Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 8: Christmas Leftovers

 

I haven't done many Christmas layouts (so far, I've done only one) but after I was done, I was left with all these small paper scraps - much like food left over from all the feasting :).  Now I could've easily thrown them out, but I just thought they were too pretty to dispose of.  And this is my dilemma with other paper scraps as well, so what I do with the scraps is to punch out shapes that I can use for future projects.  Here I used a cupcake punch that cuts out a separate top and bottom, so it's easy to mix and match patterns.

 

Of course, this solves the problem of storing paper scraps.  I put my punched out shapes in little resealable baggies and I now have a small collection of hearts, butterflies, flowers, etc.  Here, I used the cupcake punch outs to embellish tags and gift cards.  This paper collection (K & Co.'s Peppermint Twist by Brenda Walton) is a Christmas one, but many of the designs are flexible enough that these can be used for birthdays and other types of celebrations.

Materials:  Patterned paper (K & Company), cardstock (Moods), puncher (EK Success Paper Shapers).

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 7: Holiday Mixup

My entry to challenge #11 at the Filipino Scrapbookers Challenge Blog.  I readily selected the photos as soon as I saw the sketch, but only got to work on the layout today.

It's quite a literal interpretation of the sketch by Melissa Bonifacio, but I used an 8.5" x 11" format instead of a 12"x12" or 8"x8" page.  I also had a title and journaling in mind when I first picked the photos out, which are actually a bit blurry but I thought it would be a fun moment to scrap about.

Journaling:  "HOLIDAY MIXUP - No, your eyes are not deceiving you, the kids are indeed wearing their Halloween costumes with a Christmas tree in the background.  They were not able to go trick-or-treating that year.  And so on this particular weekend in December, the cousins just wanted to dress up.  Jared the pirate, Jonas the ninja, Dyllan the cowboy, Jessica the fairy, and Jillian the lady bug."

Materials:  Cardstock (Moods), patterned paper (K & Co., Me & My Big Ideas), metallic paper (Star Paper Corp.), alphabet stickers (EK Success), gem stickers (All About Scrapbooking), pen (Dong-A, Galaxy), others - glittery shapes/sequins.

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 6: Stamped & Embossed Gift Tags

In the Philippines, the Christmas season is long, it starts way before Christmas (if you judge it by the music and decorations in the mall, that would be around Sept./Oct.) and ends well into the next year (about a week after New Year's Day).  It makes for a very festive few weeks, and I don't know about you, but it's the day after Christmas, and I still have gifts to wrap and distribute to friends and family ;)

So I've made these gift tags ahead of time, but were unable to use them for the first batch of gifts that have already been given out.  I used stamps and embossing folders to decorate these, but I still like how simple these are and easy to make.  The stamped ones above are made from cardstock scraps, and I stamped them with a regular office-use stamp pad in green (I have a variety of different colors aside from the red one, for dating paper submissions). 

And for these tags (above) and tiny gift cards (below) I used my Texture Boutique and four different embossing folders that fit in with the Christmas theme.  These are so fun and easy to do that I want to make some more - that I'll probably get to use next Christmas.

Materials:  Cardstock (Moods), stamp pad (HBW Office), one-hole punch, Sizzix Texture Boutique embossing machine, embossing folders (Cuttlebug - Snowflakes & Swiss Dots, Ellison Textured Impressions - Ornate Swirls & Winter Words), clear stamps (Making Memories - Noel).

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 5: Christmas Loot

Being a part of a large family, it usually takes us a very long time to open our gifts.  To date, there are twenty of us, and we all stand by and watch each family member open all their gifts, starting with the youngest and moving along to the oldest :).  Today though, we broke away from our yearly tradition as one of my sisters and her family spent the past few days (including today) out of town.  But we did let the kids who are here open their gifts today, since they've been waiting to open their Christmas presents for quite some time now.

Tonight, I also got to open mine and was so happy to get some scrappy supplies.  I've been putting off buying these for a while now, as I've been trying to decrease my spending (not just on scrappy stuff but on just about everything).  Also, I think I have a lot of stuff in my stash that I want to make a serious dent in it, but I just haven't had the time.  I was hoping to have time this Christmas break, but preps just took up most of my time so far.  But now with just a few gifts to round up, I hope I can do more crafts.  Especially with the new stuff I got, thanks to my brother, Paul, and his wife, Ica.

And this is how the gift was packaged - so cute!  I can definitely use container for storage, too.  And yes, I painted my nails festive especially for the holidays.  :)

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 4: Upcycled Gift Tags

Christmas shopping can be truly stressful.  Fortunately, there are some little conveniences that the mall provides to their customers to lessen the stress.  One of these is the free gift wrapping service.  When we got to the mall yesterday, the first thing we shopped for were gifts for the kids.  And since those toys can be difficult to wrap at times, we dropped them all off at the gift wrap counter and then shopped around some more for gifts for the older kids. ;-)  Although there weren't a lot of people lined up at the counter, there were lots and lots of bags of toys waiting to get wrapped.

The wrapping paper was pretty enough with the star/snowflake swirly design and with the mandatory department store logo, of course.  We had many color options but chose to stick with red and green because purple and orange won't exactly fit in with the Christmas decor at home.  Now here's where today's project comes in - the tags don't coordinate color-wise with the decor either.  I actually find it a bit strange that the gift wrap (no matter which color it was) had gold undertones in it (the swirls) and yet the white gift card had a silver design on it.  And yes, I confess, I am a bit OC, so as soon as I saw the gift tags, I knew I had to modify/upcycle them.

I just wanted to cover up the silver design (it's a graphic of a gift the a heart-shaped bow on top) on the front cover of the gift tag.  I decided to use the small pieces of wrapping paper that are left over to decorate the cards/tags.  I cut the really cute Santas out and pasted the images on the tag.  For the smaller cut-outs, I either drew a border around the image or used washi tape to frame the image.  A really simple and easy way to get everything to look coordinated.  :-)

Here are the finished gift tags, with no trace of silver and all ready for use.  Btw, I used the term "upcycle" because these tags haven't been used yet.  But had I left them alone, I wouldn't have been able to use them.  And that would be a waste.

Materials:  Wrapping paper scraps (Hallmark), red pen (Galaxy), washi tape (All About Scrapbooking), others - gift tags to recycle.

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 3: Washi Tape Decorated Candle Tins

One thing I love about the Christmas season is that it gets dark early and then you see all these lights everywhere.  As we're usually driving home just about when it starts getting dark, there's something magical and festive with the electric lights on display, but one of my real favorites is candle light, which gives the home a warm and cozy feel.  And Michael Buble's Christmas Special playing on TV right now definitely adds to the Christmas-y mood.

So I was excited when I saw these candles already contained in tins that can easily be decorated.  These actually had labels on them on the top and sides that easily peel right off.  I used washi tape to decorate the sides of the tin and I plan to put gift labels that will fit snugly right on the top of the lid.  The washi tapes I used had a width of 1/4" (6 mm), so I put several strips on the tin, making sure that the design on the tape was aligned all throughout.  Another quick and easy idea for gift giving.

Materials:  Washi tape (All About Scrapbooking).

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 2: Personalized Notepad

My sister asked me a while ago if I can help her out with gifts for her friends at work.  That was actually quite some time ago and I've finally gotten around to working on them.  The idea was to embellish and personalize plain notepads. 

So here's the first one I made... it's very simple with just floral patterned paper and plain lavender paper fancy-fied with a border punch.  I also hand cut some of the flowers on the patterned paper to decorate the area around the name that I stamped using some teeny tiny alphabet rubber stamps.

It looked a little too simple, so I made the flowers sparkly with some glitter glue.  This was fairly easy and quick to do.  I actually need to make twelve more of these for my sister.  Speaking of the number twelve... I missed posting for two consecutive days in this series already.  You all know how busy the Christmas season gets.  But I am still determined to put up 12 posts in all, no matter how long it takes (maybe it will take me into the new year). :-)

Materials:  Notepad (Paperline Kraft Notes), patterned paper (K & Company), plain paper (Sterling), glitter glue (Leeho).  Tools:  Fiskars Threading Water border punch, Studio G alphabet stamp set.

Twelve Crafty Days of Christmas - Day 1: Christmas Stocking Card

I've been planning to work on many holiday projects for many weeks now.  But with work being crazy hectic since the third quarter started, there just wasn't any time.  So I was anticipating that with the Christmas break coming up, I would be able to work on one project a day.  And I had meant to start on the 14th (our last day of work), which meant that the twelfth day would actually fall on Christmas day.  But unfortunately, all the stress and exhaustion of the past weeks have finally caught up with me that I only felt up to posting anything today.  So letting go of all my OC-ness, I decided to just push through with it anyway.  Although if I'm being honest, I cheated a bit for this first project, since I made this weeks ago. ;-)

But this truly counts as this was my first honest-to-goodness Christmas project this year.  I joined a Christmas card swap (my very first one!) and had to send this out by the end of Nov.  This card took me quite a while to plan and to actually create.  I've been liking all the patchwork designs I've seen in magazines and on the 'net and thought I might give it a try.  I'm happy with how it turned out, I hope the recipient likes it, too> :-) 

Materials:  Patterned paper (K & Co., Nitwit), metallic paper (Star Paper Corp.), cardstock (Moods), glitter glue (Leeho), gem stickers (All About Scrapbooking).  Tools:  Making Memories Slice Cordless Design Cutter, Making Memories Slice Mistletoe Design Card, Martha Stewart Crafts Doily Lace Edge Punch.