Simple Studio

What are you wishing for this Christmas? (aka the "Friday Tutorial")

Every year at Christmas, I make a mental "wish list" in my head. And every year, without fail, almost everything on my list is an "electronics" item. This year proved no different as is evidenced by my list below...

1. Nintendo DS Lite

2. Sony DVD Player

 

3. Samsung HDTV (for my guest/scrap room)

4. Nintendo Wii Console

5. Small point-and-shoot camera

 

Now those are just my top five items (trust me, there's plenty more where that came from, ha!). And lest you think I'm a spoiled brat, don't worry...I never get anything on my list. It may, in fact, well be called a "when pigs fly" list, hee! :) The kids, on the other hand, have lists that are more do-able. And, yes, we probably do spoil them some...but, hey, it's our right as parents, right? ;)

Now what's all this wishful thinking have to do with Friday's tutorial? Well, inspired by Candice's wish-list mini album (it was like the cutest thing ever!) I decided to make a displayable wish list. It's a simple, easy project that can serve the dual purpose as one of your holiday decorations. I've put mine up and it looks so cute! So without further ado, here's the tutorial for the week:

Step 1

Gather up your tools and supplies. Here are the supplies you'll need, more or less:

• (1) sheet of decorative patterned paper
• (1) sheet of mostly solid patterned paper (can also be cardstock)
• (1) sheet of chipboard
• (1) sheet of writing paper
• (1) strand of ribbon for border
• (1) strand of ribbon for hanging
• letter stickers (to spell out "wish")
• (2) larger-sized eyelets
• journaling pen
• miscellaneous embellishments (I used brads, chipboard and glitter)
• tools: trimmer, pencil, adhesive, hole punch, eyelet setter/hammer, journaling pen

Step 2

Trim your chipboard and solid patterned paper (or cardstock) so that they are both the same size. Mine were 8.5" wide and 9.5" tall.

Step 3

Adhere the solid patterned paper to your chipboard.

Step 4

Trim your decorative patterned paper and writing paper so that there is about a 1/4" margin along the sides. The proportions of your decorative paper to your writing paper can vary, but my measurements were 8" wide and 3.5" tall for the decorative paper and 8" wide and 5.5" tall for the writing paper.

Step 5

 

Adhere the decorative patterned paper to your wall-papered chipboard making sure to leave a 1/4" margin at the top and sides.

Step 6

Attach grommets or large eyelets to the top two corners of your project.

Step 7

Thread ribbon through the eyelets to create a "hanger" for your wish list. Don't forget to trim the edges of your ribbon.

Step 8

 

Adhere your "wish" letters to the strip of decorative patterned paper. I chose to glitter some self-adhesive chipboard letters...not something I would recommend doing in the presence of a curious 2.5 year old boy, mind you! :P

Step 9

Have your eight year old son Matthew write a wish list for him and his baby brother (feel free to use your own family members here). Adhere this wish list just under the strip of patterned paper. Don't worry if the seam isn't perfect since it will be covered up in the next step.

Step 10

 

Adhere ribbon over your perfect/imperfect seam and add any embellishments that you would like (I added decorative brads and yet another self-glittered piece of chipboard).

Step 11

Hang up your final product and wait for Santa to bring you some goodies. That is unless you've been naughty...sorry!

Well, sorry this post got up so late. But I figure it's better late than never, right? It's been fun hanging out with you all week. Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)

Do you wrap?

Many, many years ago, my future brother-in-law asked me, "Do you wrap?"...hoping that I would wrap a gift for him. Unfortunately, I misinterpreted his question to mean, "Do you rap?" to which (after an unusually long pause) I answered, "Well, not really." I don't know what I was thinking with the long pause and the "not really" response because I assure you, I have never rapped before in my life, ha! My answer should have been a quick and emphatic "NO!" :)

Well, as you may have guessed, I actually do "wrap". And I enjoy wrapping quite a bit too. This year I decided that instead of the cheap, sticky gift tags, I would upgrade my gifts with monogram tags for everyone. So after some dabbling around last night, here's what I came up with:

I'm trying to add just a little something to each one...whether it be a charm, some bling or even a picture (to let you know who the gift is from). Fun, huh! :)

Just to let you know, I'll be posting a tutorial later today after Matthew gets home from school (that would be sometime after 3:00 pm pst). He actually plays a critical part in my project today and I didn't get the chance for him to work on it yesterday. Any guesses as to what the tutorial might be about?

Happy Friday everyone! :)

Speaking of music...

one reason why I love Christmas so much is because of the wonderful music associated with this time of the year. Over time, we've amassed quite a collection of Christmas CDs...but I have to admit that there are those perennial favorites that we, as a family, just listen to over and over again. Our Christmas favorites?

1. Ella Fitzgerald: Ella wishes you a swinging Christmas

 

This is Christmas jazz at its finest! We love this one so much that we'll often buy several discs to hand out to our friends at Christmastime.

2. Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas

How can you not love this one? We actually listened to this one so much that we eventually had to replace it because our first disc got so beat up from the constant handling.

3. Dianna Krall: Christmas Songs

Before she was wildly famous, we got to see her perform at a very intimate gathering. It was so cool. And, of course, we've loved everything she's done ever since!

4. The Manhattan Transfer: The Christmas Album

Jack has always been a big fan of the Manhattan Transfer and he quickly sold me on this one. It's so fun and upbeat that you can't help but like them too!

5. Barenaked Ladies: Barenaked for the Holidays

 

These guys always make me laugh and they don't disappoint on this one at all. Plus, Matthew and Hoonie can't get enough of their version of Jingle Bells!

So how about you? Do you have a favorite Christmas CD that you or your family just can't live without? Do share! :)

When the words fail you, just sing a song!

Do you remember those high-school tapes we carefully mixed—hopefully I'm not dating myself too bad here—with all of our favorite songs on them? Songs that spoke the words that our conflicted high-school souls just couldn't get out, ha! :) Well, I've noticed that when words fail me, I can often turn to music for inspiration. In some instances, I'll even let the lyrics of a song be my actual journaling. Now don't get me wrong, I think journaling is one of the more important aspects of scrapbooking. For me, at least. I'm all about getting the stories down. But every once in a while, music can speak to me on a layout in a way that just plain words cannot. Usually this sort of thing happens when I have a special picture—or pictures, as in the case of the third layout—that I just like for some unknown reason.

For example, here's an older layout I did for the magazine sometime last year. It's a picture of Hoonie when he was just seven days old. It's actually one of many (thousands of, in fact!) pictures I took of him in those first few days of life. But for some reason, this one was the one that melted my heart, so to speak. So along with just a few embellishments and a sheet of patterned paper, I added my "journaling" which was basically just the first line of a favorite Raffi song. In case it's too faint to read in the scan, the journaling reads, "Baby Dear...blessed be your shining light."

Now I know it's not the perfect baby picture by any means, but something about it really touched me. And when I paired it with the lyrics to the Raffi song, I knew I had done the picture justice. :)

Another older baby layout that I did uses both lyrics from an old Earth, Wind and Fire song along with a few of my own.

I love this picture of Hoonie because he looks so bright and happy here...full of endless possibilities. And something about it just made me naturally think of this song. I also added a few of my own words after the lyrics because I thought it helped tie the layout together nicely.

My last example of music-inspired journaling was inspired by a group of pictures. One of my favorite ways to document the sights of a special holiday or season is to make a photo collage of it. Here's one I made just recently of Christmas decor found around our home right now.

After printing it out in 4x6 (it's easy to resize a collage in Photoshop), I mounted it onto cardstock that I had pre-printed with the lyrics to one of my favorite Christmas songs. I then put that on some patterned paper, added some ribbon and stickers and ended up with a simple and easy layout that captures one of my favorite parts about this time of year...the decorating, of course! :)

So hopefully I've been able to inspire you with some examples of how you can incorporate music into your journaling. I know it has come to my rescue more than once. And if you get the chance to try it yourself, please don't forget to share with all of us by posting it in the Simple gallery (and adding a link here in the comments). I'd love to see what you come up with!

Now who wants to join me in an impromptu Christmas sing-along? ;)

Holiday reflections

During the holiday season, I spend a lot of time thinking about family and friends, and this weekend was no exception. As I put up the Christmas tree, my thoughts drifted to holidays past. I thought about my family’s traditional photo on the stairs, my mom’s impressive stocking, and opening gifts one by one. While the ideas were fresh in my mind, I took a break from trimming the tree, pulled out my laptop, and typed up some childhood memories. (I also put in a request for Will to do the same—I’m still waiting on that.)

A while back, I scanned some old photos from my mom’s collection, and among them, I found these cute pics from Decembers 1998 through 2001. I ordered them as wallets so I could fit four on a page and still have room for all that journaling. Then, inspired by the November/December 2007 issue of Simple (“The Supplies That Saved Christmas,” page 41), I used just one coordinating holiday line as the basis for my page. I added a little ribbon and called the page complete. It was one of my fastest pages to date.

Now that I’ve shared some holiday traditions with you, I’d love to hear some of yours.