Christmas Cottage Coundown flip album by Cheri Piles Part 1

Hi everyone! Cheri here, There is nothing about Christmas and the holidays that I don't love. When I saw this new collection last summer - Yes that's when many of us on the team were able to play with the collection! I fell in LOVE, Everything about this was perfect for me, I love all of the colors!

I used a flip type of stand purchased from a craft store. 

I will be sharing with you each evening this week 5 pages of this countdown book! If you have any questions please leave me a comment and I will try to answer all of your questions as best I can. I am not giving step by step, measured instructions for each page, however as we go through the pages I will give you some helpful tips and many TECHNIQUES to help you in creating one of your very own.

I want you to know I cut all of my base papers first {6 x 9 unless mentioned otherwise.} Then I used the scrap pieces as I created my layers on my papers. You would not believe this but this entire album is very simplistic in embelishments but rich with what you can create with a little imagination using your scraps!

Stamp on the darker paper using white ink. On the cover, start the tree on the bottom, adhere the bottom parts of the tree using pop dots and the top parts regular adhesive of choice - this will give it a layered look all the way up the tree. For the bow try tying really loopy double bows then add a bling brad to the center. 

Run scraps of paper through your cuttlebug or other type of embossing machine to create more label die cuts. You can see I used one under the no.1 and I cut another one in half on the top left. Another fun thing I do is make photo corners from my scrap papers, I love doing that because I like my photo corners to match. Use the decorative tape to adhere page strips like I did with the red snowflake base and the brown strip. You will see that technique used alot!

I love this page because it's the same base paper but it appears to be two different papers for the base - by stamping in a contrasting color like I did with the red it created a new look on the right side - How I stepped it up and really made it stand out, was by adding a border strip which really helped make it look like a whole different piece of paper.

Create color blocks from your scraps. When you layer them, round the outer corners to give it a cohesive look. Because their background colors are both dark is what makes this work. This whole page is monochromatic in essence. Don't be afraid to cut up your border strips as I did here, I cut the tail end off of the red glitter strip and added it to the right side of my page and added a red rhinestone to the center.

Ahhhhh the tree of dots. This page base measures 5 1/2 x 9. This page I remember required chocolate because I had to use my ruller... But it was worth it. Just little circles punched from scraps and measured evenly - start at the bottom and work your way to the top. Add a couple of pieces of bling to a couple of the circles to give it a merrier look! The red Faceted button on the top was the perfect touch  and the camera did not pick it up very well but it's awesome, trust me!

Tomorrow night 5 more pages!! Let me know by leaving me a comment if you have any questions or what you find usefull, I love hearing from you and if you like my tips let me know so I'll keep 'em coming for you!

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