Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to everyone!!!

It's Christmas already!
Santa's been already - I so I think - I've heard some noise coming from the chimney and footsteps.

I usually try to make handmade cards for my parents, brother, mother-in-law and sister-in-law. They are usually very similar with a few customisations (names and languages). This year I made them hybrid cards, mostly designed and printed in the computer with only a few bits of patterned paper.

I followed Jackie's tutorial for the CS Christmas Party for the card shape. Thanks, Jackie!

Most of the digital elements are from Oscraps.com. I discovered this digishop sometime ago and completely fell in love with two designers, Paislee Press and TaylorMade Designs. Their stuff is simply amazing! For about U$ 9, I got all the embelishments I needed and also - unexpectedly - a fab freebie from Sue Cummings.

The outside of the card - all digital. I love the cute postage stamp by Paislee Press.


The inside. I liked how the photos with borders turned out so much that I printed an extra copy to frame. An extra decoration for Christmas! My daughter wrote the message, which I scanned and printed inside a digital journalling brush by Jessica Sprague for Creating Keepsakes.



This is one of the original digital images which I printed in photo paper:


Another detail of the outside of the card. I used to think that it was a waste of time to buy wordart, but I changed my mind. Like these ones, they look great and save so much time!

Christmas ATCs

I've only finished one layout this month, but I have been doing some Christmas related crafts. Here's my ATCs:



Try to post the rest tomorrow...

Christmas Storybook and Lainey's crop: some tasters

In her first year in school, my daughter (and every child in her class) got from her teacher a custom-made Christmas storybook.

She loved it, we had to read it several times, and every year since then, the book is found mid-November to be read again.

Helpfully, the book had a website printed on it, and this year I went to investigate and you can print up to 3 different stories.Which left 2 stories, one for my daughter and another one for my son.

Ms M, having to make around 30 books, took the faster option and stapled the books together, but as I had only 2 to make, tried to make a properly bound book. I'm happy with the results, and I'll do a tutorial sometime, but for the time being, here's the link to to northpole.com, the customised books can be found here.

In the cover, I attached a small photo of my child plus the title of the book. Here's my son's:



Oh, yes, the books are for free. :-)

Today there was a all-day class & crop, promoted by Lainey and Annamarie. I finished 6 Christmas ATCs which I am going to send to the CS forum girls who send me beautiful handmade cards. I don't much make cards, so this was something I could do, which is slightly better than a shop bought card.

I haven't taken photos of them yet, but I can show to the back of it, which I just finished designing PSE.