In early November I attended a local scrapbook retreat. My on-line friend Mellie was traveling from Michigan to be one of the assistants so I visited with her as well as making several projects.

At the Creative Cafe class we assembled 3 of these mini books. They have acrylic cover and back with pockets for the interior and chipboard inside the pockets.

I did all three a little different. This is the one I have completely finished. For this one, I thought of my theme – love one another first. The cover is actually vertical but the rest of the book is horizontal. Kinda weird but I liked the look better that way. The first pocket insert has a journaling about the people in our lives and how we love each other – sometimes a joy and sometimes a struggle.

The next pockets have embellishments for each group of people then photographs on the chipboard.

To all our family and friends:

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”- Luke 2:11-14

Merry Christmas!

At DML we had a “secret elf” stocking exchange. After everyone received their stocking, we found out who our elf had been and opened the stocking. The very creative and fun Heather Binnie was my secret elf. Let me just say this was FUN, FUN, FUN!!!

Thank you Heather!

Jennifer and I are both creating gifts for family members that involve paper and stamping. Initially Jennifer struggled with the stamping. She didn’t yet have the hang of how much pressure to put on the stamp. She even noticed that different stamps need different pressure. So, it took her awhile to get used to the feel. Being the perfectionist she is (hmmm…where did she get that????) she didn’t like her initial pages. She’s doing better now and feeling better. Melody Langworthy designed the tag book.

Here are a few samples of the questions and answers:

What gifts do we give on Christmas that do not come in a box?

Jackie – Love

Denise – Time together

Mike – Playing games

Jennifer – Things in your stocking

The birth of Christ is a story that has been told for centuries. What is an important story from your family’s history?

Jackie – the story of how the “Gormish” name came to be recognized in the United States

Denise – the birth of both our daughters and how God took care of us. Jennifer’s middle name is “Grace” because of how God was gracious to us in their births.

Here is a sample of a few of the highly decorated cards. The answers are on the backside in my handwriting. These cards feature flourishes and flowers, two of my favorites things, and Art Warehouse stamps.

I walked into my favorite local scapbook store to just grab a few sheets of black cardstock. It was full of eager shoppers. I gazed around at the empty bins of adhesive and cardstock. It took me a while to process it all. The store was closing. With sadness, I filled up my cart. This scrapbook store was the last store where people knew me by name. Oh, sadness!

Due to proximity I attended CKU-A in San Jose, June 22-24. At registration I chose Cathy’s Zielske’s album track. Her track was amazing and I enjoyed every minute of it.

To see my project visit the Page about it on this blog. Click on ExtraOrdinary CKU under Scrapbook Pages on the left-hand side menu bar.

I also had several enjoyable classes and a few so-so classes. Everyone I know who attended really enjoyed their album track class. If it were not for the album track, I would have been disappointed, but the album track really made it special.

It’s Father’s Day again. I’m glad. I’m glad there’s a day where we can remind you how much we love you and how much we appreciate you. I hope you realize that you mean more to your daughters and I than you can imagine. You are an excellent father, caring, nurturing and encouraging his children. In the business of life forget to tell you all of it, but know, today, that we are very thankful to God and to you.

• Thank you for raising, in the nurture and admonishment of the Lord, two beautiful children.
• Thank you for educating our children through hand-on events, games, stories, explaining, and personal experiences.
• Thank you for taking us on grand adventures, planned and spontaneous, that binds us together as a family.

We love you.

More photos and the full article on making this project is available as

Father’s Day Gift Idea

at Scrapjazz.

Dating Layouts…it’s the bane of my scrapbooking life. After a month of doing just a few projects and no layouts, I finished a layout. Gazing at it afterwards I noticed something wrong. ACKKK!!!!!

Notice the date? August 9, 2006

I moaned and showed Jackie.

“How much of a perfectionist are you?” she asked. “You’ll have to redo it.”

Yes, I’ll have to redo the white part of the layout.

Admission: If you notice any of my layouts with dates and the year just doesn’t seem right, it may not be right after all. As much as I try, I am not perfect.

Prayer is an important part of our dinnertime routine. One member of our family will always say a prayer before we start eating our dinner. Most of the time it is Mike, but sometimes the girls or I will volunteer.

Jennifer recently volunteered. It had been a happy day and she was feeling good. Earlier she had been looking at my scrapbooks and commenting on the pages. Most of the pages she enjoyed but some she did not. On one page she said, “Why did you have to write that?” It was about a time she didn’t get along with a friend. In the end, they had become good friends so I wrote about how they overcame their problems. She couldn’t see that. She just saw the conflicts and she didn’t want to remember those early problems.

I have always tried to be honest in my scrapbooks. Not only in the topics and events but, also, to include some moments that aren’t the best. Believe it or not, we do not live in a perfect world. Not all our stories are peaches and cream. On the other hand, I don’t excessively dwell on the hard times because our scrapbooks should also be fun. I try to be honest and balanced.

The evening of all of this Jennifer showed her own sense of honesty. When she volunteered to lead the prayer her mind still remained on those scrapbooks. She prayed, “Thank you that my mom scrapbooks even if some of the things make me sad or angry.”

How’s that for honesty?