UK Scrappers Blog Hop Layout

Hello!

Each day throughout December (up to the 23rd) UK Scrappers have been featuring a different project on their home page - kind of like a blog hop but one blog to visit each day! 

Today it's our turn!

UK Scrappers are offering a prize to one lucky winner who comments on all the participating blogs! More on that at the end of this post.

With just a couple of days to go now until the BIG Day, I thought we would have a little break from "full-on" Christmas themed crafting and so I've made a layout which focuses a little more on our day to day activities at this time of year. 

I wanted to document how we enjoy visiting our local coffee shop to warm up and sip coffees (me) or hot chocolate (her)!

I've used supplies from Echo Park "Keepin' Cozy". The papers in this collection are lovely for winter seasonal scrapping as they're not heavily Christmas themed. 

B sides of the papers!

 I kept the design very simple as at this time of year it's difficult to find the time to scrap so when I do get chance, I want to make fairly quick and easy pages. Less than hour from start to "in the album" is ideal!! I'm sure some of you are the same during the busy festive season.

I chose a piece of kraft bazzill cardstock as my background and two sheets of patterned paper. I started off by trimming .5" off two sides of the patterned paper (green) so that I would have a .25" border to my layout and I "gutted" both the patterned paper and the kraft to make the papers go further and also to use for punching shapes for embellishing later.

I also cut the other paper (red one) to a 12" x 7" panel. 
The edges are inked with distress ink and a blending tool.

Next I layered them all up and adhered in place so that the red strip was about 1.25" up from the bottom edge.

I'm loving instagram photos as the moment and picked one out, featuring my daughter enjoying a hot chocolate, for this page along with one of the journalling cards and adhered them into place.

Three clusters of embellishments using some Glitz heart washi tape, which I tucked just under the edge of the photo, a few punched scalloped circles, some stickers (from "Keepin' Cozy" and Simple Stories "Girl" Sn@p Stickers), wood veneers and enamel dots and my title (using letter stickers from Simple Stories December Documented) is all this page needed before I called it finished!

The supplies used on this page can be found in the S J Crafts Shop!

Don't forget if you visit each featured blog or project each day, leaving a comment (with your UK Scrapper user name) and then go back to UK Scrappers after you've visited the last project tomorrow and leave a comment on the "Blog Hop" thread over there you will be entered into the draw. The full list of projects and details can be found here.

We are currently on the look out for 1 or 2 talented crafters to join out Design Team. Details of our DT call is here and the call is open until 6th January.

All the S J Crafts team wish you a very Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2014!

Quick (Last minute!) Christmas Cards

Hi Jenny here today
How are your Christmas preparations going?
Not long until the 25th now!

This year, I seem to have got behind with all things Christmas and I have found myself in need of a few more cards. 

I thought I'd pop by and share with you some "super fast" cards in case you're like me and need a few last minute ideas!



I have used some of my Christmas dies to cut apertures behind which I have layered some scraps of Christmas papers. Then I have simply  layered this onto some coloured card and onto a card blank.

 I stamped a simple Christmas greeting underneath each aperture in black memento ink and added some stickles and flat backed gems as embellishments.

If you don't have a die cutting machine, you could achieve a similar affect using punches!

Have you finished making all your cards or are you needing a few more?

Happy Christmas!

Jenny x

See more of Jenny's cards over on her blog: Dragonllews Spot

Fast Festive Scrapping with a Mini Book

Happy Monday to you! 

Louise is here today to show us some ideas to speed up our festive crafting!

Louise:

Last week Lisa-Jane shared her process for telling her Christmas story in this post and this post! . She explained that gathering together and organising your scrapbook supplies helps with the whole Christmas Journal process. I really do second this and for several Christmas seasons this is exactly what I have done.

This year finds me restricted with my mobility. This limits the activities I might otherwise have been involved in over December which means unlike other years  I'm unlikely to have a daily photo. It has also meant that I've not been able to pull together all of my Christmas supplies.

It is still important to me that I record my Christmas however I didn't want the structure of a daily photo or entry so I started to think along the lines of a little book to hold some photos and record some stories in December, along with the big day itself.

Once I'd decided on the format for my little Christmas book - I found it a quick and easy project to undertake. This is an ideal project for a busy time of year, when lets face it most of us feel there aren't enough hours in the day.

Today I'd like to share with you five quick and easy steps to construct a little book for recording your family photos and stories during the month of December. 

There's also another five optional steps with ideas to help you add to your little book if you find you have more time available to craft than you thought, or if you find that you have more photos and stories you would like to include. Or you could add to it in January.

1. Restricting your supplies for a project can be more productive. If you are like me then you can spend hours looking for the right papers and embellishments. To narrow down your supplies use a Christmas collection Kit. I chose the gorgeous Echo Park's 'Tis The Season Kit perfect for this project. Within the collection kits you have your co-ordinated double sided patterned papers, including journaling cards, a sheet of alpha's and a sheet of festive stickers.

2. Pick out just one or two tools that you will use for the book.In addition to this Christmas collection kit I chose one punch (yes just one!) to use throughout the book.

3. Next, you will need to cut your papers to make the pages of the book.
I knew I wanted a smallish book so I selected some patterned paper from the collection kit for the pages and cut them to 6 x 7 inches.  I liked the squarish look of the album and decided to shape only the top cover into a tag shape. Of course, you can cut your pages to whatever size and shape you like.

I put a hole through the top of each page to hold them all together with a book ring.

4. Once you've got your pages and a front cover, you can use a few stickers to embellish. Try to limit yourself to using only the sticker sheets in the collection kit or if you're not using a kit choose just one or two sheets. This will make the whole embellishing process quicker and easier. I used stickers to decorate the front cover of my little book....(with a little help from the Teresa Collins Santa list sticker sheet, which in my defence just happened to be close to hand at the time!).

5. To complete the book you can add a page pocket to the back page of the book for somewhere to keep all of my Christmas memorabilia.

And that's all there is to it!

  

A little Christmas book all ready to be embellished and journalled in!

Optional Extras

Not only does a project of this type fit nicely around your hectic December schedule, it is also a superb project to add as many or as little pages as you like, when you like. Next Christmas....even!!

6. If you find that you have an hour to spare here and there, then you can add inserts or overlays. For example while I was waiting for the next few photos and stories to include in my Christmas book, I cross-stitched (freehand) this cute reindeer head from this pattern on Pinterest.

 I framed the reindeer and now it sits on top of the front cover.

7. Inserts can be in any form. Acetate pockets filled with confetti, decorative tags, envelopes for that special journaling. If you have the time and inclination these inserts can add interest and decoration to your book. This time I chose to
 include a glassine envelope to hold my children's Christmas wish lists.

8. At this busy time of year when we are trying to find the perfect present, inspiration can be lacking. This is the best time to consider a scraplift. I did it! I scraplifted a Christmas card (thank you Kandis Smith). It's a little inserted page that adds decoration to my book. Later on it will hold a photo and journaling.

9. Another quick and easy way I like to add interest to a project, is to add stitching. Hand stitching can be time consuming....so I dusted off my sewing machine. I do love how decorative stitching can transform a page.

10. Finally, no Christmas project is complete without bling. A pack of gems or enamel dots is a quick and easy way to bling up your little book.

I hope that this project has inspired you to put together a small book to record your Christmas. 

Please leave us a comment and let us know if it has!

I will be sharing the finished book on my blog after Christmas when I've recorded and included photos from Christmas day.

Happy Christmas Scrapping 

Louise x

Louise shares stories and her papercrafting projects at her blog Boys, Bugs, and Beautiful Buttons

P.S. Don't forget about our Design Team Call!

Recording Christmas (Part Two)

Hello! Lisa-Jane here again to show you how I'm getting on with recording my Christmas so far!

How are you getting on with your festive crafting? 
Yesterday I explained a bit about my process for recording this year's Christmas memories. If you missed that post you can catch up on it right here!

I won't say that I'm behind or on target, because there is no ideal speed. I write something everyday and try and take photos when I can, and then I scrap them and write up the journalling the cards when possible, and often do a few days at a time. Even if you start documenting your Christmas from today, don't worry ... the important thing is capturing those memories!

Here's my first page and the first day!

The gorgeous pinky / red snowflake paper is actually the reverse of this page that I shared HERE.

When you are making a continuous album like this it can really help to stretch your stash and when the reverse of the page is so stunning it feels a shame to hide it.

I've used a few of the Crate Paper Bundled Up papers here as well as the Studio Calico Wood Veneer Tiny Stars to give a little bit of texture.

My first divided page is below. The photos are just a temporary print from my home printer so I could see where I wanted to put things, and where I wanted to overlap or use a small photo etc. As I've done each one I've put it into a separate folder on my computer so that when the holidays are finished and there is a suitable printing deal, I have everything that need to do a quick order with everything the right size.

The title pocket uses more of the Bundled Up papers with some ribbon and twine from my stash (actually the ribbon came from a cracker last year!) and the letter stickers are Echo Park's Reflection Falls Alpha Stickers which have that same beautiful deep cream. The dark green spotted paper at the bottom is from another current collection Simple Stories December Documented.

Below is the reverse of that page so far. The mitten print is the back of the ledger pattern that I used for a journalling block in the first side, and I will be using the snowman journalling card which is the reverse of the bottom left journalling card. This really cuts down my options which might not work for everyone, but I find that limiting my choices in this way helps to speed up the process. Of course if I don't want to use them in the end then I don't have to!

The pieces that I've used for the bottom left of this side were all off cuts. When I'm going a project like this I keep an A4 "slippy pocket" for all the scraps and half used pieces and this is where I head to first when I'm creating a new section of the page.

I've been asked a few times about having to make the back of the page work when you have designed around the front of the page. What if its not what you want? Well there are a couple of options here really. For me I will always make it work in the same way I would have done back in the days of only having 1 piece of patterned paper, or if you only had a 12x12 pocket. You design to what you have available! Alternatively you can just fill it with pretty things to make a pleasing section break and continue on with another protector on the facing page instead. 

It's worth keeping in mind that especially with longer term projects like this, we generally aren't looking for awards for our pages. I nearly always make pages that I would have tweaked if I was having another go, but the important things are that the memories are captured, the photographs stored safely and accessibly, and that we enjoyed the process. After all, we mostly do this for fun right?

We finally put our tree up now so I have many more memories to journal about. You'll find me in my craft room with a few festive scented candles and a Christmas CD playing.

Best wishes for Christmas and happy scrapping!

Lisa-Jane x

Lisa-Jane is a keen scrapbooker and crafter and has been posting lots of Christmas projects on her blog Inside My Head.

P.S. Don't forget about the Design Team Call HERE!