My Moment of Christmas 2014

As regular readers of my journal know, last year I had the idea of making "Moments" to put in a real Jane's Journal which I bought last summer. Here is a link to the first one I made .I have made several since and when the family all went home on Sunday I decided that I would take the time to create something to remember our wonderful family Christmas.

When I think about Christmas this year I have many memories. ..decorating the tree and the house, receiving cards, being together with my family, giving and receiving wonderful gifts, Christmas dinner with all the trimmings around the table with my home made crackers, lots of chocolate, laughter, cold bright sunny days and even the return of the Christmas milk bottle foils. On Sunday we decided to go out for a walk with our daughter,  SIL and Daisy before lunch.  It was a beautiful sunny morning but it was freezing cold.

 We all wrapped up warmly and Daisy was snug in her pushchair.

 We stopped at the swings until the cold wind got the better of us.

   Before walking back my daughter and SIL's wanted to pick up a drink from our local Costa.

 

They love the Christmas cups brought out each year and thought it might be the last day they would be available this season.  Hot chocolate and coffees were duly bought to take away in the festive cups.

We then walked home and had a lovely final lunch before they headed back to Southampton.  Of course chocolates featured at the end of lunch and we opened the Bendick's mints.

The house was very quiet after they had left so I decided to make something for some current challenges which are running.  The empty Costa cups were sitting on the side ready to be thrown away and they really made me smile...and gave me a light bulb moment...I could include them in my Moment! When I was a little girl I would stick all sorts of things into my scrapbooks; tickets etc and realised that I could include other Christmas ephemera as they bring back so much nostalgia when you look them. I also love vintage images which I wanted to include.....and I noticed that one of the fronts from my hand made crackers had been pulled off and left on the sideboard. I think my son thought it was too sweet to throw away. I was about to throw it away when I had another idea...it could be part of my Moment too.

 I looked around to see what other pieces of Christmas ephemera were hanging around the house. This is some of what I found. The Costa cups, festive milk bottle foils, wrappers from Bendick's mints and Ferrero Rocher chocs.





Also the ribbon from my Lindt chocolate Santa

I also had not yet used the great Tim Holtz pack of Christmas ephemera I bought before Christmas so I dug that out too.

Armed with these supplies I had a think about my inky background I would create.

For my colour theme I decided to use the brown, red and yellow inspired by the festive Costa cups.










First I sprayed some yellow Dylusions ink onto some dampened water colour paper and then using Tea Dye Distress Stain I added some stencilling. I wanted a water colour appearance. The clocks are to represent the wonderful time we shared as a family. I also added TH festive words stencilling using red distress ink.

My Moment was also a reminder of how lucky I am to have my family. I added some partial stamping with Gathered twigs and Festive Berries distress inks using the grunge Thank You LOTV sentiment stamp.

To add to the watercolour effect I then gave the backing a spritz of water, you will see this in the next photo.

Then it was time for me to start to add my elements. First was a piece of the TH ephemera, it was very relevant as Daisy did receive lots of toys from Santa. I die cut some Cheery Lynn Holly borders using the Costa cups and stuck them in 2 of the corners.

I thought the colours worked really well and the die cuts almost become part of the backing card.

So then it was then time to put on my creative hat and take time to play around placing the elements.

Here is my finished Moment........

Here are some close ups and the thoughts behind them. Below is the discarded image from my handmade crackers, a perfect nostalgic image and a memory from the laughter around our table during Christmas dinner. The jokes always make us groan.  I added some Cheery Lynn die cut holly leaves using the  Costa cups and added some red Stickles glitter berries. You can see the mint wrapper and the Christmas milk bottle foil from my milk bottle here too.  I have also used a great TH milk top I found in the packet of TH ephemera and a little ice ticket..it was certainly a chilly Christmas.

I die cut a TH Sizzix bell and coloured it with Festive berries DI and Bronze DP. This represents ringing out the old year and looking forward to the new one. You can see a close up of some of the holly leaves using the Costa cups. The bow is from my Lindt chocolate Father Christmas and I have even added the sticker and gold foil from my Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

Here are my Cheery Lynn Holly die cut corners in close up with some green Stickles berries

I love this vintage TH piece, memories of my 1960s childhood. I do think every Christmas is wrapped up with Christmas past too.

So I have a little piece of our family Christmas 2014 all captured in my Moment to be stuck in my Journal made from things we usually just throw away.  Every time I look at it I can be transported back to lots of Christmas memories from this year.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing how it came to life.

Here it is once more

I would like to enter my Moment in the following challenges;

A Vintage Journey ring out the old ring in new. I have taken the first line of the poem for my inspiration and inlcuded a bell in my Moment. I have used many of Tim's wonderful techniques as described in my process above. I know he is a Starbuck's fan but I think even he would laugh to see the Costa cups included in my project!

Cheery Lynn thank you

Stamp and Create anything goes

Country View Crafts a nostalgic Christmas

The artistic stamper anything goes

Mixed media tic tac tock  I am playing the top line; bow, stencil, die cut

The Mirror cracked recycle/upcycle something I have lots of recycled pieces in my Moment; Costa cup, foil bottle top, sweet wrappers, ribbons etc.

Winter Wonderland fussy and fancy

Loves rubberstamps something old/something new my old are the stamps and stencils I used, the new is my new Tea Dye Distress ink.

I will be back first thing on New Year's day with my exciting GD post for Frilly and Funkie.......if you get a chance I would love to see you here. If not I would like to take the opportunity to wish you  all the very best for 2015. Thanks for all your support over here at Jane's Journal and for all the comments you take the time to leave. I really appreciate them. 

Bye for now,

Jane x