Smashing Good Fun

Ya, I caved....I bought a smashbook. Emily has been carrying this line for a while now and told me I needed it. Well, I hedged, like I normally do but I ventured into Pickle a couple weeks ago and now Kim has them and I had a weak moment and caved. And I'm so glad I did. It is like scrapbooking for dummies. I have scrapbooked in the past but when I look at that blank page my mind goes as blank as the paper. This is different, it almost prompts you and that is what I think I needed. And of course, if I was gonna smash, I needed the little Fuji instax camera that Emily and Ebru went crazy for so I had a bit of Christmas day fun and created this page.

To explain "this is now", the opposite page says "that was then" so I'm gonna dig out some early xmas photo's to smash on that side. And what better way to compliment my mini instant pictures than to use Stamping Bella's grunge filmstrip die from the Journal your Art out set. I notice that she has called it set #1 and I'm hoping that means there will be more sets like it in the future.

As for the other things on the page, the trees are Tim Holtz, "this is now" are quickutz and christmas was stamped from a VERY old River City alphabet set that I've had for years. Like so long that alphabet dies were still just a dream in someone's mind.

While I haven't made any cards for the last couple weeks, I have kept crafty in other ways like decorating my house for the holidays

little Baby Jesus in his manger that was always one of my fav things as a kid and
 a few years ago my mom gave it to me. He used to go under our tree, but this year
I've got him on display on an end table

When I moved to Chatham, my mom thought I should have a little tree so she
bought me this one to put on a tabletop. I've had it for over 25 years and it has not
missed a Christmas yet. I do however have to get more ornaments for it though because
mice got to it this year. The quilt hanging on the wall was made by ME! Yup in my
quilting days I made this skinny santa quilted wall hanging. It hasn't surfaced for years
but I thought it  was time to bring it back out. I love skinny santa's.

I even decorated the light fixture hanging in our dining room. The glass
egg shaped ornaments I made a few years ago and this year I made the
round ones. They are decorated with a product called LuminArte which
is a thin glue like liquid you pour into the ornament and then add mica
like powders that stick to the glue. It is pretty cool and no matter what
you do, no two ornaments look the same.

This little tree is in my living room. Our other big tree is in the family room
and I don't really have room in here for a tree that large. And if you look to the
left, you'll see my little collection of Westie poo's! Love my puppy!

That's it for my decorating. I'm sure for some people, this is pretty slim but I don't like clutter so this is just enough to make it a little more festive around here.

Our regular Bellarific Friday's will start up again on Jan 13th and by popular demand we will be featuring a lot more sketches....like LOTS more. I hope Dana, our commander in chief, doesn't slap my wrist but I'm gonna give you a little Chrismas surprise and release our FIRST SKETCH OF THE YEAR! So no excuses, I'm sure you all got some new crafty stuff that you are dying to break into and I'm giving you two weeks to email your card to Emily! Go get inky!

I'll be back tomorrow with a little NON Christmas NON Winter project I completed over the holidays.