It's that time of year again! It's December, which means it's time for the Twelve Days of Christmas celebration over at Kerri Bradford Studio. Everything kicked off this past Monday, which you can find right HERE. You'll want to make sure and stop by each day, as she's got one-day-only Christmas freebie designs that you won't want to miss. There will also be other goodies, projects from her designers as well as some other guest designers that are stopping by to visit and share, and of course a giveaway or two.
And today, I've got a new layout up on Kerri's blog. I've been knocking out the last few layouts for my Tackling Christmases Past project, over the last month or so. This layout here is one of the last ones I had left, and it's very similar in design to what a lot of my layouts ended up looking like. The entire reason that I had those 6 years of Christmas's that hadn't been documented (along with a few more years from my film days, which still need to be taken care of) was that I don't enjoying scrapping Christmas layouts. Not sure why. I just don't. Which is why I went into this project knowing that I would keep these layouts simple and quick.
You know that saying, "if it isn't broke, don't fit it"? Well, I totally apply that to my scrapping. If I have a page design that works, I have no problem using that design over and over again. It simplifies things for me, and lets me get more done. This is one of those page designs, especially for a two page layout, that has always worked well for me. I've used it a ton, whether it was a Christmas layout, birthday layout, or an everyday layout.
A while back, I got to work with Echo Park's The Story of Christmas collection for a layout that is in the winter issue of Scrapbook & Cards Today. Once I was finished with that layout, I figured that I might as well create another layout with it, since I already had all of the products out. The colors in the collection went perfectly with these photos from Christmas 2011.
I combined two cut files to create my "Merry Christmas" title. While the Here Comes Santa Claus kit has a "Merry Christmas" that's all one cut file, I decided I wanted a taller, all uppercase "Christmas", which I found in the Christmas Countdown kit. If I'm being honest, I actually used this same exact title on my layout for S&CT. I used different patterned papers, and did a little layering/shadowing with a second cut, but yes, same title. Like I said, if it's not broke, no need to fix it!
I really liked the border strip with the cute little banner pieces on it, but it was a little too big for my liking. So I went really old-school, and did a little "tearing" technique to make it smaller. Ok, so tearing really doesn't count as a "technique" I suppose, but I don't get all that "technique-ey" anymore, so I'm going with it. I also used one of the 3x4" cards from one of the patterned papers, and tucked the bottom under the top of my photo collage next to the title. It's something I've done on a few of the Christmas layouts and I like the way it looks.
For this layout, I created two separate photo collages. Since I aim to get all of our photos onto the page, I created a full 12x12 collage for one side of the two page spread, and then a smaller collage for the opposite page. Both of the collages used on this layout came from Kerri's Storyboard #7 kit. I stuck with some very simple embellishments, using a few of the brads and enamel dots that came with the collection. And lots of machine stitching of course.
So make sure and visit Kerri Bradford Studio all this week and next, so that you don't miss a thing. And I'll have one more Christmas layout to share for her sometime next week!
Love the patterned papers! Banner was cute and I liked the "tearing"! And I also love you got to do a full picture collage on the right.
Posted by: Raiza | December 07, 2015 at 04:19 PM
Love the patterned papers! Banner was cute and I liked the "tearing"! And I also love you got to do a full picture collage on the right.
Posted by: Raiza | December 07, 2015 at 04:20 PM