. I took some Ibuprofen, as recommended by the dentist, and the only discomfort I've had the whole day is a mildly sore. Bless him! :-) The single worst part of the whole ordeal was that friggin' tooth tent! I completely panicked when the dentist installed it. Until you get used to it, it feels like it's sealing your mouth closed. I was not prepared for that! The dentist was very considerate and let me take my time to adjust. He offered to find an alternative but I "manned" up, to quote our friend Wayne, and after doing some deep relaxation breaths, I was fine.

Okay, so time for some more Circle Journal pictures! Oh but first....

*** WARNING WARNING CIRCLE JOURNAL ALERT ***

Here is my LO in Elizabeth's CJ. Thanks again to Andrea for hosting this. So much fun and so challenging, but in a good way. Elizabeth's topic is "The Five Senses" and at first, I struggled with this one. It took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to do but then once I picked a subject and focused on that, it not only made it easy, but it also made it SO JOYFUL! You'll understand in a sec...

Left side...

Right side...

My sweet soft flowery little girlie pot pie. Sigh. It does my heart so much good to reflect on the little subtle things that contributed to her childhood; thereby,my memories of being a mother. Lord knows there were a few years there with memories I would just as soon forget. So I go back to these memories OFTEN!!!

I also wanted to share with you Elizabeth's sign in page. This group of Circle Journal ladies are frickin' genius' with these sign in pages! I am astounded with how clever they are!!!

circle journal.

I just finished my LO in Shelley's Circle Journal. So ask me how good it feels to get that done? Go ahead! It feels GREAT!!! :-) Since I got this done, that means I'll be able to mail it off to Dana tomorrow which means it will be on time!!! Yes! And something else very VERY exciting...my sweet sweet darling dear of a husband bought us a new printer! OH HAPPY DAY! It's so SWEET! It prints beautifully, plus it scans, plus it photocopies! My art life has just ramped up a notch!

So I played around last night and scanned in the pictures of my CJ pages. Oh, first...

**** SPOILER WARNING***

***AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE CIRCLE JOURNAL PAGES*** 

***DANGER DANGER*** 

We can now resume...

So Shelley's theme was "The Story of My Favorite Image." Very cool. I have so many of favorite pictures. I have an incredible picture of my Mom with her skinny, gorgeous self in a hand-made dress holding a cigarette. Then there's the cute one of me when I was in Kindergarten. There's the one of my Dad doing something he dearly loved... barbecuing! Then there's me and my two beautiful sisters as "Ted's Angels" (big smile!)

But my favorite picture at the moment is one of my sweet girlie at about age 8. It was taken on our first visit back to California after we had moved to Oregon (I think --- I didn't put dates on my pictures back then so I have to do a lot of estimating). Anyways, I just love this shot. It's Miranda being Miranda. I think the picture is so powerful for me because even though I didn't know it at the time, I was seeing Miranda as her true self. It was a candid moment where I caught her in her own world, discovering things at her own pace. SO Miranda.

Left side with the journaling...

And the right side, with the picture of Miranda...

Whew! That was hard work!!!! I'm sure I'll get the hang of this scanning stuff. The "scanning" part is easy...it's figuring out where it's saved vs. where I want it to save. Oi!

Okay so I'm off now to see what's what with the what what in my world. Glen's off to an airplane function (I decided not to go) and Miranda's spent the night at one of her homey's house so for now, the house is gloriously quiet. Lots to do and it looks like that sun is trying to peek out. I'd better go try and get some gardening done...quick!

Bye bye, my bunnies!

circle journal.

***SPOILER WARNING*** 

***CIRCLE JOURNAL UPDATE***

Okay so I got the first LO done in my first Circle Journal! I'm SO tickled!!! This is SO fun!

This is a Circle Journal being hosted by Andrea and the first one I had was Claudine's. Her theme is "Back Where I Come From," a title of a Kenny Chesney song. What a great topic! REALLY thought provoking!

First I wanted to share the sign in page. I just thought Claudine's method was brilliant. Everyone gets their own little tag of their own to decorate. What a sweet little treat! The "Hello My Name is" and "Michelle" are stamps that I photocopied and then did the packaging tape transfer thing. If you're not familiar with this transfer method, go check this out. These instructions call for a color copy but I have just as much success with black and white laser photocopies. It's super easy!

Here's the left side of the LO.  The photo is another packaging tape transfer. So can you tell I've been ACTIVELY perusing blogs by the likes of Pam Garrison and Teresa McFayden?

Right side....

The paper I used on these pages is from a package of Anna Griffin papers. I had this craving to do some wallpapering and these papers completely satisfied that! And that green ribbon at the bottom? It's made by Making Memories and it totally looks like old timey crepe paper. OH MAN I am LOVIN' that stuff! I gotta get me some more...and more...and more!

When I got home from Algegra class tonight, I found Shelley's CJ had been delivered by Claudine, (Thank you Claudine!!!) Shelley's theme is "The Story of My Favorite Image." Oh man! Can't wait to clear the decks to work on this one! Love it!

Hope you have a fa-BOO evening, Dolls! 

Circle Journal.

I did it! I sent my little baby Circle Journal off on it's way to Dana!  I'm so nervous but I know when it returns to me, it will be a grown up Circle Journal, full of experiences! Sigh. :-)

Claudine dropped her Circle Journal off at my door last night and I have to tell you, this is one talented Chica! I was speechless at how elegant and gorgeous her journal is!!! I saw pictures of it on her blog but that simply did not prepare me for how fantastic it looks in person. I am so excited to be a part of this awesome group! I'm gonna learn TONS!!!

Okay, so here's what I did for my sign in page. I used all justjohanna stamps (aren't they marvelous!!!!??)

And here are the two pages of my LO. The journal is binder-ring bound and so it opens up flat. If you don't remember, my journal theme is "Hold Dear." :-)

The structure of my journaling here is wonky but kinda hard to go back and change it now! :-)

In the future when I post, it will be other people's Circle Journal pages so there will always be a SPOILER warning at the top of my blog, just in case they check here and DON'T want to see what I've done to their books! LOL!

Okay...watch tomorrow's post if you want to see a sneak preview of what my "heART giveaway" will look like!

Cheers! Oh and BTW, Atticus is doing wonderful after his ordeal. Thanks again SO much for all your sweet kitty-shaped hugs!

The little guy is really anxious to get back outside! Hmmm...I'm not quite ready for that! He'll have to wait until I've fully recovered! :-) With Atticus being indoors now, he and Tommy make a lot of noise and try to make us think they don't like each other. But I think I have proof that they are actually buddies!!! What do you think?

circle journal cover.

Well howdy do. I stayed home from work today. I probably could have gone in but I just decided that I'd take the easy route and keep close to home. The main streets have pretty much been cleared but the side streets are still all snowy and frosty!

One of the benefits to staying home today was that I finished the cover for my Circle Journal which is being hosted by Andrea aka shopgirl! I had all the materials so I tried making the journal that I'll be using. The cover is display board, the pages are bristol board, and then it's all held together with binder rings. The display board worked FABULOUS! I used lots of paint so the board initially warped, of course! But once it dried, it went totally flat! LOVE it! The theme of my CJ is "Hold Dear." Sound familiar? :-) I've just been thinking a lot about the title of my blog and with this being my first CJ, I felt like I wanted to have some fun and document for myself just what "hold dear" means to me. I hope the other participants will have some fun with it too!

So here's the cover:

I also wanted to share with you a picture I took of Mr. Atticus today. Miranda and I went for a walk up to Rite Aid (since I missed yoga today!) and Atticus followed us down to the creek! We came to one of the many snowmen in our neighborhood and Atticus paid a lot of attention to this one!

Not sure what tomorrow will bring. But I'm hoping for good weather on Friday because I have the day off and am registered for two Donna Downey classes at Scrapbook Attack! Fun fun fun!