Christmas In July Part Two - Vicki Boutin Peppermint Kisses

 Hello Julie here with Part Two of my Christmas in July project.  This part concentrates on the inside of the Jolly season album that I have made.  I used the beautiful rich coloured paper from Vicki Boutin Peppermint Kisses and one pack of embellishments.  I want to preface this post by saying these embellishments are amazing!  One pack has 50 large pieces in all sorts of festive shapes, however, these pieces are a great size and can create focal pieces to a plain piece of paper on their own.  I have decorated an whole album and still have plenty left for my other Christmas projects.

To start I added the beautiful Floral Sprig paper to the inside covers of the album, to the front inside cover I fussy cut a poinsettia and put it on foam dots for a 3D effect.  I dipped the edges into glue and added some Tim Holtz Distress glitter dust.  This is my "go to" glitter for a fine effect with a vintage gold colouring.  

For my title page, I sewed three lines on my plain 4x6 pocket to create three shaker pockets.  I added some tuille to the top of the front of the pocket.  I noticed the banner strip at the top of the papers had some lovely patterns on the back of them and so I used one such banner for the top of the back of the shaker pocket and added some mittens from the embellishment pack.

Continuing with the sewing I split the next pocket in half with a line of stitching and also added some sequins and tuille to the bottom of the pocket for texture.  In this pocket I used two tags from the Tags paper and tied them with ribbon to two pieces of 3x4 paper that I had cut from some remainder paper I had been using from the Peppermint Kisses range.  I kept the tags on the outside of the plastic pocket to create a flip type effect.  These tags are super easy to remove from the pockets and can have photos added on the back and front of the 3x4 paper.

For the next pocket I was a bit more adventurous and used a large door embellishment piece as a focus piece and I will eventually have a photo "hidden" behind the door.  I added a pom pom trim to the edge of the pocket with hot glue and some branch embellishments to finish off this piece.  On the back of this pocket I used another large piece of ephemera and turned it into a shaker stained glass window.  I love finding other ways of using these wonderful embellishments.

My next pocket was the simplest.  I used two 3x4 journaling cards for the front and one for the back and simply added some embellishments to the outside of the pocket.  Your album can be as simple or as detailed as you prefer and with the beautiful Peppermint Kisses paper and embellishments it will still look beautiful.

The next pocket was very simply some of Sweet Holiday Wishes paper cut to size with a Santa and a car from the embellishment pack added on to foam dots to create some dimension.  I love the look of this pocket and yet it was very simple to do.

I also created my own tip in by using two journaling cards stapled together and hole punched. I sewed some some acetate on the front of the "Joy" card to make it into a shaker pocket but there is still room on the back for a photo.

For my next pocket I used the beautiful Capture The Joy paper as a background.  I fussy cut one line of the hexagons and folded them to pull out like an accordian.  I then stuck that onto the outside of the pocket.  I loved how this gave such a great 3d effect.  On the back I added a co-ordinating tag and a large poinsettia embellishment which is only partly adhered so you can add a photo behind it.

I felt for my penultimate pocket I had to use the gorgeous gingerbread house.  I used a small plastic pocket from my stash and made a simple shaker pocket that I stapled to the pocket behind it.  I cut some Merry Christmas paper to size and added some co-ordinating embellishments and pieces from the tags paper on the reverse.

For my final pocket I decided to use just a simple piece of Around Town paper and to utilise lots of the embellishments for the outside of the pocket.  I loved layering the branch with candy canes and finally adding a mouse on top on the back of the pocket.  For the back of the paper I used the large house embellishment and only put tape on three sides of the houses to make it a pocket.

In case you had any spare memorabilia or photos I added a plain pocket to the back cover of the album and added a doily and layered some more embellishments on top of the pocket.  

Thank you for joining me for Christmas in July, I hope I have inspired you to get an head start on those Christmas projects!  Join me in September for some autumnal goodies.

Christmas In July - Vicky Boutin Peppermint Kisses

 Hello again, Julie here with Christmas in July!  I know it is rather early to be starting on Christmas but the scrapbooking industry is already releasing their gorgeous new Christmas collections and I thought it would be a great idea to get ahead before things get far too busy in December.  Do you, like me, look at other people's December daily journals or Christmas scrapbooks and wonder how they ever have time to complete them?  I am here to try to inspire you to get ahead and to get an album made, ready for December to just pop photos in whenever you want and have space to write a line or two.

I started with a red Sn@p flipbook as my base as it already includes 10 4x6" pockets, this is a base and I intend to add my own pages but the plastic pockets enable you to simply slot in 4x6" journaling cards and add photos if that is what you wanted to do, or you can add embellishments or make shaker pockets they are a great place to start.

This blog post I am concentrating on the cover of my "Jolly Season" journal.

I covered the front cover with the beautiful Vicki Boutin Peppermint Kisses Around Town which has lovely festive houses across the page.  I knew I wanted to create a wintery scene but not focus too much on my album being all about December or just Christmas,  I want to dip in and out throughout the festive season.  I found a lovely 3x4" journaling card which had a blank polaroid photo frame on it (Peppermint Kisses Tags) to use as a background and a tag that said Jolly Season on the Peppermint Kisses 3x4 paper. 

I layered these using foam dot and wanted to add a little more embellishment so I used some pink bazzill paper and cut out a 3d poinsettia flower (similar to this) and then dipped the ends of the leaves in glue and added fine white glitter, I have found doing this really makes the leaves pop,  I then added a little cascade of stars and layered a glitter mix I created on top.

I wanted to highlight the lovely festive houses and used my trusty circle dies (similar to this), cut out of white cardstock, to draw focus to each house and the pine tree underneath them.  As my dies have little dots on them it looked a bit like snow to me .

To add texture to the corner of the cover I used the brilliant Tim Holtz Distress Grit Paste Snowfall,  it is a dimensional translucent medium infused with a clear glitter that dries to a textured sparkle finish.  I love the effect it creates, it adds sparkle without being too much, however it is difficult to photograph!  You can add different colours to it to create a different effect but I love leaving it clear.  I then added a few sequins on top to tie in the whole front page.

To make the final touches I used my trusty Crop-o-dile to add some eyelets and added some beaded embellishments I created but you could add anything you like.  The two pom poms I added are actually hair clips!

I hope you enjoyed this project, next time I will focus on creating the inside of the album, some pages will be very easy and simplistic and others will have a bit more detail.  I encourage you to get yourselves and album and make 2023 the year you are prepared well in advance for Christmas!  Here is a little sneak peek of my next blog post.