Time is flying. Can you believe week four has already passed? (Well for most of you who do DD projects, you’re probably still at week 3). But anyhow. It’s time for me to share the latest on my DD album:
For larger view and credits, click on individual pages.
Now it’s time for me to get ready for the holidays. To all of you I wish a merry Christmas and some happy celebrating.
Credits:
Nice List by Jady Day Studio & Bella Gypsy
Fonts: DJB Jolly Holly, DJB Jolly Holly Bold & DJB I Don’t Like Pink by Darcy Baldwin
Scraplift of My Sunshine
This year, winter is practicing hard. I’m not sure whether quite successfully, because even though this was the third time snowing this December, it’s just never really a lot, and doesn’t stick around for long, but we can’t blame winter for not trying. Really. So, after it started snowing again yesterday afternoon (note the timing: it always happens when I have to be at work), I decided to go out early this morning to get a couple of snapshots before all the students decent on it yet once more. And in the end, I actually liked what I saw!
It’s Friday again, and today that’s an especially exciting occasion, because I’m starting to share my first ever Christmas kit with you “A Cozy Christmas.”
Click on image to download
It comes with a huge assortment of papers and embellies, and what’s best about it: It’s all free for you. All you have to do is come back over the next couple of weeks to collect the different parts, and then you’ll be able to scrap your most recent Christmas memories.
Today, you’ll be able to snatch the alpha, and next week you’ll get the first part of the papers.
I’d also like to remind you that the download links for most of my former freebie templates have been reactivated again, so if you’re still missing a couple, you should be able to download them now.
Finally, when you download any of the products by Misty Hilltops Designs, proper accreditation when using these products on your layouts and designs is required. Please do not directly share any MHT Designs products with anyone. If you wish to have others enjoy these products, too, simply send them this way, so they can directly download them from here.
And now, all I’m left to do is wish you a very merry happy Christmas, and happy Friday, scrappers!
Who of us doesn’t like the Christmas memories from their childhood? I for one can get pretty nostalgic this time of year. And my mom giving me one of those typical advent calendars we used to have as children this year doesn’t help it a bit. Where I come from, these advent calendars are really common. Any supermarket will sell them. They come with 24 doors – one to open every day during the Christmas season, and behind each door you’ll find a small piece of chocolate shaped according to a little picture. And then, when you finally get to door #24, it’s twice the size as all the others, and of course, the chocolate piece is twice as big (a special treat for Christmas Eve)!
All the children in our family used to get their own advent calendar every year – usually with different pictures on them. And for me it was always special fun searching for the right door. So, I never looked at my advent calendar too long to avoid memorizing the numbered doors. So I could search again the next day. And guess what? Even after all these many years, getting this advent calendar this year, I realized, I’m still doing the same thing … trying to ignore the numbers on the door so I would have more fun searching again, the next day.
I guess, some things just never change! And sometimes it’s nice being a child again!
Only a few more days till Christmas, which means it’s really time to wrap up all the preparations. Probably, at this point it’s too late to send out Christmas cards, but since we’re still in the middle of the season, I’m still going to show you a couple more of the Christmas cards I made this year …
Supplies used: Christmas Countdown by Traci Reed & Meghan Mullens, card stock, ribbon
Supplies used: Winter Wonderland by Zoe Pearn, card stock, ribbon
Supplies used: Christmas Countdown by Kristin Cronin-Barrow & Zoe Pearn
All0w me to tell you about a special treat: Dominosteine. Yes, literally translated that means domino rocks – or more simply: what you may know as dominoes. But I assure you, they neither taste nor feel anything like a rock or one of those game chips. Really.
Where I come from, it’s a very common Christmas treat, but where I live now they have come to be a little treat from heaven. And now, let me tell you why. You see, they are cube of chocolate covered pastry. And if you haven’t figured it out yet, let me assure you: me and chocolate are very best friends!
Anyhow, you take a bite of this little rock, and you realize it’s actually soft and juicy. And when you take a look, you’ll find that inside this little rock there are three layers: one of soft gingerbread, one of marzipan, and a thin layer of jelly. The perfect combination for a yummy Christmas treat on a cold winter’s day.
Off to enjoy some more Dominosteine.
Christmas time is winter time. At least where I’m from. And who of us doesn’t dream of a white Christmas? As many of us are moving into the cold season, we also get to scrap more of those chilly, frosty memories. So, I think it’s the perfect time to talk a little bit about how to add a little bit of frosting to our pages. If you’ve seen some of my December Daily pages this year, you may have noticed that some of them come with a nice frosted feel to them. And if you’ve wondered how to create this effect, I can tell you: it’s super simple.
Take a look at one of my early DD pages:
If you take a closer look, you’ll notice that around the edges some of my papers seem to be frosted.
You can easily add your own frost layer by playing just a little with your style settings. (This technique can be applied to papers, elements, as well as text.)
Choose the paper or element to which you want to apply the style by selecting it in the layers panel.
Double click anywhere in an empty space of that layer (in the layers panel) to open the styles menu (or click on fx at the bottom of the layers panel to open the styles menu). In the window that will open, click on “Inner Glow” in the left-side column.
By default it should be set on Screen. Leave it at that.
Adjust the color to white, and play around with the following settings:
Noise
Size
Range
Jitter
(and select Anti-aliased)
Every element will turn out a little different, so just experiment with it a little until you get the desired look. Click ok. And that’s it. You’ve quickly added some frosting to your element. Repeat this with other elements/papers on your page, or simply right click on the layer you first adjusted, Copy Layer Style, select each layer you want to apply this style to, and then right-click and choose “Paste Layer Style.” Check all the layers you’ve adjusted in this way and make adjustments where necessary.
Tip:
If you use predefined styles for your drop shadow (like I do), first apply the shadow style, and then add the frosted edge. It will save you the work of having to manually add all the drop shadows.
You may remember my advent calendar, which I filled with lots of goodies that I brought from Germany with me for this specific purpose. (And I assure you, Germany has some good chocolate stuff out there. Maybe not as good as the famed Swiss chocolate, granted, but good, still!) Anyhow, today, I thought I’d allow you a peak into what I found in my advent calendar today:
Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s a piece of paradise right here for me …
