Christmas Pages using Kaisercraft again

I've shared with you a lot of Christmas pages over the last few weeks. I have just one more. This is of Jessica's first Christmas. She was only 4 months old at her first Christmas and still wasn't sitting up so we propped her against the couch to get some photos of her with the tree. I love working with photos from a few years ago. It allows me to remember the times all over again. Jessica is the poor 2nd child who doesn't have her first year album completed yet. Well come to that I don't know when they'll ever get completed. I sometimes just like to scrap those newborn days or them crawling even if I've already scrapped them. 

We are just about to return to our home (we have been away for 4 years) and our little baby is going to have her first Christmas in our home where all the other children have had their first Christmas'. We were lucky enough in 2009 that our tenants moved out so we returned to our home to spend the holidays renovating and Hannah was able to spend her first Christmas there.

I think this Kaisercraft range, 25, is just gorgeous. The angel paper I used there was so lovely with it's gold embossing.

I'm off to get ready for our first Christmas party. Oh the silly season has began. HELP! That means tonight I'll be working on my first page of my 2011 Christmas album. Not December Daily because it's only November but a Christmas album.

Until next time my lovely friends.

Another challenge layout UFOed

I can't even remember which challenge site this came from it's been that long since I started the layout and finally got around to finishing it off. The challenge was to use red, yellow, blue and green. I know there is only a little bit of yellow visible but it is there. See in the centre of the flowers? 

These are Scenic Route papers I've had for years and are the last in this range. I know you wouldn't believe they I generally don't scrap using bright papers because a lot of my uploads recently have been just that - bright papers but it's true.

I quite like the colour of the doily. It is actually more red than it appears in the photo but it matches perfectly with the flowers. I'm happy to be able to finish off a paper collection I've had sitting around for a while. It makes me feel really good. Calm, happy, relieved that I can use my supplies.

There isn't much left to pack in my scrapbooking room. We got a kick up the butt last night when Kevin had misplaced the presents he'd bought for his graduating class. They were last seen in the office so we spent over 2 hours cleaning the office so we were able to find them. OMG the stress of not being able to find something he needed for this morning. Well we did find them and the office now looks a lot cleaner and more organised. Maybe God was trying to tell us to stop procrastinating and just get the office packed. 

We are off to the formal tonight. I just had to mend my dress. I still don't know what I'm doing with my hair and I haven't made the kids their dinner yet so I'd better go and get it all organised before the mad rush of school pick up occurs. 

I big hello to all my new follows and to those of you who have been kind enough to leave me comments. You have know idea how much it means to me. Thank you.

Bon Jour pages

I'm including two layouts I have recently finished using the Bon Jour collection from Kaisercraft. One with photos one without. I recently posted about a 3rd layout I created using this lovely collection and the sketch from the Kaisercraft blog.

I created these pages with specific photos in mind but I can't find the photos. I'm hoping my MIL has then on her computer because I can't find them on mine. That being said the photos I'm looking for are also from a time when my photo storage system was inadequate and confusing. I must go back through all my photos and rename them (from this era anyway) to make it easier to find photos to scrap. 

The photos I'm looking for feature my daughter at about 14 months old wearing a dress from Paris hence the Eiffel Tower in the fussy cutting.

These pages are inspired from a class I took at BPC on double page layouts. If I remember correctly the example didn't have photos either so I guess it is only fitting I do the same. The blue in these pages matches perfectly with my memory of that Paris dress.

I haven't scrapped many of my wedding photos since I first started scrapping so this layout won't fit in with that album however I thought the papers suited the colours of our wedding, my dress and my bouquet so I scrapped them anyway. 

 I really like the butterfly stamp with this range. Very beautiful.

10 projects I'm working on

I know it's not the 10th here anymore so I'll start by saying, "Lest we forget" as we remember all those who die or were injured defending our country and our sense of freedom.
I'll begin my 10 of the 10th now and apologise for not uploading this yesterday. I also apologise  for the poor quality of photos as my DSLR  is being silly.

Here are my 10 big projects I have on the go at the moment. I know I'm crazy and should see things through but some of these projects are never going to be finished.

1st is my Project Life
My photograph is of a very plain week. No extra embellishing. Just using the kit the way the kit was designed to be used. Just slap everything into the pockets and move on.

2nd is my Becky Higgins Sweet Baby kit for Lisa
Not much progress has taken place since I posted my video which can be seen here.

3rd is last years Project 365
It is my Projecct Life but without the kit. I made my own kit, something I'm not doing again. I just didn't keep up to date with it. I did manage to take almost a photo a day. This year I'm a little more relaxed with the project and thus have managed to stay more up to date with it. I have recently printed all the extra photos for the Project 365 and have set about finishing the journaling. All my journaling for this year is up to date. Yay for me.

4th is my Korea album
Stupid me started this 6 years ago as my first scrapbooking project and thus it has been difficult to pick up again since my style has changed so much. I am not ripping up all the work from way back when but modifying some of the pages so they all fit together a bit better. I chose a really silly system for completing this album. It forced me to scrap the trip chronologically and that just didn't work for me. I have made huge inroads in the last week. I'm hoping by December it will be finished.

5th December Daily
It won't be a December Daily. It won't be like Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas but more of a combination of the two. I have started and I have created an album in 8 1/2 x 11' which is a format I haven't used before but am increasingly drawn to. I am keeping my pages very simple.

6th About Me february 2011
Yes, I know. I know. It's November so what am I doing working on an album about me from February? Well all the journaling is done and I just have to finish putting the album together.

7th 4x6 photo love for November
I don't know why I started this when I have so many projects on the go but I was so inspired by Shimelle's examples (and I had been working on my Korea album) that I just had to get the photos out and the divided page protectors out and give it a go. I have the embellishments I want to use and it all set to go. I just have to go.

8th My UFO (UnFinished Objects) pile
Check it out. All these pages just need journaling or a title. Can you believe I have such a huge pile? I just need to get them finished so I can put them in sleeves and then when I move, into their album. All the albums have been packed away for 3 weeks.

9th My farewell album pages
I created kits which can be seen here for my farewell album. Here is the title page I made. I've already received two pages back. It's amazing how different they are. It's going to be so good to put this album together. I can't wait to see what people have come up with.

10th My Christmas cards
I'm moving at the start of December so I won't be able to have access to all my supplies. I need to get these done ASAP. With a little "help" from Hollie (my DD5) they have ended up being a little more colourful than I would like but they are a true gift from our family.

However, probably my biggest project at the moment is packing my scrapbooking supplies. This is probably the hardest and most involved project. I've been packing and organising my scrapping stuff for a month now. How do I pack all this stuff. I barely looks like I made a dint in the room. OMG it makes me nervous just thinking about starting this again.
What are the projects you're currently working on? Share a link below in the comments so we can all see.

My farewell album

As most of you know I'm moving a long way in a few weeks. I have asked my friends, scrappers and non-scrappers, to create a small page for me about our family, our relationship with them with journaling or not (they have been asked to at least include the names of the members of their family) as well as a photo of them or us together.

I put together small page kits. I kept it to 8x8 which is not my normal size so it was do-able for everyone. Each kit included a photo mat, small paper, a journaling sticker, the Amy Tangerine camera image stamped and cut out  and another item. It was a lot of work to put it all together (well it was and it wasn't. More time than effort.) but I'm so glad I have made the effort.
I haven't received any of the pages back yet but I'm so excited to see what people come up with. I'm hoping it will be a fantastic reminder of this wonderful town we are leaving. I know it will. How can it not be? Pages made with love by those we love.

I also created a few pages with everything already adhered for those people too scared to do it however I did give people the kit with pieces positioned in a way they could use. Most of the people receiving the kits were not scrapbookers and were a little intimidated by the process.

So without further ado here are some of the page kits I created.

These are really simple to create. I would suggest if you had kids who were wanting to get into scrapbooking that this be the format you choose for them. It only requires one photo or a few smaller photos, the paper can do most of the embellishing for you and there isn't a lot of white space to fill in. Give it a go. Use a 4 1/2' x 6 1/2' photo mat, a few left over pieces of paper, somewhere to journal and some small pieces cut from your die cutting machine. Simple.

What memory projects have you created of your friends? 

More Kaisercraft Christmas pages

 I have been using the Kaisercraft Christmas range again. Here are 3 pages I’ve created. I’m not so happy with the double page layout but I thought I would share it anyway. What I do like about the double page layout is the photos. Not the quality of the photos but the story behind the photos. These were the first lot of photos taken on my very own camera. My Dad gave me the camera that year for Christmas. How special is that? I remember having to save and save to get the photos printed and to be able to afford a new film. I remember being very careful about the photos I took. Now we snap away willy nilly without a care to how many we take. Often there are far too many photos of the one thing. I guess that is what happens with digital photography but it is also a downside to it too. All these perfect photos and the not so perfect ones deleted. So many photos there are too many to print. Maybe some of the not so perfect photos actually tell the best stories?

The first layout is Kevin's first Christmas. These photos were scanned and printed. I asked his mum to write a story of his first Christmas. I am lucky because she is one of the original scrapbookers. She kept records of everything. I may curse her in her grave when I have to clean out their house but right now it is fantastic. She dug out an old diary and was able to tell me all the details of the day and days surrounding Kevin's first Christmas. I love the stories of people's lives so I am so grateful I have a mother-in-law who recorded so much. 

Have a look at the photo in the double page layout with the pink wall behind us. My Dad’s house was painted pink. The walls were pink, the furniture was pink, the outside was pink. Now you might  be thinking my Dad was a little strange for a having a pink house but it was like that when he bought it. Under the layer of pink was green, then blue, then yellow (I think that is the order it went) and it was that old thick lead paint. Probably so unhealthy to live in. It was a nice house though and the furniture that came with the house was beautiful, under the pink.

I apologise  for not taking a photo of the double page as a double page. I'm going to blame the kids for distracting me or possibly my Mummy brain. 

The wreath is a stamp from the collection.

I cut small designs out of the paper then put them through my Cuttlebug with a sizzix die.