More 12 days of Christmas Layouts

I promised to post my 12 Days of Christmas layouts as I completed them, so here they are as promised:

Day 4 focused on Christmas Decor - I took photos of some of the special ornaments and decorations that Have found their way onto my tree and around my various homes for as long as 30 years! ( Yes, that makes me feel very old!!)

My Day 5 task was to create a layout based on seasonal song lyrics.  I was so happy to be able to find a cool way to scrap my fave photos from last Christmas - Joshua as the miserable shepherd in the Christmas Eve Nativity play.  After fighting with the other shepherds over the crooks, jockeying for position around the baby Jesus, and pretending to smoke hay from the manger ( a crowd favourite), Josh finally settled for looking completely bored!  This year he was NOT a shepherd.

It is really great to have the kits all ready to go ( we prepped them in the days before Christmas) - makes completing layouts relatively painless - and I am only 4 days behind!

Happy day, everyone!

12 Layouts of Christmas

I know, I know, I have been MIA, but I have good reasons!  Health and life got int he way once again and so I haven't been near my blog for a while!  However, I have been doing a bit of scrapping (thank you Big Picture Scrapbooking for the 12 days of Christmas Class!).  Just wanted to share a few layouts of the sights and sounds of Christmas at my house!  Please note - I shopped my stash for all of these - nothing was purchased - love using up the older stuff I have kicking around!

Here is my Day One Layout!  (  I finally got a half decent family photo for Christmas! At least everyone is mostly looking and smiling!!)

Now for Day 2:  ( Still trying for that perfect night shot of the tree - I need a tripod!)

And finally, Day 3:  (Time for the annual gingerbread house making extravaganza!)

Stay tuned for the next layouts in my 12 Layouts of Christmas!  I hope you all had a very Happy Holiday and are ready to ring in 2012!

Happy day!

Jacquelin

Merry Christmas!

A free photo slideshow by Smilebox

December Dailies Day 1!

Hey everyone! It is finally here!!! December has begun and with it the opportunity to document all of the wonderful-ness of life in December!!! Here is the intro I have made for my album this year:




I want to give you a few suggestions for taking photos through the month - you really want to have a photo each day to help you document ( or a piece of memorabilia works, too!!) So dust of the camera and have it handy - you want to capture both the special and everyday moments of this festive month!



Here are a few ideas to capture:



Decorating your home ( how about "before and after" shots??)

Your favourite decorations

Christmas baking

Opening the advent calendar

wrapping gifts

Christmas shopping

watching your favourite holiday specials on TV

Holiday concerts and other special events

Your pet all decked out for the holidays

Your kids all decked out for the holidays ;)

Favourite holiday foods

Snow ( if you have it, or how you feel about NOT having it!)

YOU ( get your kids/friend/spouse to take a photo of you at least 3 times!!!)

Writing letters to Santa

Writing or making holiday cards



As you can see, there are lots of ideas of things you can be thinking about to capture your month!

So all that is left is to get out there and take a few photos today - jot down some thoughts to go with your photos and then get busy putting the album together.



Some people do there album a week at time - I do mine everyday because I have a printer at home. I will be posting my pages each day - hopefully to inspire you to play along - and to inspire me to keep going, as well!!



Happy December - I can't wait to hear how you are doing with your album!

Almost ready??

December 1st is fast approaching!!! I have spent some time in the last few days going through my Christmas stash so I can be all ready for my Daily December Album! I went through a lot of my small embellishments, buttons and ribbon scraps and put them together in jars, so they are easily accessible when I am ready to embellish my little pages! This really streamlines the page making process - which is critical if you are actually going to complete the album!

Above is a photo of some of the pages I will be using in my album this year - and I will be adding a few as I go along, or switching them up, depending on the daily page theme.

I am working on my front cover right now, and should have it up and posted very soon. How is your hunting and gathering coming along!??

Stay tuned for more album ideas, as well as suggestions for journaling, photos, and other fun stuff in the upcoming weeks!! I love to have my friends creating right along with me!!

If you have a blog or gallery where you are posting your album pages, please put a link in a comment so we can all see your wonderful work, and get inspired by all of our collective creativity!

Happy Day, everyone!

Daily December Prep Week - Day One!!

This is the countdown week - just 8 days until December begins and we get to begin documenting all of our fantastic December moments ( and the not so fantastic ones, too!).

Hurray for everyday and holiday moments!

Today we are going to look at the "bones" of the album and you can begin to search your stash for what you need! I like to use up what I have on hand - but you may wish to purchase something special for your project, particularly if you prefer a more unified look!

My albums tend to be really eclectic, with pages from a lot of different sources and made from a wide variety of materials. I use a combo of chipboard, acrylic, envelopes, fabric, transparencies, journal pages - you name it - you can use it!!! Others prefer to use a chipboard mini, or a 6 x 6 or 8 x 8 album with page protectors - the choice is up to you! You will need 25 - 31 pages, plus a cover and back - the number depends on whether you are scrapping only until December 25th, or the whole month through.

To bind your album I recommend rings - the largest you can find - because when you begin to add in your various thicknesses of pages and ephemera and photos from your December life, it will get very thick. Two are usually sufficient for an approximately 6 x 6 album.

This is really the "hunter/gatherer" stage - hunt through your stash to see what you can find for these base pages. They can be all one colour, a mish mash of everything, or something in between - it really is up to your imagination and personal scrappy style.

Once we have everything gathered - we can look through the week at numbers, layouts and designing your cover!! So head into your scrappy area (whether it is a bag, a box, a cupboard or a studio) and see what you can find!

Happy Day everyone - keep checking back for more tips, hints and ideas to make your Daily December album YOUR favourite album!

Daily December - Are you Playing???

It is that time of year again everyone - my annual Daily December Album prep time and supply gathering!!! If you didn't play along last year, or if you don't know what I am talking about here is the 411!!!

Daily December albums capture the little moments of each day in December. I think it was Ali Edwards who began the tradition a number of years ago and she still does one each year!! It is a great way to make a mini book that really focuses on and celebrates the holiday moments and other cool stuff that happens in December. I have been doing this now for 3 years, and my Daily December Albums are by far my favourite albums!!!

I prep my album in advance so it is ready to add a photo(s) and some journaling each day in December . Other people prefer to make a page a day - whatever works for you. Last year one fabulous woman did an entire 12 x 12 album!!! ( Dawn you are a rockstar!) Here is a sample of a blank page from last year:

The process is fairly straight forward once you have your book assembled!!! You just add photos AND journaling ( very important!!! ) and a few embellishments and you are done!

Beginning next week on November 22nd, I will be posting each day of my Prep Week - to help you (and me) get ready for Daily December!

Watch for your supply list coming tomorrow!!! I hope you will join me!!

Happy Day everyone!!!

It's never too early. . .

Christmas Concert Magic

I typically am not a huge fan of school concerts! i know, that makes me public enemy number 1 in good parent circles, but I always find they are overdone, stressful, and more about the performance than about the fun of singing and sharing the holiday spirit. Bah Humbug!

But of course, my children are always fabulous!!! And this year they really had a good time getting ready for the concert, and performing for family and friends. I think it was the fact that Josh got to sing about underwear, Emily got to wear her PJ's, and Ben got to dance to a rockin' Christmas tune, but I could be wrong!

Actually, I think it has to do with teachers letting the kids be kids and not making it such a production!!! Because let's face it - there is simply nothing cuter than a little person laughing through a song, or a bigger kid elbowing the kid next to him to make him smile for the audience. And of course, my kids were fabulous - maybe we should think about show business. . . I am definitely stage mother material!!!

December 1st and 2nd

How is your album going? Here are my first two pages - I have so far managed to keep up - but we will see how it goes when I travel home to Calgary for the weekend!!! Remember - the most important thing is to take a few photos, and jot down some journaling points on a post it or in a little notebook - that way you can fill in the blanks even if you get behind!!! Have fun - leave a comment and post a link to your pages - I would love to check them out!!!

Happy ADVENT!

Welcome Advent! It is time to prepare for Christmas and Advent is the season of preparation! Check out this great you tube video about making your Advent mean something!

Numbers game

OK, today is all about the numbers - numbers for your December Dailies Album, that is! You need to make 31 (yup, one for each day!!) little number tags! These can be random sizes, shapes and numbers, or they can be fairly uniform!
Here are a link to the Kaisercraft site - which has some great number downloads that match their Christmas Paper lines! Check it out HERE!

And here is a free pdf download for you of numbers in different fonts - you can punch these out and adhere to chipboard or cardstock tags - all ready for your pages!

HERE it is!! It looks better after download, as it uses a bunch of different fonts! Give any of these a try!

Tomorrow I will have some tips for supplies and construction!!

Welcome to December Dailies!!

Today is the day!!! If you haven't heard already - I am hosting an online class at weScrap called December Dailies! Based on those great daily albums of Ali Edwards, I will help YOU complete your daily December album with ideas, hints and general enthusiaastic motivation!!!

If you have always wanted to do this, but never quite seem to get it done - this is YOUR year!!!

Join me for all the fun and creativity at weScrap!

Here is the link to the forum which has all the info DECEMBER DAILIES FORUM !!!

This week is Prep Week - we will build the bones of our album and get ready to start doing a page a day in December!!! This can be a mini album, or a full size album with any page size you like. It is up to you! I like a random style mini book, so that is what I will do, but you can do what you like! How great is that? And you can use up all those bits and pieces of Christmas scrap supplies that I KNOW you have kicking around!!

Be sure to check back here daily for all the details, links and inspiration!!

Ho Ho Hope you'll join me!!

H1N1 is no fun!!!

Well, despite my best attempts to ward off this miserable flu - poor Hannah has succumbed and so we are lying low and trying to keep everyone healthy!! With Mark and his mom away on a Mediterranean adventure, it has been a little hectic!! I never knew how much I could love hand sanitizer!!!!

I will be posting more tomorrow, but for today just wanted to remind you about weScrap's fabulous Christmas Kit - a limited edition kit featuring great Christmas lines from Making Memories and Bo Bunny!!! - For only $16.99 it could be an early Christmas gift from you to you!!!

More tomorrow - must go sanitize. . . .