Sassy Scrapper: Documenting December | Crate Paper Merry Days

Hi there :) It's been a long time between posts but I'm back with a MEGA December share in my pocket page album using the gorgeous Crate Paper 'Merry Days' collection. While I normally try to prepare my December pages ahead of time, the festive season left with me with very little time to scrap so I didn't begin documenting December until the month was over but considering that is how I document the rest of the year it actually seemed to work better for me.

I absolutely love documenting Christmas, and although I have added all our memories into our regular project life album I wanted to give the month a festive start and what better way than a bold title page! |I used a 12x12 sheet of the 'Twelve Days' cardstock as a base divided into six 4x6" sections then hand cut several branches from the gorgeous 'Tinsel' 12x12" Cardstock to create a wreath shape that I decorated with gold stars, enamel dots and a cute chipboard house.

This month had quite an eclectic mix of photos so I tried to balance out the tones by using filler cards between the pics... they also helped to give my pages a more festive feel.

I wanted my pages to have some interactive elements and liked the way these kraft pockets worked to hold journaling and ephemera.

While we definitely don't have a white Christmas here, many Christmas ranges feature winter themed images and I used a couple of the snowy accents with a pool pic to show what our December is really like.

Along with interactive elements, I also wanted to add various sized pages to the month and used a sheet of baseball card pockets to create an insert for our Christmas tree, printing the photo in A4 size to fit the page.

I kept the embellishments very minimal not to distract from the photo, and slipped in one of the tags from the range backed with glitter cardstock and a twine bow.

I filled the back of the page with a few close up photos of the tree, as well as some pics of my boys helping me to put it up.

I printed my journaling onto a sheet of vellum and added some glittered ephemera.

Using more filler cards, and making a few of my own for the next page.

The hanging bauble started off as peach coloured nutcracker but I couldn't make it work with the page so I gave it a make over with a little bit of liquid glue and patterned paper. I hung the bauble with a strand of embroidery thread that I secured to the back of the card.

Stickers are a great way to fill the negative space in your photos and can also help to tell a story.

Having little bits of twine and items such as tags on the outside of their pockets makes me happy when I flip through my albums and paper clips are a great way to attach them.

More stickers over my photos for this card. This time used to enhanced the photo rather than just fill negative space.

I create a pocket multi pocket card holder to go between the next page. This time using the larger kraft pockets on the front to hold smaller cards and tags attached onto a 6x8" pocket made of two sheets of cardstock with a glitter lined notch in the top corner.

I used liquid glue and extra fine glitter to decorate the reverse side of the pocket whihc slides into 6x8" page protector.

I also added a small insert here to hold extra photos.

Using more tags and simple embellishments for the following page. I tried to keep things simpler on the pages where I added the multiple sized pages as it helps to create a nice flow as you flip through the pages rather than overwhelming your senses.

I really love the subtle depth chipboard accents add to my pockets, and larger images are great for making quick and easy filler or journal cards.

I love how well this whole collection works together and having all the different elements to choose from made the process of creating all the various cards throughout this month much easier for me.

Even the simplest designs can benefit from a little layering like the wreath card above and because the gold puffy stickers worked so well on my other pics, I couldn't resit using more ;)

I removed the center from an ephemera piece to use the frame with some printed journaling anchored with a large chipboard accent.

I love it when ideas form when you least expect them, and it wasn't until I was putting all of the cards and pics back into my album after taking photos that I came up with the idea to add a pop up card and it quickly became one of my favourites!

I used one of the 6x8" papers to create an easy pop up card decorated with a couple of paper trees and a chipboard house. Here's a few pics to show you how easy the card was to construct...

The pop up part of the card was created from a few simple cuts and folds in the base cardstock before attaching the top of my card in place. I backed the chipboard house with spare cardstock to prevent it from sticking to the background.