Sunday 20 November 2011

Xmas Preparations

A few days ago I posted that I had things to prepare before Christmas ... shopping, cards, puddings ...
but there was another thing that I had to get done before December started:  my prep for my third year of Journal Your Christmas!

I was lucky enough to win a prize from the Kaisercraft blog earlier this year and what better stash to use for a December journal than their Silly Season Range?!  A lovely mix of red, white, green and pink papers with matching rub-ons, die-cuts, gems as well as stamps and journalling tags.

This year I decided to base my album on tags and wanted to use manilla envelopes to make pockets behind the pages from the pad of paper.  I thought it was 6"x6" but after a page or two of preparation when nothing quite worked I realised that the pad is actually 6½" square (!)  That's a new one on me!

For each page of the album I sealed two envelopes and sliced ⅛" off one short end to open up each envelope again.  I layered the envelopes onto the back of one piece of patterned paper and covered them with a second sheet.  Semi-circles cut out with a 2" punch give me access to the pockets:


By varying the placement of the envelopes I have varied where the pockets appear - left, middle or right along the top of the page, or top, middle or bottom of the side.


I have joined the pages together with strips of white card punched with my X-cut border punch ... I think I may yet have to sew the spine to the cover if the pages start to sag ... I'll have to see what happens once all the tags are in place, let alone photos, journalling spots and embellies!


If I was starting this project from scratch (don't you just love hindsight!) I'd have prepared the spine before sticking each pair of patterned pages together - no border punching would have been necessary as the edges would have been concealed.

As you can see, I'm not done yet - and the cover needs to be made too.  I'm going to a Blogger's Retreat next weekend ... meeting several fellow bloggers, including, Mel, Julie, Alexa and Lizzie for the very first time ... so I'm hoping to put the finishing touches to this then. 

In the meantime, here's a sneaky peek at some more Christmas preparation I've been doing!

ETA - revealed here!

P.S. That's ATDML's  Thirsty Thursday K for Kaisercraft, JYC Kit and manilla Kraft all sorted!

15 comments:

Crystal said...

Very cool! I so wanted to take the JYC class but with the house it was just not in the budget! Enjoy it!

JulieJ said...

Looking forward to meting you next weekend. And yes it was a very stylish wedding and no that's not me on the end - she's far too young!

Anonymous said...

What a great idea for your journal - and your freebie stash looks lovely!

Missus Wookie said...

Oh fun album design. I'm always impressed by people who can do the JYC, maybe one year.

I'm thinking of a 6x6 and I'd have ended cutting up the papers. Then have some 1/2" trim I suppose.

Alison said...

Love the album...very original...I'm going to have to start thinking about mine earlier next year- have just gone for basic 8x8 again!
Alison xx

scrappyjacky said...

Love what you've done so far.

Sian said...

That's a new one on me too - I don't think my maths would be up to that. Yours obviously is! A fantastic start.

Margie said...

This looks very pretty! I can't wai to see it all filled up!

Lisa said...

i don't necessarily follow the JYC posts but I'll be following along in the background! your minibook looks great and very creative use of envelopes for the pockets. really like that idea

alexa said...

I am so looking forward to seeing this - and you - in person! :)

scrappysue said...

What pretty stash Jemma, and perfect for JYC. Well done on getting it all put together and have a lovely weekend with Lizzie! x

CoventryAnn said...

Must be the time of year, I'm off on a scrappers retreat this coming weekend too, have a great time Jemma.

Ann Freeman (mafswife) said...

Awesome! ATDML Challenge most definitely met!

Sandie said...

That's a great idea for assembling your JYC album. As you say, hindsight is indeed a good thing. I'm trying to make sure I don't repeat last years experience as I spend so much time preparing each page. Look forward to seeing your album grow.

Angela Toucan said...

looks like it will be a great album.