Here Comes Santa Claus: Countdown by Christine

Fun colors, cute icons, adorable embellishments; there is so much to love about Here Comes Santa Claus!  Christine joining you today with a project featuring this fabulous Christmas Collection!  I love the concept of documenting a whole bunch of your December pictures into a daily album - however loving the concept and being able to execute it are two different things.  I tried it once and it didn't work out great.  That said - I have tons and tons of Christmas season pictures!  Trying to document all those individual pictures in layouts is also never going to happen.  But today I offer you a different solution: use this countdown style page to capture a lot of your memories!

This page contains 25 squares - perfect for adding 25 pictures to a layout!  Here's a video for you showing exactly how I made that happen!

Planning in advance on this you can be very organized and actually document 25 days of December this year - or you can do like I did and just capture 25 moments!

I stuck mine on this Clipart Board from Doodlebug and my kids have loved looking at it already!  My 4 year old is especially intrigued - wondering where he can find a picture of himself!

I cut my squares open in different directions, some go up, some go down, some open on the right, and some open on the left - I really like how this looks!  

I decorated some of the squares with additional embellishments - but not all of them!  If you want to make it quick and simple you can leave it alone completely.  Embellishing is part of the fun for me - so it's not to be missed!

My pictures were 2" X 2" squares - I'd actually recommend going a little bigger and doing 2 1/4" X 2 1/4" so you have a little extra room.

The Candy Cane Shaped Sprinkles are seriously the cutest thing!  I probably would have used them on every square if they would have fit ;)

Here Comes Santa Claus: Christmas Magic Layout by Mendi

Hello Doodlebug friends!  It's Mendi here today and I'm so excited to be kicking off our week of sharing some fun ideas using the newest darling Doodlebug collection called Here Comes Santa Claus!

I found these photos of my daughter in her candy cane striped dress from a couple years back that I thought would be a perfect match.  Since I had so many photos I wanted to include I decided a grid design would be a great way to go to fit more of them on my page and still leave plenty of room for all my favorite embellishments.  Using software or a photo collage program to fit multiple images onto one 4x6 photo is a wonderful way to shrink down your photos and to be cost effective at the same time.  

For my title, I combined the magic word from the odds & ends set and paired with with one of my favorite alphabet stickers by Doodlebug called Love Letters. They are just the right size to work for so many projects.

To dress up my stocking die-cuts, I used the new sprinkle shapes, cutting off the bottom of the candy cane to make it look like it's coming out of the stocking.  I didn't have room for the holly berries that came with the sprinkles set, so I paired the single holly leaf with a trio of mini jewels.  I love layering my stickers and die-cuts with fun details like these to bring them to life!

I hope I've inspired you to pull out some old photos (or to print some photos on your phone) and get them in an album.  You'll want to come back and see all the amazing ideas the rest of the team has in store.  It's going to be a super fun month here on the Doodlebug blog!  ;)

Boos and Brews Collection: Easy Treat Bag Tutorial by Tya

Hey everyone - it's Tya and I am wrapping up the Boos and Brews Collection Week with a fun tutorial for you. Of course, the absolute best part of Halloween in my opinion is the CANDY!! So I wanted to share with you a quick and easy treat bag that is great to whip up and give to your favorite little trick or treaters!

Here are the steps to make these bags:
Step 1-
Start with a 7 1/2 x  11 piece of paper. On the 11 inch side, score the paper at 4 1/2 and 6 1/2 inches.

Step 2-
On the 7 1/2 inch side of the paper, score the paper at 2 and 5 1/2 inches.

Step 3-
Fold on all of the scored lines

Step 5-
Snip the middle section of the box just up to the scored lines as shown on both sides.

Step 6:
Add adhesive to the flaps and fold up one side of the box.

Step 7:
Add adhesive to the outer side flaps of the box and fold up to complete the box. So quick and easy!

Now that I have given you the basic pattern - you can now use all of the adorable Boos and Brews pattern papers as your bag bases.
Here are some close ups of my bags:

I used the following products for my bags:
Boos and Brews 12x12 Paper Pack
Boos and Brews 6x6 Paper Pad
Boos and Brews This and That Sticker
Boos and Brews Icons Sticker Sheet
Boos and Brews Odds and Ends
Stars and Moons Cute Clips
Cute Critters Mini Doodle Pops
Pumpkin Pals Mini Doodle Pops
Eerie Eyes Shaped Sprinkles
Halloween Assortment Matte Sprinkles
Shocking Chevron Washi Tape
Beetle Black Chunky Twine

Hopefully I have inspired you to create a batch of these bags. Doodlebug has so many darling patterns on their papers - I love that I can custom make my own treat bags using whatever papers I want to, instead of having to stick with plain boring store bought bags. Thank you for stopping by today! Happy Crafting!