Happy New Year.....

I hope you all had a WONDERFUL New Year and everyone is happy and healthy......My New Year's Eve was quiet and that's just fine by me....Hubby and I went out to dinner then came home...he watched movies and played his video game....I spent the evening in my ARTHaven!!!  No better place for me!!! ;)

I don't make New Year's Resolutions because I know I'll never stick to them....however one thing I did promise myself is that I wanted to create ART for the sake of CREATING and not always for orders or for things to sell........So I decided I was going to start with something last night......I had purchased some acrylic clear stamps the other day that gave me the idea to do this....so with the use of my new stamps, MY DIGITAL STAMP I had created a couple months back, some of MY CUT FILES I've designed and created and lots of other steps my gift for ME came together..........Check it out....I'm quite happy.......

I selected some pictures of my family to put on each page of my calendar.......not picking a particular image to go on a particular month other than the month of October which is my anniversary month.........I just basically picked some of my favorite pictures..........

The ones of the babies....are MY BABIES......Well, they're not babies anymore........My "babies" are now 23 and 15........my how the years go by so fast!!!!!!  Each one I picked of them hold a very special place in my heart..........even the one of Billy that's not real clear....I still LOVE it and just decided whether it was a good image or not......I LOVE it so I used it.....I took each of the pictures and changed them to Sephia tone....I felt the color tones worked so well with my color choices of my layouts.......

The Calendar base is a digital stamp I created a couple months back......If you like it I have a link to it below...you can just click the image of it and it will take you to the page on my website where it can be found......I then took a coffee colored sharpie and wrote the dates in for each month......I used my acrylic stamps to stamp the month and the year.......I then used my cuttlebug and embossed the edges of the calendar and then hit with some Walnut Stain Tim Holtz Distress Ink pad and my foam applicator......I also.....I wrapped some thin brown ribbon around the page and tied in a simple knot to give some added attention......

DIGITAL STAMP FILE

On the pictures I printed them out then trimmed down...then I took my Distressing Tool and distressed the edges of the picture........I used one of my Corner Files I had designed and created several months back and sized to the size I wanted and cut with my Cricut.........If you like this file and you don't already have it you can find it by clicking the image below and it will take you to the page on my website where you can download it....

CORNER FILE

I wanted to add an added dimension to the page so, you know I LOVE flowers.....so I decided to use some of my Flower Cut Files I designed several months back............cut with my Cricut then distressed the edges again with some Tim Holtz Distress ink in Walnut Stain........used a brad eyelet and my Crop-A-Dail to set them......curled the petals with a thin tool and adhered to my page with a foam dot......If you like the flower files and didn't get them before....you may click the images below and they will take you to the page on my website where you can get them....

FLOWER CUT FILES

Once I had all my pages decorated the way I wanted them I used my BIA to punch the holes and put the wire  coil on....I also added a back layer of chip board..........When I purchased my BIA several months back they sent me this stand to display your ART books you create......well I decided to use it to display my book.......had little screws that you can attach your project to it so it will hold it for you and then you can just flip the pages..........I'm sharing a picture of it below so you can see how it works..........

So....This is the project I made for me!!!!!!! Do you like it???? I'm SO thrilled with the way it came out and can see myself making some of these for gifts...........Now I go back to playing with some paper...I was just so tickled with how it turned out I wanted to share it with you....As always, THANK YOU SO MUCH for coming by to visit with me!!!! It REALLY means alot!!!!  I pray you all have a very blessed remainder of the weekend......I hope you will come by again....Until next time.......