Countdown to Christmas Journal...

Good morning!

Wow, there is a lot to share here today for our Unity Stamp Co. Hip Hop!

Today we are talking about Christmas Journals. There are a couple of classes, Ali's December Daily and Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas,  that involve documenting the month of December. As a design team, this week we have each made our own version of these little journals.

Right now, mine is pretty much just the cover...

I created my cover using a 7gypsy cover which I decorated. 

Unity has come out with some amazing stamp kits that work beautifully for these little books this year and I used bits from each of these...

*Countdown to Christmas

*25 Days 

*Picture Perfect (nov. kom)

The title (above) was created using the "25 days" stamp from the 25 Days kit. Then the poinsettia is from this month's kit of the month...I simply colored it using my water-based markers to get all the different colors on it. Then I cut this out using one of my Nestabilities Labels Dies

The Countdown to Christmas sentiment came from the set of the same name. I stamped the frame collage (from the kom) in the background of this piece in a very light color of ink and then just added a touch of watercolored red to highlight the frames.

I created a numbered piece that will mark each page/day inside the book. I don't have the insides done yet so these are just waiting for some design inspiration for the interior. The frames are from the Kit of the month; the numbers and the snowflake are from the 25 Days kit. I used my Nestabilities Labels 5 dies to cut the layers of card stock.

I don't have the entire inside figured out yet, but I do have pages in there made from a little board book that I found of The Night Before Christmas. I simply cut the pages apart and punched them to fit into the book. I have some ideas of how I want to make this all work for the inside, but I wanted to give it a bit more thought and planning before I started altering it all. (I put huge book rings on this because I envision it being really chunky by the time I have it finished.)

Supplies used:

*Unity Stamp Co. Picture Perfect

*Unity Stamp Co. 25 days

*Unity Stamp Co. Countdown to Christmas

*7gypsies book cover and paper (2 strips on left)

*Making Memories ledger paper

*Nestabilities Labels dies

*Zig Writers

*Palette Haystack ink pad

*CTMH Sweet Leaf and Cranberry ink pads

*StazOn jet black ink pad

*EK Success Chain punch

*Martha Stewart border punch

*KaiserCraft flat backed gems

*book rings

*ribbon

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My second project is a quick and simple layout using the new release stamps from Echo Park that Unity announced today.

I loved the sign-look to the design of these stamps and wanted to play with that so I pulled out some really old photos of Jacob when he was little. I think that these were taken in 1999. I just had fun putting this layout together. It isn't anything gorgeous design-wise, but I really liked making all the little signs which are so fun and perfect for layouts. 

Supplies used:

*Unity Stamp Co. Little Boy Echo Park kits

*Basic Grey Oliver 6x6 paper collection

*Nestabilities Labels 5 diecut

*Martha Stewart border punches

*Daisy D's rub-on stitches

*Zig Writer

*The Twinery red twine

*medium black brads

Now you need to head on over to...

****Julie's Gorgeous Blog****