jamieharper

Other uses for Christmas Products

Do you ever find yourself after the holidays with tons of leftover product? If you are like me you do, and you tuck it away for next year. Then when the next year rolls around you want the new product on the shelf so there still sits as lonely as ever that cute holiday paper from the previous year. So I have a challenge for you...USE that holiday paper for something else. And yes I understand this does not always work as it would be a little strange to have Santa collecting Easter eggs, but when it is generic enough use it.

So let's deconstruct this layout

 

So all of the products here are the girls' paperie "tinsel & twig" except for the yellow gingham which was from the previous line. So all Christmas products here.

 

Step one

start with your base which is 12x12 yellow gingham paper

trim the green dots paper to 10.5 x 10.5

the first strip of red across the green is the scrap you just cut. The red is on the backside of the green.

 

Step two

LOVE these crepe paper snowflakes!!! But this is a spring layout so they won't work.... or will they?

Also notice the cute packaging there come on...hmmmmm

 

Step three

Carefully remove the center off the snowflake

 

Step four

I thought the red circle still looked a bit like Christmas so I just trimmed some of the tinsel off. I think they are so cute!!!

I also added a strip of red Christmas flower paper 1.5 x 12 across the layout.

And if you can see, I matted my photos on the layout with the packaging of the snowflakes.

 

So here is a look at the layout again. I decided that the red circle was too much so I punched out a third photo and overlapped the photo to a Christmas sticker. I finished the layout with the title PRINCE from Christmas chipboard letters.

The journaling reads...

" Today I went to the pond and found a frog. My mom said you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince."

So enjoy Christmas early or late, but enjoy Christmas all year round.

Jamie

 

It's all about choices

This will be a really long post but I wanted to do it now while it is fresh in my mind. A few years ago I made a decision that I would look for the good in all things and in all of my trials, and it has helped me so much. Well today was a day to choose to look for the good in SO many ways.

It was a blessing that my mom called to cancel going out with me today, even though I was sad at the time. Who knew how my day was going to unfold.

It was a blessing that Taylor forgot her homework (which she never does ).

It was a blessing that I could not find her flash drive which she also needed so it put me about an hour behind getting to the school. Both a blessing because just as I was walking out of the school office I got a text from Taylor saying that something happened to Madisann and the security guard was bringing her up in a cart. Her toe was all bloody and she was crying like Taylor has never seen before.

What a blessing that I was there at that very moment. I turned around and there the cart was bringing her in. Someone opened a door on her big toe and pulled the toenail up. It is still attached at the base of the nail but that is it. So we got her cleaned up and bandaged and went to our way home.

On our way home the van started acting weird so I pulled over a bit to the side with my hazards on and was trying to just go slow ....what a blessing that I felt the prompting to just put it in park. As soon as I did the car died. And it sat locked in the park position so I could not even push it. Madisann and I sat for 20 min in the car making calls, and she was hurting. I have never felt more helpless...I couldn't try to walk her home, she needed some meds for her toe, and there was no where near to get her to to be able to put her foot up...

Once again a blessing, Taylor thought she had rehearsals today and she didn't so she was stuck at school needing a ride home. Thankfully Marissa was there and willing to bring Taylor home AND pick up Madisann along the way.

Blessing...found out that our auto insurance has unlimited towing, so I waited for over an hour and he came to the rescue and towed the car to our mechanic who is about 45 min away.

What a blessing as I walked over a mile home that it was a nice day, and that I was able to do it without my back hurting.

And I have to say what a blessing paying a tithing is. We pay 10% of all of our earnings to our church and we have received so many blessings over the years because of it. I have been saving for sometime for a family trip to California. We have had Disneyland tickets for about 5 years that we have not used yet and we were planning on staying with my girlfriend. So even though we may not be able to make it on our trip we do have a bit saved for a car repair.

So it was quite the day but filled with blessings. :) :)