Scrapbook & Cards Today: Under The Tree Are Presents For Me

I have a new layout up on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog today. I do four blog posts a year over there, and when it came time to start thinking about what I was going to create for this post, I started thinking back to the last post I did for the 2014 year, which was in November 2014 (found HERE). I realized that I had shared the new approach I had decided to take to tackling the years of Christmas photos that I had never gotten around to documenting. I had shared my first two layouts (both two pagers) from this project on that post, and I figured with this post being my last post on the S&CT blog for 2015, it would be the perfect time to share another layout from this same undertaking.

Just a quick refresher on this project and my plans for it (you can read more about it in full HERE). My goal when it comes to scrapping holidays and events is to get the entire celebration on the page. I am not one to do a large number of layouts every Christmas, with a single photo, or maybe two or three photos on a page. If I'm going to take the time to scrap Christmas, I'm going to use ALL the photos at once, and "get it done". That just sort of goes in line with my style and how I like to scrap. I had a plan to get all of these photos, from 6 different years, scrapped quickly and without much fuss. And that plan heavily revolved around photo collages. It's the best way to get LOTS of photos on your pages, in a neat and organized way. I like clean looking pages, and photo collages are great for just that.

For this layout, documenting Christmas morning with my girls back in 2008, I had created a large photo collage for one side of the page, and I had two main photos that I printed as 4x6” prints. I’m a firm believer in turning to the colors in your photos when it comes to picking out your patterned papers and embellishments. I’ve been holding onto this older Jolly Good Christmas collection from Chickaniddy Crafts that went really well with these photos. I don’t see pink or even the lighter green pop up in our Christmas photos anymore, so I wanted to make sure and use this collection once I realized how well it matched with these older photos.

Since I fit the majority of our photos into the photo collage for the second page, I choose two main photos to include on the first page. Since they were both 4x6”, I adhered them side by side across the page, which gave me plenty of room above and below to play. Actually, they weren't a true 4x6", since there's a gap in between the photos. Lol. I find it so annoying when things aren't the exact size they should be.

The white and grey circle patterned paper was perfect for the background of this page, as it was subtle enough to let all the other elements stand out against it. This entire layout is pretty much all patterned paper and photos, with a touch of cardstock in my title. I even cut the “Ho!Ho!Ho!” and “The Magic of Christmas” strips from a sheet of patterned paper.

My title is straight from the Silhouette store, and I cut it using both patterned paper and solid cardstock. I love titles that include both a cursive font and a clean font with straight lines, and this title had both.

When it comes to photo collage templates, I think you all know that my go-to templates are from Kerri Bradford Studio, as she has such a wide variety to choose from. I print a lot of my smaller photo collages at home, but anything larger than 8.5x11” I send to Costco for printing, which is super convenient for me as it’s only two miles from my house. And yes, that's a super unflattering photo of me on there. But it's not often I'm even in photos, so I had to include it to show I was there ;)

The only real embellishments that I included on this layout were some enamel dots that I added to some of the flowers on the floral patterned paper. I even fussy cut some of these adorable pink and red flowers to add to the first page of the spread. It’s such a quick way to bring in a touch of that floral patterned paper to the opposite page, without adding a large piece of it.

I'm pretty sure I've said this in every post related to this "tackling Christmases past" project, but it’s worth repeating. I figure if using the same basic design, some of the same elements, and even the same photo templates helps me tackle something that I’ve been avoiding, then it’s all good. I would rather create quick and easy pages and “get it done” … then to keep pushing these photos and memories aside, all because they’re subjects or themes that I either don’t enjoy doing, or am too overwhelmed to dig into!

I have two more Christmas layouts to share during the next week, which will bring this project to an end. Sort of. Once I share the last layout, I'll be doing a post to share the progress I made, some final thoughts on how I went about this, and what comes next related to this same project.

 

Comments

[Mendi Yoshikawa]

Love this with the unexpected flower paper! Your girls look so little from 7 years back. ;)

[Diana]

what a fun, festive two pager!

[Raiza]

I wouldn't think red would go with this pink and green but it totally works! Good eye!