Document December with Bethany: My Project

Well, I will be painfully honest with you, I had high hopes in December of getting this done.  Work, however, got in the way and since I do not want to just throw something together, I cry UNCLE.

I am so sorry to disappoint.  I am disappointed myself.

I do not want you to go away with no inspiration, however.

Here are some great videos full of inspiration, if you, like me, have not put together anything for December yet.

I am not giving up and plan on finally getting to do a bit of scrapping next week while the kids are still on break and I have good reason to lighten my work load.

Lots of hugs and thanks for being patient with me!

Bethany

Document December with Bethany: My Kit

November and December are BIG at my house.  Ever since the kids were little I have enjoyed creating some special traditions with them.  We live far from family (16 hours from my in-laws and 3 hours from mine) so we spend a lot of holidays at home together, just the 4 of us.  I don't want the kids to regret the lack of time with extended family, so we always make some BIG memories together.

For example, two of the traditions we have are a bit involved, time consuming and complicated, but boy are they fun!

Countdown Tradition:  Every year I plan something fun for every day in December.  It can be as big as going to see a Christmas show or small as making a hot chocolate bar to enjoy a cozy drink.  I write them all down on little tags and I put them inside of 25 little stockings that we hang across our mantle.  Each day the kids pull one to see what our special time will be.  It gets complicated to juggle, but we all love it.

Themed Dinner Tradition:  Each Friday in December we do a themed dinner.  Some years we do a different country each week and learn about that country, eat food from there and do a craft to remind us of it and hang on our tree.  Other years we pick a special Christmas movie and plan a meal and game around it.  Whatever we pick, it is always super fun!

Can you see why I would want to get all of these memories down on paper?  But every year I plan to document what we do and every year I make it a few days in and quit.  UGH!  LOL  Too busy having fun, I guess.  This year I AM ON IT!  Whoop!  Whoop!

I started with this little beauty.  I love the size of it (5x7 pages).  Nice for some lightly decorated pages...add a photo and a sentence or two and you are done!  It is easy to add things to it as well and the colors are great.  SOLD!  LOL

Next I pulled out all of my Christmas supplies.  I sort of kind of have two boxes of them.  Every year I look for the *perfect* collection to do projects with.  Then I buy it.  Then I don't use it.  Then I end up with this:

Hey!  They are some cute paper pads!

I am lite on themed embellishments, but I know I have a lot of things I can pull that will work well in my kit.  Ready?  Let's go "shopping"!

For my paper, I picked a creamy yellow to cut some additional background papers, so I can have enough to last the whole month.  This will also help me pick the color pallet of papers I want to use.

Picking the papers was not as hard as I thought.  I automatically knocked out the majority of my paper based on the color scheme I was going for.  I want to keep it bright and fun!  That left me with some Echo Park and some College Press paper I have had in my stash for a while.

I pulled a few of my Christmas Embellishments that would work and then just worked my way around my room looking for anything fun in that color pallet.

I ended with a few stamps, because I just can't help but put some in...and I added a star stencil and some paste as well to play with for some texture.

Not bad!  Not bad!  I am left with a very fun and bright kit that made me think of one of my favorite movies, Meet Me in St. Louis.  Remember that song at the end...Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas?  Well, take a look at my Merry Little Christmas kit.

I'll be back tomorrow to show you some finished pages in my album...keep your fingers crossed for me!

As always, we would LOVE to see what YOU are working on, so please head over to Mr. Linky, upload a project and give us something fun to inspire us!

Happy Holidays!  

Warm hugs from Bethany and the rest of the Master Forgers!

Document December with Margie: My Project

Good morning! Today's post will be a quick one...and I have to be honest, I am pulling this post together shortly before it is scheduled to post, because I have only just finished wrapping a few gifts that I have "fancied up" with my kit of tags, scraps and washi. I am loving the extra bit of pizazz it is adding to my gifts this year, and how special it makes them seem. With out further ado, here is the way I am putting my kit to use:

Document December with Margie: My Kit

Happy December, everyone! How are things going? Are you all caught up with everything you had planned, or are you like me, hustling around with last minute shopping, cooking, and just now getting around to some present wrapping? Well, I have a bit of inspiration for you! A big part of gift giving for me is wrapping it up, and making it look pretty. I created a kit to make my gifts have a little something special, that little extra bit of pizazz.I took a handful of my Christmas scraps that I thought would go with my wrapping paper this year, added a couple of tag dies, some stamps, envelopes, doilies, and washi tapes

A closer look at the envelopes and doilies:

The washi:

I hope today's post inspires you to pull out some of your Christmas scraps and make a kit-come back tomorrow to see how I use it!

Document December with Lynnette: My Project

Whoooooo's ready to see my December project?

Here it is!  Presenting my "Woodland Retreat" December project.  I'm a bit behind on last year's December Daily, but I'm not beating myself up over that.  I seem to be on the every other year time frame with my documenting December - that pace seems to work for me!

I used a burlap album by Little Yellow Bicycle and added the red burlap binding.  The large wood veneer piece was actually in the holiday craft section and not the scrapbooking area.  It serves as an impressive focal point for my album cover.  Some sequins add just the sparkle it needs.

I'm not going to pin myself down to a photo a day, so you won't find specific numbers in my December book.

Pockets to tuck away receipts and other trinkets.

It will likely get fatter as the goodies are added, but that's just fine with me.  Whether you are catching up on last December or documenting this one, I hope I have provided you with some inspiration.  The holidays go by in a flash, so be sure to enjoy them!

Thanks for stopping by!

Document December with Lynnette: My Kit

Welcome to another installment of Document December. 

 It wouldn't be a Lynnette reveal without a little bit of staging, so here's my wintry scene featuring my December Kit...

"Nordic Holiday" by Bazzil Basics helps to quickly pull this kit together.

Lots of earth tones, burlap, kraft and twine to give that nature feel.

Here's a sneak peek of what is to come tomorrow!  Check back to see my project!

Document December with Lisa: My Project

 Welcome back to my second day on the blog where I get to share my December project with you.

Yesterday I showed you my The Ghost of Christmas Past kit which I put together to record some stories about December 2014.

Just as a reminder - here's my kit:

I've decided to use Project Life pocket pages - design A - as well as some Heidi Swapp inlays featuring gorgeous gold foil words and designs. There were also a few sheets of vellum with gold design which seemed to go very well and some photo overlays.

To get me going, I went through my photos from last December and printed out a handful. All square photos are at 3x3 and the others are 3x2 which will all fit nicely onto 3x4 or 6x4 pocket cards. I don't know if I will use all of these prints (which appear to cover the first couple of weeks) and I might even print out more - right now, I'm leaving that open. To begin though, I picked out some of my favourite people shots, some decorations, some signs of Christmas, and a few with directly relate to some stories I want to tell. Once I've worked with these, I'll print some more of the remaining December days - I didn't want to overwhelm myself with too much at once.

I've decided to mix it up a little and not only try to record what we were up to last December (as if my memory is that good anyway!) but also to pick some of the Shimelle Journal Your Christmas prompts from last year to tell a few stories. You get to participate every year so I will just have a look on the forum at last year's handouts and see what inspires me.

But as a start, there are photos of my Advent Calendar, a glass of whisky in front of the tree, a screen shot of Fred and Bing in Holiday Inn and Fred the Camel from the Kempen Christmas Market.

Now I know that won't mean much to you, but these are triggers for some wider stories relating to more than one Christmas, in-jokes, new traditions or just what Christmas means to me.

As further preparation, I decided to just cut the pattern papers into 6x4 or 3x4 and fill all the pockets. Yes, I had a helper last week with this! Hello Charly :-)

I started off just cutting up a full sheet of paper to make my title page. I might go back to decorate this but I kind of like it simple. Just the date the the two sheets of vellum. Maybe it needs a little touch of red or a flair or something. I will come back to this at the end of the project to see again what I think.

 Next up I just mixed and matched papers across the spreads. There are a lot of aquas, greens and soft creams so I tried to make sure there were lots of pops of colour to really grab your attention. Of course, once the photos and embellishments are added, there won't be so much on view and the clash won't be felt so strongly - that's the plan anyway!

I've started with one double spread per week plus the back of the final half. If I need more, then there is plenty of paper left in the kit and I can expand as needed. I will no doubt also add in a 6x12 here and there for some extra journalling.

Here you can see the Heidi Swapp gold foil overlay, a Crate Paper photo overlay and two of the Crate Paper pocket page cards.

Many of the papers were cut from the Silent Night (October afternoon) 8x8 mini-pad which means that the patterns are just that bit smaller - ideal for pockets such as this partial map - you know how I love maps!

I've dotted my vellum sheets across the spreads so that there is always a little bit of gold to see. I reserve the right to change around any of the papers I want and to add or take away papers, vellums or cards. This is just a starting point.

Just looking at those pages makes me motivated to get going with adding my photos and words to the cards. Embellishments will be simple and I'm allowing myself to be inspired by Shimelle's approach to a pocket page Journal Your Christmas. Even this preliminary step is the same as her process this year. I'm hoping that it will make the actual finalising of the project easier and more achievable!

I'll fill you in on how the project's going through our link up page (don't forget to link up your own December projects  - tab at the top of the blog).

Thanks for dropping by and we continue tomorrow with the über-delightful Lynnette, so make sure you come again!

Lisa signing off and wishing you a very Merry Christmas - and here's to a wonderfully creative 2016!

Document December with Lisa: My Kit

Ah, my time to spend two days with you all! Welcome, welcome, Lisa here!

As you know, the Master Forger team has been sharing December projects throughout this month, first showing you the kit they will be using to document some aspect of December and then sharing a little of the process or even the finished projects in some cases.

These ladies are über -alented so make sure you go back to the beginning of the month to catch all the inspiration and then don't forget to link your own projects to our Mr Linky page at the top.

Let me tell you a top open secret. I ADORE Christmas scrapbook products. Every year I tell myself that I don't need any more but every year I buy lots! And this is the girl who rarely makes more than one or two Christmas pages and only makes a December journal every few years. So you can imagine how that all piles up.

And this year was no exception. First off I treated myself to the stunning My Mind's Eye Christmas on Market Street collection and then I couldn't resist adding Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas kit into my shopping basket either. I'm more of a JYC than DD and so it only seemed polite to get the kit - don't you agree? And the collection is super cute, although the kit is full of plenty of other collections too. So, as far as I was concerned, this Christmas was sorted.

I would share my Shimelle kit with you and then I planned to follow along with JYC and by now be able to show you where I was.

Nice plan!

It all changed when I thought about all the other gorgeous Christmas product I had and how, here at CKC, we try and give our neglected but still loved papers and embellishments some attention.

And so I decided to put together a new kit full of mostly older product - lots of October Afternoon Silent Night, some Crate paper Sleigh Bells and Bundled Up as well as anything else that caught my eye in my special Christmas drawer. I decided to name it The Ghost of Christmas Past and I'm going to use it to document, retrospectively, my December 2014 in some pocket pages which will just slip nicely into my album for that year.

Here is the full kit - lots more stuff than I need, but you know how much I like to put plenty and more into my kits!

And here are some close ups

I particularly love how everything seems to match up and go together even though there is really a good mix of different manufacturers and collections - my kind of Counterfeiting!

Come back tomorrow to see how I'm doing with my tales of Christmas past.

Yes, that is a flashing Rudolph nose!
I think it's important not to take yourself so
seriously at this time of year!