Happy Little Christmas

January 6th is Epiphany - the 12th Day of Christmas - some call it Little Christmas, others call it 3 Kings Day - but it technically ends the holiday season. Trees are taken down and decorations stored away until next year. I cheated and took everything down on Sunday because I knew I had a busy week ahead. Tonight after work, I wanted to do something to celebrate Little Christmas, so I did my annual Christmas Card layout. I cannot take credit for this idea - I saw it on Ali E's blog a year or two ago and I have done it ever since. It takes away the anxiety of pitching cards in the trash every year and is a wonderful way to commemorate the Christmas season and end your album if you are a chronological scrapper. I challenged the consultants over at ACBailey to do the same.

Did you ever start a project and get halfway through it and know that something wasn't quite right? That's what happened to me when I started this layout. I just knew something wasn't quite right, so I dug out last year's layout and sure enough, I used a square punch and the squares were smaller, which threw everything off. In addition, this year my cards were just not cooperating - the colors seemed too bright and I was having a rough time getting good pieces of the cards. It also seemed that this year everyone took close ups of their children and a small inch and a half square would only give me an eye and maybe a piece of a nose or an ear. So I had to improvise. Fortunately I had some Basic Grey Wassail Paper left from the December Kit of the Month and I was able to use some die cuts that I found the matched them perfectly. I used Stickles to "bling" it up a bit and some Glossy Accents to make a piece of chipboard as shiny as a real ornament.

I really loved that BG Wassail. Every year I get the grandkids to put on antlers and we sing Christmas Carols - this year, I got my sister and her family to pose for photos, but they wouldn't sing. I used some of the photos I took of my sister's family on Christmas Eve and made this Kaiser Hanging Keepsake for her. I was so very simple to do. Adhere the papers using Mod Podge, embellish, and tie it together with coordinating ribbons. I also used Queen and Co. Felt to embellish. And this is a twofer - just flip it over and you can do an entirely different set of photos and use different papers!! A real value - all you need to do is change the ribbon!

We had an awesome Online crop over at the ACBailey Community Forum this past weekend. Scrappers from all over the country logged on, chatted, played games, did some serious scrapping creating layouts and cards from twelve challenges - one from each of the Design Team Members. I did a "Progressive Challenge", where the scrappers are given instructions and they construct a layout step by step. If you'd like to see some of the fabulous work that was done, hop on over to the ACBailey Community and check out the gallery of the Unfinished Business crop.

Until next time, have yourself a Merry "Little Christmas".

Dee