People

As you finish up your holiday documentation don't forget to highlight the important people in your life. Sometimes we get so caught up in remembering the activities that we forget to remember the people. So, this is the last of my Christmas pages (although it is not really all that Christmasy besides the tree behind us in the background of the picture) in honor of the important people in my life that came to join us for the special day.

I realize the layout is pretty simple and there aren't a lot of embellishments. But I like how classy it turned out anyways. The only tip I can give from this page is this: sometimes you have to use multiple text boxes to achieve the look you want. I actually used five different boxes here. I had to split the "Starts & Ends" into two different boxes because the spacing on the font had them spread really far apart. I kept decreasing the space, but MDS will only let you go to -3.0 and this still wasn't as close as I wanted the lines to be together. So I split them up and kept them both at the same angle to retain the appearance of one text block.

Oh Christmas Tree

Here's a fun layout for you to try as you finish up your Christmas scrapbooking.

It's a Christmas Tree! If you want a narrower tree, or a more gradually sloping tree you could play with the size of the photos- but overall you get the idea. Just be sure to add some fun embellishments like a trunk and a star to finish off the look.

I used the fun new Jolly Holiday DSP for this page and then "distressed" the edge of my layout with the textured stamp. Add some journalling and some embellishments, and then the page is complete!

The Silent Night

I just love candlelit Christmas Eve services! They have such a calming vibe- what better way to remember the birth of our Savior. Here is a snapshot of how our Christmas started this year.

There aren't really any new tricks on this page- just a few tips I guess. If you are like me and like to have two page spreads in your scrapbook, then I highly suggest making sure that you tie the two together using common elements. For instance, I like to stick with a common color theme and make sure that the colors appear on both pages. Here I used cherry cobbler, artichoke, and vanilla. I picked up the cherry color in the first page with the middle photomat on the second page- this along with the circle shape help to draw your attention and highlight this important picture on the second page.

I also used the common elements of the rick-rack on both pages. I didn't go overboard with it and add it to all the photo edges- but instead just picked a couple of choice locations where it would have the most impact.

Finally I sprinkled the entire layout with the serene snowflake stamps. This really helped to add interest to the pages with very little work.

Well, I guess I do have one technique to share as well. Did you know that your entire text block does not need to be the same font? In the "O Holy Night" of the title I used an alternate font on the capital letters by highlighting them while in the text editing mode and changing the font. I really liked the star font- but found that it was just to much to do the entire title in it, so this was my solution.

Now here's a challenge- Have you finished scrapbooking your Christmas yet? If not, I hope this festive page gets you in the spirit (again) and you start to archive your holiday memories from this year.

Giving Thanks for my 'Lil Turkey

Thanksgiving- that great American holiday where we all stuff ourselves silly and surround ourselves with family :)

This year my family had one more join us- only a week old! We (especially me) were all awfully glad she decided to come in time for Thanksgiving. So, here is my page in honor of the special holiday.

Do you like how the Gratitude quote looks like it is glowing? I created this appearance by adding a drop shadow- centered on the stamp- in the vanilla color with the opacity turned all the way up and a good blur selected. Then I copied and pasted the stamp back on top of itself a couple of times to increase the shadow even more. I was pretty happy with the final look (the stamp alone barely showed up on the busy paper originally).

Here's another idea. The acorns in the title are all the same stamp- just resized and given different colors and angles. Now that's something you can't do with a real stamp!

Last, but not least, I made the flower behind the picture in the lower right hand corner two-toned. I started with the stamp in just espresso, then I added a shadow. The trick was to make the shadow very opaque, centered on the stamp (no offset), and the blur turned WAY down.

Until another day, ENJOY!

2011 Calendar

I created this calendar for my daughter's grandparents for Christmas. As you may notice, it is missing pictures! You may think that seems strange, but there is a method to my madness. The problem with creating a calendar before the year starts is that by the time the months come around the pictures are all out of date. By leaving openings I can send them current pictures as the year goes on so that they can watch her grow up!



There is another master plan to this calendar. If you look closely, each top page of the calendar has an 8x8 square set into it. This will allow the grandparents to cut out this area and save it in a scrapbook- so by the end of the year they will have a complete album to remember her milestones!

I had these printed up through the Stampin Up print services and I am so excited with how it turned out. I have already printed pictures and placed in the January page so that they are ready to send out. One thing I of course didn't think of though- the holes they put in the calendar to hang it up by. Sadly these are located right in the 8x8 layout portion of the page. I can't move this down any farther (since the stripe at the bottom is where the spiral binding is located) so if I create these calendars again next year I would probably plan a 7.5x7.5 square with the idea that it would be backed with a piece of cardstock after it is cut out.

Hope you enjoyed this idea!

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has been a busy couple of months in the Swift household. What with getting ready for the baby, being put on bedrest then induced, and then taking care of my sweet little baby girl. It didn't leave me much time to do any crafts the past couple of months- in fact this blog pretty much leaves off at my last project of the DC album (which still remains unfinished- hopefully I will complete it before I forget all about the trip- EKK!).

Lately though my DD has been going through what I can only guess is a growth spurt, and therefore sleeping ALOT during the day, leaving me sometime to get a couple of scrapbook pages done. So I have some new material to share with you :)

The layout for this page is not my own, but was inspired by a post on Splitcoaststampers by MkMiracleMakers. Just wanted to make sure I gave credit where credit was due :)

I've got two tricks for you that I used on this page. First, the striped rust color paper was to stark for me- I wanted softer stripes so that the colors were closer together. In order to achieve this I filled two rectangular punches- one with the Cajan Craze color fill and the other with the matching striped paper. I layered the striped paper over the solid color and then decreased the opacity of it in order to let more of the lower layer show through, thus decreasing the vividness of the stripes. I love the softer look it produced and the darker overall color.

My second trick was "coloring in" the flower in the lower right hand corner. The stamped flower just didn't look right on the DSP- it was much to hard to see. So I "colored" it by placing punched shapes behind the stamp to fill in the area. For this particular stamp I found that a carefully sized oval fit nicely behind each of the petals, and then a circle covered what was remaining in the middle. Then I added some pizzaz by placing a punched flower (with a border) on top in a contrasting color and finished it off with a coordinating flower brad!

Hope you like how this page turned out. By the way, the font is my new favorite "Ali's Hand" which is a free download from the CreatingKeepsakes webpage. If you like to have a good library of fonts to pick from you should visit them often- they have a free font friday download! Some of the christmas fonts recently were pretty cute- the one even looked like candycanes!