Day 10 - Quick Christmas Layouts

I don't know about you but I haven't had a lot of time to actually complete any scrapbook pages lately. With Christmas fast approaching my creative efforts have been going into making gifts and Christmas projects, not pages! But I was itching to scrap so I came up with an easy page plan and used one of our Christmas Page Paks to whip up a couple of layouts featuring photos from LAST Christmas.  Anyone else out there have some photos you've been meaning to scrap from last Christmas? Grab them and let's make two really quick and easy layouts!

The kit I am using is our "Christmas is for Kids" Page Pak:



It contains 2 fun patterned papers (a red, green and white stripe and an all over pattern with toys, presents, stockings and Santa images), 2 pieces of solid cardstock (red and green) 2 journaling spots, 2 tags, a pre-cut title, 9 decorative die-cuts and a 12" length of green and white polka dot ribbon. It's traditional Christmas with a fun, young twist. All our Page Paks give you enough papers and embellishments to create at least two 12 x 12 layouts. I usually have enough leftovers to make a card or a smaller 8x8 layout as well! The best part is they are pre-coordinated for you and they are only $5.00 each! (Ummm...oh yeah...this one is part of the Christmas Sale so it's actually only $3.75 until December 24th! Bonus!)

I created a new Page Plan for us to use with this kit. If you have browsed around our website you may have already found our archive of Page Plans. They are such an easy way to get your pages done quickly - you don't need to waste a lot of time deciding where to put your photos, journaling and embellishments - just place as indicated on the plan! Another way to save time is to choose a Page Plan that uses un-cropped, standard 4x6 photos. This latest plan (#26) features space for three 4x6 photos (2 vertical and 1 horizontal) some blocks of patterned paper and room for a journaling spot, titles and embellishments.



Let's make it - quick!

1. Choose a background piece of cardstock - in this case I used the red from the Page Pak.
2. Place 3 photos into approximately the right spots on the page.
3. Trim one piece of striped patterned paper with the lines going horizontally and one with the stripes vertically. Place according to the Page Plan.
4. Next (although it doesn't show this on the plan), round the outside corners of the two top photos and the two pieces of patterned paper (it makes the photos and the papers really work together as a cohesive shape).
5. Add one of the two journaling spots from the kit, the pre-cut title and the three die-cut stars as shown.
6. Write your journaling (in my case it was the record of how making gingerbread houses has now become a family tradition).

Done! And because we followed the Page Plan, this page will probably only take you about 15 minutes to put together!



Well, I had lots of leftover supplies from the kit and a little more time, so I decided to make another layout. I grabbed 4 photos of the boys and hubbie on Christmas morning and cropped them into 4x4 squares. Page Plan #12 is perfect for four square photos.



Let's make a second layout!

1. Use the other (green) piece of cardstock from the kit.
2. Place three photos to one side stacked on top of each other in a cloumn.
3. Trim three long strips from both the patterned papers to place on either side of the three stacked photos as a border.
4. Use the overall patterned paper with the cute images on them as a matt for the fourth photo and mount it on an angle to the right of the stacked photos. Make sure to place adhesive only on three sides of the photo so you can slide one of the tags behind it.
5. Staple a small piece of the green and white polka dot ribbon to the top of the red tag so it will act as a pull tab for the tag. (I love doing hidden/interactive elements like this on my pages - it makes things a little more fun!) 
6. Write your main journaling in the empty space under the angled photo, and write any other thoughts on the hidden tag (I wrote about the events of Christmas morning in the main journaling area and a list of the gifts that were received on the tag).
7. Use a circle (or square) punch to cut out three different pictures from the overall patterned paper and mount them across the bottom of the page under the journaling. 
8. Create a title. You can hand write it, cut out letters from leftover papers or use letters from your own stash.

Again, because we used a Page Plan and a pre-coordinated kit, this page comes together in just a few minutes as well (in fact, it probably took me longer to photograph these layouts and upload them from my camera to share with you in this post than it did to actually create both of them!)

Hopefully you get a chance to use these ideas to quickly scrap a few of your own Christmas photos! Feel free to browse all our Page Plans here for more ideas, and if you like the Page Pak featured above you can purchase it along with lots of other goodies from our Christmas Sale here. Happy scrapping!

Tomorrow I'll have one more uniqe card idea for you, so make sure to check back!