Frosty Festivities

Hello and welcome readers one and all to the Frosty Festivities bloghop!  If you're following along, you should have hopped over from the lovely Julie's blog, I Create Purty Thangs.  If not, no worries, you can either carry on from here or head over to Jennifer's blog at Jennifer's Jumbles to start from the top.  And there is a giveaway for the hardiest of hoppers who make it all the way around, so read on to find out more!

So, onto the Winter-themed delights of Christmas crafting!  Every year in December, I participate in Shimelle's online class Journal Your Christmas.  And each year, I do a woefully small amount of preparation.  So I decided this year would be different.  I'm going to make little album pages that are 6x4 in size and then whack them in divided page protectors so they can go long with the rest of my scrapbook pages.  I did this last year, and it worked really well and was very manageable for a daily project.

However, this year, I've been doing some thinking and I've decided to make the journalling cards in advance so that they look like a set and go together.  I've never tried this before - I've just played it by ear in the past - so I'm looking forward to the challenge.  Throughout this post, I'm going to be sharing the first few 6x4 cards I've made that, along with 6x4 photos, will form my Journal Your Christmas pages.

The most important thing for me with any aspect of scrapbooking is telling my story.  So each journalling card I make will have space for writing.  Whether that's a quick sentence about my favourite carol or a longer story about the time I had all my friends round for mullled wine and presents, I'm going to need some word-space.  And so I'll have some cards with quite a bit of space on a tag, and some with a quick journalling block or date stamp.

So far so crafty.

But how to tie them all together?  I mean, my supplies don't really match and I don't want to stick to one colour or one icon or one theme.  In the end, this is what I've come up with.  I cut 2 pieces of vellum to 6x4 size and stitched them together around the edges (see picture below).  However, I've always left about an inch open at the edge for later.

Then using the stitched vellum as the background, I build my little page.  A tag or two, a matching button, a paperclip because paperclips rule (or is that rulers?), and whatever happens, space for journalling.

Then comes the fun part!  I've decided to fill each little vellum pocket with confetti.  And my goodness, there are lots of options to choose from!  So far, I've used little circles punched from white cardstock (which I've already fallen in love with as a snowy look), little green seed beads, white seed beads and patterned paper.  Waiting on the sidelines, I have a little star-shaped punch and if I find a snowflake between now and Christmas, my wish will have come true :D

The great thing about adding confetti into in the vellum is that I can do it last of all to match whatever I put on the top.  It shows through and glimmers and creates beautiful movement.  It drifts and collects and looks wintry.  In short, it is lovely imperfection and to me, the confetti makes quite ordinary journalling cards look a bit special.

I'm really quite chuffed.

A word to the wise however: if you don't leave the unstitched gap in the vellum big enough, its really hard to poke in the confetti. With a spoon.  I'm just saying.

So once December arrives, all I need to do is choose one of the vellum pockets, add my story, title and the date and slide it into my page protector along with any photos I fancy.  And you know what?  I can't wait to get started!

That's all from me for now, but for more delightful frolics, if you comment on all the blogs in the hop, finishing at Jennifer's Jumbles (to let Jennifer know you've been all the way around), then you'll be in with a chance to win a spectacular seasonal prize of Basic Grey Aspen Frost and Carta Bella Winter Fun items, worth over £25!  Look how pretty!

 All entries must be received by Monday the 19th of November at 10.59pm GMT. Your next stop along the hop is  Lisa-Jane over at Inside My Head.  And remember, if you head over to Jennifer's blog, you can discuss the weekend and ask questions in the forum.  And at the end of it all, you'll be able to download a PDF of some of the projects on offer to catch up with at your leisure. 

Thank you so much for popping by - I hope I get to find some lovely new blogs and crafters this weekend :D  And you're more than welcome to visit again as I've got Journal Your Christmas, some new Podcasts and big new project coming up in December.  I LOVE this time of year!

Kisses xxx

P.S. Don't forget, you have to then stitch the vellum closed to stop all the confetti falling out.  Sounds obvious but if you're holding one that hasn't been stitched shut while gesturing wildly, bad things happen.

P.P.S. I found this out the hard way.

P.P.P.S. Just in case you're wondering, you can put two of these back to back in a page protector.  The vellum is translucent enough for the confetti to show through, but not enough for the back of another page to show through.  That was something I thought was worth checking before I started!