Tomorrow is Dec. 1st.

Manifesto: Noun. A declaration of one's intentions.

Starting December first, I will keep a Christmas journal. In it, I will write something every day to reflect on the holidays of my past, enjoy the holidays of the present and dream about the holidays of my future. To some, this will be a stack of papers and trivial scribbles, but not to me. I am taking back my Christmas, I am letting it be something I relish and, most importantly, I am giving at least fifteen minutes every day to myself no matter how crazy this season becomes.

I hope you will share, encourage and understand as I make something with my own hands, my own words and my own memories.I may post some or all of my entries here. Other artists are doing this with me, and you can see their work HERE. Or you may join us too by going HERE.

Above all: enjoy the season. I will.

I've decided to do my journal in an envelope type book. Using coin envelopes as the pages...with journaling to be tucked inside each envelope. My good friend Nancy Grant made an album like this once, for her boys...and I loved it. Then I saw a 12 Days of Christmas book (like this) in the latest issue of Paper Trends magazine and felt totally inspired to use a similar idea for my book. I'll be using the Basic Grey Blitzen collection from my stash for embellishing my journal. I'm trying desperately to cut back on my scrap spending so I decided to use what I have instead of buying new. (as hard as that was to decide on)

So...wish me luck! (and good luck to everyone else in the class too!!!) And check back here throughout the month to see some of the pages I've done in my new holiday journal.