Yesterday, our book art group got together for our annual holiday celebration. Betsy Libbey got us started with a short journaling exercise using Christmas as the topic. "What was your favorite Christmas present?" and " What do you want for Christmas?" Two questions and an hour worth of discussion and sharing among friends. Along with our journal exercise we devoured wonderful foods brought in by each of us and exchanged handcrafted holiday gifts.
I was the excited recipient of a 2 foot tall hand made grapevine christmas tree bedecked with miniature books as ornaments, created by Betsy Libbey. Other gifts included a beautiful knitted suede shawl made by Linda Hartzig, an altered book candle holder made by Linda Campbell, a nature inspired mica bird twig sculpture hand crafted by Meg Fowler, beautifully done handmade marbled paper journal by Monita Mahoney, a handmade altered book using fabrics and paper lovingly made by Penny Baugh. Gabe Cyr exchanged a beautiful collage that she had framed and Meg received my journal that I covered with a fabric scrap journal made of batiks, chiffon, gold stitching and beads.

On Saturday, December 9th, Cheryl Prater, of Atlanta, came to share the holiday spirit with me for the day. We brainstormed about upcoming events, newest techniques and what is going on in the industry. Cheryl will be featured on the COVER of the January issue of Cloth Paper Scissors. She has a great website, zoegraphicdesigns, that showcases her altered art, her assemblage, her stuff and her store. Her enthusiasm and upbeat energy is really, really contagious. Paul said it would be great if her and Jen were both here working at the same time. Oh boy!!!!!!!!