Cornucopia of Leaves

For my November calendar page, I created this lovely cornucopia of leaves.

The background paper is from my Close to my Heart stash.  The cornucopia was cut with the Paper Doll Cricut cartridge.  I cut it from Desert Sand cardstock and sponged the lines with Desert Sand ink.  The leaves were cut using the Artiste Cricut cartridge.

To make the leaves more realistic, I first crumpled them up.  Next I used clear embossing to create the veins in the leaves.  Then I sponge daubed the leaves using brown and orange inks.  Voila!  Leaves!

Thanks for visiting!  Have a great day!

Preserving Stories

Here are some creative ways to preserve your stories:

Make a meal together using family recipes.  Write or print the recipes on 4x6 cards and place them in a photo album.  Give a recipe book to family members as Christmas gifts.  As space allows, include the stories behind the recipes.

Interview someone in your family.  Here is a great list of questions to start asking.  Take a voice recorder to make sure you don't miss the details.  If you can't visit in person, mail or email the questions to the person you'd like to interview.  Use the answers in a scrapbook or journal.  If you create a digital scrapbook, you can email the jpegs or print multiple copies.

If scrapbooking is not what you want to do, sit down with a box of photos and label away.  It may not sound exciting, but my heart breaks every time I see a stack of unlabeled photos. They hold countless stories that may never be told.

Make a memory box.  Cover the outside with pieces cut from wrapping paper, cards, fabric, etc.  The inside can be filled with special items.  Our daughter has a small box with items from her great grandma.

Get a journal or calendar to keep in your purse.  Write down a sentence or two when something happens.  Every night I write a couple of sentences on my calendar about what happened that day or something memorable that was said.  Our family also keeps a thankful journal.  Each night we all write something in the book.  One of our kids loves to read it over and over.

This photo was taken of my grandma and daughter shortly before we moved out of state.  It was a very special day and one of my favorite pictures of Less than a year later, she passed away.