Advent in November: Ponder

The second of the preparation posts for Pause, Ponder and Prepare can be found here.  It looks at how you might use the Advent Study.

In my previous preparation post I talked about getting all my stash together.  Today I want to look at what I shall use for my Advent Study.   I had thought about making an altered book but decided not to.  If you want to find out more about making an altered book there are some posts about it here and here.

Whilst sorting out my stash I found the book I prepared for Diane's Advent Study in 2010.  I had bought a Teresa Collins kit to do Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas in and then decided to incorporate the study.  I made the book and then did nothing with it!

I decided I would use something I already had.  I'm a firm believer in encouraging people to use what they have and not to go out and buy something and so I thought it would be good to practise what I preach.  I had bought a Prima Mixed Media Journal because I liked the one I was given in a workshop with Finnabair.

It doesn't have quite enough pages for 25 double page spreads but then I remembered the other journal and took 2 pages out of that.

I took the journal to pieces by pulling the spiral binding apart very carefully.

And removed the pages.   I am not going to use the plastic wallets that came with it.

Then I put the white and kraft pages alternately.

So then I pondered.  Should I paint the pages?  Use scrapbooking techniques? Use the book to store the Advent Calendar tags in as well as the study?

And then!

And then

I decided I couldn't get my head round all that I needed to do with the Prima journal so went back to the 2010 journal and recycled it with new 2014 tickets and a few changes elsewhere.

First of all I started working on the date tickets.  I used punches to cut out squares, circles and stars.  I did the first 6 pages - you can see what I mean here:

2010

2014

And then I decided I didn't like it.   Do you have problems like these?   The decision making process for a project is the hardest part for me.

I found I still had some of the original kit left and found enough bits to redo the whole ticket bit.

So now I have a complete book ready to go.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice