SBTD Blog Hop Holiday Gifts

Our theme for the SBTD Blog Hop Holiday Gifts. Yes, it’s getting to be that time of year. Stores have begun hanging holiday decorations. A sign to begin those holiday gifts I will be making this year.

Ok. I need to confess. My holiday shopping completed. Beginning holiday shopping early is a habit I formed. I worked retail in my younger years and found it necessary to avoid added stress. Purchasing my gifts early has allowed time to make an assortment of hand made gifts each year. These gifts are for neighbors, our garbage men, mailperson, UPS Driver, family, and the variety of people who serve us over the holiday season.

I was happy to see our theme for the SBTD Blog Hop this month is holiday gifts

It got me thinking about some neighbor gifts. I watched neighbors taking pictures outside their homes. In past years, these pictures would be outside in the school yard.

Create a school-themed layout for a frame

These decorated frames would be a great gift for those pictures. I went shopping to choose a frame. The one I chose is acrylic and measures 8″ tall by 10″ wide. Frames will be customized for each child including their favorite color. This frame is made for my grandson, Hunter. He is in early learning and has loved putting out his beginning of the year picture for the past several years.

Primary colors are perfect for this school themed frame gift.

I used a strip of the green Artistry Blooms Designers Series Paper for across the top. Primary colors for the rest of the layout coordinated with this strip of paper. Yellow is Hunter’s favorite color so I knew it had to be prominent. This layout will easily go into a memory book. Putting this into a 12 x 12 album with a coordinating page with pictures from throughout his year.

Creating the elements for this holiday gift was fun!

Layering Basic Black onto a piece of Crumb Cake created the large chalkboard. The Crumb Cake was first stamped using Crumb Cake ink and the Birch Background stamp. I wrote the year on the smaller chalkboard and left some space for journaling. Using our White Chalk Marker Hunter can fill in any spaces on these two chalk boards. I used the Harvest Hello (#150581) and coordinating Apple Builder punch (# 150663) to create the apple. The piece of chalk is a strip of Whisper White cardstock. Use Stampin’ Dimensionals, to raise the chalk and apple to easily be tuck a picture behind them, if needed.

There is room to place a smaller picture in the area next/above the apple. Here is a picture of this layout not in the frame.

As you can see, if you begin early you can give some holiday gifts it can lead to a less stressful season.

Now let’s see what gift Diane is sharing with us this month.