Scrappy Christmas In July

If you have some unfinished Christmas projects, I've got good news for you, you can scrap Christmas in July! Today, I'm sharing with you a fantastic project by Tracey Fox that I heard about in the Scrap Gals Community. Tracey is sharing her fantastic plan for making headway on her own unfinished projects. I'll be joining in on #scrappychristmasinjuly, and I would love to see you join in too!

When do you scrapbook your holiday stories? Do you document the holidays as they are happening, or are you usually playing catch-up sometime during the following year? For the last few years, I haven't gotten around to scrapping my Christmas memories until July, and I've decided that July is actually the PERFECT time for me to tackle the project. So, I'm declaring next month to be "Scrappy Christmas in July," and I'd love if you joined in!

Here's what's so great about getting my holiday scrapping done during the complete opposite time of year. When the holidays are actually happening, I can focus on making the memories, taking photos, and even jotting down notes for journaling, but the pressure is off to make something right away. I have plenty of time to organize my thoughts and my photos, and by the time June rolls around, I have enough perspective on the holiday season as a whole to know which stories I want to document. And since I live in the U.S., reflecting on stories from a chillier time of year is a great way to help me beat the heat! (Oh, and added bonus: by waiting to scrap the holidays so far after the fact, there's a better chance I can score the hottest Christmas-themed products from the year before at a discount.)

To prepare to start in on my holiday album, I first edited and printed my photos from the 2016 holiday season. I don't personally do a December Daily style project where I document something from every day. Rather, I scrap all the holiday-related photos and stories I want to capture from the season in my album, and the events documented often start before December and go through New Year's Day. Because I am using an 8x8 album, and I like to scrap multi-photo layouts, I knew I'd need a lot of my photos to be smaller than 4x6, so I used the app PicFrame to create 4x6 collages of 2 3x4 and 4 3x2 photos that I can cut apart. I used to make collages like this in PhotoShop, but using an app is SO easy, and I can work on it anywhere, like while watching TV or even while waiting in line at Chipotle. Once I got all my photos back from the printer, I sorted them by date and theme and made some decisions about which ones would be used to scrap my holiday stories. This year, I made a list of all the stories I want to tell.

 

Next, I pulled together a bunch of holiday supplies in my trusty Raskog cart. Do you store your holiday supplies (digital or physical) separately from the rest of your stash?

 

And now, all I have to do is dig into these stories, photos, and products to make my pages! I'll be sharing my progress on Instagram on my account @scrappylikeafox with the hashtag #scrappychristmasinjuly,  and if you are scrapping holiday stories or using holiday-themed supplies, I'd love it if you tagged your projects as well! Whether you have an unfinished holiday project or want to start in on something new, it's a great time of year for a little holiday cheer.

 

I’m Tracey. Just another scrapbookin’ feminist nerd living in central Ohio with her husband and two cats.

INSTAGRAM

Crafty account: @scrappylikeafox

PINTEREST

https://www.pinterest.com/tracey/