Christmas has always been my favorite holiday; celebrating the birth of Christ by exchanging gifts, decorating a tree, dinner with family, the music and the lights. As a child I remember a tree appearing on Christmas morning decorated with lights and strings of silver tinsel, but when I was older my dad would bring home a tree on Christmas Eve for us to decorate.
On our first Christmas, Bill and I decorated a tree with lights, round balls Bill’s mother gave us and silver tinsel. On the top we placed a little red angel, thinking that we’d have a collection of ornaments some day.
For these two layouts, I began by placing templates from Project Album Template No. 4 above solid paper 3 from ArtPlay Palette Rejoice that I had clipped to the masks from Heritage Live template. On the left I placed the layers from template 15 and on the right I placed the layers of template 5. I turned off all but the fotoblendz masks from both templates.
I clipped my photos to the large fotoblendz masks but gave them each a sepia look with a Hue and Saturation layer. The color in my photos didn’t work well together.
Note: On the left I used the basic arrangement of the fotoblendz mask and text boxes, but on the right, I moved the mask to accommodate my overall page design.
Before deciding how to arrange the small photos that I wanted to include, I worked with layers from transfers 2, 4 and 5 of Artsy Transfers Rejoice. I placed all the layers for each psd file and began to turn off layers and move some around. On the right I used a combination of layers from psd files 4 and 5. On the left, I combined layers from psd files 2 and 4.
Next, I turned back on the frames on the left and deleted all but two square frames to accommodate the photo format of a Kodak Instamatic camera. On the right, I selected similar frames from those included in the template but moved them down below the fotoblendz mask. I clipped my photos to the small frames and added adjustment layers.
Note: I toned down the color in the two photos on the right by adding a Hue and Saturation adjustment layer for a sepia tone but reduced the opacity to 50%.
I filled the area to the left of the small frames on the right with two layers from transfer 4 of Artsy Transfers Rejoice.
To finish my layout I opened frame 3 from MultiMedia Frames No. 5 and placed only the deer included in the file on my layout. On the right, I used the heart, word art and branch from file 1 of MultiMedia Frames No. 5. I added the red and green paint from file 4. I completed my journaling, changing the size of one of the text boxes included with the template. With a title and a little more of the red and green paint, I finished my layout.
You may not be old enough to remember 1968, but gold was a very popular color. Anna’s new palette, ArtPlay Palette Rejoice, was perfect for remembering our first Christmas.
Beverly
Oh Linda, these two pages are truly special. Well, yes, I remember all the gold…our first ornaments (only a dozen) were that spun soft thread around a ball. I really love how you used the new APP Rejoice, and you’ve given me some extra inspiration. Though I first need to scan some photos. Thank you very much.
Linda
Thank you so much Beverly, looking forward to seeing what you do with your scans!!
Terri Fullerton
Love your pages. I really appreciate your process and photos of the process. Thanks so much for sharing your amazing talent!
Linda
Thank you Terri for taking the time to write, always appreciated!