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A holiday tradition

Happy Boxing Day everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful and peaceful holiday. In my house today is a good day for relaxing and reminiscing. I'm probably going to work a layout about our annual gingerbread house decorating. We've been doing this for seven years (gasp!). I thought it would be fun to look back and review how I've scrapped the same event six times - I haven't started on this years layout.

Our first attempt at a gingerbread house was back in 2006. How little my daughter is!

I knew even then that we would be attempting it again. Apparently I had some help with the construction because the next year was not as successful:

Apparently I did not improve over time because I seem to have the same problem the following year (2008)! At least he kids' skills are improving.

The next year was a break from tradition. I forgot to get a gingerbread kit but luckily Molly was given one to decorate and I recorded the aftermath - the eating, rather than the decorating of the house. Who says it has to be all about the decorating?

We were back on track in 2010, with a new type of house. I thought a new house would mean less trouble building (or keeping the house together):

And finally, the house from 2011. The kids are quite the experts at this stage but I think I still have some roof troubles. Would it still be a tradition if I didn't?

I'll work on my 2012 edition today! I hope this gives you some ideas for scrapping one of your holiday traditions or at least inspires you to go back and look at your older layouts. It's fun to have a little trip down memory lane!

No Holiday Photo? No Problem.

Merry Christmas everyone! Aliza here blogging at wcs for the first time on this special day. I hope you are all snuggled and warm, and enjoying some fabulous holiday memories in the making.

 Now what can a nice, Orthodox, Jewish girl like myself possibly have to share about scrapbooking on Christmas day? I don't really have Christmas layouts of my own to share with you, true. But, I do have some experience scrapbooking holiday memories without photos of the actual day. See, according to the Orthodox tradition, on many important Jewish holidays, like during the Passover Seder, and Rosh Hashana, taking pictures is not allowed. For years, while I scrapbooked bike rides, and first days of school, and general cuteness, this important part of our family heritage went undocumented. I needed to find another way to tell this story. Now, there are also lots of holidays where I can take pictures, like Chanukah and Thanksgiving. But I sometimes run into another problem. I am not a great multitasker. So, when family and friends and general celebration is afoot, I sometimes forget to take pictures. Or, when I do take them, the lighting and composition are not always great, and, well, not everyone is always looking their best. 

So, if you are busy today enjoying your family and your holiday, and you don't get behind the camera, I say, tell your story anyway.

How?

Like this:

 

Use Your Words

I use this phrase a lot as a preschool teacher, and it is equally helpful for us here, as well. I don't have any photos of our Seders in progress, but I do have a photo of the table set before the holiday began, and I have my words to describe what this table and this room look like just a few hours later. And part of the story is that it looks the same every year. 

I used  similar approach for the holiday of Shavuot. More flowers for the photo (because flowers are always pretty), and words to tell the story of what made that particular holiday special. No fancy story telling. Just a list of some of the things that happened. 

 

Capture the Preparations

 There is a lot of tradition surrounding a holiday that happens before the holiday itself begins. Like every year, before Passover, we bring out a box of all the Passover projects that my kids have made at school over the years. And, every year, they love to look back at their old work.

 

In my home, though, and perhaps yours too, capturing all the REAL preparations, requires one more step.

 

Embrace the Underwear 

I'm sorry, did she just say "embrace the underwear?" 

Yes. I did. Because here is something else about my family. As these beautiful, touching, holiday memories unfold, not everyone is fully dressed in their holiday best. What can I say? We are not a formal bunch. In years past, I might have rejected some of these photos as "unscrapworthy," but I find the story they tell, and the relationships they document, too complelling to let them go any longer. 

 

Did I mention we are not a formal bunch?

 

And if you can embrace the underwear, you can certainly embrace some poor lighting and composition, too. Jenny said that living in Minnesota in a small house with few windows, lighting and composition are always a challenge. So she prints her photos small to make up for it.

So, if you miss some photo ops today, you can still tell your stories of the day. And if your home and your family, like mine, do not always look like a page out of Martha Stewart Living, embrace them and their imperfections because they are yours and they are real.

 

I do have one Christmas layout that I can leave you with today, because we do have one Christmas day tradition. Every year, we turn the channel to TBS and watch A Christmas Story.

 

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Last-Minute Christmas Ideas

Merry Christmas Eve! With a little help from some fellow write. click. scrapbook. teammates, I, Vivian, am here today to help with some quick-fix last-minute ideas if you suddenly need something for last-minute gift-giving or decorating. Let's face it, we've all been there - suddenly there's an extra guest at at a holiday gathering, an impromptu visitor, etc. - and we all wish we had a quick fix (provided we have at least some advance notice!).

Decorating

Let's start with decorating. I am not one of those people who is good about switching out holiday decor, prettying up my mantel, etc. I would love to be that person, but never seem to find the time to get it done. I came up with this quick-fix art that could either sit on a mantel with some candles or could be hung on the wall to add a little holiday cheer (simply take down a non-holiday piece of art hanging up and replace it with this for the holiday):

Start with a simple shadowbox frame. Cut patterned paper to fit the background. A smaller-scale print, tone-on-tone print, or text print would work well. The subway art Christmas-print paper here is from Echo Park, and October Afternoon also has a fun one. Grab a couple of rolls of Christmas-y washi tape and add four strips of varying lengths at the top left and bottom right. Add dimensional embellishments over the washi tape at the top and the bottom. Add a large dimensional embellishment at the center (mine is a star cut using this Silhouette file - I cut just one half and just the background part), put the art in the frame, and you're done! I promise this can be done in under 10 minutes once you have the papers, embellishments, tape, and frame in front of you, even if you are cutting something with a die-cutting machine!

 

Cards

How about a 2-minute card? Grab a piece of cardstock, a sheet of washi-look stickers (like the ones I used here, from Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride line) or a few rolls of washi tape, a star punch, a scrap of holiday patterned paper, a pop dot, and a paper trimmer. Cut a 7" X 10" piece of cardstock, score at the 5" mark, and fold in half. Stack graduated lengths of washi-look stickers or tape to form a tree and its trunk, then punch a star from patterned paper and adhere with the pop dot. Done!

 

After I made the card above, I realized the negative star shape peeking out of the tag I'd cut it from looked pretty cool, so that got me another 2-minute card. I backed the opening in the tag with another scrap of paper (love those little reindeer peeking out at the North Pole!), tied the tag with a doubled length of baker's twine, and then adhered the tag to a card base with a washi-look sticker greeting.

 

 

Francine made some quick and easy cards by downloading free card printables, printing them, and adding embellishments, including washi tape, baker's twine, and gems:

See here for the source of the downloadable cards and here for more information on Francine's blog.

 

Tags

This first tag is super simple - just a tag base, alphas (these all came from one multicolored set, but you could mix and match sets nicely here), and some ribbon. Start with either a pre-made tag base or make your own by cutting a rectangle from cardstock and punching a hole at the top. You can also either angle or round the corners of your tag. Add words, tie a bow, and you're done!

The next tags are a non-traditional set I created using photobooth-print paper, chevron ribbon, colorful label stickers, and a stapler. I used my Silhouette to die-cut five tags from the patterned paper, added a sticker hanging off the edge of each and trimmed it flush with the edge, and then stapled a folded piece of ribbon at the top. This set could be easily replicated with black and white photos of the recipients for a fun twist, or could be created using holiday-themed patterned paper, label stickers, and ribbon.

Ornaments

Lisa made this fantastic (and quick!) set of ornaments. Don't they make a lovely gift? She simply added stickers to plain ornaments to personalize them and dress them up.

You can see more information about these on Lisa's blog.

Hopefully we've helped those of you in a pinch out a bit with today's blog post!

Christmas Layouts

Merry Christmas Everyone! This is Deb and I'll be sharing a few Christmas layouts with you today. I'm always at least a year behind in my Christmas scrapping. Once Christmas Day has come and gone and the photos have been taken I am pretty much over anything to do with the holidays! I take my tree down the day after Christmas and I don't scrap my Christmas photos until the following November when I start getting excited about Christmas again.

This year I'm going to make a point to write good descriptions in the meta data of my favorite photos so I'll be ready to go when it's time to scrap them. For those who don't know, pretty much any photo organizing software allows you to write a caption for each photo. I use Picasa to organize my photos and as far as I can tell there is no limit to how long a caption can be. I've written paragraphs for one photo. So next year when I'm ready to scrap Christmas 2012, I'll have all the fun details recorded with the photos which will make my journaling easier!

All of the layouts I'm sharing today (and my December gallery layout) were made with the Basic Grey Aspen Frost line. The colors and patterns are just gorgeous and there are lots of really fun embellishments. I really loved working with this line!

My December Daily 2012

Hi, Erin here. And there on the left, that's me and my friend Beth during a recent 5K. Yep, during the 5K. I truly do take a camera every where I go. And that picture is included in Day One of my 2012 December Daily.

My December Daily album is one of my favorite things I do each year. And as with most scrapbooking projects, I'm behind! But I don't mind. Once I start working on it, it seems to come together pretty quickly.

For this year's album, I'm using Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride collection. While I've gotten better at mixing and matching papers, patterns and lines over the last few years, when it comes to a project like this I love to use a coordinating line. For me, it makes the process easier and faster.

My album this year is roughly 6 x 8, with a few different size pages thrown in depending on the day and activity. My pages are actually 6 x 8.5 though, as I'm allowing room to bind it with my Zutter Bind-it-All once it's complete. Which explains why everything is a bit off center.

My Cover

Day One

Left:

Right:

Day 2

Day 4

Happy December Daily-ing!

Non Traditional Scrapping

Happy December everyone!  I'm sure many of you are knee deep in December Dailies, teacher gifts, handmade gifts for relatives, etc. I always have good intentions each October and November with ideas swirling in my head, but when it comes right down to it I drop the ball and hang my head in crafting shame throughout December. But that's my MO and I'm coming to terms with it at this point!

One thing I do notice about my holiday crafting is my use of not just non traditional papers and embellishments for holiday layouts, but also non traditional colors on my pages as well. I not normally drawn to holiday motifs unless they can be used for pages beyond the holiday so that's what I go with. Diane and Lisa were lent me some of their non traditional pages as well to showcase today.

One of the things I love to document about the holidays in non traditional color form are the details.  Those little things that make the holiday special in our home.  I love this calendar paper that came out a couple of years ago and used it as a back drop for all the decor and traditions around our house.  Yes, I did use green, but a non holiday green paired with yellow and brown too. 

Recently I created a layout about our little elf, Jed and all of his antics last Christmas season.  On this layout I used a true holiday red, but instead paired it with aqua blue and black rather than green or even silver.  I felt like it made it stand out a bit more with the darker colors.

courtesy of Pebbles, Inc blog

Christmas of 2009 I was obviously feeling a yellow and brown phase for holiday photos and created these 2 photos focusing on completely other subjects than Santa and presents.  I wanted to first highlight a tradition we started when my girls were little - making food for the reindeer.

That year also marked my oldest (7 at the time) getting to take part in the kitchen activities for our dinner.  She helped with the dessert and was quite proud of her accomplishment!

Diane took 2 of her layouts to the pink/yellow dimension here to document a much coveted toy and a ski trip.  I love the look of the blue, pink, green and yellows here.  The red Elmo really pops against these more neutral, non traditional colors instead of going with a red and green theme.

 

 Lisa is showing that not only do you not need to go with traditional holiday colors, but you don't need a lot of paper and embellishment to make a beautiful holiday layout to highlight your traditions and details.

 

So what are some of your favorite non traditional holiday color combos to use?  Do you prefer traditional holiday papers and embellishments or those that can be used for other purposes too?

 

 

A Layout and a Card

 

 Valerie here today. I hope I am not the only one, but it seems as if I'm always a year behind when scrapbooking the big holidays. Last year at this time, I was making layouts for Christmas 2010 and right now I'm working on all my photos from Christmas 2011. The one and only time I created a December Daily album was in 2009. I'd love to do December Daily again....maybe next year!

Lately, I've been having fun with Elle's Studio Exclusive Christmas Stamp set. I'm also slightly obsessed with gold everything these days.

The splatters were made with tarnished brass Distress Stain and aren't those Hardcover Thickers the greatest?!

If you are wondering about this new toy my son got last Christmas... My husband purchased a non-running mini bike last year and got it working. He was so excited to put it "under" the tree for our son Christmas morning. Our son was only two-and-a-half at the time, so he wouldn't be riding solo for a long time. My husband and his friends definitely had more fun on the bike this past year than Lucas. 

And now for a card. A SUPER simple card, but I love it and can't wait to write a little note and mail it off. The sentiment is from the same Elle's Studio set. If you're looking for a good white stamp ink, Stampin' Up's whisper white is my favorite.

Anyone else working on last year's Christmas photos right now? Link up in the comments—I'd love to see what you are creating!

 

December Daily Album

Hi Everyone! Katie here with you today and I'm excited to share my December Daily album. This is my first time completing a December Daily and I am loving it! I love pretty much everything about Christmas and have, for the past few years, gone on a total craft-a-palooza before the holiday. A December Daily album helps me to get some of that crafty energy out, and to use all the gorgeous, sparkly, shiny, beautiful Christmas themed supplies!

 

 

Supplies

For my album, I am using the sold out Studio Calico kit, the beautiful Sleighride line from Crate Paper, the vintagey-lovely Make it Merry line from October Afternoon, as well as various items from my stash. I was going for the vintage-sparkly-eclectic look, and I'm pretty sure I have acheived it so far! For the album, I chose Studio Calico's Handbook and divided page protectors. I love the 6x8 size, although I have made so many pages already it is nearly filled! Here's my cover, which I painted with gesso and pearl paint and then embellished.

I organized my supplies onto a tray with small bowls and a wooden crate for easy access.

Planning and Ideas

In planning my album, I turned to my trusty sources of inspiration: Pinterest and online scrapbooking galleries. By searching "December Daily" on Pinterest, I found a bunch of beautiful albums in a variety of styles. Since I was going for eclectic, I took bits and pieces from lots of different albums and put them together with my own ideas and what worked best with my photos. Each day of December, I've been making sure I am taking lots of photos of a variety of activities, from special things like Santa visits and chopping down the tree, to everyday things like coffee cups, holiday movies and decorations. I also made sure to plan a few special Christmas events with my girls, like seeing the holiday lights and hosting a North Pole Party. On the days that we haven't had an event, I've used vintage photos or instagram shots I've captured on my phone.

Pages

I created some of my foundation pages before Thanksgiving in order to make things go a little more smoothly once December began. I only got through day 17, so I'm planning on flying by the seat of my pants until Christmas. I realize this may not be wise, considering how busy that week before Christmas tends to be, but since it is the 17th today and I have no other foundation pages prepared, it'll have to do! Here are some examples of my completed pages so far. My favorite elements are the confetti pockets, the photo collages and the extra little details that add interest to each page.

As you can see, I've been busy enjoying this festive album! You may check out the entire album so far here. So, tell me, are you creating a December Daily this month? I'd love to see it! Leave me a comment with a link to your project!

Pretty Paper, Double Duty

 

I love pretty paper. I love embellishments and stamps and washi tape and well, I love it all. And, lucky me, I have loads and loads of all sorts of goodies.

Hi, I'm Monika and I'll share just a few ideas to help you reduce your stash and actually use some of those goodies you've been hoarding for way too long.

My oldest son lives away from home, several states away, so this Mama decided to package up some items and put together a few little advent calendar goodies for him and his girlfriend this year. Because, after all, girls are so much easier to craft for!

I used some canvas bags from my Etsy shop and began embellishing them with washi tape, stamps, layered stickers and rhinestone gems all from My Mind's Eye. Just the perfect size for gift cards and chocoates. I like the stamped bags the most of all and can't wait to embellish more. Nest, I added some washi tape embellished shipping tags and a supply of twine to a tin, making it a gift that's cute and useful too. Yep, this one's for his girlfriend.

After adding lots of goodies from SEI to this repurposed mini art canvas, it has become one of our newest holiday home decor items. Adding the gold washi tape to the edges of the canvas was the perfect solution to hide the pattern that was already there and then all I had to do was just add layer after layer of pretty paper and die cuts. Going one step further, I even used a border die cut strip to embellish the front portion of my wood stand.

I hope you have as much fun playing with your pretty papers and embellishments as I have. May your December be delightful and full of joyful memories!

 

 

 

give.away.day. featuring OCTOBER AFTERNOON Make It Merry

Today we are excited to bring you a fabulous...

sponsored by October Afternoon. Their Make It Merry line is perfect for all kinds of holiday projects, with its mix of vintage and trendy patterns, including a subway-art-inspired patterned paper, a chevron-print patterned paper, and a number-print patterned paper:

Vivian used Make It Merry to create this elegant Christmas card:

Her card combines Make It Merry patterned papers (some cut with a Silhouette and folded into rosettes), stickers, brads, and a postcard. She added spray ink to the background cardstock for a fun touch.

Here's a closer look at the rosettes, complete with matching brad centers:

Vivian also created this card, previously featured on her blog as part of an October Afternoon Make It Merry feature:

One lucky write. click. scrapbook. reader will take home the Make It Merry collection kit:

To be entered to win, simply leave a comment on this post letting us know what makes it merry for you during the holiday season. Comments will remain open through Sunday evening. One lucky number will be selected at random and posted Monday morning. Be sure to check back to see if yours is the lucky number. You will have until Tuesday midnight to claim your number by email at writeclickscrapbook at gmail dot com.