Remember December: SANTA

Merry Christmas, friends!

I am up on the Paper Issues blog with some Remember December inspiration.

A trip to the mall with Ryan to visit Santa was fitting for today's post!
He is always so excited to see Santa and tell him his Christmas list
and to talk about the Gopher football team. 
Santa sure seems to know a lot about MN sports!

I used the December scrapbook kit. The kit is sold out, but many items can be purchased separately in the store or found in the December Swag Bag kit. I love the background of the mall's snowflake cut outs behind Santa, and used the light blue as my first color to bring out in the watercolors. 
(Grab similar flair buttons here from Pretty Little Studio.)
I used glittery snowflakes from an older Pink Paislee collection,
but even a cut file of snowflakes could be used in your design!

The Elle's Studio puffy titles and mini label stickers were the perfect little touches to layer and add the pops of color I needed in the horizontal grouping.  The Pink Paislee Together for Christmas paper number 9 plaid made a beautiful background border!

I love that the Together for Christmas ephemera from Pink Paislee also coordinated with Elle's Studio stickers and Pretty Little Studio Glitter and Ice trees. With little bits of foam adhesive squares, the little bits were easy to layer against the watercolor background. The iridescent acrylic paint added little snowy dots that were scattered over the watercolor layer.

I hope you are inspired to carve out some creative time
 over the next few days to join in the December challenges at Paper Issues!!
Tag us on social media when you complete a challenge.

Post your creative additions to the December challenge album on Facebook
in the Friends and Fans group now through January 5th!

If you missed out on the Pink Paislee Together for Christmas or need a
December Swag Bag (with the Elle's Studio mini labels I used today),
be sure to grab yours today!

Save 20% with my code: Stacie

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Magic

For Try It Tuesday at Paper Issues today,

Amanda is challenging us to use party products in our design. 

I used a paper treat bag in the layers and a Christmas glittery gift tag is tucked inside

 to document my 5 year old Ryan and his list for the year.

Here's a close up of my "party or holiday party items" that I added to my layers.  I love that I can keep his list tucked into the page for reminding us years from now what he was interested in!

I loved working with Pinkfresh December Days.  The chipboard, puffy stickers, ephemera and wooden buttons were the perfect little bits I needed to layer this festive design.

The sequins were included in the Swag Bag kit for December.  Make sure you grab a PI swag bag kit when Cassie releases them as they are the perfect layout finishers!  I mean--it's the go to stash of items to add to those spots you need just a little something!! The epoxy black stars were included in Heidi Swapp mini packs of stickers.The PI store has the Heidi Swapp scripty stickers all in stock and they are adorable to add to pages!

We hope you will join us on all of the January challenges at Paper Issues.  They are open now through Feb 4th.  Don't forget to grab items from the Paper Issues store--it's always on sale and the shipping is fast. Cassie adds the best detailing with each order! Don't miss out!

Swag Bag December: The Magic

It's all about Santa and the magic of the season in our house right now!  We took our youngest two to see Santa this past weekend and I put the expensive mall photo to good use. The Paper Issues December Swag Bag kit was perfect for the page design! I still have so much of the kit left to use on another winter themed page that I will share in January. Check out the Paper Issues blog today for more Swag Bag inspo.

The Maggie Holmes Carousel starry background paper is the off-white cream color that picked up the gold tones of several of the embellishments and papers included in the December kit. I added mixed media to the background to soften the stars around the immediate design and photo cluster. I used the packaging technique to add sparkly green and gold layers.

The December Swag Bag rosettes added such fun depth and texture!  I love the snowy winter whimsy it brings to the design. I love the fun mix of sequins included in this month's kit. I used only the gold stars, but the crimson red,white, and other sequins will be used in another project--tis the season to sparkle!

If you have been wondering about swag bags, now is the time to try one! Cassie packs the kits full of fun possibilities.  This kit worked for the holidays, a visit with Santa, baking cookies, winter outdoors fun, sledding, not to mention perfect for your December albums if you are documenting each day this month!

Elle's Studio Tis the Season

Today on the PI blog, we are giving you a dose of holiday cheer with the product spotlight on Elle's Studio, Tis the Season collection!  I hope you grabbed some of this earlier in the fall and are able to use it as you capture and document your December memories.  

Tis the Season for capturing sweet memories like this one of my daughter helping with the sugar cookies.

I love the bold green in the collection and backed the cut file in the green stripe paper.  I added lots of stitching and wove the machine around several times to get it giving it a wreath-like resemblance.

  I love the Christmas flair from another fave small shop Feed Your Craft,and it coordinates so well.  I love my mini stapler and added the ephemera onto the layout with the tiny attacher.

I love how the wood veneer are meant to look like the darker version of the cookies she just made.
We can't wait to see all of your layouts or paper projects that use Elle's Studio.
Save 20% all shopping at Paper Issues with code: Stacie  Don't forget the gift card sale, too!

Sketchy Saturday

Today is a gorgeous new sketch at a Paper Issues!  Check out the Paper Issues blog today for Amy's sketch and the design team's take on this fun, multiple photo sketch.

I went with Merry and Bright by Fancy Pants Designs.  This is all about the December tradition of the elf.

I have a vintage Elf on the Shelf that was passed along to me from my grandmother.  This golden elf is named Twinkle and my youngest two think it's the funniest thing in the world to search for this elf each morning!

I mainly stuck to the sketch this month and added lots of Fancy Pants Designs Merry and Bright for easy coordination!

Here are some close ups of the beautiful Merry and Bright!

I love these Tall Tyle letters from The Cut Shoppe. I backed them and then added white papers behind it!  I loved the pack of  Merry and Bright tags and used many of them on this LO.  

These tags by Merry and Bright are the cutest.    I used some as gifts, as shown above by the LO title.

Thanks for checking out my blog today.  I hope you'll take some time this weekend to get crafty!  Use this sketch and post yours in the Sketchy Saturday thread on Facebook PIFF for a chance at a PI giftcard!

So many new collections and supplies!  Get all of it for your gifts to yourself!  Get 20% off with code: Stacie.

Believe

We are all about Merry and Bright today as we focus on Fancy Pants Designs new holiday collection.  Check out the Paper Issues blog for so much more inspiration!

I love the trees free cut file in the Paper Issues shop and backed them with 6x6 papers from Merry & Bright.  

I love the Believe acrylic piece!  I love how perfect(and funny!) my photo of Santa looks for my littlest guy's first visit!  He was quite serious!!

I added the diecut pieces from the ephemera pack to anchor my merry christmas frame cut file and add depth behind the trees!  How cute is that reindeer flying up to Santa!?

I cut the frame and Merry Christmas twice as the first patterned paper matched too much to the background.  I glued the second layer right over the first one and I love the dimension it provided!

All of the gold foil accents are beautiful!  I loved sprinkling them throughout the page.  The die cut trees are popped up with foam dots to layer them above the die cuts by Fancy Pants.

                                                                                         

Save 20% off your order at Paper Issues:  Use code: Stacie

Remember December- New Issue at PI

Hello!  Happiest of December wishes to you!  

We are kicking off this month with a new issue- Remember December on the Paper Issues blog.
I hope you are inspired and take the time to play along after your cards are sent and the cookies are baked!
Here's my layout with this super cute picture of my littlest reindeer when he was two at his Christmas concert!  I used Illustrated Faith Christmas and Bella Blvd's Holly Jolly Christmas.

The background is the holly branches cut file is from Just Nick Studio and the pops of red are this gorgeous Sweater Weather paper by Bella Blvd. I wanted the white on white look and added white stitching to the branches.  The border paper is by Illustrated Faith and I love the bold black with a look of snow balls on it!

I added ephemera from the bits pack of Illustrated Faith's Christmas and the cardstock stickers from Holly Jolly and IF's Christmas. 

Aren't these bits and pieces from Illustrated Faith's CHRISTmas line just too cute?!  I love the little reindeer and how it works with my photo of Ryan.

 I added my date and journaling to the side (the only long space I had available without a cut file layer on it!)

 I love the white on white detail from the cut file and the ephemera pieces!  It makes me think of snowy branches on our trees here!

Thank you for joining us at Paper Issues with our new issue!  We hope you will document something about December, holidays, family traditions, etc... and post it to the challenge album!

When you shop--save 20% using code: Stacie  

PInspired December

The PInspire Me mood board this month at Paper Issues is stunning. Mary-Ann always does such an awesome job at finding images that spark so much inspiration!
I am a lover of all things modern and with clean lines for decorating and these images made me go right for Pinkfresh Oh Joy for my layout.

I was so inspired by the black trees on the pillows.  I wanted to make a fringe Christmas tree and went with the Pinkfresh triangular trees to create the shape.  

I sewed each layer together and then pieces the three triangles together and sewed the whole tree down onto the background.  

Holiday Cheer

I'm all about the diagonal stripes and this one came in an ABM Messy Box this past year. 

I inked the edge of this pointillism free printable from Paper Issues. It was perfect for holding the title and a place to tuck snowflakes. 

I used several black glitter stickers from Pink Paislee. Everything is always better with a bow added! Especially when it is a winter snowflake bow!

I kept the paper layers in place by double stitching both sides in black thread. 

Remember: Believe

I love the weekly inspiration from PI Scraplift Sunday and my page was inspired by Kelly Feldman's project on Paper Issues Fans and Friends Facebook group:

I kept with close to the same color scheme and holiday topic.

I used super old KI memories title words and holiday bits from last year's Pink Paislee collection. I loved Dear Lizzy Documentary green vellum to add to the magical spin on meeting real reindeer!

He adored meeting and petting Santa's helpers!

Holiday Wishes card

This card is for Corri's card sketch challenge for December on Paper Issues F&F Facebook group.

I layered bits from Pink Paislee, Basic Grey, American Crafts, and really old Scenic Route.

Love: Merry & Bright

Elle's Studio holiday collection Good Cheer has great papers for Christmas photos like I used the red script patterned paper, but also fun colors like pink, teal, woodgrain, and gray for other projects. I also used a stamp from this collection, along with little die cut bits and  paper tear strips for the top band.

The love script cut file is by Lisa Dickinson for Basic Grey and can be found for free here:Love  I used the negative space to back it with the Elle's Studio paper.

I stitched around the circles with red, white, and black thread to tie in the colors. Thanks for looking!