Christmas Cheer - Two Page Christmas Layout

 Here's another Christmas layout to share featuring my kids and grandchildren opening their stockings.💓😍 Again, 2019!! Yikes. Better late than never in posting this one. 

I love all of these smiling faces! Our life seemed a little easier three years ago. We've faced some hard changes and challenges since then. These are beautiful memories to hang on to, for sure. Look at Scarlet all dressed up in her Christmas dress. And...you should see her now, 3 years later! She's turning into a beautiful young lady.

Love the way this simple layout turned out. I was able to pack in a nice handful of photos and still add some embellishments and style.

I hope your Christmas decorating, shopping, baking, planning, and parties are falling beautifully into place. Even if they aren't...try to take a deep breath and choose not to stress about it all. My motto this year has been to try to go with the flow. That's not who I am instinctively, but it's the only way I can stay focused on the true reason for the season! 

Hang in there everybody!! Stop back for some more Christmas layouts....Promise!

Fresh Christmas Tree - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 Hope you all had a pleasant Christmas and New Years celebration! I hope you were able to have your family/friends together and just savor your time together. It's been awhile since posting. Time to get back into that!!

My parents are gone now, and it's just me and my brother! We try to make an effort to get together a few times each year, even though we really aren't close. He lives in Michigan and I'm in NE Indiana. We were at his home last weekend for a couple of hours. but these pictures are from when he visited us for the weekend a few years ago after Christmas. 

Neither of us are very photogenic here, but nonetheless it is a memory of us together!!

Pretty simple layout. I matted all of the photos on white to help them pop off the darker patterned paper. The title is larger since I didn't have a bunch of photos to use. I used Cricut Design Studio for the images.

Washi tape placed vertically between the papers, a few tags and journaling, plus a little bit of twine and DONE!

Hope you enjoy the after Christmas inspiration! Have a blessed week. 

Peace on Earth - Two Page Christmas Layout

 Thought I would share a few more Christmas layouts before everybody is completely out of the mood. Here is a layout from a few years back...pre-Covid...when all seemed well with the world.

A super simple layout using a pack of Christmas paper highlighting corals and dark forest greens.  I used a bold color for matting the photos and I think it works okay. 

I love my family so much. This year looks so much different. My family is broken and it is heart breaking. I'm still thankful for these happier memories, though. I hope they will help me to look back with fondness and realize how quickly thinks can change in life. 

I pray that you are having a blessed Christmas season and looking forward to a New Year of health and happiness. 

Living Nativity - Two Page Christmas Layout

 This is my week for sharing layouts of our Christmas activities. This one was very meaningful and tells the wonderful story of Christ coming to earth!

One of the churches in our area hosts a wonderful live nativity scene. This was our first time going, but hope we can do it again!  The kids that there were lots of live animals including camels! The line was long down the street to get in. Seriously, it was over a mile long, but so worth it.

For this layout, I cut some strips from scraps of Christmas paper that all shared the same color combination and wrapped them with baker's twine. I used a small leftover bit of the red paper to add a little banner on the left to balance it out. The silhouette of  Joseph walking the donkey carrying Mary was straight from Design Space and cut on kraft paper. 

As usual, I printed some of the pics as wallets so that I could use more pics on the page. 

Look at those crazy kiddos!! We adore them and our time together is such a blessing. 

Walkway of Lights - Two Page Christmas Scrapbook Layout

Are you enjoying your family traditions this Christmas season? Our Christmas has been quite a bit different this year, but we are trying to continue on with the traditions. I'm not sure if and when we can make this one happen this year.

Many cities have this, but we love the Walkway of Lights in Marion, Indiana. It's a bit of a drive, but we sing Christmas carols with the kiddos on the way, and usually stop for Happy Meals. 

Want to know a secret? I do not enjoy scrapping our Christmas photos! I'm sorry, but it is so true. I don't mind scrapping the traditions so much, but the actual family gatherings opening photos....Ugh! but I do it anyway!! I do tend to take a simpler approach to my Christmas related layouts. This one is definitely simple, but I love the colors, and I'm happy with it and it makes me smile! That's all that matters here.

I love the non-traditional aqua paper and always try to use my scraps like I did for the strip along the bottom. I typically matt each photo, because I love that look and in my mind it kicks the layout up a notch. The title was done by mixing some pieces of titles in Design Space together. That's my favorite thing to do. I cut a few snowflakes and placed them around the page, both on, off, and overlapping the pics. The fancy ribbon on the journaling tag adds a bit of sparkle to draw the attention to the story behind the photos. I could have added some bling to the snowflakes, but really like the simplicity of this as it is.

Hope you are enjoying the countdown to our celebration of Christ's birth!

 

Baking Spirits Bright - Two Page Scrapbook Layou

 Baking cookies together is one of our favorite traditions. Each year our tribe gets even more creative and enjoys creating their tray of masterpieces together. Even the grands did such a great job. The cookies turn out beautifully.

We made cookies together yesterday, but these pics feature our cookie making from 2018. 

This was the first time making cookies in our new home. What a joy to have an island with space to spread out. Our oldest son's family brought their new puppy, so he added to the cuteness factor! The middle bottom picture (above) is my granddaughter seeing the brownie roll out cookie dough for the first time! Priceless reaction!!

Our family brings us such joy!! I'm so glad that they live within a 20 minute radius and we are able to hang out together about once a week! We are blessed! I know many grandparents are separated by such distances. It may not always be this way, so we treasure the time together.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and checking out my Christmas layouts. I have a few more to share this week. Hope your week leading up to the celebration of our Savior's birth is blessed and safe.

Holiday Traditions - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 Tis the season for all of our wonderful family Christmas traditions. First, is our family Christmas tree hunt. Even though the kids are out of the house, we have continued our real tree tradition each year. One of our sons has gone with artificial in their home and the other chooses a real tree. This year, we almost pulled the trigger on an artificial tree for our family, but we just couldn't do it. One of the reasons we almost went artificial is because our tried and true Christmas tree farm (shown below) was asking everybody to make appointments, wear masks (even outside), etc. due to Covid. We have found a new tree farm to use this year. We're going TODAY, so we'll see how it goes at the new tree farm. As you can see by the date last year, we are over a week behind!!

This layout features pics from our 2018 tree hunting adventure. As you can see, it was a beautiful sunny day, but chilly. Almost everybody was able to join in the fun. Our daughter-in-love had to work. It's wonderful to have two big, burly, lumberjack sons to help us get the tree in the car!!

I used woodgrain paper with a Christmas star pattern banner across the bottom. The grid layout helps me fit a lot of pictures on the page. I matted the digitial size pics in a taupe color which sets them off on the white star paper. The embellishments are few with three plaid mini pennants (SU punch) on the left under the title and another larger one under the date on the upper right. The title was cut with my Cricut from design space and brings out the red and green accents in the photos. That's it! Super simple.

I know this year is playing out very differently than past years in so MANY ways, but we're all trying to make the best of it!! Hoping you and yours can carry on with your family traditions as much as possible.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!