Earlier this month I had a scrapbook class.  Normally my class is at the end of the month but with Thanksgiving and Christmas falling at the end of these two months it makes getting the scrapbook class into my schedule a bit difficult.  So instead I have one class at the beginning of December for both months.  My regular schedule will start again in January.  Anyway, this time I decided to go ahead and do Christmas pages so that everyone would have them ready for this years pictures (or could scrap older pictures if they needed to).  For mine this layout will probably be for this years pictures and my second layout is going to be for some older pictures.

This idea started with a sketch in  a scrapbook magazine and then combined a few ideas from different versions of that sketch.  I love how this turned out and can’t wait to get some pictures on it.  But it is pretty even without any pictures on it.

The colors are Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, and Very Vanilla.  The Designer Paper is the Holly Jolly paper in the Stampin’ Up! Idea Book & Catalog.  The designs on this paper are just stripes and dots so it is easy to use for anything.  The alphabet that I used for the title and the “ho ho ho” is the Jumble Alphabet.  This set is just like it says a jumble of alphabet letters in various fonts so you could easily pair it up with any other alphabet that you might have to get the right combination of letter sizes.  This set has a variety of big and small and upper and lowercase letters.  It also means you don’t have to worry too much about things being straight.  I did use my Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up my letters but free hand does a good job too.

The main sections of the layout are Old Olive textured card stock that is 12″ x 6″ in size and I used a ruler and Stampin’ Write Marker to draw lines every 3 inches to create the squares.  Then I used my Paper Piercer and Mat Pack to pierce along the lines so that it would look like faux stitching.

I cut pieces of the Holly Jolly Designer Series paper, Very Vanilla card stock, and Crumb Cake card stock into squares to layer on the Old Olive Squares.  The Cherry Cobbler accents are cut with the Big Shot Die-Cut Machine and the Two Tags Die and the Hearts 7 Brackets Die.

The main stamp set that I used is the Winter Post stamp set – it is one of my favorite ones.  I even created a faux postage stamp for one of the squares.

To do this I stamped the reindeer in Early Espresso ink on Very Vanilla card stock and punched it out with the Scallop Square punch.  Next I used the Early Espresso Stampin’ Write Marker and a ruler to draw the lines around the edges of the scallop square.  I sponged the edges of the square and wrote 44 cents in the corner (since the postage will change in January again – this will be a reminder of what it cost to send cards this year).  I attached the faux stamp to my square of Crumb Cake and the stamped over it with the Cherry Cobbler ink and the Santa Post cancel stamp.

The right page of the layout has many of the same elements.  The square with the snowflakes as the little pearls in the center.  The “ho ho ho” has little stamp from Punch Pals scattered in between to add some more color.

The “2010” at the top is the Calendar Alphabet and Numbers stamp set.  The zero is actually the letter ‘O’ from the set since it doesn’t have a zero by itself.  These were punched out with the Jewelry Tag punch and then tucked under the top of the page.

I also used the new Dotted Scallop Ribbon Border punch to make the Early Espresso ribbon strips.  I started with about a 1″ strip of card stock and punched all the way across to get the ribbon strip and then the left over straight strip is what I used to create the edge at the top of the panels.

At the bottom of the right page is the Heard from the Heart stamp set with an extra little heart punched using the small heart punch.

Satin Ribbon and Linen Thread finish off each of the tag accents.  And a Bitty Button tied with Linen Thread was added to the large heart on the left page.  Add your pictures and journaling in any of the empty squares.  You could either leave the designer paper squares as they are or put pictures on those too.  I’ll wait and see how many pictures I have that I want to add to the layout.

Like the page says “Welcome Christmas into your Heart”.

I hope this inspired you to create a Christmas layout – I’ll have another one coming so check back with me this week.

Holiday Treats & Tags Class – Dec. 17th – RSVP by Dec. 15th. – CLICK HERE.