Challenge #157 - Counting down to Christmas

Yesterday (28 November), was the first of Advent, which to me is the beginning of the Christmas season. In Sweden, many families have an Advent candle holder with four candles, symbolising the four Advent Sundays before Christmas. On each of the Sundays an additional candle is lit until all four are burning. This tradition always created a great sense of anticipation for us when we were kids.

I would like you to do a layout with a Christmas or winter theme, and using:

1 heart
4 tags
12 buttons (for December being the 12th month of the year)

Have fun! I am looking forward to seeing what you create!

Anna-Karin: I love this time of the year with preparations for Christmas, candles, decorations and the whole feeling and spirit around Christmas. I was planning to have done a layout about our Advent tradition, but didn’t have any good photos that were developed regarding that theme, so instead I used a childhood photo. I used four shipping tags which were coloured with an acrylic block technique that Jennifer McGuire taught in Holiday Thinking Inking. The tags were stamped with black, brown and green ink, as well as gold embossed a bit. The chipboard heart was embossed with several layers of UTEE, with a layer of gold embossing powder on the top.

Journaling: This Santa has been around for a long time. I am not sure if he was new here on my first Christmas or if he is even older. He has posed on many Christmas photos and has stood faithfully under the Christmas tree together with the Christmas goat for many years. Now he looks quite worn and has lost his shirt. The beard is no longer as white and fluffy, but he is still my favourite Santa.

Janet M- Fun challenge and I have so many pictures that work for this but I went back and used one from my childhood, when we really had some rough winters. I enjoyed them more then than I do now.

Thanks for the great challenge.

Elizabeth:
I had fun going through some older Christmas pictures for this one. I used some tags from one of the My Mind's Eye collections and my buttons are actually brads shaped like buttons that I used on the note paper. Thanks for the fun challenge Anna-Karin!

Debbi T: What a fun challenge, Anna-Karin, and so neat to learn about a new tradition! I used a Christmas picture from my childhood, and it was fun figuring out what to do with the buttons and tags and heart. I promise I have 12 buttons (topped with pearls)--one's peeking behind the tags. I always have a hard time using tags on my layouts, for some reason. I was trying to figure out how to use four larger tags, and it just wasn't working, and then I thought of using three tiny tags to document our ages. I actually cheated and added an extra heart on my page to add some color to the heart-shaped brad, which I embossed with silver powder.

Have fun and thanks for playing! Remember that at the end of the week one participant will be featured as our "How Awesome is Too Awesome - Weekly Wow" and will be in the running to win a RAK at the end of the month! Post a link to your layout in the thread at Two Peas.