Oh Holy Night

After walking the dog last night I am seriously considering hibernating for the next couple of months if these FREEZING temperatures persist!  Either that or he's going to have to learn to walk himself.

Thankfully I don't have go to work, which means I don't plan on leaving the house for the next 2 days, so fingers crossed it may have warmed up slightly by the time I next venture out.

Good thing is I get to play.......scrap, blog, etc.

Today I'm finishing up with my second page from a recent Two Scrapbook Friends DT Kit, using the Tinsel & Company collection by Teresa Collins. (You can check out the first here).

I loved using this line and from one that is NOT a Christmas scrapper, that's praise indeed!

Oh Holy Night.

Lots of the usual layers on here starting with a cut background using the Silhouette brand chipboard, and ending with a cute little peek-a-boo folded corner.

I made use of lots of stickers and the lovely brads that come along with this line too.

So there we have the first one into the book for 2015!

Well maybe not quite as technically it's sitting in the store right now but you know what I mean.......still lot's more to go.

I'll be back tomorrow as it's time for a Sketch-y Friday over at Scrapmuch?

See you then,
Jayne.x.

Inspiration Elevator - Christmas Past.

It's the 15th of the month folks which means it's time for a little Inspiration Elevator!

Our main purpose here at IE is to challenge ourselves, each other and YOU to take the creative process to the next level;  to inspire growth and change in our scrapbooking beyond our usual boundaries.
You can see all of Inspiration Elevator's previous challenges on Facebook .

 This month's challenge is issued by the creative Lisa Moen. Lisa is a busy scrapbooker who takes on every creative challenge with gusto; she works layering and clustering beautifully. This month she has a seasonal challenge for us. Here it is in her own words:

" Scrap A Christmas Past.
We all have them- one Christmas that sticks out more in our minds than others. Maybe it was when you were a child or maybe it was more recent. Maybe it was a gift you received that makes it memorable. Maybe a special visitor? Create a page, with or without photos and tell us the story behind that Christmas.."

OK so this challenge was actually a little tricky for me as anyone who knows me is fully aware of the fact that I'm not a happy Christmas scrapper!

Anything with a theme, I tend to steer well clear of and unfortunately this includes festive pages.......I know - what kind of a scrapbooker am I?!

I did create one 'Christmas Day' page quite a number of years back and included 6 years on one page! Lol

So for today's project I had to root back through bunches of old photo's till I found one which triggered a little something in me.

Christmas to me has always been about Family, and although I now live 3000 miles away from the majority of mine, it's the memories of those Christmas lunches shared with parents/Grandparents/siblings that I hold dear and miss so very much.

Unfortunately I don't have a photograph of one of those family gatherings, but I do have one which kind of changed my Christmas perspective.

One which commemorates the start of our own little family Christmas, marked by the birth of my first born.

Blessed.

I realize it's quite ironic that this photo shows my daughter surrounded by a huge pile of gifts (what can I say.....first Grandchild on both sides = spoilt rotten!) because that's not at all what this page is about.

It's about a new beginning.  New memories.  New/Old traditions, and although I would jump on a plane in a minute to experience one more Family gathering (if only finances would allow Christmas airfares!), I cherish these new family memories which will become our legacy.  They say you don't appreciate the joy of Christmas until you have children and I guess this is true.  I certainly hope I get to experience one of those Christmas lunches where I'm a Grandparent surrounded by those I hold near and dear.

On with the deets.

Papers are from a fabulous new festive DT Kit I was generously gifted by Two Scrapbook Friends......'Tinsel and Company' from Teresa Collins.  This collection is everything I look for in a Christmas collection.......if only I scrapped those kind of pages more often!  It's the perfect mix of 'modern' patterns paired with luxurious 'gold' elements.  I still have one more page to complete for the store, but find myself torn between jumping right in there and not wanting to cut into a sheet of patterned paper - it's so pretty!

Most of the inspiration for this page began with the gorgeous 'wreath' cut file I snagged from the Silhouette store......love it!

Lots of layers too of course but I continued the traditional theme by hanging the ribbon behind.

The title was cut from a sheet of glittered cardstock, again using my Silhouette.

There's an abundance of awesome stickers and brads included in this collection so I made use of most of them by either laying flat or 'popped with foam dots.

I'm not sure if you can tell but there are also wooden stars coloured with gold or silver marker, resting in the background clusters too.

That's about all from me but we encourage you to check out each designer's creation for Inspiration Elevator this month: here's a complete list of this month's participating designers!  

Lisa Moen

Ann Jobes

             Jayne Morgan - that's me!

Wendy Robinson

Katherine Sutton

Why not give the challenge a try yourself? Then pop by our Facebook page and share with us what you created!

Have a great day and I'll be seeing you again later this week.

Take care,
Jayne.x.

Little Red Wagon #211 - Keep In Trim!

Hi, how are you doing?

It's my turn to host this weeks challenge over at Little Red Wagon...........

So, I don't know about you but I have loads of trim hiding in my stash.  It's the sort of thing I buy frequently for no other reason than it looks pretty, but when it comes to using it, my motivation usually deserts me!

There lies my challenge......I'd like to see you use 'trim' in some way or form on your creation.

Here's my offering:

I actually managed to use a couple of different types on here.......the pink velvet and the pleated frilly stuff (which I gathered into a rosette type of thing) so my 'trim' stash has now decreased slightly!

Papers are some of my most recent faves from Teresa Collins, the stamp is Cheryl Alger (Sassy Cheryl) and coloured with Copic's.

Almost forgot, but the layout was inspired by Sketch #126 over at The Deconstructed Sketch.

Feel free to check out a little more inspiration from the rest of the Girlfriends, and don't forget to link up your own creation over at the Little Red Wagon blog so we can stop by to say 'Hi'.

Have fun and I'll be back again this week with some layout or other.......not quite sure what yet!

Enjoy your day,
Jayne.x.
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Challenges entered:

The Paper Shelter - #137 For Someone Special
Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge - #153 Add a Sentiment
Scrapper's Delights - #11 Anything Goes
Whimsy Stamps - #65 Anything Goes
Through The Craft Room Door - Anything Goes
365 Cards - You Raise Me Up (raise 4 items from the base of your card)....I raised the script paper, the image, the sentiment and the rosette.
Anonymous Stamps - Anything Goes
Artistic Inspirations - #67 Use a Sentiment/Anything Goes
Card Mania Challenges - #33 Anything Goes
The Cutie Pie Challenge Blog - #57 Little Cuties
Lady Anne's Challenge - More than 1 layer
Ooh La La Creations - Stitching Real or Faux
That Craft Place Challenge - Sentiment
The Corrosive Challenge Blog - #187 Fur or Feathers
Di's Digi Designs - Girly

A double!.....yes you read that correctly.

Good morning and the start of a Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends out there, I hope.

Today I have a slight variation in my normal programming.........a double layout!

Yep I can hardly believe it myself......this girl does NOT do doubles!  Not that I don't like them, I think they're awesome if they're done well, but I unfortunately don't usually do them very well!

They just don't come very easily to me and I find them a little restricting.......everything has to balance out just so.  This is my way of saying that when I create a single page, I throw it on there!

Anyhow, today's page is another result from my scrappy weekend a little while ago, and for once I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

The Distillery.

I think I might have discovered my remedy to making my doubles look at little better........matt everything!

Only problem there is ........5 sheets of cardstock for this one!  So there we go, my excuse for not creating doubles......far too expensive!

There's quite a bit of fussy cutting going on with the layered flowers, and a few die cut elements.

Also lots of layers here and there.

 And of course more fussy cutting and die cuts together with a Thickers title.

This layout was inspired by a sketch from Sketch Savvy and papers are from the Teresa Collins 'Everyday Moments' collection......love the colour scheme in these papers, very clean don't you think?

That's it from me for today but I may be back tomorrow......I'll see how the mojo moves me!

Have a great day,
Jayne.x.