Turning That Stash into Christmas Pages (yes still)

Yep, still scrapping the stash and yep, still scrapping another Christmas page! 

The story (in Reader's Digest form):  between the two of us, we have been laid off for several years (cumulatively) and since money was so tight, I would not spend it on a Christmas tree when it was going to be hard enough to do gifts for children and grandchildren.  (We have not had an artificial tree for probably 20 years---one of husband's bug-a-boos.) But this year, even with money being tight, he went out and came home with a tree. 

You know what? Going without one for several years, really made this one so much more beautiful to me.  I left it up longer than we ever had in the past.  I just enjoyed it being lit up every night for as long as I could. 

Used papers from the Pink Paislee Snow Village pad again, except for the white distressed background paper--that's the B side of an Authentique paper (again from a pad, the one I used so much of on my eldest grandson's graduation album).  The "happy" title is a Doodlebug sticker (from the set that I forgot I had -- for um, like y-e-a-r-s).  The wood veneer snowflakes are from Michael's (got them on clearance last November and there are only a couple left--so those have been well used!).  The only other embellishments are really the sequins and the tissue paper.  And even those items have been repurposed from my sewing box and the gift wrap box! 

I am finding that not having nearly the stash of scrappy supplies that I used to has made me appreciate the supplies I have on hand even more...just like with the Christmas tree.  I don't need racks and stacks of paper; it is far less overwhelming now to select papers and embellishments.  And I think I may even love these pages more than ever! 

have yourself a scrappy good day,
use up some of that stash,
you'll be glad you did!

Cheryl

Still Christmas at My House = Another Christmas Page!

So, yeah.  I am still scrapping Christmas.  I do not scrap chronologically, at all.  If you've read my blog before, you know I jump from years and years (and years) ago to current photos with no real rhyme or reason.  It just depends on what appeals to me at the moment.  So I go with it. 

This page is again about our Christmas cookie baking adventures.  I love to get the grandkids involved.  They "helped" roll the Chocolate Crinkle cookies in powdered sugar, hence the white hands!  And you know what, they did a really good job!!  I so want them to remember these times spent together.  I want to remember the look on Jackson's face when he came into the kitchen, saw his sister helping to roll the chocolate cookies into little balls and proclaimed he could help too.  Until he saw his sisters hands all covered in sticky chocolate dough.  Then he wrinkled his face up and said... "Oh, no.  I don' wanna do tha-a-t.  She's all doo-ty."  So we switched to rolling the cookies in powdered sugar. 

The page is a mish mash of Echo Park (the background sheet), Pink Paislee holiday pad (the stripes used to border the page and for the layers under the photos), and Crate (the large cluster of ephemera to the side of the photos).  I had made a bunch of these cluster things several months ago (see my October 25 post http://cheryl-husmann.blogspot.com/2014_10_01_archive.html ) after watching a video where this gal went through a pile of scraps and packaged ephemera, stapled little stacks of it together. 

Tucked in a piece of a doily, added a tab at the top of the photo block, and my title and journaling.   Oh, yeah...and sequins!!!   It's a Christmas layout...gotta add some sparkle! 

sparkle on everyone!
Cheryl

Are You Still Scrapping Christmas? Me Too! - 19 Kinds of Cookies

My daughter and I get together every year for a weekend baking extravaganza.  This year, since there is a long distance move coming up, we really pulled out all the stops and baked over two weekends.  My son came along and man, oh man, with three of us, we really went to town!  19 kinds of cookies! 

I wanted to document this, because the annual cookie baking weekend has become a part of our Christmas tradition.  And even if I am not here, but across country...I know the tradition will go on. 

To mimic the colors of the cookies, frosting and decorative candies, I chose several papers from a Pink Paislee holiday pad to work with.  Trimmed down a soft green tone on tone pattern and centered it on a pink and red diagonal mini stripe paper.  Since my photos were pretty busy, I didn't layer them at all, but chose instead to use the other papers I had chosen in small irregularly cut strips at the top and bottom of the page.  After that it was just a matter of picking out the right spots for some embellishment clusters. All the embellishments (except for the white paper doily and the red crocheted doily) are from Basic Grey's 25th and Pine collection.   The 25th and Pine stuff really seemed to coordinate quite nicely with the Pink Paislee papers, so I will definitely be using them together again (Lord knows I have an ample supply of Christmas photos to scrap yet!!) 

The title is made up of red foil Thickers and an older alpha set from Basic Grey--not sure, but I think it from their Wassail line of several years ago.  No journaling, but there is a list of the cookies on the back of the page. 

One of the things I really want to do is to make a Holiday Cookie recipe book for the family of all of our favorite cookies and holiday treats.  It's on my bucket list of scrappy things to do!! 

yep, still working on Christmas stuff... 
Cheryl