Handmade Holiday

The lovely Kathy of Kathy's Cottage
is hosting Handmade Holiday
on her blog today.




Kathy has come up with a brilliant idea. Given that this Holiday season falls on such a difficult time for most of us with the economy the way it is, Kathy thought why not create wonderful economical handmade gifts. We can post our ideas and share them on our blogs and link to Kathy each Tuesday. Share your handmade gift, holiday decorating ideas or thrifted gift on your post and link to Mr. Linky on Kathy's blog.



Something my mother really enjoys is looking at photographs of her granddaughters. This Christmas I am creating a scrapbook of the wonderful Christmas holidays that we all spent in Hong Kong together.



Last year I made a scrapbook for her with photographs all about her, dating back to when she was a young girl. The scrapbook was all about Doris, and it was filled with memory pieces too. I got images of NYC where she worked as a young girl, and created memory items.



So for this Christmas project, I started by finding this gorgeous scrapbook paper which I found in our local scrapbook shop. Then I added stamps to the paper to create a theme.



The actual paper company has a web site which is called Websters Papers and they have a shop locator on that site. Their papers seemed to match my art doo dads.



I am using some paper designs I created myself. I have been known to cut out images from old magazines to create the perfect theme.



I learned that you can just get a puncher and create your own embellishments.



We all have those art rubber stamps that are sitting in a corner somewhere. I took a rubber art stamp and stamped the bird and cut it out to use. You can stack cut out stamped paper to create some very nice embellishments.



The stamps don't have to be Holiday themed, you can create an album from any theme you want.



I learned a trick to take old faux flowers that I have tired of, and just pluck a few petals to create my own embellishments.



These trims have been sitting in a rubbermaid tub forever, so I took them out to use with my scrapbook pages and some card and tags.



I will share with you on another Handmade Holiday the finished album. I am not going to buy one, but make it myself out of chipboard. I think I will create a tutorial for you, so that you can make one too.



Now if you stop by Kathy's place, you are sure to find lots and lots of wonderful economical and easy gifts to make for the Holidays. You might find the perfect idea to take a thrifted gift and turn it into a treasure, and lots of decorating ideas too.



I was thinking (always a dangerous thing for me), but I realize that creating my own illustrations is easy for me. When I walk through the craft stores gulp, I am horrified what they charge for images.



So, I am going to add little kits by Holiday theme to my shop this week. They will have images that you can use for scrapbooks, cards, Holiday tags...anything you want. These kits can also be used for creations that you might want to sell.



Thank you Kathy for hosting such a wonderful event. As you can see by my photos, my dining room table is beginning to look like it's the holiday season.



The song for this post is from wonderful Charlie Brown.