It’s that time of year again when families are setting out for their annual traditions of searching for the perfect Christmas Tree. I know we’re not the only family who sets out with Christmas card/Hallmark movie ideas about what the experience and end result will be. Inevitably it's a memorable experience but little frustrations and tensions creep into the experience and we end up with a Clark Griswold/National Lampoon type experience. In all honesty, the latter makes for better memories when all is said and done.
When Jim and I blended our families we had to mesh together our various Christmas traditions. The year before Dave died, he made a Facebook post about how our tradition of getting a Christmas tree had to change. Having a child in a wheelchair Dave and I gave up our tradition of going to a tree farm and cutting down a tree. Although we loved doing that as a couple and made it work with little kids, it was a disaster when Caleb first got his wheelchair. The ground was not completely frozen and was rutted and muddy. We couldn’t even get the wheelchair to the trees because it got stuck. So, we had to load the mud caked wheelchair back into the van and pick out a precut tree which was anticlimactic.
Jim and the girls were used to the tree farm experience, so we went back to the tree farm. Not the easiest experience, but we made it work. One year we did not have the time to trek to the tree farm. But we found a tree farm close to us that was right off the exit of the thruway. We were so pleasantly surprised to find the most accessible tree farm. The aisles between the trees were wide, and there was long grass that had been trodden down, so they were not muddy! Jim even put Caleb down on the ground so he could help saw, but we all agreed not to make that a tradition seeing as getting him down was a lot easier than getting him back into his chair. It was also the last year Alyssia was able to give Zach a piggyback ride.
No matter how it happens, we always have good photos of our tree hunt, and no two years look alike.
Scrapbooking Tips
I saw a sketch from Scrapbook Generation, and I immediately pictured this layout. The sketch was not necessarily a Christmas sketch but when I saw the place of the three circular photos my brain immediately imagined Christmas ornaments. I choose my favorite photos and using my nested circle dies three I cut them out. Using the die that was the next size up, I cut three larger circles out of pattern paper. To create the ornament tops, I used my ornaments4Christmas dies from The Stamps of Life.
To create the look of a Christmas tree I found a cut file of evergreen sprigs. I filled a full 12x12 mat with these sprigs in two varying sizes. I repeated the process with a second shade of green. Then came the fun part - I played with and arranged my pieces until it had the shape of a Christmas tree. It took a while, but it was worth it! I carefully tacked them down and added my photos. I couldn’t fit more than three photo ornaments in the space, but it looked bare. So, to fill the space, I found a piece of pattern paper covered with ornaments and I fussy cut a bunch. I adhered them to fill in the branches.
This is where the intricate work came in. I stitched in brown thread to create an ornament hanger for each ornament. To do this I carefully poked a hold underneath the top of the ornament, brought my threaded needle up through that loop, over one of the boughs and then back down through the same hole. I really liked the completed look it gave to the layout.
My final touch was bringing some of the evergreens to the left page of the layout. I had to balance out the design, and this was easily accomplished using scraps of the boughs and a little extra fussy cutting.
I had so much fun bringing the vision in my head to life. That’s one of my favorite parts of scrapbooking and here I felt I was really able to accomplish just that.
Supplies Used:
Wood grain paper - Simple Stories
Pattern Paper - Simple Stories
Cut File - Evergreen sprigs by Hearthewn Silhouette Design ID 171034
Circle & Ornament Dies - The Stamps of Life
Miscellaneous - DMC embroidery thread
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