Tuesday, November 30, 2010

A Very Merry Un-Christmas


So, you've got your Christmas music on, your Bedford Falls kit in hand, and you're just not feeling like scrapping something holiday-ish.

Simple, just pull out some of the patterned papers, which you can totally use for non-Christmas themed layouts like mine:


See? No Santas, no ornaments, and no guilt about scrapping a Non-Christmas layout with your Christmas kit!

xoxo,
Steph

Monday, November 29, 2010

Gift It



I've been thinking a lot about what to get my family and friends for Christmas this year, and I'm sure you're all having these thoughts as well. Let's face it, we're all trying to be careful right now - maybe cutting back on the number of gifts your giving each receiver, or choosing names from a hat (our extended family has always done this) or maybe you want to give everybody just a little something with that kind of "specialness" you just can't get in a store.

I've decided to give a few people scrapbooks filled with semi-pre-made layouts all ready for the finishing touches to be made.

Here is an example of the kind of page I'm talking about using the Dear Diary kit. You'll notice I've borrowed a couple of cuties from Noel!



See how I've left some blank spots? That's where the receiver can do her own journaling or add any other additional photos or mementos. You could also just make up layouts without any photos at all. This is perfect for the busy mom or the sister-in-law who wants to scrapbook, but just never finds the time. This way you can share your creativity with your loved-ones and also help them out in the the nostalgia department!



You may be thinking, "Who has time for that!?" but I can promise you it goes so much faster than scrapping your own photos. Follow a sketch. Make a few of the exact same page for multiple people. Use the same sketch for every page, using different color themes.



This is also a great way of using up your scraps and leftover kit contents. If you've used those burlap alphas to death on your pages, you can still use them all up on a gift. You won't have to look at them anymore, but you won't have wasted them either (that's always my goal).

You can do a simple album with maybe 12 pages in it for each month of the year. Or do a calendar using the same principle. When the year is over, they can just cut down each page and make it into an album.

There are LOTS of gift ideas to keep your holiday craftiness fun, inexpensive, and always appreciated over at the message board. Come pay us a visit!

Happy scrapping!

xoxo
Britt

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Simple Pleasures

Good morning and happy Sunday to you! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you shopped until you dropped! My lil family and I are headed to downtown Chicago today to see the Christmas lights. I lied last week when I said it was my last post.....I was a bit off on my dates I guess. So today is my last official post for Noel. It is bittersweet to say the least.

I have a LO of my son using the "Dear Diary" kit. I recently took a picture of him eating corn and loved how blue his eyes looked and those dimples.......ahhhh those dimples..... : ) I was lucky enough to find another picture of him when he was 16 months old eating corn. I love being able to use older pictures and newer pictures together!
The title and the ears of corn were cut using my Cricut machine.
Have a wonderful Sunday!

Saturday, November 27, 2010

The Little Things


This holiday season, take some time to scrapbook the little things that make you happy. For example, I love Starbucks coffee. I don't buy it often but I like to splurge on it during the holiday season. My absolute favorite holiday flavor is their Caramel Brulee Latte. It's too die for yummy! What better way to commemorate my love for this scrumptious coffee than by documenting it!

I used the Bedford Falls kit (you can get yours here)along with a few items from my stash to create this festive layout.




Happy creating!
-Diana

Friday, November 26, 2010

Bedford Falls Kit!


Bedford Falls Kit includes the following:
Papers
Girl's Papier "Tinsel and Twig" (Double Sided)
-Christmas Carol Stripes
-Snowfall
-Holly Berry Floral
Pink Paislee "Father Christmas" (Double Sided)
-Santa's List
-Trading Cards
-Special Delivery
-Around the World
Fancy Pants "Tradition" (Double Sided)
-Stripe and Scallop
-Brrr
-Finishing Touch
My Minds Eye "Holly Jolly"(Double Sided)
-Holly Berries
-Winter Branches
-Candy Canes
-Holiday Plaid
Making Memories "Noel" (Double Sided)
-Green Snowflake
-Poinsettia Ledger
-Christmas Collage
-Music Note Brown
-Music Note Ledger
-Postage Stripe (Die Cut)
We R Memory Keepers "White Christmas"
-Snow Flurry (Flocked)
-Stripe (Flocked)
-Figgy Pudding (Die Cut)
-Dear Santa (Die Cut)
American Crafts Cardstock
-1 Kraft
-1 Green
-1 Blue
-1 Cranberry
-1 Cream
Embellishments
-1 package American Crafts "Marquise" Thickers - Red
-1 bottle Shimmerz "4 leaf clover" spritz
-1 We R Memory Keepers "Holly Jolly" Acrylic Stamp Set
-3 Making Memories "Noel" flower rosettes
-1 Making Memories "Noel" embellished frame
-1 Making Memories "Noel" glitter bling words
-1 sheet Jenni Bowlin Star Banner Red Stickers
-2 WeR memory Keepers Embossed Die Cut Tags
-4 Elle's Studio Christmas Journaling tags
-1 package My Minds Eye "Holly Jolly" ribbon card (4 yards)
-1 Living Room Floor Holiday tag with bakers twine
-2 American Crafts glitter/felt holly stickers (1 green, 1 silver)
-1 Making Memories metal words
-3 Jenni Bowlin Christmas chipboard buttons
-6 My Minds Eye "Holly Jolly" metal brads
-6 American Crafts glitter buttons
-1 Sheet Cosmo Cricket Green Tiny Type
-1 package Fancy Pants "Tradition" Rub Ons
-1 sheet Fancy Pants "Tradition" element cardstock stickers
-1 12x12 sheet Pink Paislee "Father Christmas" punchout tags
PLEASE CLICK HERE to order!


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Good morning, friends! For those of you in America, did you have a good Thanksgiving? Any of you crazies go out to Black Friday shopping? ;)

I'm not brave enough to do that, but I have already started on some of my Christmas goodies. Last night I made some tags to put on my gifts this year with the Bedford Falls kit (only 20 left!).


These are simple to make and I think add a cool touch to my packages:

1. Cut kraft cardstock 2 1/2 x 3 1/2". Spritz with turquoise mist. Ink edges.
2. Punch out Santas from Pink Paislee paper with a 2" circle or scalloped circle punch. Ink edges.
3. Stamp with We R Memory Keepers stamp on cardstock. Cut out, and cut notch in end. Ink edges.
4. Adhere stamped strip & scalloped circle. Add three pieces of bling.

Here are a few shots of my December Daily album interior. I have use Girls' Paperie stickers, book pages, & kraft cardstock from my stash, and the rest is from the Bedford Falls kit.

I can't wait to start adding our memories to these pages! I'll keep y'all updated as I do. :)

Have a great weekend! We're about to put up our Christmas decorations... play some Christmas tunes... light my favorite candles... and watch "White Christmas"!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

All We Want for Christmas with Bedford Falls!


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We're celebrating with family today but my post is all about Christmas and the beautiful "Bedford Falls" kit. A song that really touched me several years ago is "All I Want for Christmas is a Family" by Steven Curtis Chapman. The song is all about a young child desiring a family and someone to love them for Christmas. I've shared much about how adoption has been a part of my family so I'm sure you can imagine why I love this song. Christmas was always a painful holiday for me because I had always imagined what it would be like to have a little boy or girl enjoy the magic and spirit of Christmas. 

So, when I saw the Fancy Pants Designs sticker "All I Want for Christmas...", I knew I had to use it on my layout. I just altered it a little bit for my use with the tiny Cosmo Cricket green stickers. I love the red faux-stitched thickers in the kit and used those for the "Family" part of my title.


Here's a close-up...


For my Christmas tree, I used the Pink Paislee banner stickers and arranged them up and down on kraft cardstock to form the tree. The star on top is a Fancy Pants stickers and then I placed Melissa Frances pearls on the tree as ornaments. 


All of the patterned paper I used on the layout is Pink Paislee. I added a little machine stitching for a homespun feel and journaled around the edge of my layout.

I hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving and I'll be back in the next few weeks with more work using "Bedford Falls".

Until next time,
Jill



Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Trick or Treat!


Morning everyone!!! You are all probably wondering why my post title is Halloween themed-well, that is because I have a LO that I made with Sleepy Hollow that I totally did not share!! :P I'm a dork, I know. :D

I made the LO with Noel's Sleepy Hollow kit (sorry sold out! :D), and this was my first Halloween themed kit ever. I had an absolute blast working with the kit, and ended up creating my very first Halloween LO. We had never celebrated Halloween before this year, so this was the first time that I had pics of Creedence in costume and Trick or Treating! Needless to say, this is a holiday that she will never let us get away with not celebrating again! LOL! She had an amazing time and ended up wearing her costume for about a week after. (Yes that means that I totally let her. How could I not?! She looked so stinkin cute in it!)

The only thing that I had not done when I photographed the LO was that journaling. (I actually still need to do it! :P) It is a bit different from my normal style of 'just anything goes', but I was really happy with how it turned out! I also did something I hadn't done in a long time and decided to do inked edges-which I have done on almost every LO since this one! So without further ado-I give you my very first Halloween page! :D


I know I have plenty more Halloween LOs to scrap with my Sleepy Hollow kit, because this photo above was most certainly not the only picture I took!! :D But Noel's kits are so jam packed that I will without a doubt be able to get a LO for ever picture I took out of my kit! She is just amazing in how much she gets in those kits!
And if you haven't checked it out already, be sure to take a look at the Christmas themed kit Noel made for December!! Bedford Falls is the most gorgeous (and biggest!!) holiday kit I have ever seen!!!
There are still some left, but don't hesitate as December is coming upon us really REALLY fast!!
I wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving this week-as I won't be back until next Wednesday!! Eat lots of turkey and rolls and cranberry sauce! :D Take care!
~Amy

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

thoughts on creating a December Daily

 There's been a lot of talk about December Daily albums. Personally, I love the concept. There are so many things that happen in the month of December and if I scrapbooked a layout for every event I'd have a whole scrapbook just for the month! I love being able to put together a small album that shows a glimpse into the holiday season. It takes so much pressure off me to feel the need to scrapbook each and every thing that happened.

So I thought I'd share a few tips & ideas about creating a December Daily for those of you who've never done one...or maybe I'll have some new tips for those of you that have done it before! I'm planning on doing this year's album with the beautiful Bedford Falls kit. Everything is right there for you to create your entire album & still have goodies left over for other projects!

The first year I used a 6x6 acrylic album and last year I used a 6x6 American Crafts chipboard album.

I love using the D-ring album better simply because it holds up to wear and tear better. My albums get looked at...a lot. And my December Daily albums sit out for all to enjoy. So I need something a bit sturdy. This year I think I'm going to go with the 8x8 version of this album.

Of course, one of the main things that's in this album is events that take place during the month - school parties, get togethers, etc. But what about the simple, everyday stuff? Like, a yummy Christmas cookie to kick off the holiday season...

Don't forget stringing up the lights! Do you ever look at old pics and think 'man, look at the cars they had back then!" Do you think our cars will look funny in the background 20 yrs from now??
The stockings...you can't forget the stockings! I know for our family my December Daily will look different next year with the addition of baby #3 :)
On the days that not much happened I like to use pictures of decorations. Because let's face it, not every day will be so momentous that you want to record everything that happened! Don't forget to record the everyday things like the weather. Maybe it's a warm December, maybe a cold one, maybe a rainy one like we had last year. It's sometimes hard to get used to considering I'm originally from Michigan. But it's definitely something to record...especially if you live in a location that's different from where you grew up.
 
Every year I have a cookie swap and I love to take pics of Christmas cookies. Makes me hungry just thinking about it! But in my December Daily I not only take a picture of the cookies & treats that I make, but I also create an envelope & put those recipes inside.
And not every page needs a picture. One day last year I took my kids to see Polar Express at the IMAX (very cool by the way!). So I kept the ticket stubs along with the Polar Express gold ticket they gave us at the movies and that was our 'photo' for the day.
You'll notice that all of my pages are different. Some use page protectors, some don't.I also like to have pages peeking out from behind other pages. I love the look that creates.
Creating a December Daily is really not as daunting as it may seem. You can make it as simple or as complex as you want.

**I usually try to start with at least half of my album created (at least the base pages) before December 1st. Add pictures to your album every few days to keep on track. I usually at least try to journal what happened each day even if I didn't get a chance to print out pictures.
** If you're printing pictures at home, be sure to have an extra ink cartridge(s) handy. I ran out of ink last year.
**I like to keep all of my papers/embellishments together when creating my album. I bought one of those clear 12x12 boxes & kept everything in there so it was handy when I sat down to add pictures to my album. Since I'm using the Bedford Falls kit this year I'll have everything together when I work on my album!

For more inspiration, there's a whole section on the message board here. You can also check out all of my December Daily posts from last year on my blog here. If you create one this year be sure to share it over on the message board!!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

American Honey

Have you ever heard a song that just touches you? The lyrics just hit home? My daughter graduated 8th grade this year and her teacher made a video of her with the song from Lady Antelbellum called, American Honey. To me it's a growing up and moving through life kind of a song. My daughter has special needs and has certainly done her share of growing up and changing. It causes that lump in my throat and my heart to ache. But that's what kids do......grow up. I wanted to create a special LO for her........and I used Noel's older kit called Love Story. I used Brit's fabulous idea to create these paper fans for dimension. (Thanks Britt for your very cool idea!)
Did a bit of layering with my Thickers.....
I cut the letters with my Cricut and used one of my stamps for the jar of honey.
......and the lyrics to the song.....
I have a lump in my throat today.......it is my last week here with Noel Mignon. I have been on this fabulous team for a little over two years. I am sad to go......but it is my time to take a break. I will still be hanging around the boards. I want to thank you, Noel for making such fantastic kits, and for being such a truly sweet person.