Cozy Christmas

Hello Everyone,

I hope you have been over on the website looking at all our new goodies that we have recently taken delivery of, many of which include lovely Christmas goodies!  One of my favourites is the 'Simple Stories' range of papers and embellishments called 'Cozy Christmas' which is a very traditional range of papers with snowflakes, baubles and other Christmas icons in warm reds and festive greens with woodgrain effects.

Earlier in the year I spent several weeks organising my photos out of envelopes and into binders following Stacy Julian's Photo Freedom idea. This really was the best thing I could have done because now I can just quickly grab a binder and after a quick flik through grab some photos and begin scrapping.  It has meant that many of our old photos have come to light again and I am much more inspired to scrap them which is how I ended up scrapping this layout.

'Belly Dancers came to worship' by Kate Holliday

These photos were taken in 1999 when my daughter was in Year 1 and although the quality is very poor they make me smile and for me they were a story I wanted to tell.  The warm colours of the Cozy Christmas collection seemed perfect to cope with the bright colours in the photos and I had great fun layering up various papers.  I showed the finished layout to my daughter and it brought back happy memories for her which is surely what scrapbooking is all about.  So grab some photos and some pretty papers and scrapbook your stories today!

Materials used:-

Simple Stories Cozy Christmas 'Dear Santa', 'Sparkle Flurries', 'Title Strip Elements', 'Enamel Dots', 'Expressions' Cardstock Stickers'

Studio Calico Wood Veneer Shapes 'Tiny Stars'

Fiskars Border Punch - Scalloped Lace

Happy Scrapping!

Kate xx

Something Blue

Hello Everyone,

Last Sunday was my Great Aunt's 85th Birthday and there was a 'gathering of the clan' to help her celebrate.  It was really lovely to all get together and we were very spoilt food-wise also!

I don't know about you but buying birthday presents for someone of that age can be tricky because they don't really want anything but you don't like to go empty handed.  So I decided I would make some little notelets for her as it was something personal but that she could, hopefully, make use of also.

I used the gorgeous 'Something Blue' range from Prima as it is lovely and feminine with beautiful old-time roses and I teamed it up with the IndigoBlu stamp set 'Live Laugh Love' which is one of my favourites and I use it time and again.

Here are the six notelets and below lined up so that you can see the designs more clearly.  Each was a different design but because you are using the same patterned paper range and stamp set there is a co-ordination about them.  I deliberately didn't add too much embellishment because I wanted the notelets to be flat so that my aunt wouldn't be troubled with paying extra postage to send the cards.

 

And of course I had to present them in something so I created this little gift bag using the W R Memory Keepers 'Gift Bag Punch Board'.  The board doesn't make bags up to this size but it is easily tweaked and I just made it in two halves and with a matching gift tag.

And every birthday girl needs a birthday card so I created a co-ordinating card also.  I just love the detail on the IndigoBlu stamps; isn't this bird just gorgeous?  I inked the edges of everything using the 'Vintage Photo' distress ink and all the images were stamped using either Vintage photo or 'Forest Moss'.

The inside was decorated too.

And I quickly stamped the bird image on the envelope so that everything all tied in.

I mainly used the 6" x 6" Something Blue pad as the smaller designs work well on cards etc but I love that you have the option to 'go big' with the 12" x 12" patterned papers which is what I used for the gift bag.

Happy Crafting!

Kate