Vicki Boutin Peppermint Kisses - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

This is my final layout using Vicki Boutin's Peppermint Kisses collection which is also my final layout for 2023.

I've been working with the 12x12 paper pad this month and started my layout by layering the red candy cane striped paper and text paper onto a sheet of white 12x12 cardstock with another layer of white cardstock between.

With white thread I machine stitched a straight stitch round the edges of the papers. This is quite a flat layout, so the stitching added some texture. Before adding any elements, I also splattered some gold ink onto the background

Using some of the green papers from the collection I cut four simple triangular Christmas Tree shapes and punched some holes in a couple of them. After machine stitching round the edges of the trees, the trees were glued to the centre of the layout in a row.

I die cut some stars from gold card and added one to the top of each tree.

A piece of gold ribbon (from a recent gift) was stuck horizontally across the bottom of the layout. Three small photos, from Christmases past, were matted with more of the red striped paper and placed at the bottom of the trees.

To create a title I took the phrase 'Merry Christmas' from a sheet of Mintay Papers Chippies Christmas Words and cut it in half. Using embossing powder I transformed the bare chipboard into gold and added the two words to the layout.

The other words in the title were made by die cutting letters from gold card which I backed with some self-adhesive foam. 

At the top of the layout I placed a phrase from the pack of Journaling Ephemera and also added some phrase strips from my stash. 

The layout was finished with a scattering of gold sequins to add some Christmassy sparkle.

Vicki Boutin Peppermint Kisses - 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

As we are getting closer to Christmas I have been playing with Vicki Boutin's Peppermint Kisses collection form American Crafts. 

I started by layering a trimmed down a sheet of the Winter Magic paper onto a sheet of the Sweet Holiday Wishes paper leaving a narrow border round the edges. I made sure to gut the pink paper before attaching the teal paper so that I had paper left to mat my photos.

Using a cut file from Peartree Cutfiles I cut my title from smooth white cardstock and attached this to the top half of the layout. 

I thought of backing the cut file or even creating a shaker pocket from it, but in the end decided instead to simply embellish it with sequins. I took some white, blue and pink sequins, which matched the colours in the paper, and glued a few inside each letter of the title. I like the sparkle the sequins add to the layout.

I then took four small photos and matted these with the remaining Sweet Holiday Wishes paper. Two of the matted photos were placed at the top of the layout either side of the title with 3D foam underneath, and two photos were attached to the front of a couple of tags cut from the sheet of tags. The tags were placed at the bottom of the layout with more 3D foam beneath.

Through the holes in the tags I threaded a piece of white twine.

Underneath the tags I placed a couple of die cut phrase strips from the pack of Journaling Ephemera. 

At the top of the page I added another die cut phrase strip to one of the photos and some Puffy Phrase Stickers.

To add more texture to the layout I took some silver embroidery floss and stitched onto the Christmas Tree images at the bottom of the page. I used a simple back stitch on one of the trees .....

.... and chain stitch on the other. More sequins were used to embellish the trees as well as some enamel dots.

Finally I printed some journalling strips on the computer and placed these in the bottom right corner of the layout and dotted some more white sequins around the layout.