Merry December Daily

There are so many things I love about Christmas and the days that lead up to it. From the decorating, backing, which I'm not very good at, to the shopping and just enjoying my time with family and friends.

 

Back in 2013 a good friend got me to make my first December Daily album. I absolutely loved the process, the end result and the memories were captured.

 

When 2014 came around I opted out of making an album thinking it would be repetitive. I was very wrong. There were many firsts for our family, and I didn't document them. That was a BIG mistake on my part, one I will not be making again.

 

I want my girls to always remember our traditions, special days, a special cookie recipe, time spent with family and friends. I capture little moments and things I like. I make it as big or small as I want. It is after all our December and our Christmas.

 

Follow along and I will take you through some of the pages and ideas on creating your own December Daily to enjoy for years to come.

 

I use a Simple Stories album and refill pages to start. I do one page per day to document our lives in December.

 

My first page is always a cover page of my choice. This year it was a photo of an old car in a winter wonderland. I printed it twice and cut out key elements such as the wreath on the grill, the coffee mug on the front fender and the gifts on the roof. I pop there off of the page to give them dimension and texture.

 

 

I always include a December calendar as one of my pages. I add to it a picture banner of my choice. I also add events that are pre-planned. I add glitter and embelishments and sparkle it up. 

 

I love being able to add glitter, gems, sparkly ribbon and little touches I pick up along the way. 

 

 

Techinque Time

I was having a coffee this morning and cruising through Facebook when I came across a post by one of the ladies making her own enamel dots. She used good old children’s pony beads. I knew we had a stash of those somewhere in the house and thought I would give it a go as well.



 

It was simple. Line them up on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and place in a preheated oven 350 degrees for 20 minutes. It may take longer depending on the size of the pony beads. Since it was my first time making them I kept checking on them in 10 minute intervals until I got the desired effect.

It was easy and they will look awesome on future layouts.

Thank you for stopping by.

 

Inspire & Be Inspired

Creative Scrapbooker Magazine

I’m not one to submit my layouts for publishing, but a few Scrapfest’s ago I was at the then Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine (Now Creative Scrapbooker Magazine) booth chatting it up with Katharina Doyle. During that conversation she encouraged me to submit my layouts. That meant having to keep track of all my materials, techniques and processes used. Which, I am really not that good at. Those that know me, know that I fly by the seat of my creative pants and just let the art take me where it takes me.

Since then, every so often I would look at the submissions page to see what the requirements were for the upcoming issue. This time I came across the "Double The Fun" Kelly Klapstein Sketch for the Fall 2016 issue. I had some photo’s I needed a put on a double page and thought “why not?” I created the double page, kept it simple compared to my standard style and submitted it. Then I waited. I didn’t put much thought into it after I pushed the send button. I just kept scrapbooking and being creative.

Yesterday  I got an email from Jackie Ludlage, Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief of Creative Scrapbooker Magazine, letting me know that they would like to publish the layout I submitted. Woooo Hoooooo. Am I excited ? Heck Yeah ! Of course I am. Wouldn’t you be !

Well I can’t tell you which layout it is and I can’t show it to you. You’ll just have to pick up a copy of Creative Scrapbooker Magazine Fall 2016 issue to check it out.

Off to the Post Office I go !

 



Shine Like a Diamond

Hello Scrappy Friends,

I hope you all had as fantastic of a weekend as I did. I spent my Saturday with two great scrappy people being creative, eating good food, laughing and having an absolutely fantastic time. 

 

When I scrapbook I’m never in a rush. Scrapbooking is an art not a race. Take your time when you're being creative and let the photo’s, papers, embellishments and all that other fun stuff you use relax you and transport you to a therapeutic place.

After a long day of scrapping I started laying out components for this layout at 1:00am on Sunday and completed the page after some much needed sleep and a cup of coffee. I call this one “Shine Like a Diamond”.

 

My Rebecca is so full of life, she always lets her personality shine, thus the title. I kept this layout fairly simple because I wanted the pictures and her smile to the stand out. It's not a crooked layout, it's just the way I took the picture.



 

 

As my ongoing attempt to purge, so that I can shop more,  I used many of my old stash items for this project.

Product's used:

JilliBean Soup - Soup Staples - Green Stock - I used the back side as my craft coloured base.          Heidi Swapp Color Shine - Gold. 

Dreamweaver Metallic Gold Embossing Paste. 

Authentique - Neat and Blue Fern Studios 

Project Life Gold "Shine" as part of the title and a wood veneer banner.

"In the Wild" paper flower from my stash along with other bits and pieces layered to make the embellishement.

Unknown journaling paper bit and MME Lime Twist Alpha on journaling card.

Water, paint brush and a edge distressing tool, tweezers and tip sharp scissors, pop dots, hot glue gun and Best Ever Glue.



 

My first step was preparing the craft background. I splattered it randomly with Heidi Swapp’s Gold Color Shine and set it aside to dry. I love this product; it is such a vibrant gold colour even once it’s dry. I then cut my mats to size using the patterned paper. The large mats edges were curled, in the near future I will post a process video on how I curl the paper edges, it’s such a simple process. The two smaller mats were distressed using a distress tool with a blade.  The edges of all the mats were rubbed with Dreamweaver Metallic Gold Embossing Paste to give them more of an antique and glimmer feel and to soften the already soft colours of the patterned paper. I then laid out all the components to see where they would look best. Always do this before you start to glue things down.

 

The flower embellishment was made using old bits and pieces of stashed items that I found laying around. I hot glued a chipboard element to the flower then layered a micro glitter paper flag with a heart using a Project Life Die. And finally I placed an additional chipboard element a bit off center on top of it all. The original colour of the flower was very nice, a bit more fuchsia in colour as you can see in the above photo, I toned that down with some Gesso painted on to the flower petals.



 

 

And finally the title. It was made using a Project Life clear and gold embellishment with the word “shine” , and a little ivory and gold tag that I had in my stash that said “ Shine like a diamond” and had the little diamond graphic. I fussy cut the graphic, cut off the word “shine” because I was using the Project Life piece for that. The clear “shine” was affixed with a hot glue gun. That ensured that it would stay in place as well as that the glue that would be visible was clear. The wood veneer banner was also glued down with the hot glue gun, then the “like a diamond” was added to the banner. I didn’t want the little metal ring on the banner showing so I placed the diamond graphic on top of it and used pop dots on the side that was hanging off of the tag to give it extra support.

The journaling - “The whisper of a pretty girl can be heard over the roar of a lion.”

Truth be told I stumbled upon this by accident. This was on the bottom banner of the Authentique patterned paper next to the bar code and I thought it was perfect and very appropriate for the message I was trying to relay with this layout.

 



Thanks for stopping by.

Inspire & Be Inspired !



It's been over three years since I closed Scrapbook Queens. Since then I have been enjoying life and getting my scrapbooking supplies purged and organized. I have spent many hours scrapbooking and bringing my photos to life with my pages. I still have many years to scrapbook and don't think I will ever be up to date. But that's OK because, you see, I never want to run out of things to scrapbook.

Now that I'm back on track doing what I love, I once again want to share my love of this craft that preserves memories for generations to come. Hence, this blog which I will use to document my layouts, techniques, products I love and hopefully inspire you to try new things that will excite you.