Christmas Layouts Ideas Using Chickaniddy Crafts

Hi all! I have a bunch of fun layouts to share with you that all have to do with Christmas. I just love the Jolly Good Collection by Chickaniddy Crafts for scrapbooking Christmas pages. Can you even believe it is almost Christmas??? Seriously, crazy! Ok, so first, Chickaniddy is giving away FREE Christmas Card Templates that look like this. You can download them free here.Which one do you think looks better for our card this Christmas??

 

   

Onto my pages. My first page.One of my most favorite things about the Jolly Good collection is the colors. I just love that in addition to traditional colors of red, green, and white, this collection includes a soft blue, pink, orange, and grey. Here is the layout I created with the softer tones. Layout inspired  Paige Evans. I cut out a large snowflake and then filled it with triangles. I had already cut out three sizes to my triangles. I stitched on my page, embellished and I was done!

   

Supplies used: Chickaniddy Crafts Jolly Good papers: Caroling/ jg14os03, Holiday/ jg14os08, Sweater Weather/ jg14os04, Tis The Season/ jg14os11. Chickaniddy Embellishments: Enamel Stars/ jg14eb09, Illustration Stickers/ jg14eb01, Mini Sentiment Stickers/ jg14eb07, Mini Sticker Tags/ jg14eb06.

 For my next page, I designed my page all around a star from the Die Cuts Tags in the Jolly Good Collection of Chickaniddy Crafts! As you can see I used lots of patterned papers to lead your eyes right to that shining star! Want to hear something cool: I have turned this into a cut file and the talented Meghann Andrew (on the Chickaniddy Crafts blog) will be sharing her page and a link to the die cut file in December!

   

After I created my design it was all about accenting, but not accenting too much. I saw this idea in an old CK magazine where they layered the circles of the same pattern over a patterned paper. I decided to add this to my page! 

Supplies used: Chickaniddy Crafts Jolly Good papers: Caroling/ jg14os03, Christmas Eve/ jg14os01, Happy New Year/ jg14os12, Holiday/ jg14os08, Holly Jolly/ jg14os05, Making Spirits Bright/ jg14os07, Sugar Cookies/ jg14os02. Chickaniddy Embellishments: Die Cut Tags/ jg14eb04, Journal Tags/ jg14eb03, Mini Sticker Tags/ jg14eb06. 

On my next page, I had fun manipulating text around a circle in Photoshop Elements. HINT: You can do this without that program. Simply print off different sized sentences on white cardstock and place as rays around a circle. I think this is a neat way to tell the story, almost like a clock.

   

Supplies used: Chickaniddy Crafts Jolly Good papers: Caroling/ jg14os03, Christmas Eve/ jg14os01, Holiday, jg14os08, Making Spirits Bright/ jg14os07, Sugar Cookies/ jg14os02, Sweather Weather/ jg14os04. Chickaniddy Embellishments: Alpha Stickers/ jg14eb02, Illustration Stickers/ jg14eb01, Journal Tags/ jg14eb03, Mini Sticker Banners/jg14eb05, Mini Sticker Tags/ jg14eb06.   



My last page was inspired simply from a wrapped package. I just love the way packages look under the tree, so I mimicked that look with some banners strips to look like ribbon. So basically the box has a green top, a white (with a little pattern) bottom and some pretty ribbon. The patterned paper outside of that white patterned paper pulls it all together.

   

 Supplies used: Chickaniddy Crafts Jolly Good papers: Caroling/ jg14os03, Christmas Eve/ jg14os01, Deck the Halls/ jg14os06, Holiday, jg14os08, Making Spirits Bright/ jg14os07, Sugar Cookies/ jg14os02, Sweather Weather/ jg14os04. Chickaniddy Embellishments: Illustration Stickers/ jg14eb01, Journal Tags/ jg14eb03, Mini Brads/ jg14eb08, Mini Sticker Tags/ jg14eb06.   

Thanks for stopping by today!!

 

Photo Memorial Ornament

This is by far the most precious gift that I gave this Christmas. I created this for my mother-in-law.  My father-in-law passed away several years ago. He is greatly missed by all who knew him.  When the gift is this special, it really is a treat to create. The more work involved, the more time I got to spend reflecting on what made this man such a special part of the lives he touched.

You may be wondering how I got his photo on the ornament. I have a beautiful portrait of my in-laws. I scanned it into Photoshop. Next I created a black and white, high contrast image.  I then worked to get just him isolated.

I brought that photo into my Silhouette Design Studio software and traced the image. I then worked to smooth out all the little dots and such to create a usable image. I cut the image from black vinyl and applied it to a glass ornament. I had already glittered the inside of the glass ornament before applying the vinyl pieces.

On the other side of the ornament I placed the "Little bit of Heaven" phrase that I also cut from vinyl. Applying the itty-bitty-tiny letters was a bit tricky. Even using transfer paper, many still needed to be placed individually.  To be sure that this will last a while, I sprayed it with a coat of decoupage sealing spray.

Ribbons helped to finish off the cap and dress up the ornament a bit.

To present this gift, I made a special box. I used a box shape available in the Silhouette online store by Samantha Walker. I modified it to make it large enough to fit the ornament with the bows attached.  I used an acetate sheet for the window, some Christmas paper cut with a lace border punch and more ribbons on top to dress up the box.

This was the one gift I was really excited to give this year. I think she liked it!

Silent Night Canvas from a Digital Stamp

Would you believe this canvas was created using a digital stamp? It was!  Seriously!  The digital stamp that inspired me is Silent Night Digital Stamp from Arty Pants Digital Stamps and is available at The DigiChick. It just released today!!! So it's on sale right now!  Hurry to grab it for yourself!

The wonderful designer created these stamps in several sizes so they can easily be used for cards, scrapbooking or even to create wall art. She also provides layered versions of each stamp, so you can easily clip digital papers to them!

The canvas I used is a 9x12, it was already stretched on the wood base.  I mixed a few paints to get a blue color that I was happy with, then painted a few layers on the canvas.  While that was drying, I used the 8x10 version of the stamp. I brought it into Silhouette Studio and traced it to create cut lines.  I cut it from matte white Oracal vinyl (outdoor).  The stars are from 2 different Silhouette shapes available from Silhouette. Nativity (shape 52103) and Wise men still seek him (shape 35315). I cut the stars from gold vinyl.

I wanted the canvas to have a slight aged/primitive look to it. So I took some white ink and dabbed it around the edges to give it an aged effect.  I then layered the vinyl, the gold stars first then the white letters on top.

Now I've got a beautiful holiday wall art to help us stay focused on the true meaning of Christmas!

Designer Showcase: Christmas

All of us here at Ideas for Scrapbookers wish you and your families a wonderful Holiday Season.  Can you believe that Christmas is less than a week away? Don't panic. Just concentrate on what is most important. As scrapbookers we are often very in touch with the important things in life. We do our best to capture all those memories and precious times spent with family and friends. The holidays are some of the most popular times that get scrapbooked.  So we thought we would have the Designer Showcase today be Christmas.  Here are some examples from the Contributing Artists to help you get thinking about how and what you might scrapbook from your holiday festivities.

This first page from Cindy is an older page of her, but one of her all time favorites.  I can see why! She has included some great photos. Her title captures the way her son referred to the gingerbread men, she included  traditional holiday colors.  The circle photo is accented to really show off his smile. I really love the use of the mini brads with the journal strips. They look like the candies decorating the cookies!

This 2 page layout by Cindy highlights many of her families traditions.  These are such great things to record to be able to look back on in years to come.  Some people do December Daily albums, but that can be quite overwhelming. Cindy shows us a way to capture all that goodness in a less stressful way.  Blocking the photos allows you to include many on the 2 pages.  Simple journaling can be added to support the traditions.  You can also add more personal journaling on the back of the layout as well.  A layout like this can be done each year so you can compare how the traditions have grown with your family each year.

Marlene has captured so much on this page, yet kept it somewhat simple.  She used a printed background of holiday words and phrases, which brings to mind many memories. She has accented the photos with a cute scalloped mat that she doodled on and included the names.  He title says it all "Best Present Ever".  A cherished memory captured forever!

This digital page is one that I made to capture a tradition that my family has added recently. We have many special ornaments for our tree. We also love all things Disney.  Each time we visit Disney, we now make sure to select a new Mickey ornament for our tree.  The title of the page is a play on the Night Before Christmas and the fact that Mickey is a mouse!

The decorations, food, activities and even stories and movies that we treasure at the holidays are all part of what builds our traditions. They also help to stir the memories and the emotions for us. So take time to capture photographs of your loved ones and and jot some journaling about all the traditions in your holiday celebrations.

Happy Holidays!

Gingerbread Birdhouse

Cindy here!  Every year, I basically stop scrapbooking around Thanksgiving and don't start up again until after the New Year.  Holiday crafts and baking take place of the scrapbooking I'd normally be doing.  But just because I'm not putting photos on a page doesn't mean I'm not using my scrapbook supplies.

I recently decorated a plain wooden birdhouse using my scrapbook supplies.  Recognize any tools or products I used?

 

If you guessed paint, border punches, a paper trimmer, Glossy Accents, and Mod Podge... you're right!

I started by painting the birdhouse with a base coat of brown paint.  When that was dry, I carefully painted white everywhere the icing would be on a real gingerbread house.  I made the candy cane perch by wrapping a sliver of red paper around the white post, then carefully gluing the ends in place.  The shingles were made with Fiskars' Scalloped Sentiment border punch.  The small and large circles were from Fiskars' Bubbles border punch.

 

I added Glossy Accents over all the circles to make them shine like candies would.  Finally, I covered the whole thing with several coats of Mod Podge.  I love how it turned out!

A Striped Christmas Tree Template!

I have been enjoying the Christmas Holidays even though I have been so busy.  The joy of the season seems to keep my spirits up even when there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day.  One of the things that really gets the whole Christmas feeling started at our house is decorating the Christmas tree and listening to Christmas carols.  As a result, I decided to do a Christmas template that has a big four part tree that you can create to show off those great holiday papers.  Here is my layout using the template.

I had to put snowflakes in my page even if they are a color other than white.  It has snowed some this week, so we're going to have a white Christmas this year.  I always love it when we do.   I created this layout with a fun kit full of natural looking papers and elements by Kristin Cronin-Barrow called Deck the Halls-Natural.  Here is the sketch of my layout.

For our paper scrapbookers I have put the basic tree shapes in an image file so you can trace and cut out the tree.  Here is that file.

For our digital scrapbookers I have a PSD file created in PhotoShop that you can download for one of the two file sharing sites below.

4Shared:  ds-stripe_christmas_tree_template.psd

MediaFire:  ds-stripe_christmas_tree_template.psd

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 



Vintage style ornament

I made 5 of these pretties for my Christmas tree. The round crochet doilies and foam balls I had bought on clearance from Michaels last Winter and the cameos are The Girl's Paperie. The cameos are actually buttons, so I threaded the seam binding through and tied a bow - no glue required! I bought the vintage coloured crinkle seam binding off Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Bluebirdlane.

So easy to make and I love them. They didn't cost me much more than $3 each to make either. I'm, thinking these would look really pretty with Bo Bunny or Prima Trinkets too! Hmm, now to find more doilies :)

Christmas Door and Wreath Tutorial

Hi Ladies,

Im here today to share a quick Christmas card to make if you haven't started or finished them yet this year! Like me!!! lol...I have seen these around some sites and well this is my version of how to make these fabulous, fast christmas doors with wreaths.

First, I cut 2 (2x2) white paper squares and 2 (2x4) white paper rectangles for my standard white

5 x 6 1/2 card that can be bought in bulk at your local Michael's store..pks of 50 for 10.00....or if you have a coupon even better! I then distressed the squares to give it a bit dimension.

Secondly, the most important part is to have a branch punch. It is approximately 1 1/4 inches. You can use any clear glue and cut out a circle 2 1/2 inches. Punch out several pieces on branches in green cardstock.

Thirdly, you just layer the branches back and forth in and out of the circle till you go all the way around.

Lastly, you glue down the white panels of the door and using pop dots behind the wreath to give it more dimension. Fluff up the branches and add embellishments. I added a old bell, red ribbon, flower soft and a brad for the door knob. EASY and It really looks like you put a lot of work into this....should take about 30-45 minutes to make :)

Hope you enjoyed!

Lump of Coal Cookie Packaging

Hi, It’s been quite some time since I last had a post here…sorry. Last weekend, I went to my annual cookie exchange party and I knew exactly how I was going to wrap the cookies. Martha Stewart’s Gift Coal Boxes inspired me last year and I decided to make my version to accommodate the cookies.

First, the supplies:

6 inch Cookie Tins any color…I bought mine at the dollar store.

Black Cardstock

Black Glitter Cardstock….2 sheets at Target for 99 cents

Electrical Tape

Paper Trimmer

Scissors

Fabric Starch

Glue

Ruler

Ribbon

Tags…I made mine with Cricut and Microsoft word

Second, cut 6 strips of black cardstock 2 ½ inches wide. Two of these pieces will be to wrap around the bottom of the tin. Glue them together. I also used foil and placed my cookies inside.

Third, crumble up the 4 pieces of black cardstock and tape it down with electrical tape on the lid.

Fourth, spray black glitter paper lightly on the OPPOSITE side of glitter paper with fabric starch and wipe off excess. DON’T over spray or it will rip the paper…..I made that mistake! Lol Then, wrap on top of the lid and crunch it up a bit. It dries super fast, no need to wait and no mess.

Lastly, add ribbon and tag. That’s it! I also added the recipe to the back of the tag. :)

Here is another view of your Lump of Coal.

Hope your enjoyed!

Advent Calendar

Advent is a period of preparation for Christmas.  In the church calendar, it includes the 4 Sundays that precede Christmas Day.  A typical Advent Calendar counts down the days from December 1st through Christmas Eve.

I made an Advent Calendar a part of our family holiday tradition when my children were very young.  It was a real help especially for my kids with special needs. It helped them manage their anticipation and kept them on track as to what to expect. They were easily upset by changes in routine, and there are certainly a lot of those during the holidays!  We've kept up the tradition of using an Advent Calendar each year.

The one that we had been using is a bit "young" for us now. This year I decided that I wanted a new way to count down the days that was more suited to my family.  So I created this Advent Calendar using digital scrapbook papers, traditional scrapbook elements, recycled cardboard and curtain trim.

I recycled two pieces of cardboard that some scrapbook papers shipped on as the base for the calendar.  I attached them to each other and created the hanger using recycled curtain trim.  I printed out digital papers from the Comfort and Joy Collection by Sugarplum Paperie. I then created pockets and tags using the papers.

Then I adorned each pocket with holiday goodies from my crafting stash.  I added ribbon to each of the tags and slipped them into a coordinating pocket.  I adhered the pockets to the cardboard base. 12 pockets on each piece. I must confess, of all the crafty things that I collect, I seem to be very attracted to Christmas items. I love Christmas papers and elements!  So this really helped me use up some of that stash that has been accumulating!

Rather than pre-print each tag with an activity, I got some holiday colored paper and re-positional adhesive (like the kind used on Post-it notes). I write an activity on those papers and adhere them to a tag. This gives me a lot of flexibility. If the night that we planned to take a stroll to view holiday lights ends up raining, I can just switch it for a different day.

I hope this gives you some ideas for creating an Advent Calendar for you and your family!

Happy Holidays!

Kissing Ball

Hi everyone, Nancy here with a fun holiday project for you.

As I am sure you know that when you step under the mistletoe you are inviting a kiss; but did you ever wonder where the tradition came from?  Like many of our current traditions, this one comes from the middle ages, but was updated during the reign of Queen Victoria.  I found a detailed story here if you are interested, but here is an excerpt....

People would take a potato or apple and tie a pretty ribbon around it as a hanger.  Then they would stick sprigs of evergreen, holly and sweet herbs into the potato or apple until it bristled with them.

The herbs in the sweet ball took on the highly romanticized symbolism common to the Victorian area. Simon and Garfunkel weren't the only ones singing about "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme".   Each of those herbs plus dozens and dozens more flowers, herbs and plants spoke a unique and private symbolic language to Victorians.  The choice of herbs, flowers and boughs could state love, affection, charity, piety and more.

I decided to create my own version of a kissing ball using some beautiful flowers, distress inks, glimmer mist, a bit of seam binding and a styrofoam ball. 

I used Festive Berries from the Tim Holtz LE Winter Distress Inks to color each flower. (a handful of flowers was all I needed.)

 And then spritzed them with a bit of Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Mist to give them some sparkle and shine.

 I cut a few holly leaves with my Sizzix....

And inked them with the other two colors of Distress Ink that were in the kit, Evergreen Bough and Iced Spruce.  (hint, a quick fold down the middle, run the fold directly over the pad, and you get a nice vein)

I attached the flowers to the ball using liquid glue.  I find liquid glue works best when gluing items that may still be a bit damp.

To finish off my project I ran a bit of seam binding across the Evergreen Bough,  and added a coordinating rose.  A few pearls in the center of each flower and my kissing ball was ready to hang.

I hope I have inspired you to create a little holiday magic in your home this season.

Hugs.