December Daily 2014: - Day 5 - Cousins + Cookies

 Day 5 - We ended up with two stories today, which is double the fun, right? First, we celebrated the awesome that is my sister and her family living so close by that we can have random cookie-baking afternoons.  This was our first cookie baking of the season and featured my very favorite whole wheat chocolate chip cookies from the cookbook Good to the Grain.   In fairness, we slightly alter the recipe by adding cinnamon because we love cinnamon!

Crafting notes: I added a few cook Tim Holtz stars (yes, there are many star shapes in my collection).  I also are really liking using things other than the white printed journaling cards, which is kind of unfortunate as I have all those printed already, but c'est ma vie.  I adapted the number Christmas tree form Ali's design for day two.  I, of course, couldn't find my white embossing powder so I just painted the number five. I wanted a bit more going on in the pocket so I taped the tree in place, added confetti, and more cool stars on top of both sides.  The washi tape seals the envelope and connects it to the facing page (see below).

The design nerd in me loves the visual triangle of the washi tapes and the three silvery stars on the right hand page.  Also, sequins are always good for Christmas pages.  

The second story is on the back side of the same page protector.  We had a very impromptu dinner with some of our extended family in town to see my Grandpa in the hospital.  The journaling is about how he seemed to be a bit better yesterday and about my cousin Kira (in the picture) who has is a physical therapist and is helping give him some PT while she is in town.  It was so awesome to get to see her and that she could come and help out.  We had dinner, appropriately enough, at "Abuelo's" (aka Grandpa's) in Bricktown.  It was really good to be together and less sad today. 

Crafting notes:  The green paper is from the kit, I added lines and journaling.  To make the heading I used one of this year's gold label's and stamped the "good tidings" phrase from an earlier year's stamp set.  It seemed perfect for slightly better health news.  The reverse of the "tree" was covered in paper, a heart puffy sticker from the kit and more silvery stars all over.  The layered big star is on top of a pinked circle of paper attached to another one of the gold labels to tie it all back together (and hello another visual triangle.  In fairness, I don't really like this page as much as some of the others, but I'm OK with it. Not every page can be your favorite, right?  I do like the heart and Brent's face peaking around the tree image when you look through to the page behind it. Transparent elements make me happy.