It's a work in progress post this morning, because frankly this may be as much as I get done on the book before heading off into the world of Christmas.
Before I get to the pages though, I want to mention that today is a 'day in the life' collective project over on flickr. Since I'll be aiming my lens throughout the day anyway, I absolutely plan to participate. Have never done that before, but apparently it's a matter of collecting your top 5 photos from the day to share. I think that might be a fun way for me to sort of cull and prioritize today's photos for my DD project.
On the 17th I didn't take any pictures whatsoever, so I decided to make a collage of sorts with some email, the kids school newsletter and a summary of my status reports from facebook from the year.
For those of you on facebook, the 'year in status' summary maker is here. Once you've created a summary you can save it as a .png (or photo) file to your hard drive to make a print. I covered the bunch of papers with an inkjet transparency on which I printed the big ampersand. There's kid-art in another page protector to finish the spread.
Next came the kids' Christmas pagaent.
All I've done on this is arrange the photos and print them. Day 18 isn't finished, but this event is always sort of a turning point for me in the season. The sound of childrens' voices raised in unison gives me pause; the eve is imminent. I'm amazed at how readythe children are. Not just for Santa, and for presents, but they have done their diligence all month long. They have prepared the way. I get a little emotional even as I write this, and was even moreso sitting with other parents in the church listening and singing along. I always feel a bigger part of our parish community after this event, hugging the other Mom's (who I loved sitting with) at the end; wishes of Merry Christmas flowing freely.
(There, I think I've just written the bit -- which has eluded me -- for that day.)
Then came the storm. A blizzard; a nor'easter they called it. And that it was. I can't remember the last time we had 2 feet of snow in DC, let alone in 24 hours. Everything became white and shades of blue/gray and so did my layouts. On the right (above) I used one of my color photos as the background for the black and white shots of the kids. It's not color enhanced -- those are the true shades of dusk, mixed with twinkle lights on the snowy pines. I added some digital frames, some masking tape, and some bits of Bergen ribbon.
Day 19 continued into evening, and I had to include one of those photos to fully tell our story. This may be my favorite page so far. I cut small slits in the page on the right and fed stitched paper through in ribbon fashion, then added a bit of the same to the left side before stitching the border. It only needed a couple of snowflake sequins finished with teeny glass beads to highlight the handwritten holiday word art.
I'm gathering momentum on yesterday's page. Will certainly include the newspaper headlines. I'm not sure how each page will relate to, and connect with one another yet, but to be able to advance the project to this degree has been somewhat miraculous given all time spent shoveling and playing in the snow. I've had some late nights.
Now I must be off to commence my day of baking. Ingredients for Grandma's Christmas rosettes, lime meltaways, and cranberry ginger shortbread await. Christmas week is here!
