Calendar Crafts & Paper Play

* Happy Wednesday, everyone! *

Now, I don't know what it's like today where you live, but good gravy is it COLD here in New England! I think we peaked at 17 degrees just after lunchtime? And here we had ourselves fooled into thinking we'd have a mild winter this year ...

Well, depsite the rather "brisk" weather, the boys spent almost an hour playing outside after morning lessons (what we like to call "recess"). More power to them, I say, lol! They came in all rosy-cheeked and out of breath ... to find the fireplace cracklng and a lunch hot from the oven. I'm so glad I can give my boys days like this. :)

Anyhoo, I've been playing around with all that pretty paper I showed you recently, and making up some fun things for my "home office" space. I thought you might like to see what I've been working on ...

First of all, it was time to make up a new "clippings" journal. My old one was filled to the brim:

I've blogged about this journal before ... it's just a simple, spiral-bound notebook (a Mead 3-subject, college rule to be specific) that I cover with seasonal paper and a Mary Engelbreit calendar page. Inside, I keep clippings I take from magazines and newspapers, as well as ticket stubs, jar labels, meaningful receipts, ribbon scraps, post-it note sketches and other random bits and bobs ...

I've kept these humble little journals for years now; I generally fill them up in about three months' time. I think of them as a colorful, mostly cheerful, collage of my thoughts - and to a smaller extent, the world - at that time in life. Someone once told me it was what they would call a "brain dump" - a term that made me laugh and cringe at the same time. ;)

 I'm also in the process of updating my big homekeeping binder ...

To start with, I gave it a pretty new cover - all red and cream, to go with the new colors in our sitting/learning room. This print above (also seen at the very top of this post) has what looks like an old-fashioned, crocheted coverlet laid on top of a vibrant red background. It's homey and feminine, I think.

I made up the date label myself - it's just an ecru tag with number stickers. I also used those tiny red stickers to make up a new clipboard:

And here is the homekeeping binder resting beneath a calendar I'm working on ...

(See how nicely it all coordinates? :))

In that thick stack, I have many soft ivory pages and several seasonal dividers ...

As well as a cover page still under consideration ...

(I can't decide if I like tiny calendars or crocheted roses for the cover!)

And all those inside pages are still on the drawing board, lol.

I'll post more about this project once I get it further along, but for now I'll just call it my "daybook." Because I'm really taking my time with this ... I've already missed the January 1st deadline, so I figure I might as well putter to my heart's content! And maybe, if I don't rush it, I just might create something useful. I made a calendar book like this a few (several?) years ago, and while I loved the overall look and idea of it, it just didn't stick. Now, I could blame this on me being fickle (which I certainly can be!), but I do think I rushed the project and didn't really think it through carefully. This time around, I'm spending a lot more time designing the pages. I started by calling to mind exactly what things I need to address in a given week or day, and once I had my lists I started in on the designs you see above.

As I say, this is still very much a work in progress, so I'll post more details once I have it all buttoned up and home from the binder!

Well, for now, I'll be off ... but not before I wish you all a good night and, of course, thank you for stopping by. It will be a quiet night here ... Bookworm is out for the evening so we've had an early supper (in fact, I'm finishing this very post while ignoring the dishes in the sink, lol). And sadly, we're all caught up on Downton Abbey so we do not have a new episode to watch this evening. Both Bill and I absolutely loved the whole series and can hardly wait for the new season to start! How fun to have something really good to watch again - and mull over - each week. :)

So good night for now my friends ... I'll see you all again very soon!

*❤*