Project Life, My Way - Week 3

This week there wasn't a lot going on. I mean, there's not a lot to do in the middle of January in the midwest. Mostly just getting fully back into work mode after the holidays. We installed some lighting (scored both sconces for a total of $6.50 for the pair on an awesome clearance deal) and my supplies for guest designing for October Afternoon came. Okay, so it's a pretty good week when you get that kind of scrappy mail!

Week 3 - left

 

I decided that I wasn't going to follow the 2-page spread per week format. If a week takes one page or four, then I'm just gonna roll with it. ...And this week it only took one, so that's all there is. 

I added an outline with a yellow pen to tie this otherwise, just black and white card into the other page elements.

I used an EK Success paint pen to color in part of the woodgrain.

They have a chalky texture that's kind of fun.



Don't forget, you can see detailed images of all of my Project Life spreads over on my Facebook page in my Project Life album.

Project Life, My Way - Week 2

This week was a little bit of a whirlwind, with most of my pictures coming from a trip to visit my sister for a girls (scrapbooking weekend) at her place.

My sister and I live almost exactly 180 miles in opposite directions from my parents' home. So I drove from Des Moines were I live, to the Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois border) to join up with my mom and my aunt, and then we drove on to Chicago to spend the weekend at my sister's place.

Iowa and Illinois die cuts using shapes from the Silhouette Online Store 

and hearts backed with yellow washi tape.

During the "layover" in the Quad Cities I got to see my newest little niece and bring the baby gift that I'd forgotten to give her when I was home over Christmas. For whatever reason, when I made the journaling card for this photo I was thinking that was the first time I met her... and that's what I wrote out on the journaling card... except I had actually met her over Christmas. Oopsie!

[Image blurred to protect personal information.]

So in an effort to salvage the journaling card and not have to replace it (No project life card shall be wasted, right?), I added a little label sticker over the first few words. The label had a "No." printed on it that didn't work with the rest of the journaling, so I added a little red chipboard star to cover that part up. Then to balance the additions and tie it into the color scheme of the color next to it, I also added a little gray star sticker to the upper corner. The best part? I worked in the Iowa State University school colors without even realizing it. I love when happy accidents come together like that!

Tip: I tried several different white pens before finally finding one that worked well on the black journaling card. I started with my white sharpie paint pen, but it soaked right into the card and virtually disappeared. After trying a couple of others, I found the one that worked best was the tried and true Uniball Signo white pen.

...And I just so happen to have an extra Uniball Signo Pen to giveaway to one lucky reader. Leave a comment below by July 7 for a chance to win one of your very own!



I love this kit, but I'm not quite sure there are so may "perfection" themed cards in it. I mean, seriously, how many times do you need to declare something as "perfection" in your scrapbooks? Anyway... when I was looking at which kit to buy, I didn't really think I would have much use for the yellow cards, but I'm totally digging the yellow/gray/teal color combo right now so I wanted to find a way to make one of the "perfection" yellow cards work. To conceal the letters, I covered them with a couple of strips of washi tape and then started adding a variety of stickers and a punched doily to give the card lots of visual interest, without a lot of bulk.

And here are the spreads for week 2:

[Image blurred to protect personal information.]

Week 2 - left

Later I found a gift card and spoon from Pacuigo that I forgot to include,
so I swapped out the blue heart for those items.

Week 2 - right



Don't forget to leave a comment below for a chance to win a Uniball Signo pen!

Project Life, My Way - Week 1

I have finally begun working on scrapbooking 2013 Project Life-style.

As I sat down to begin (5 months into 2013 and already feeling super far behind), I realized I was going to be a wee bit challenged. In order to scrapbook this way I was going to have to scrap in chronological order. Yes, the dreaded method that requires organization up front. (Which, coincidentally, is not one of my strong suits when it comes to photos and memorabelia.)

So today, we're going to talk about that dreaded word: O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N.

Instead of diving into my collection of goodies, I found myself sitting down to organize photos. One of my biggest barriers to getting my scrapbooking done, is the prep work. I often get photos from my mom, and my sister, and my brother that go along with the photos from my camera, my cell phone camera, and my husband's cell phone. And of course, we all have Nikon cameras and Samsung cell phones which means that all of our collective photos are using the same file naming structure. And that's a problem, because IMG_001 from my camera is not the same as IMG_001 from my mom's camera, and I if I don't give the files unique names, and I'm not super duper careful, I could end up writing over a precious photo. No pressure, right?

So here's my workflow:

First, I collect photos from all sources. Then I put them in their own folder named after the image owner.

Next, I go through those photo files, and rename them to add a 3 character extension to the file name that indicates who the original the image owner is. (For example, if the photo owner is Jane A. Smith, then the photo would be renamed as IMG_001_JAS.)

 

Finally, once all of the photos are renamed, I put a copy of them into an annual file folder where I compile all of the photos for the year. Then I sort them into file folders by date. Here's what it looks like:

...and from there I am ready to start scrapbooking. Well, I am assuming that I know where I put the memorabelia.

 

Several hours later, I finally had the first month's worth of photos gathered, renamed, and all in the same folder where I could then sort by date order to start working with them. Whew. Glad that's over!

 

Finally. Time to start scrapbooking!

 

Week 1 - Left side

Week 1 - Right Side

 

We don't have children and live fairly mundane lives, so I don't have a lot of very interesting activities to scrapbook on a daily, or even weekly, basis. Taking that into consideration, I've decided that in addition to photos, I will include things like what I was thinking or feeling on a particular day, maybe a quote that resonated with me that day, or my Facebook status update. Fortunately I have a handy little iPad app called Momento that collects information from my Facebook, Instagram, and FourSquare feeds onto a calendar. This way, I can just grab my iPad to help jog my memory and provide content for my album.

 

I've added a photo gallery over on my Facebook page with close-ups of some of the page elements. Head on over there to see more images for these two pages. 

 

Want your own personal shopper to help you re-create these pages for yourself? I've collected the materials I used all in one place for you. Buy them here.

 

Other supplies used that are not available through Amazon:

• Freckled Fawn Washi Tape
• October Afternoon Midway Chip Shapes
• Me and My Big Ideas Icons (Dollar Sign)
• Martha Stewart Anywhere Punch (Doily)
• Basic Grey Mono Stickers (Black)

Happy Scrapping!

March/April Issue of Creating Keepsakes available now

 

Hello bloggy friends. Just poppin' by on the blog today to let you know that the March/April issue of Creating Keepsakes is on newsstands now! (And if you're already a subscriber, you probably got your issue last week.)

I have a layout in this issue featuring my one of my favorite lines (Midway from October Afternoon) with one of my favorite artists, Toby Mac. Truth be told... 99% of the time I'm rockin' out to Toby Mac when I scrapbook.

My husband and I went to a Toby Mac + Jamie Grace + Tenth Avenue North concert at the Iowa State Fair this past summer for our 11th Anniversary. One of the songs, literally called "Favorite Song" (click the link to hear a sample of the song), is so happy and bouncy that I new that I just had to make a layout with vibrant color and washi tape to capture the energy of this song and the concert. Plus, the concert was at the state fair last summer so of course using Midway was a no-brainer!

 

As seen in the March/April 2013 of Creating Keepsakes magazine.
Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

The washi tape background was my creative representation of the movement of an equalizer for the music on the offbeat (the "oompah" rhythm).

Part way through the concert, Toby & the other performers moved up into the grandstand to perform and were about 9 rows in front of us. We filmed part of the concert using HD video on our cell phones, so I used Adobe Premiere to clip a few frames from that part of the performance and put those in the filmstrip on the page. I love how the October Afternoon washi tape provides the perfect place to put a few little journaling details.

 

 

I originally had the names of the bands on some label stickers from October Afternoon, but decided the right side of the page needed a little more, so I covered up the type with a word stickers and added a little arrow stamp to the image cluster. Using a first and second generation stamp image gives you a little extra variety without needing 2 different ink colors.

 

The little stars were created by placing a strip of washi tape on cardstock, and then punching out the star shapes with a small hand punch. Super cute!

Before

After

 

On newsstands Tuesday, February 26

 



I hope you've enjoyed this little "behind the scenes" look at how the page came together. Check out the Creating Keepsakes feature article, Accentuate the Negative, on page 71 to learn more about the other elements on this page. If you're getting snowed in today (like me) and can't get out to purchase a copy, here's a little sneak peek of the issue. Happy creating!

Home Decor: "Know you are loved" Tutorial

Note: This project first appeared on the October Afternoon blog on February 15. 

These are the instructions to make that project.

So I don't know if you've seen it, but on Facebook there has been a crafty "pay it forward" going around. The idea is that someone posts on their wall that they will make 5 crafty things for 5 people sometime during 2013. In turn those 5 people promise to re-post the same offer on their wall and do the same for 5 other people.  I did it last year and found it really fun, so I thought I'd do it again this year.

I've been trying to think up fun, crafty surprises that are perfect for those who signed up on my wall and then it dawned on me:  I have a friend who loves hearts... and it's February which is all about love and hearts... she's recently become obsessed with quilting... and of course everyone could use a little October Afternoon in their life, so I came up with the idea to make a quilted heart home decor piece for her using one of the Farm Girl Papers. She happens to be a "clean and simple" kind of girl too so I just used a single pattern, but I think this could be fabulous if you used a mix of different patterned papers too.

Here's a list of the supplies that I used: Floral patterned paper from the 8x8 Farm Girl Paper Pad; Thread - Coats n Clark; Embroidery floss - DMB; Heart digital die-cutting file - my own design; Digital cutter - Silhouette; Font - KG Makes You Stronger; Linen fabric & 10 x 10 shadow box frame- Joanns; Glue - EK Success

Steps:

1.       Creating the linen background

a.       Cut a piece of heavyweight cardstock to 10" x 10."

b.      Put a strong runner adhesive around the edges of the cardstock. (From personal experience, I would recommend the Xyron Tape Runner, the Kokuyo Dot n' Roller, or the Thermoweb Memory Tape Runner XL.)

c.       Place the cardstock adhesive side down onto a piece of linen fabric that has been ironed so that it's smooth. Press so the adhesive bonds to the fabric. (Take care to keep the adhesive away from the areas where there will be stitching.)

d.      Trim the linen fabric about 1/2 - 3/4 inches around the perimeter of the cardstock.

e.      Apply another strip of strong runner adhesive along the edge of the cardstock and fold the linen to wrap it around the back. Once you have it laid down and held with the runner adhesive, put a strip of tape (clear tape, document tape, strong washi tape, whatever) to cover the edge. Repeat this for the remaining 3 sides.

2.       Cutting the heart pieces

a.       Open the heart cutting file and place in the upper corner of the cutting mat. Size to 7.095" wide x 6.510  tall. I choose to cut from the 8x8 paper pad piece instead of a full size sheet because I liked the smaller scale of the pattern for this project, but that means that you'll have to be careful about where you place the cutting image on the cutting mat because you only have a 1/2 inch margin on the left and right sides.

b.      Once you've got the heart shaped cutting image in the right spot, cut it out. Once you're done cutting, be careful to remove ONLY the 8"x 8" piece and make sure not to rip or tear it as you remove it from the cutting mat. This is going to be your template for laying out the heart pieces onto the linen background.

c.       Do not remove the square pieces from the cutting mat yet!

3.       Putting the heart on the linen background

a.       Put a few little spots of runner adhesive on the back of the 8"x8" piece, center it from left to right and place it about 2" from the top, then  lightly tack it to the linen background.

b.      Bring your cutting mat (with the heart shape pieces still on it) to your work area. Beginning lightly affixing each square to the canvas background by adding a little bit of adhesive just to the center of each piece. (Try to avoid the edges where we'll be stitching later.) I used an EK Success glue pen, but you could probably use runner adhesive here too. As you place the pieces, try to keep the pieces from overlapping the template. This will make it easier to remove the template in the next step.

c.       Once you've affixed all of the pieces, carefully lift up and remove the template that you used to place the pieces. Be careful no to flick off the little pieces. I found that it worked best to start along the straight edge where you began gluing and then work across to the pieces glued last.

4.       Adding texture with a little stitching

a.       To give the heart a little texture, without disrupting the visual lines of grid pattern, top stitch in yellow over the individual squares. In mine I tried to stitch about 1/8" from the edge, but I'm not the best seamstress so I wasn't completely perfect about that... plus I wanted to have a little imperfect stitching to give it a homespun feel.

b.      Once you've stitched it going both directions, stitch an outline around the heart in yellow as well.

5.       Creating a place to "ground" the eye

a.       The open edges of the heart allow the eye to wander away from the focal point. To draw the eye in and visually tie the heart and the words together, stitch around the outside of the heart twice. The more that you allow the lines to intersect, the more visual interest you will add.

6.       Stitching the text

a.       To stitch the words "know you are loved," I first printed it out on paper, then cut it out with scissors and used the glue pen to temporarily adhere it to the linen background.

b.      First I went along the words and poked holes for where the stitches would go. Then, for the actual stitching, I used 3 strands of embroidery floss and what I think would be called a backstitch (?) to embroider the letters.

c.       After I finished stitching the words, I put document tape over the back to keep it from snagging and to hold the stitching.

d.      To finish off the words, gently tear away the paper that you used as a stitching guide. I found it helpful to use tweezers to work the paper out of the centers of letters.

7.       Completing the project

a.       Once you've finished the steps above, pop it into the shadow box frame and you are done!

Berry Basket Update

Wow! I had no idea the berry basket project for October Afternoon would be so popular!



For those of you wanting to make your own...
I am working on getting some kits put together that will include the basket, dividers and recipe cards (they are printed front and back).

The recipe card file is set up for my printer and I am not sure that it will duplex correctly for others who would like to print at home. It also took a couple of hours to print, trim, and corner round about 24 of them when I made them at home. I am working with a printer to get some professionally made so they are already printed, trimmed and corner rounded for us.

Berry Basket Dimensions:
-Bottom is 4.25" square
-Top is 5-3/8" square
-Height is 3" tall

The recipe cards are 3.5" x 4.25"

I am hoping to have the kits together and posted in my Etsy store by Monday. (fingers crossed.)

If you don't want to wait for a kit, you can go to Etsy to purchase just a berry basket right now.

If you're look for the heart decor instructions, check back during the coming week for the instructions (will post mid-week).

Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini book base

First off - my apologies. I meant to get this posted last Sunday, but then wasn't feeling well and the next day had an allergic reaction to some medication and I'm just now getting this post finished and up on the blog for you all.

So you've completed all of your pages, now it's time to tackle the book base and binding.

For this you'll need:

• One piece of 12" x 6" grunge paper. (Make sure to use grunge paper since it's thinner than grunge board and much more suited for this application.)
• Two of the grunge paper scraps that were left over when you were making the page bases.
• 3 eyelets
• One Tim Holtz hitch fastener.
• One elastic from 7ge.

Can you believe that we're going to turn this...

into this?

It's like a Christmas miracle, right!?   :)

This takes a little while to do, so grab your favorite cuppa somethin' and let's get started shall we?

First up, you need the piece of 12" long x 6" tall  grunge paper and one of the 2" (ish) wide x 6" tall scraps along with the large ring binding mechanism.

Using a ruler, draw a pencil line 1/2" from the left edge of the large (12" x 6") piece of grunge paper.

Measure 5-7/8" from the left edge and draw another pencil line.

Measure 1/8" in from the left edge on the small (2-7/8" x 6") piece of grunge board and pencil a line. Place the ring binding mechanism on the piece and align the left edge to the pencil line, centering between top and bottom. Once it's centered, trace the holes in the ring binding mechanism (at the top and bottom) where the you'll put the eyelets (instead of the brads it comes with) to attach the binding mechanism.

This leaves you with a little edge of the cover sticking past the pages (see below).

Punch the binding holes using a 1/8" hole punch (I used my crop-a-dile to do this. You can use the handheld or the Big Bite to do it.)

Trim the merchandising strip off the bottom half of "Make a List" (PP-684). Then cut the paper in half so it's 12" wide and 6" tall. Save the top half and set the bottom half aside to use for the outside part of the cover in a bit. (We'll use the back side of the bottom half for the outside cover.)

 

Images (c) October Afternoon

Next,  transfer the line on the grunge paper to the back of your interior pattern paper. Then transfer the the marks for the binding mechanism holes too. (Hint: Lay the pattern paper face up on top of the page then, lift at the bottom and turn it upside down -so what was the bottom edge of the paper becomes the top- and do the same with the grunge paper piece as well.) Once you've marked where the binding mechanism holes are, punch those with the Crop-a-dile too.

Push 1/8" eyelets through holes and place the small piece of grunge paper back on the large piece. (I used oval ones that I happened to have since those would offer more support, but you can use round ones too.) If you didn't get your binding mechanism aligned perfectly centered from top to bottom, it'll be important to make sure you have your top and bottom oriented correctly. Put a little adhesive on the back between the two eyelet holes and put on the small piece on the large piece, aligning to the line drawn 5-7/8" from the left edge.

Then stitch vertically on the left and right edges of the small grunge paper piece, DO NOT stitch the top and bottom.

 (If you forget to insert the eyelets in the step before this, you can do it here... assuming you have good manual dexterity. I mean I totally didn't do that... right!)

Move over to the left edge of the large piece of grunge board. Take the second smaller piece of grunge board (2" wide x 6" tall) and align it to the 1/2" line and stitch it to the cover (This will leave a little ridge on the inside of the cover and an uneven front cover.

Align and fit another piece of grunge paper to fill the void on the front. Then glue it in place (but make sure not glue within 1/2 of the top, bottom, and outer edge (you'll be stitching along those edges later).

When you're done, you should have a flat cover like this:

Now we'll work on the outside of the cover. Remember this paper that you cut in half earlier? Grab the bottom half that you saved earlier and flip it over to the side with the lines.

Image (C) October Afternoon

Flip the bottom half paper piece over to the backside so that it's cream with lines. Cut the paper down the middle 4-3/4" from the left edge. 

Glue the left piece to the left edge of the outside cover and the right piece to the outside edge of the right edge of the grungeboard. (There will be a gap in the middle and that's okay. See image above.) Keep the glue 1" away from the outside edge of the paper. Once you've glued it sew two lines of stitching about 1/8" apart from one another on the top, left, and bottom edges.

For these next couple of steps, I forgot to take pictures so we'll have to wing it a little bit okay?

• From the 8x8 paper pad tear out the sheet that is red with cream polka dots. Trim to 6" high by 8" wide.
• From a 12x12 piece of the PP676 - Make a Card, cut out the "Here comes Santa" in the lower right corner. 
• Draw a line 2.25" from the right edge of the cover. Put a thin line of adhesive on the bottom right side of the red polka do paper, align to the left edge of the line and affix.
• Add adhesive to the middle of the back of the "Merry Christmas" santa that you cut out. You just need enough adhesive to tack it in place while you stitch it. Align the right edge of the yellow piece about 1/4" from the right edge of the cover. It should just cover the black lines on the right, and overlap the edge of red polka dot paper on the right.Then stitch up and down the the edges of the of the yellow piece about 1/16" from the edge -don't try to make it perfect... give it a little character!

Time to PAY ATTENTION :)
This is where things will get a little challenging because you can't just lay everything flat and stitch since the red polka dot paper won't stretch to wrap around making the curved spine.

Add a little glue 1/2" from the left edge of the polka dot paper and affix so the edge is about 3.75" from the left (back) edge. When the grunge paper is laid flat it will have a bubble in the middle. Stitch two rows of stitching along the left edge.

At this point, the front cover should be complete. Yay!

Completing the Inside Cover

Find the top half of the "Make a List" paper that you set aside earlier. "Fayx" stitch around the outside edges of the paper about 1/4" from each edge.

Now you'll still have an exposed piece of grunge on the left side. Grab a scrap of blue and white snowflake paper and trim to 6" tall x 1.5" wide. Run stitching vertically on the left and right about 1/4" from the edge. Glue to grunge paper aligned to the outer (left) edge and under the "Make a List" paper.

Fit the piece over the two eyelets.

Fit the binding mechanism over the eyelets and secure with an eyelet setter. Glue down the "Make a List" paper.

Next, measure to the vertical center of the right edge of the front cover (next to the "here comes santa") and punch a 1/8" hole using the Crop-a-Dile. Attach a Tim Holtz Hitch Fastener.

Measure to the vertical center of the right edge of the back cover and punch another 1/8" hole (Near the candy cane). Put an eyelet through the hole and set with the Crop-a-dile. Push a Seven Gypsies (7ge) elastic fastener though the hole so it makes a loop.

Place the page you made into the ring binding mechanism.

And you're finished. Sit back, admire your work and then pat yourself on the back because you just made an entire album from scratch. Way to go! :)

Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini - Page 6

We're down to the last page today. Here we go!

Add green chevron paper to the page base. Layer a 1" (ish) strip of candy cane paper on the right edge. Punch binding holes.

Sew lines from edge to edge on all 4 sides.

Cut a piece of red sequin trim to 5.5" in length and affix between the stitching with very thin (1/8") red line tape and then stitch across the ends with the sewing machine.

Draw lines on the small snowflake and large snowflake (you can stitch it, but it's hard and tedious). Put the Joy and red plaid brads from the Decorative Brads set through the centers of the snowflakes.

Get out the Santa Claus flash card and put it just above the antlers. Affix it to the page just under the top stitching and tucked under the sequins.

Slip the :Sleigh bells" die cut and the bottom half of the Santa Claus card under the photo, determine it's placement and stick it down. Affix the photo (sized to 3.75" square) over the top. Draw a line around the "sleigh bells" text.

Punch holes through the grunge board, stick the brads through and secure. Layer the smaller snowflake on top of the larger snowflake.

Grab the remaining piece of word strip and trace around three of the words with a pen. Affix at the top of the photo. Add a tiny attacher staple on the right end.

Pat yourself on the back. You've finished 6 pages in 5 nights!

Get a good night's sleep, and come back to tackle making the book base tomorrow :)

Made it from scratch: OA Make it Merry Mini - Page 4 & 5

We're gonna get a little crazy today and do pages 4 and 5 together.

The patterned paper from page 5 blends with page 4, so you'll need to cut it and work on these pages together.

First cut the background pieces.
-For page 1 cut the numbers paper along the right edge of the square (this will be a little short of 5") and 6" high.
-For the right page, cut a piece of the ledger paper to 5-3/8" wide x 6" tall. Then cut a 3/8" strip from the left edge of the ledger paper.

On the left page (page 4) Affix the numbers paper to the background. You aren't going to stitch over this piece so glue it down good!

Layer the 3/8" ledger paper over the edge of the numbers paper and flush to the right edge of the page. Add a short length of stitching right along the outside edge and full length of stitching about 1/4" from the edge.

Size and print your photo at 3.5" square. Add a white boarder at 1/8" (or mat the photo on white cardstock to add the border). Then mat the photo onto a square of black cardstock that is 4" wide by 4.5" long. Mount the photo toward the top so there's a strip of cardstock about a half-inch."

Cut out "Greetings Merry Christmas" from the words paper scrap. Stitch a line between "Greetings" and "Merry Christmas," then tuck it under the photo mat so there's just a little bit of the "greetings" showing and it hangs over the edge just a little bit.

Mount the photo just under the numbers 1, 2, 3. Add a strip of "To/From" washi tape so that the stripe sticks up onto the pattern paper. Layer the year number stickers (black and cream mini market stickers from the Thrift Shop line). Stitch across the bottom of the letters.

On a strip of snowflake paper, stamp the phrase "Merry and Bright" from the stamp set in the Make it Merry Kit. Trim it into a strip about 3" long and 7/16" high. (Honestly, I just eyeballed it when i cut the height.) Trim the end into a point to make a banner. Outline with a black pen (I used a .03 nib).

Place the pink snowflake sticker from the word sticker sheet onto a 1.25" chipboard circle.

Put 1/8" foam tape on the back of the label sticker from the Designer Brads set. Outline with a black pen and add journaling.

Glue the "Merry and Bright" banner strip down first, then the snowflake, and finally the label with the green brads added.

...and you're done with page 3, so it's on to page 4.


Page 4
Put the yellow ledger paper that you already cut. Affix it to the grungepaper and punch your binding holes. Stitch up and down the left and right sides of the page about 3/8" in from each edge.

Pull out the chipboard tree from the Holiday Style Miscellany set. Color it with white Distress Stain. The idea is to give it a mottled effect to emulate snow. To do this work in layers pouncing the stain applicator with uneven coverage. Set aside to dry.

Grab a sheet of the Holiday Style Snowflake rub-ons. Apply around the outside of the pages with a cluster around the 2 bottom corners where the photo mat will sit and at the upper corners of the edge. letting your snowflakes sit partially under the photo mat and partially off the edges of the page will give it visual interest. Stamp "have yourself a merry little christmas" at the top.

Size the photo to 3.5" wide by 3-5/8" high. Add a 1/8" inch white border by either leaving a little white when you trim the photo or add a white piece of cardstock to mat the photo. Then mat on a black square cut to 4" square. Attach the "gifts" tab on the right about 7/8" from the top of the photo mat and add some messy stitching along the bottom of it. Affix to the page just under the header column text.

Add some black stitching to the tree to make a "trunk" in the center. Add the tin pin with the little red bird. Tuck half of the "happy christmas" banner from the Little Flyers under the tree. And affix the tree.

And with that, you've finished two pages. Yippee!!!