22nd December: Chirstmas Album Pocket Page

Today I'm sharing a pocket page to accompany the scrapbook page I made about an indulgent Christmas breakfast a Selfridges (link here).  This post has been a little while in the coming: my aim of blogging every day in advent was brought to a crashing halt when and external wiring fault took down our internet over a week ago.  It's still not back. Which is very frustrating as anyone who streams all their music, TV and films will attest. It also meant no uploading photos and no blogging.  Thanks internet.

But I am now working on borrowed wifi and thought I'd see if I can blog a couple of the posts I had intended to write over the past week, starting with the divided page protector you find here today.

As this pocket page is intended to accompany the Breakfast at Selfridges layout in my Christmas album, I stuck to similar colours and themes.  As with other divided pages I made, most of the pockets include extra photos and journalling; a great opportunity to include everything I want to without feeling the need to clutter up the original page.

For the first time in this pocket page, I decided to fill the empty pockets with vellum.  Previously I have left them completely transparent, adding a few embellishments or sequins.  However, the advantage of vellum is that I could adhere things to it to keep them in place, instead of sliding around in the pocket.  It also maintains its translucence so I can still peek through to get a sense of what's coming next in the album.

ON each of the pieces of vellum, I repeated a little layered motif, drawing from icons on the main page,  This draws the layout and the pocket page into a cohesive whole: the postage stamp, the string of hearts and the snowflake icon all appear on the 12x12 page. Using this element three times through the pocket page is pleasing to the eye and reinforces the idea, but I varied them slightly to add interest, punching the stamp shape from different patterned papers, and topping them with different words, The little snowflakes are made of wood, creating dimension.

The pocket page will sit next to the layout in my album like this.  However, the pocket page is double-sided...

On reverse of the pocket page, I kept to the same style.  I know I keep saying this, but more than anything, I love how easy it is to include as much journalling as I like when I make a pocket page to match a layout. I simply wrote on both sides of the white cardstock and instantly had a double-sided element for this page. Winning!

  I repeated the camera-and-star idea on this side of the page as well, but with a different style of camera chipboard sticker. But the layered elements are basically the same, partly to emphasise that this page belongs with the previous one, but also because the velum is translucent and so the shape of the embellishment shows through from the other side. Matching the same shapes on the back of the vellum immediately takes care of that issue!

While I used the same style in the layered embellishments, I replaced the wooden snowflakes with flat sequins.  I love a bit of dimension, but I don't want the page to buckle or be too bulky. I finished the page by adding some loose star sequins into the vellum pockets.  I did allow these to move freely, as I like the effect, and the stars are another good link to the 12x12 layout. Some stars are in front of the vellum and some are behind. I like the two-toned effect of seeing the gold through the vellum, and it also shows that there isn't a "right" or "wrong" side of the pocket page.  Both sides are important.

I've now made a few of these pocket pages to hold extra pictures and journalling, and it's a technique I am going to try and extend into all my scrapbooking, not just my Christmas album.  They're comparatively quick to assemble, being mostly photos and the rest of my writing, and the embellishment can be done with leftover bits and bobs from the main page. Happy days!

Kisses xxx

P.S. This post is one of my December series inspired by Shimelle’s scrapbooking class Journal Your Christmas.  My aim is to blog every day throughout the month to document all the little moments that make the most wonderful time of the year.  Merry Christmas!