The Winter Solstice and six weeks of my life

Yesterday when I left off, I had cleaned off my main floor craft desk and was getting ready to wrap these gifts.  I spent six weeks making these file folder books with the help of AEDM.  Thankfully, the dyed and painted fabric I created this spring and summer was patiently waiting for me to use in a project.  However, before I did that,

I paid homage to the Winter Solstice, which arrived today at 1:11 p.m. in my time zone (Central Time Zone of Northern Hemisphere).  It is the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere (anyone living south of the equator) today.

This page certainly lived up to its name, as Bleubeard and I welcomed winter in with an ice storm, which is currently weighing my electricity and phone lines down, and making my porch slippery to walk on.  That will be followed in a couple of hours from now by snow courtesy of winter storm Gemini.  They are predicting 4-8 inches of snow on top of the already icy conditions.  I've been in contact with a few of the people who are planning to visit over Christmas, and because of the winter advisory in my area, I have discouraged them from coming until they know it is safe to travel.  All will be traveling by car, so there are no worries about getting stranded at airports.  Hopefully the weather will improve before Christmas, or Bleubeard and I may have to eat all these goodies by ourselves.

Using gesso, I created this page in my collage journal by first blocking out all the words and images, except the word "Winter."  I allowed that to dry, then added a second coat of gesso, to which I added the holographic snowflakes which turned mostly pinkish under the scanner light. It's far more textural than it appears in the scan.

Now lets put all thoughts of bad weather aside and return to my scrappy file folder books.

Before I wrapped these two scrappy file folder books I've already shown on Day 25 of AEDM, I added the decorations you see here.

I wanted to show the extra gift I added to my friend Kathy's tag in the front of her book.

A close-up of this piece I made right before I participated in Where Bloggers Create this summer, is far easier to see now that I have a decent camera.  I encourage you to click on the photo for a better view.

Now that all the old news is out of the way,

let's move on to scrappy file folder book 3.

This was actually the last book I finished, so I was trying to hurry it along.  I used some of my leftover stamped images from my tip-ins on the left side of the book, and a post card and flowers on the right side.  The top flower hides the back of a decorative metal clamp I added to the next page.

The swirl and bird on the left were intended to compliment the quote.  I added a bit of ribbon and the metal "Merry Christmas" clamp on the left side.

More leftover Christmas stamped images were sewn to the right side.  I sewed ribbon over the name on the file folder (top right).

A pocket on the left page holds the note explaining how to use the scrappy book.  The "joy" tag was a sticker.

A place to leave notes and a vintage postcard from Kansas City, MO were sewn on the right.

Any time I can sew two images at once shortens my sewing time.  That's what I did when I added this and the other postcard on the reverse side.  Both postcards are vintage images from Kansas City, MO.

The tree on the right was a die cut I made when I visited my art friend Kathy this summer.

Scrapbook paper and a magazine image were sewn to the left file folder, while a frame was added to compliment the collographic image on the right.

A vintage calendar image was paired with the leftover oval from the frame on the reverse side.  Two leftover pieces from my tip-ins were sewn to the file folder, too.  On the right is an envelope to hold notes about gifts received, while

another envelope for notes about cards received is on the left of this page.

I'm not sure where I got this cupcake holder, but it looked like it belonged on this page on the right.

I sewed the cupcake holder on the back at the same time.  I added a tag that can be written on, too.

This is my final scrappy file folder book I made.  I decided to wait till tomorrow to show the inside, though.  I didn't want you getting bored, since I took so many photos while my internet was being repaired.

Thanks for sticking with me so long and welcome to WINTER.  How's the weather in your area?