An Attack of the Fa La La's

So, this past weekend I'd planned to do a lot of sewing.  I'd cleared off the sewing table (how is it that random stuff accumulates there?!), I had a project in mind to finish, and I was ready to go.  But then I had a sudden attack of Christmas. Maybe it was the result of singing Christmas songs every week in preparation for our upcoming chorus concerts.  Maybe it was that I'd flipped on the TV and found myself in the middle of a sappy yet endearing holiday movie on the Hallmark Channel.

It started innocently enough.  I had the thought to play for a moment with a cool snowflake-making stamp I'd bought on sale recently.

And then I started pulling out and cutting paper.

Yes, it's stacked up on my sewing machine bed.  Don't those Christmas patterns look beautiful with my festive red Bernina?  And then there was more...

and more... 

I went into a happy and busy flurry of  cutting, trimming, punching, die cutting, pattern-mixing, stacking, and decorating.

And next thing you know, I had not just one Christmas book, but a whole bunch more just waiting to be bound together with my handy dandy ring binding machine. When I'm in a craft-flurry, I don't do things halfway.  I mean, why make one book when you could make six or seven or twelve?

 What will I do with them, you ask? When I get them all loaded up with goodies (tags and journaling cards and such) I'll list them on my Etsy shop.  In the next day or two or three.

There are a lot of fun things you can do with a Christmas book.  Have you heard of December Daily? Some years ago, creative blogger and designer Ali Edwards announced a project to record the fun of holiday preparations, day by day, through the month of December.  It's a way of creating a mini-scrapbook dedicated to family and festive preparations and holiday celebrations, all in one pretty book.  As I was making these books, I was thinking they'd be perfect for that sort of thing.

 Personally, I've never managed to journal each day as it goes by... Instead, I tend to work in batches, doing a few days at a time after the fact, when I have the bits and bobs in hand and ideas about what I want to record.  But even doing it in my own sporadic fashion, I love wrapping up December with a book filled with notes and photos and images to remind me of the fun of the season. 

Even if you're not into that sort of scrapbooking, you could just fill them with your own holiday treasures, in your own style.  Favorite recipes.  Memories of Christmases past.  Photos.  Receipts.  Shopping and task lists.  The menu for Christmas dinner.

hmm, maybe a book like this would make a good Christmas gift for someone to use next Christmas.

If you want one and can't wait until they're up on my Etsy shop, email me! I can get one right out to you so you'll be ready to go with it by December 1! 

Meanwhile, I have to go try to find the table in my sewing -- ahem, I mean bookmaking -- room now!