** *Recording our Christmas* **

Happy New Year!

Last month, I described my approach to recording our family life during 2012 using monthly recap pages.  It's now the time of the year for me to record our Christmas in a similar way.  I know that there are popular ideas/classes out there for journaling your Christmas throughout December but having young children and working in a school means that December is an incredibly busy time of the year and I simply don't have the time to do any scrapbooking.  Instead, I have found that what works for me is to scrap about Christmas after it has happened, when I can sit down and print out all of the photos in one go and create a uniform album which is quick to assemble in the days between New Year and the start of the new school term.

I decided to use the Crate Paper Sleigh Ride collection pack, which as well as papers, also contains a sheet of die cut shapes and two sticker sheets. To this, I added a few other supplies which are listed at the end of this post.

My method:

1. Cut down the kraft card to A4 size.  I then added a strip about 8 cm wide of some of the patterned papers to the kraft base page near to the bottom.  I used both sides of the card base to make the pages.  This not only saves on cardstock but also reduces bulk in the finished album. (see photos at the end for more detail)

2. Next I stuck strips of washi tape to the top and bottom edge of the card base.

3. Then I collated and printed my photographs before sticking to each page.  The collages were made using Picasa.

4. After cutting down the kraft card, I was left with lots of spare strips.  These are ideal for making your own shipping tags which I feel echo the tags that you might find on Christmas presents.

To add some extra interest, I punched circles from the patterned paper before using my cropodile to punch a hole from the centre of them.  A small star was punched from the bottom corner of each tag which allows a little of the patterened paper that they were placed on on the pages to show through.

My journaling was handwritten onto these tags which were added to each page.

5. Next I added the titles to each layout.  In my collection of Thickers, I came across two packets of unfinished raw chipboard letters.  As I had so many of these, I decided to use them on each page and to tie them in with the Christmas theme more by covering them all with silver glitter.  I did have to get slightly creative with my use of letters: there's a mix of cases for example and a '5' used for an 's'.

I firstly covered each letter with Tombow glue before liberally covering with the American Crafts fine glitter.  Incidentally, I also found this glitter to be a great addition to my Christmas make up and using a little dab of vaseline across my eyelids to act as a glue, I carefully pressed some of the glitter on top to achieve very sparkly and festive eyes!

6. Lastly, each page was embellished using a mixture of the stickers and die cuts along with some wood veneer shapes and some dots of red liquid pearl and more dabs of glitter to finish.

The finished pages:

I still intend to add a few more pages.  For instance, there's some little moments that I'd like to document and highlights for each of the children to record but I can at least say that the main points have been documented and can be filed away in my Christmas album.


I hope that I may have inspired you to get scrapping your Christmas photos.  I'd love to see your Christmas layouts: link them up in the comments section :)
 

My Supplies:

*Crate Paper Sleigh Ride Collection Pack*

*Kraft Cardstock*

*Divine Twine - Teal*

*Bella Boulevard Red Dot Washi Tape*

*October Afternoon Make it Merry Word Stickers*

*AC Wow! Fine Silver Glitter*