Hello December - Simple Stories - Jingle All The Way Collection

Hello, it's Rebecca with you today sharing my first Christmas layout of 2020. We are normally very traditional in that the Christmas tree goes up 12 days before Christmas... but all rules have gone out the window this year! The tree is up, the window lights are up, the decorations are out and we are in full-on Christmas mode - which works great for me as it gives me lots of new photos to scrap! I'm working with the 'Jingle All The Way' collection by Simple Stories this month, which can be found in the store here - and this layout documents us picking and putting up our first ever real Christmas tree. 

I really love the traditional Christmas colours in this collection - it's mainly reds and greens which is great for me as I've gone with a red, green and gold colour scheme on my tree this year! I've used a plain Bazzill cardstock for my background in 'Fig Swirl' which is a lovely grey-ish, off-white colour and works perfectly with the collection. I'd seen a pin on Pinterest about a year ago showing how to make 3D Christmas trees, and this layout gave me the perfect opportunity to try them out.

I started with the 'Tree Trimming' patterned paper and trimmed it down into squares. I made the first square 4x4 inches, and made 4 more reducing the size by a quarter of an inch each time, and made the last one 1.5 inches square. I then folded each square in half, marked the centre point and folded the two sides in diagonally towards the centre-point to form a triangle. The final step was to slot the triangles inside each other slightly, starting with the largest, and sticking them together.

I repeated this process using the B side of the Tree Trimming paper, and then made a third tree using the B side of the 'Santa Squad' patterned paper. 

Once I'd decided where I wanted my trees to sit on the layout, I matted my photo onto white cardstock and again onto a mustard coloured Bazzill cardstock to match my son's jumper in the photo. I used foam on the back of my photo to raise it to the same level as the trees and stuck it down in among them. I also created some tree stumps using textured brown Bazzill cardstock to 'ground' them on the page.

I wanted to keep my embellishments to a minimum on this layout as I knew I wanted to add a large amount of journalling on the page. I placed three presents from the 'Bits & Pieces' ephemera pack to the left of my photo, as if they were sitting under the Christmas tree, and did the same on the right using presents from the Puffy Stickers sheet. I also included a Christmas tree from the Combo Cardstock Stickers and a banner which says 'Joy'. 

I selected my title, 'Hello December' from the Foam Stickers and placed it on top of the presents with a Metallic Gold Thread tangle behind it. There is a lot of gold on my Christmas tree this year so I wanted to get some gold onto my layout! I added yellow stars to the top of my 3D trees - two from the Foam Stickers Sheet and one which I'd fussy-cut from the 'Tags' patterned paper. I then slotted the top section of this tag behind my photo, and added some gold thread through the hole to add more interest and texture to my layout.

There are three large baubles in the 'Bits & Pieces' pack and they were perfect for this layout, given that it is all about our Christmas tree. I placed the baubles in the top section of the layout, among the tree tops, and added gold stitching above them to give the appearance of them hanging from the top of the layout.

I created a small cluster in the bottom left hand corner of my layout using a couple of Christmas trees and a car with a tree in it from the 'Bits & Pieces' pack. I don't normally get to use the car ephemera pieces from Christmas collections as we've always had an artificial tree, so I was really pleased to finally get to use one! 

My layout was completed with my journalling and the addition of two more Puffy Stickers around it.

I hope you've enjoyed my first layout with this collection. If you'd like to watch how it came together, there is a process video on my YouTube channel, which you can find here. 

I'll be back next week with another festive layout using this collection, so until then,

Take care,

Rebecca x