Favorite Gift Under The Tree

In the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I often find that I don’t scrap Christmas until well after the fact. Does this happen to you? One of the things I meant to document last year, but didn’t, was my son’s favorite Christmas present. Like so many boys his age - and older - he has an obsession with cars. In fact, this may well be a stage that boys never outgrow.

Under the tree last year, every present was wrapped except one: the Little People racetrack. My toddler is an early riser and we wanted him to have something special to find while everyone else was still nestled in bed. I got up with him at 6 am to see what Santa had brought. Cory couldn’t have been more excited. Even later that morning, as he opened present after present, he kept going back to his cars and the racetrack. It was his favorite present.

I created this layout with the Scraptastic Club’s December kit: Naughty or Nice. I’ve had such fun this month as guest designer. The kit club is running four challenges this month with a great prize: a collection kit from Crate Paper. You don’t have to use the kit to participate in challenges. You can find the details here.

Supplies:

CS: Bazzill Basics

PP: Lily Bee, Echo Park, Bo Bunny

Journaling card: Lily Bee

Wood Shapes: Studio Calico

Stickers: Crate, Echo Park

Letter Stickers: Lily Bee, Cosmo Cricket, Basic Grey

Border Punch: Fiskars

Circle Punch: Marvy Uchida

Pen: Zip

Ink: Ranger

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Kit: Scraptastic Club

Echo Park gift tags

I love making tags. They are such a fun little canvas to work on. Echo Park Paper asked its in-house team and Fresh Face designers to each make a tag for their blog this Christmas. You can find the blog post here.

I had the first day of Christmas and this is the tag I made.

I used the B side of the border strips from EP's Season’s Greetings as my tag base, then added a bit of burlap and a red border sticker. To embellish the tag, I used stickers, brads and pp from the Season's Greetings and Holly Jolly collections.

Echo Park Supplies:

Season's Greetings: patterned paper, element stickers and brads

Holly Jolly: journaling cards (pop-dotted gift) and element stickers

Other Supplies: burlap, twine and ribbon

December Daily - Day 5

Back with another post from my December Daily. This is Day 5, which was a Monday. Since we didn’t do anything especially Christmasy on this day, I decided to use this page to focus on a few of my favorite things of the holidays.

　

I had planned to handwrite the journaling, but it was too long. So I just printed it directly on the calendar overlay from Ali Edwards. Below is an excerpt of what I wrote:

I love the stories of Christmas. It makes me smile to think of the wise men following that yonder star, of the humble trek to Bethlehem and of a babe born in a manger. I also love the secular stories of Christmas: the sappy human interest stories, those Hallmark tear-jerkers, bright messages from friends on Facebook and blogs and the familiar Grinch and Charlie Brown. 

This is how the spread looks in my album.  I'm using an American Crafts 2-ring binder that came with the Studio Calico December Daily kit.  You can view Days 1 - 4 here.

December Daily Supply list:

Echo Park: Holly Jolly - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, stamps; Metro Dots and Stripes - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit; Season’s Greetings 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, brads; Everybody Loves Christmas 12x12 collection kit.

American Crafts: Album

Ali Edwards: calendar overlays

Hambly: Transparencies

Bo Bunny: ribbon

Fancy Pants: ribbon

Crate: stickers and chipboard

Cosmo Cricket: tiny type

Jenni Bowlin: letter stickers

October Afternoon: letter stickers

Martha Stewart: kraft tags

The Twinery: twine

Making Memories: Buttons

My Mind’s Eye: Stamps

Ranger Industries: Ink

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Kit club: Studio Calico

Neighbor Gift with Webster's Pages

Do you ever see a piece of patterned paper and you know immediately what you will do with it?  This happened to me the moment I first saw the Webster's Paper line, Botanical Christmas. Those doors made me swoon.  I knew immediately that the Come On In paper would be perfect for a neighbor gift with the theme: from our home to yours.

I used the paper to make a treat jar with a coordinating card. In the jar are white chocolate covered pretzels with crushed candy canes on top. Yummy!

The jar was so fun to do. I used a jar I had on hand that was just the right size to wrap the patterned paper around. To decorate the lid, I cut a circle from another pp in the Botanical Christmas line and glued it on top of the lid.  Around the lid, I used a beautiful green trim that Webster's released last Christmas and a bit of red twine. On a journaling card, I stamped the sentiment "from our home to yours," then hung it and a "crystal" bauble from the row of twine.  

I can't give a gift without a card, so I used the paper, Postcards To Santa, also from the Botanical Christmas line. The paper is perfect for card-making. It's so pretty all on its own that I did very little to embellish it. I just cut out a postcard, mounted it to a card base, did a quick stitch around with my sewing machine, and added a cheery chipboard banner and twine.

We'll deliver this gift in the afternoon. I think we'll have one happy neighbor!

Supplies:
American Crafts: cardstock
Webster's Pages: Botanical Christmas (Come On In, Postcards To Santa), journaling card, trim
October Afternoon: 5 & Dime (Circus Peanuts), chipboard (Sidewalks)
The Twinery: red twine
Bernina sewing machine
Other: jar, bauble

Echo Park's Holly Jolly Holidays Blog Hop

Welcome to the Echo Park Paper "Holly Jolly Holidays" Blog Hop! We've created a special one-day blog hop event in which you can hop from one designer's blog to the next, viewing beautiful holiday cards.

Here's the card I created. The tree detaches and can be hung as an ornament. 

I used a brad to make the sentiment a swinging element. You can push the title in toward (and under) the tree to better fit the card into an envelope. To detach the tree, pull gently at each corner and hang as an ornament.  
 

 
Be sure to follow the blog hop list below and leave a comment on each person's blog. Finish up at the Echo Park Paper blog with a final comment. THREE winners will be selected to win a collection kit of their choosing. Comments can be made through midnight MST today for a chance to win! Winners will be announced on December 8 on the Echo Park Paper blog.


The hop order:

Leslie Ashe

Lowri McNabb

Vanessa Menhorn

Izzy Anderson  <----- you are here
Wendy Sue Anderson
Carolyn King
Tamara Tripodi
Linda Auclair
Kandis Smith

Patricia Kumfer

Amy Heller

Echo Park Paper

Thanks so much for playing along!


Echo Park Card Supplies:
Holly Jolly: 6x6 Paper Pad
Season’s Greetings: Chipboard Accents, Brads, Borders, Journaling Cards

Victoria Gardens: Picket Fence

Metro Dots and Stripes: 6x6 Paper Pad

Everybody Loves Christmas: Wrapping Paper

Other:  Bazzill Basics cardstock, Twine from The Twinery, Fiskars border punch, Bernina sewing machine

Finished card size: 5 x 6 inches

The Days of December Daily

I’m having such fun with my December Daily and have surprised myself with just how much I am enjoying this process. It makes me smile to mark down a little something each day. Life with a toddler seems to pass by in a blur and it’s really refreshing to pause and reflect on the day.

Day 1 is the only entry that isn’t a two-page spread. Here I wrote a little note to welcome December and to say how much I’ve always enjoyed the holiday season. I added this little pic through our window from the outside looking in to literally give a peek at our life.

Day 2 tells the story of being just a little over-ambitious with the Advent calendar. My son, who’s 2, love blocks and puzzles and I thought the Lego City advent calendar would be right up his alley. Sure, the box said it was for ages 5 - 12 but I thought, how hard can a Lego project be? Um, turns out, pretty hard! Definitely not suitable for a 2 year old. I could foresee a meltdown every day: his and mine! So, we boxed that baby right back up and went to plan B. (See Day 4 for more on the story).

On Day 3, we went to the annual Christmas luncheon at church. I used the program as my page insert. It was a little too narrow, so I added a bit of pp down the side. On the right, I wrote down who sat at our table and journaled about the program. I added a couple photos I took with my iphone, including one of Cory outside on the swing set afterwards.

By Day 4, I had found a good alternative to the Lego advent calendar. Now, a small stuffed mouse and some candy canes are marking the passing days. This calendar is from 1987, I believe, and is one my Mom used when my youngest siblings were tots. I looked online to see if I could find more information about this specific calendar, sold by Avon, and was astonished to see several sellers on ebay asking more than $100 for this “vintage” item.

If you have a December Daily, feel free to link yours in the comments. I'd love to see it!

Supply list:

Echo Park: Holly Jolly - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, stamps; Metro Dots and Stripes - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit; Season’s Greetings 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, brads; Everybody Loves Christmas 12x12 collection kit.

American Crafts: Album

Ali Edwards: calendar overlays

Hambly: Transparencies

Bo Bunny: ribbon

Fancy Pants: ribbon

Cosmo Cricket: tiny type

Jenni Bowlin: letter stickers

Martha Stewart: kraft tags

The Twinery: twine

Making Memories: Buttons

My Mind’s Eye: Stamps

Ranger Industries: Ink

Sewing Machine: Bernina
Kit club: Studio Calico

Scraptastic Club Guest Designer

It’s December and I am so happy to welcome in the holiday season. Today, I officially start my December Daily and my little one opens the first door of his Lego Advent calendar.

But first I want to share that I am a guest designer this month for Scraptastic Club. It’s a great kit club that gives you a choice of two kits each month. Both kits have great add-on options too. You can find the kits here. 

I chose the Naughty or Nice? kit.

Here’s my first project. I scrapped a photo of my Dad with my brothers on Christmas morning. I love this Crate ornament paper. I pop-dotted some of the ornaments for dimension then set off the paper by adding borders punched from cream cardstock down either side.

The large green die cut is Bo Bunny and it had a blue scallop design around the perimeter, which made the die cut too big for my design.  So, I cut off the blue and stitched a red frame to ground the die cut. On top, I added a tag using a cute reindeer stamp from Imaginesce and alphas from Lily Bee.

Scraptastic Club sponsors challenges each month with great prizes. Come play along. The first challenge is to use border punches and you have until Dec. 31 to upload your entry. The prize this month is the Random Collection from Crate Paper. Oh, I love that line!   You can find the challenges on the Scraptastic Club Blog here.