Sparkle & Joy with Trina - Getting Started

Hi Everyone,

When the pandemic gives you the blues . . . grab your Christmas kit and craft!

I've been having loads of fun in my scrapbooking studio getting started with my 2020 Christmas album. With so many new and restocked colors of Life Crafted albums I finally settled on using the brand new color SEA GLASS for my 2020 Christmas stories. Gold mixes sublimely with the Sea Glass color.

My approach to scrapbooking - and my Christmas album - is to tell stories that happen without tying myself down to daily or weekly projects. I love to mix in old photos and stories of my family, too, because Christmas is so much about tradition in our family. Yes, I'm that kid that never let my parents or siblings sleep in on Christmas morning as I ran around the house in my nightgown shouting "It's Christmas, everyone. Wake up!"

In addition to our first-ever exclusive Sparkle & Joy Christmas kit I've also set aside an assortment of other goodies from our Shop to work with, including the Crate Paper Hey, Santa Pompom Frames and Metal Charms, Gold Chipboard Stars, Gold Weekender Puffy Alphabet Stickers, plus mint and white foam and alphabet stickers and tiny alphabet stickers. I'm also pulling from my vintage stash of old book pages, fabric lace, buttons and more. 

For today's post I'm sharing some of my basic starter pages. I haven't made my title page yet, but this is the first spread that will follow my title.

I used one of the adorable Hey, Santa pompom frames to frame a little journaling blurb. My daughter reminded me softly the other day that Christmas is coming soon. She and I LOVE all things Christmas so I thought this would be a good place to start. I just had to showcase the candy cane "joy" that comes in our Sparkle & Joy kit because I had so much fun creating it for the ephemera pack.

Here are some close-ups of these two pages:

The story behind my thread swirls: My dad loved to sew outdoor gear and after he passed away I found a giant spool of the heavy duty thread he sewed with. I like to include twisty swirls of the thread as a way to lace him into my storytelling. It's one of the ways I keep him close in my heart.

Turning the page in my album, I decided to use a photo of wrapping paper facing a simple base page using our brand new Instax-sized 3-pocket page protector. I also used one of our digital Instax-sized Sparkle & Joy tags plus an adorable ephemera die-cut heart from the Sparkle & Joy kit. The gold puffy stickers are from the Christmas kit, too. For those of you curious about punching holes for our Life Crafted albums, many punches on the market work with the album. I use the Open Industrial 6 Hold Punch (from Amazon). This punch is a sturdy little champ.

Here are some close-ups:

In the midst of our crazy pandemic-altered lifestyles, sitting down to start working on my Christmas album was just what I needed. I'm getting so excited. Are you?

Much love,

Trina