So Sweet / Christmas Shopping

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! Apologies, I am a bit late submitting my blog post for the Stick It Down double page reveal day... I had been super-organised, completing not one, but two layouts with this month's double page sketch, and made a process video, too! And then things went a bit pear-shaped with work commitments... and of course I got a bit side-tracked with all the events over iNSD at the start of the month...

But anyways, here is this month's double page sketch:

And here is my first layout:

I have been pretty good recently, trying to stick as closely to sketches as possible, so this month I decided to use the sketch as an inspiration, rather than a blueprint, and allow some changes to it...

This layout is based on A4 format, rather than 12" x 12", which means that the pages are narrower... accordingly, I had to change the placement of the journaling and the title, to make everything fit... Luckily, I changed the positioning of the photos on the left hand side, which created room for the title... So it all worked out well in the end.

I also decided not to go with one particular collection, which gave a bit more freedom to include papers and embellishments that really suited the theme, rather than having to make do...

All the patterned papers on this layout were much treasured and saved for something special to come along, and, although these photos might not look anything special, the story behind them is a very happy one...

My second layout is an A5 size double layout for my Covid-19 journal. It came out rather bold and colourful:

Again, I have to adjust the placement for the title and the journaling, as the pages are rectangular, rather than square.

As an added challenge, the were much less room to work with, as the pages were a lot smaller.

I replaced the photos on the left with a cutfile. I made it look super-special by foiling around the apertures. I love the fine detailing this added to the cutfile:

Both the photos and the journaling were comparatively large, so I had to keep the embellishment clusters small.

I also used narrow puffy alphas for the title, which were just perfect for a journal page.

My absolute favourite is the washi tape I used. I had these for a few years, but never actually used them, as we have been lucky enough to have happy, cozy Christmases in the past. But Christmas 2020 was not like any other - if there ever was a Christmas the expression Bah Humbug applied to, it was last year's!