Here are the next few days of my Gratitude Journal.

11.7 The love between mother an dchild is one of our most precious gifts. These two warm my heart!

11.8 It's lots of fun watching Caleb learning new things. I'm always grateful for my opportunities to continue learning–there's never enough time to learn it all.

11.9 Books have always been so important to me and to Sarah. I hope Caleb finds the same pleasure in them when he grows up.

11.10 Technology pervades my life and most of the time, I'm very grateful for it. I would have never guessed I'd enjoy e-books as much as I do, and Sarah's another fan.

11.11 I'm so grateful to those who have fought time and again for my freedom. This is the newly dedicated Veteran's Memorial just outside our community garden.

11.12 No words are needed–such a beautiful baby and one of our greatest blessings.

Hope you are having a lovely Saturday. I'm off to a cooking demonstration at one of my favorite specialty shops. Last week they shared appetizers, and every one of them was delicious. The focus today is roasted vegetables–one of our favorites.

Once I read about other's plans to create a gratitude journal, I knew this was something I wanted to do. I needed to keep it simple, and my first thought was to combine it with my Capture Your 365 project with a photograph and a word or two. That's how it started, but yesterday when I was putting it together, I decided I wanted to journal a bit about each entry so I added some tags with journaling on both sides.

Here's the journal. I found this charming photo album in my stash and knew it would work perfectly. The old typewriter key alpha was just perfect–another item from the stash.

The title page was created on an Archiver's journaling card. I cut "grateful" with my Silhouette and used stamps for the date.

Here are the first two pages. Each tag slides in between two photos and the journaling for each is on one tag, so I wanted to keep all the photos back-to-back. This quote by Lemony Snicket was in Real Simple magazine this month, and is just perfect as an introdution.

Here's a look at one of the tags. Since it's difficult to avoid a glare photographing through the photo sleeve, I'll post the photos and the journaling directly to the blog, but you can see what it looks like here:

I decided not to worry about the orientation of the photos so some are landscape and many are portraits. But that doesn't bother me in the least.

So here are the first few days. I'll be back tomorrow with another edition.

11.1 There is nothing better than the laughter in my house when both of my kids are home. Caleb just adds to everyone's delight!

11.2 Blessed is how I feel to have Sarah and Caleb here for an extended visit.

11.3 We saw these blocks in a toy store last spring and knew we had them in the attic. Although Caleb's too young to build with them, tossing them about has been one of his pleasures.

11.4 It's been a long time since Sarah, Julie, and Stephanie have been together. What lovely young women they have become!

11.5 Ellie was here for dinner, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity to capture the four generations together.

11.6 Although I was delighted to have President Obama re-elected, I would be grateful for my right to vote regardless of the outcome.

I'll be back tomorrow with a look at the next few pages.

I had time this morning to make a card for three challenges (and with a birthday greeting inside), another card for upcoming occasions. First, for the Retro Sketch Challenge which I love:

Next, the ColorQ Challenge:

And, lastly, the CASual Friday challenge:

The three challenges seemed perfect for one another. The ColorQ and CASual Friday challenges both celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness. CASual Friday's was to celebrate the women in our life. The sentiment from Floral Frenzy (Papertrey Ink) seemed just perfect.

I used Raspberry Fizz cardstock for the base, and all the other papers came from my scrap drawer. In the photo, the sentiment block almost appears white, but IRL it's a definite pink.The scalloped border was made with a Fiskar's border punch, and the flowers are old, old Prima flowers. I gave away most of my flowers but, fortunately, saved one small box of a variety of flowers. The ribbon came from Michael's.

My mother-in-law, Ellie and Bill 

Tracy's step-father and the Grandpa to my children, passed away last night. Bill was a wonderful man, kind and caring, intelligent and witty, and a wonderful step-dad to Tracy, his siblings, and all the grandchildren. He will be sorely missed. He'd been in the hospital and rehab since the end of August, and as time went on it became abundantly clear to him that he was not going to recover enough to live an independent life. He was 91, and five days ago decided that he had had enough. He was able to say his good-byes to his daughters, all of us, and especially to Ellie. Please keep her (and us) in your prayers. Although she supported his decision to stop treatment, it is a devastaing loss to her. Given the awful fire in January where she lost her home and nearly all her possessions, this has been one year of terrible loss.

I haven't played along with a Casual Friday challenge in a long time, and it's been even longer since I participated in a Papertrey Ink Make-It-Monday even though I do look at them each week. This week, however, the two fit together perfectly. Casual Friday's challenge is to create a card based on your blog header. Since Random Reflections is the blog, and I almost always have a photographic reflection as my header, the Papertrey Ink technique of creating reflected sentiments couldn't have been more timely. I was quite pleased with my first attempt at this, and know I'll give it a try again.

I started with stamping the sentiment (Think Big Favorites #16) in Smoky Shadow ink and then doing the reflected sentiment.Then I used the Herringbone Impression plate (PTI) to emboss just the top half of the card front. I found the perfect patterned papers in the 6X6 Calico Classics paper pad (Studio Calico) and used the Happy Hexagons cover plate (PTI) to cut and arrange the hexagons. A small strip of one of the patterned papers and three woodgrain stars (Studio Calico) that I colored with Copics finished the main card. I mounted it on a Smoky Shadow mat, and then on a card made from Soft Stone (PTI).

I still have Take Twelve for August to scrap, but I got this layout done this weekend. I still haven't found a way to photograph a two page spread effectively. If anyone has a good process, I'd love to hear about it. Take Twelve seemed overwhelming this month because, truthfully, there wasn't much happening that day. I had just decorated the house for fall, however, so I decided to take 12 shots of some of the decorations.

I decided the layout really didn't need any journaling. I put the photos together in PSE without a template this time, just arranging them on a grid. It turned out pretty well. The background paper is more BoBunny Dots, and the cardstock for mats and letters is Terra Cotta Tile by Papertrey Ink. I cut the letters with my new Memory Box dies: Typewriter. As soon as I saw them on Jennifer McGuire's blog, I knew they were a "must-have." They'll be perfect on cards as well. The leaves are Amy Tangerine by American Craft and the buttons from a collection by Papertrey Ink.

I finally found some time this weekend to scrap. Ever since Adam posted these photos I've wanted to do a layout. The tiny letter stickers provide the journaling, "The pictures tell the story." I think the last photo sums it up, "What were you thinking, Dad?"

I used BoBunny dots for the background, always one of my favorites! The corrugated letters are Jillibean stained with the Tim Holtz Wild Honey. The tiny letter stickers are by Jenni Bowlin. All these supplies have been in my stash for quite some time. I cut the lemons with my Silhouette, and backed the slices with vellum.

Yesterday was Skylar's first birthday. She's walking, has four teeth, and is still just a delightful, happy little girl. The two photos of her aren't the best as the light left a lot to be desired, and I'm so reluctant to use a flash. (I ought to get over that!) She was more interested in the bow than the package or what was in it. Pretty typical for a one year old.

Here's the card I made for her:

Cardstock: Simply Chartreuse and Select White (PTI); patterned paper: A Muse; glitter paper: American Craft; dies: By the Number, Double Ended Banner, & Tag Sale #3 (PTI); Stamp: Big Birthday Wishes (PTI); ribbon from stash.

And a peek at the inside:

Stamp:  Heart2Heart 2 (PTI); patterned paper:  A Muse and American Craft (glitter); small scallop die (PTI)

At the other end of the spectrum, a dear friend of ours turned 81 last week. Here's the card I made for him.

Card:  Paper Source; Stamps: 2012 Birthday Tags, Fabulous Frames, & Background: Herringbone (all PTI); button: Pure Poppy (PTI)

I'm somewhat amazed that I've continued to take a photo every day for the last eight months. I can't say it's always been easy, and there are evenings when I really need to scramble, but it's so satisfying to see them all arranged on a layout. These calendar templates have prompted me to do a recap (somewhat like "My Month in Numbers") of what I've done and accomplished each month. This month was all about travel, and the tag hiding under the layout has a summary of all the places we visited during our three week trip. I just barely managed to get it all on the two sides of the tag.

I was quite pleased to see this map paper in this month's Studio Calico kit–perfect timing. The ribbon on the tag was also from the kit. The two dimensional stickers are Amy Tangerine by American Craft and the Flair Button is by Ormolu. The woodgrain Thickers are also American Craft.

Feel free to skim (or skip) all the journaling, but I thought I'd add it in case anyone wondered about the trip. Photos are coming. Every day I make some progress on culling and editing them. I bracketed most of my shots in Rocky Mountain National Park, and now have to learn how to use the PhotoMatix software I purchased earlier this summer. Here's the August recap:

We were on the road for three weeks in August. Like our previous two big trips, this one met or exceeded all our expectations. After a lovely weekend, with Carol & Gordon in Charlotte, we drove to Atlanta to babysit with Caleb while Sarah & Adam worked at a conference. While they were visiting with friends on Monday night, Tracy & I splurged on a fabulous meal at our #1 restaurant, Canoe. 

We spent four relaxing days at Shelter Cove on Hilton Head Island. Sarah and I did some serious shopping at the outlets, we took Caleb to the pool and to the beach, and we enjoyed some great food. We spent our last day together at Zoo Atlanta. 

When we left them at the airport, we headed toward Denver. We enjoyed our stay in lovely Birmingham, AL.  We visited Vulcan Park, the Peanut Depot, and spent a morning at The Civil Rights Institute. The next morning we visited the National Historic Site at Central High School in Little Rock, AK. After reading Elizabeth and Hazel:  Two Women of Little Rock on the way to Atlanta, I was particularly moved by seeing video interviews with The LIttle Rock Nine. The only other book I managed to finish this month was Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. 

We arrived at the stunning Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville about 2:00. After three hours in the galleries and a short walk on The Art Trail, we had dinner at Eleven, the museum restaurant. The salmon with blackberry salsa was the best salmon dish I’ve ever had. Then it was a day and a half of driving across the plains to Denver.

We had a great time in Denver with all the Collins. When Matt finished the practical exam for the national landscape certification Saturday morning we left for Boulder. Boulder is one great university town. We walked the Pearl St. Mall, sipped beer at the Avery Brewery, and took a short drive around Boulder Chautaqua. We spent two days in the Rocky Mountain National Park, hiking one day and driving across the park the second day. In Estes Park, we had a great dinner at Twin Owls Steakhouse.

On our drive home, we spent a morning at the Amana Communities in Iowa, and started planning our next adventure.. All told, we put 5,417 miles on the van and enjoyed it all.

Before we left, I managed to squeeze in a night volunteering for RAIHN and three lunches with friends. We hosted a dinner with Tina, Bill, Gary, and Chris as well as our book group. I participated in the Liberate Your Art swap, receiving six postcards from around the globe when I arrived home. Quite a lovely August!