Sarah's Cards Ltd: Post-Christmas Scrapping

I love reading all the "Christmas Scrapping" inspiration in the run up to the big event in December, but if you're anything like me, it is only now that you have the stash, edited pictures and most importantly time to actually document any of the festive season! So I hope you are not all fed up of seasonal pictures and posts, as here I am with my take on recording Christmas! Grab the left over chocolates and sit back and relax.....

Another thing which sometimes makes me hesitant to scrap my Christmas pictures is that I feel that I *should* use festive, themed papers......it's not that I dislike them in anyway, but they somehow serve to get me incredibly stressed about getting my annual Christmas pages *just right*.......totally ridiculous but very true. Thankfully, as many of the design team showcased last month, that really needn't be the case, and like many of them I enjoy the challenge of using "ordinary" stash to create my own, individual seasonal theme, without my self-induced "must get this right first time" pressure that for some bizarre reason themed paper brings out in me!

I chose to use the absolutely gorgeous My Minds Eye Kraft Funday ranges - these were hugely popular at the November retreat, but if you have yet to check them out, have a look at them here, or follow the links at the end of my post. The gorgeous colour-printed kraft designs reminded me of my favourite type of wrapping paper, so felt like a natural choice for my Christmas photos.

My First page is Wonderful Day:

please click on any photo

to see a larger version

We had a fantastic day back in November when my niece was chosen to be Santa's helper for the day and, following a special breakfast and lots of treats, open his grotto - complete with the local paparazzi there to record the moment!

I used the star-spangled reverse of the Lollipop Dots paper as the base for my page, with a spritz of white mist for a frosty feel. I matted my photos on several different layers of paper, and wanted to create the effect of it all being bundled up together like a parcel. So using bakers twine, I attached long lengths behind the paper and brought them to the front, passing them through a single point with a needle so that they would give a "tied together" look when I had finished:

To make the bow on top, I punched several bows shapes from different patterned paper, folded them to give them dimension and stacked them on top of each other using a good dollop of ultra tacky glue.....

and added a sparkly rhinestone to the centre.....I LOVE the iridescent sparkle of the aurora borealis rhinestones - it doesn't photograph well but they give so much more colour and sparkle than plain clear ones!

I used a pre-made, printed chipboard embellishment for my title; you don't have to create your own with alphas every time - printed journalling cards and stickers can some times do the hard work for you. To customise the chipboard I gave it a blast of pink mist,

before matting it on some paper, and a strip of mix tape that I stamped some bunting on top of:

And of course, a bit of added bling to bring the sparkle and magic of the day to life!

A little cluster of stamped images and sentiments and embellishments finished my page:

I adore the little Amy Tangerine camera stamp, and sincerely believe everyone should own it!!

The second page I'd like to share with you was based on my favourite snap of myself and my other half on Christmas Day morning before the chaos and madness descended.....

As the page was based on our "Christmas Portrait", I wanted to use lots of frames to emphasise this idea. Using the frame in the Amy Tangerine stamps, I stamped it onto kraft cardstock in three colours, before cutting them out and sticking them under my photo. I removed the centres from two of them using a craft knife and decorated the resulting "holes" with heart rhinestones, stamped stars and buttons. I left the centre stamped image in tact, but stamped the word "favourite" using a versamark stamp to give a subtle impression. It gives a lovely, tone-on-tone watermark effect.

I created the swags by trapping bakers twine underneath punched bows with some 3d foam pads. To make sure the twiddly twine then stayed flat in the billowing swag shapes rather than twisting up, I put a generous amount of ultra tacky glue on to a clean finger and rubbed it over the twine. It dried quickly and ensured my twine has stayed in shape where I wanted it:

As well as the frames, my photos were matted with patterned papers, mix tape and journalling stickers.

At the bottom of my page, I swiped a stripe of acrylic dabber paint thickly across the page, and whilst still wet dropped lots of ultra fine glitter into it, to create a thick sparkly strip - reminiscent of fresh snow or icing on top of a gingerbread house :)

Using an Ek Success border punch, I added a chain of hearts across this once it was dry, punched from the candy-cane striped rear of the pinwheel paper. This served as the base for my title/journalling chipboard shape, which I decorated with a chipboard button and some decorative pins.

So there's my 2011 Christmas Scrapping achieved without a themed piece of paper of embellishment in sight! We would really love to see your Christmas creations so please feel free to share your links in the comments section :)

Here's to 2012 - I wonder what it has in store for us all!
Thanks, as always, for stopping by :)