Christmas Layouts

Hi there. I've been pretty lax last month and only now do I have time to sit down and post my January layouts. Blame it on a busy January. I've also been doing kid's classes and haven't had as much time to work on layouts.  I did manage to finish two Christmas layouts so at least got those in. Still have a lot of Christmas layouts to do.

The first one, I've also used to enter the My Creative Scrapbook January sketch challenge.  This is the sketch:

Team Work

I love the bright colours of this paper line. I used three photos instead of just the one but I pretty much stayed to the rest of the sketch. I love pre-Christmas traditions and every year, we make a gingerbread house. This year Miss C got to work with her cousin to build and decorate one together.

I just love the bright reds and all the non traditional Christmas accents and ephemera.

The background paper is just lovely, adding that festive touch to the layout without overpowering it. For the top border, I used several paper strips, one of which I used my scallop punch on.

Products Used
Patterned papers fromPhoto Play Paper Dear Santa collection and Echo Park The Story of Christmas collection
Die cuts from Echo Park The Story of Christmas collection
Stickers from Photo Play Paper Dear Santa collection
Puffy glitter alphas from My Mind's Eye Cozy Christmas collection

Let's Trim The Tree

I love the cool grey colour of the background paper; a good foil for the greens and reds on the page. It was so great to stay at my sister in-law's house for Christmas and the first thing we did was decorate the tree. 

I stenciled gesso over a damask mask before layering on the background papers. I also fussy cut the presents and trees from one of the patterned papers.

I love the Christmas carol paper and wanted to keep that as an accent.

Products Used
Unknown as I can't seem to find the kit I used.

Thanks for looking,

HK Memory Chest Kit Club - December 2015

Hi there. Can you believe we are in the last month of the year? How quickly has this year passed by? So much has happened and yet sometimes, all these events seem to fade from your memory. This is why I love scrapbooking - we get to put those moments down to look back on in the future.

December also brings us to the HKMC Christmas kit. Beautiful vintage Christmas colours and images from Prima Marketing, mixed with some amazing mediums make this kit so fun to work with.

Photo courtesy of Papercraft Buffet

December Kit 2015
Prima “A Victorian Christmas” – Pere Noel
Prima “A Victorian Christmas” – Une Carte De Noel
Prima “A Victorian Christmas” – Un Calendrier De L’avent
Prima “A Victorian Christmas” – Le Jour De Noel
Prima “A Victorian Christmas” – Un Chant De Noel
Prima A Victorian Christmas Snowflake Leaves
Prima A Victorian Christmas Rudolph’s Nose Flowers
Prima A Victorian Christmas Holiday Lights Flowers
Aleene’s Glitter Snow
Prima Marketing Antique Resin Frames
Lindy’s Stamp Gang Starburst Spray – Brulee Cream
Maya Road Mini Chipboard Snowflakes
Artemio Alphabet Glitter Stickers – Silver
Kaisercraft Holy Night Cardstock Die-Cuts
Ribbons

The sketch for this month:

 Holiday Cookies

Gorgeous vintage papers to play with and add lots of dimension to. The photos were taken two Christmas' ago when Miss C made Christmas bear cookies for all of us.

I punched a bit of the border and added the lace behind. For the snowflakes, I added glossy accents and sprinkled over silver glitter. Once dry, I dabbed the ends with Aleene's glitter snow.

I sprayed the white leaves green and that even turned the glitter around the edges green - love it.

Noel

I kept this page brighter to go with the modern Christmas trees in the photos. I added the glitter snow through a stencil for the background.

The flowers are so pretty and a bow completes the little cluster.

I added some gold glitter glue over the star to make it shine a bit more.

The Nutcracker

Having mixed mediums in the kit inspired me to play around with more ideas, hence the collage background.

I collaged the background before adding a thin layer of gesso. I then used gelatos to "frame" each collage piece. I also added the music paper in places. I sprayed the leaves gold this time to match the flower cluster.

I love bringing out my toy soldier die every year and this time, I made him into a nutcracker to go with the photos.

Happy Holidays Display Plaque

I used a Tim Holtz canvas frame for the base, collaged on some the kit paper and added a layer of clear crackle paint.

I added some gold paint on the base and added gold microbeads to the corners. I die cut the sentiment from some Heidi Swapp glitter paper. I had some white flowers in my stash, which I sprayed red.

I love this Santa - just so old school. I finished off the layout with generous slathering of the glitter snow.

Other layouts and projects from the design team:

 Cool As Always by Belly Lau

Coffee and Cake by Belly Lau

Homey Joy by Belly Lau

Christmas Ornaments by Belly Lau

 All Hearts Come Home For Christmas by Erika Lui

 Reason For The Season by Erika Lui

 Christmas Banner by Erika Lui

Discovery Bay Crop 

8th December (Tue)

10:30am - 12:00noon

Hosted by Grace Wong

 

See you all at crop,

 

 

Christmas in March...Again

The last couple of days, I've been very conscientiously tidying up the study and my scrap space. Reorganizing and labeling my stamps and dies into Avery Elle pockets, my punches into different brands and photos into folders and even doing a ton of filing and paper sorting.

I was certainly on a roll and decided to get my Christmas layouts done and out the way while I was still in the mood to get things done. By now, you might know of my love for doing Christmas layouts (not!) so it was a great time to plough through them. Looks like I may make it an annual habit of scrapping Christmas in March.

All I Want For Christmas

For the whole year, Miss C has been asking for a Snoopy toy and she was such a patient girl, willing to wait for Santa to send one. I have her actual hand written Santa's wish list hidden behind the false list on the right. The little snow flake acts as a pull tab.

This kit from MCS had so many elements included, I didn't have to do much. I did add silver ink to the wooden snowflakes before embossing with glittery clear powder. I also used Wink of Stella to add some glimmer to some of the sticker accents.

 I cut out the string of lights and think they look so cute at the top of the page.

Products Used

Papersm die cuts and stickers from American Crafts Be Merry collection

Wooden snowflakes

Wink of Stella

Silver ink from Avery Elle

Glitter embossing powder from Stampendous

Build A Gingerbread House

As a contrast to the previous green layout, I wanted a bold red one. I love the large chevron background paper. Every year Miss C gets to decorate a gingerbread house. We never eat it though - I don't think they taste that great but she gets to gobble down the sweets that don't get used up.

 The die cuts are just too cute and so appropriate.

I love the mini letter stickers that come in the kit and also the glittery foam alphas.

Products Used

Papers, die cuts and mini letters from American Crafts Be Merry collection

Gingerbread stickers from Pebbles Home for Christmas collection

White glitter foam alphas from American Crafts

Christmas Cheer Happy Celebrations

Time for a double layout. I did a patchwork background with several patterned papers. We had a pretty big Christmas day lunch with eighteen around the table. Even Molly fur ball got in on the action.

My sweet Molly was right in the middle of all the present opening and loved all the tinsel and ribbons. I love the glittery red alphas I used for the titles.

 Love the chipboard 25 which I back with a green tag.

Cute paper flowers to put together.

Products Used

Papers and chipboard from Carta Bella Christmas Time collection

Brads from Simple Stories Cozy Christmas collection

Flowers from Bo Bunny Christmas Collage collection

Red glitter foam Thickers from American Crafts

Distress inks from Tim Holtz for Ranger Inks

So there you go. Ho ho ho layouts in March.  Until next year.

Thanks for dropping by,

Christmas in March?

Hi there,

After three months, I finally hunkered down and got a Christmas layout done. Two pages, actually. What a feat. I'm not big on holiday pages and Christmas is the worst. Don't get me wrong; I love Christmas as a holiday, but I seem to difficulty when it comes to scrapbooking the event. Dark, indoor, repetitive photos and so many that I don't know which ones to put down on the page.

For this double pager though, I have two wonderful subjects, so it was easier to get done.  When Miss C and her cousin get together (which is not often as one lives in the UK and one here in HK), they are thick as thieves. It's so nice to see the interaction. Like brother and sister, without the fighting. I guess it's because they only see each other for a few weeks out of a year.

Naughty? Nice?

 I don't usually do a lot of double layouts, but this one had too many cute photos not to be included. I did them both in contrasting papers, but kept the embellishments similar to keep it cohesive.

 I was originally going to do two separate layouts, but in the end, decided to combine them both.

 That way, I could add in more photos, and not worry too much about embellishments or a title space.

 The chipboard, brads and papers are super cute.

What could be better than Father Christmas on skates?

Products Used
Papers, mini letter stickers and brad from Bo Bunny Mistletoe collection
Chipboard embellishments from MAMBI
White cardstock

I know for sure I have one more Christmas layout to do for 2012. Let's see what time of year that one gets done. Haha.

Thanks for dropping by,

Happy New Year Everyone

Hello All,

How was your Christmas? Is everyone stomachs groaning in protest over the massive amounts of food consumed in the last few days? I know I am and we still have a few more big meals to get through before going home on the 3rd. I swear, once we get back home, I am putting hubby and I on the strictest diet.

 Miss C on the way to Santa's Grotto on Christmas Eve morning.

 Huge swan at Painshill Park.

We had a wonderful Christmas day; seventeen of us crammed in the dining room, which was beautifully laid out by my father in-law. There was the ubiquitous crackers, turkey and stuffing and to end it all, an over-doused Christmas pudding which wouldn't go out for ages. We were actually afraid the plate would crack from flaming so long.

  Reading a letter from Santa.

The evening saw us all sitting in the front room opening our presents. Whenever we spend Christmas in the UK, rather than buying for everyone, we do a family secret Santa for those who want to join in. Kids were exempt of course, and they had the most fun tearing open the wrapping. Poor things; we made them wait the whole day. The only thing they could open in the morning was "Santa's" present. Miss C asked for a specific princess dress but she got a different one - not too pleased about that but she soon came round and now wants to wear it all day, every day.

 

 Opening presents after lunch. There's the princess dress.

The next day was spent recuperating from our food comas before the boxing day feed at my sister in-law's. I contributed with the largest Eton Mess trifle ever - so good! 

Every time we come back, I request three things: a British Chinese take-away (have to really - it's just so different from what I get back home), an Indian curry (they do make the best here) and a proper pub lunch. We did the first on the second night here, the curry on the twenty-seventh and the pub lunch (roast pork with apple sauce and a huge yorkie) yesterday. I'm happy.

On the twenty-eighth, hubby and I got a real treat - we had to go for a business lunch meeting in London and we ate at the Savoy Grill (a Ramsay restaurant). Very nice indeed. The menu was simple but everything was so well done and the service impeccable. I didn't dare whip out the phone to take pictures though - didn't seem like the sort of place to do that, you know?

Yesterday, a bunch of us drove all the way down to West Wittering beach in West Sussex. We all thought it would be a good idea to go for a leisurely walk by the sea, in the middle of winter. Yes. Well, let's just say, we were all frozen by the end of the walk and had sand in every crevice unmentionable, but at least the rain held off and we even got a decent amount of blue sky. This was followed by the lovely pub lunch I mentioned earlier.

 

 Down at the beach in West Wittering. Freezing cold.

Today, I'm staying in most of the day. We'll be ringing in the new year at a friend's house (bless them for offering up their place to thirty of us). We're having an hors d'oeuvres competition (can't remember who suggested this), so I plan to do a corn fritter topped with prawn, with tomato relish.

It's been a great trip so far - it's so good to be able to spend time with family and friends. I know hubby really misses this side of the UK and Christmas, especially, is very important to him. Just a few more days before we go home. Four days there, and I'm back on a plane to LA for the winter CHA! YAY!!

Miss C and I both miss home and Jake cat and of course, just being back in our own space.  To think - I'm planning on coming over for the whole six weeks of the summer holidays next year. We'll be outstaying our welcome at the parent in-laws then.

To round up my post, I wish everyone a prosperous and happy new year and all the very best for 2013.

Happy New Year everyone,