Welcome to the Christmas in July Blog Hop, inspiring you to get out your Christmas stash and use it before all the new collections are introduced this month. Join the fun and create something, too, use the hastag #scrapbookchristmas on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
If you arrived here from Madelein's blog, then you're making your way around the hop! If you landed here in the middle, are lost, or just want to see all of the links in one spot, then Ruth Bonser's blog is where you want to be.
When Ruth asked me if I'd like to join in on the Christmas in July blog hop, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to get a start on finishing up my 2011 and 2012 Journal Your Christmas albums.
Yes, I said 2011. And 2012. I've got a history of doing pretty well at keeping up with journaling and photos when it comes to December Daily type albums, but when it comes to actually assembling them, I'm just a great big flop at it. Oh, I make plans and assemble kits of supplies, but I think that by the time Christmas has come and gone, I'm just tired of looking at Christmas-y things and on to new ventures, meaning those kits, photos, and journaling end up being shelved with my other unfinished projects.
I covered some of my past fails in this post last December, so if you want the nitty gritty of it all you can read it there.
Today, though, is not about fails. It's about getting something done and using up some Christmas stash, and in that vein I have the first two pages (covering the first eight entries in Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class) of my 2011 Christmas journal to share today!
I chose a Project Life-style format for my album to make things quick and easy to put together, and from the looks of things I'll be able to fit two years' worth of Christmases in one album (I include a big envelope page of greeting cards each year that also takes up some space). My current album will be full with 2011 and 2012, so for 2013 I might choose a slightly different format (I'm thinking a Simple Stories Sn@p album, but we'll see).
All of my supplies are circa 2011 and before- lots of Holiday Style by October Afternoon and Peppermint by Crate Paper. Like I said earlier, I'm usually pretty good at organizing, photographing, journaling, and gathering supplies, I just seem to always fall short on implementation. The good news is that all that work up front made it quite easy to pull this album out and work on it, even if it does mean that my dining room table temporarily looks like Santa's workshop.
Here's the second page with another four entries. Unlike my Project Life layouts, I didn't try to unify these or really balance them across the two halves of the page (that's the reason I'm not showing them stitched together), and really each separate 4x6/3x4 pair is it's own little entry. I've tried to give some indication as to the content of each homemade bifold journaling card (instructions on making those are in the post linked above) either through the alphabet stickers (I'm using the last of my
Thanks so much for stopping by my little corner of the hop today! Amanda at The Mad Scrapper is next up on your list with another inspiring Christmas post for you.
Note: I'll be sharing my normal Monday Project Life layout on Wednesday, which just happens to coincide with the reveal of some new CHA goodies from Lawn Fawn...hmmm!!