We are so excited to welcome Tessa Buys back for her second guest post! This week, she’s sharing an absolutely stunning Memorydex spinner created with the ‘Tis the Season collection. If you’re looking for an alternative way to document your December, you won’t want to miss this project!

Hello, Elle’s Studio friends! I am really excited to be sharing this project with you today. To document our December this year, I decided to fill a Heidi Swapp Memorydex Spinner with the fabulous ‘Tis the Season collection. I started by making a title card using patterned paper from the 6” x 6” paper stack, the Good Cheer acrylic, and a label from the ‘Tis the Season small blank labels.

Inspired by the typewriter font on so many pieces in the collection, I used my own typewriter to fill out the label with “25 Days of….” Next, I made cards for each day of the month leading up to Christmas, as well as extra cards for more photos, journaling, and decoration.

To make the daily cards, I used my one inch circle punch to punch the numbered circles from the “Countdown”  patterned paper in the 12” x 12” paper collection, adding iridescent glitter to the numbers for some extra sparkle. When adhering the numbers to the cards, I used foam adhesive and added a bit of silver metallic thread to the back.

I used the other circles from the “Countdown” paper to make paper clips, adhering two circles back to back with foam adhesive, making sure the adhesive stuck to the top of the paper clip, too. I added silver tinsel trim to the edge of the circles for a festive, holiday touch.

Rather than follow a recipe of any kind, every card is different. I mainly used the 6” x 6” paper stack, since the scale of the patterns was better suited to the size of my cards. I saved every little bit of paper after matting photo spaces and cutting out cards. Smaller scraps were easily trimmed into pennants or adhered to cards as borders. In fact, I still have a pile of pieces to attach to photos as December comes and I print pictures to add to the spinner. The paper is just too cute to throw any little bit away!

Every card has a little bit of embellishing, using elements from the ‘Tis the Season puffy stickers to the die cuts in the ‘Tis the Season bits and pieces. For more texture and holiday sparkle, I added silver metallic tulle, pom poms and ribbon to more paper clips. I also used silver wire trim to make little wreaths that encircle more “Countdown” circles.

I enjoyed using the ‘Tis the Season stamp to stamp on the small blank labels and tabs. I plan to add more stamping when the cards are filled with journaling.

If you’d like to see the spinner in action, I invite you to check out my YouTube video. Besides taking through the spinner card by card, I also show you how to make the “Countdown” circles paper clip:

Thank you to Elle for the opportunity to guest design this month! I cannot wait to fill my spinner with memories. I’m going to enjoy flipping through these ‘Tis the Season decorated cards for years to come.

I live in Sacramento, California with my husband, three boys, and little girl. They’ve been the darlings of my scrapbook pages since I started a family, but I had been playing with paper and glue long before they came along. I currently design for Pink Paislee and We R Memory Keepers. I am also a creative team coordinator for Scrapbook Circle, where I host challenges and curate exclusive content for kit subscribers. When I’m not documenting life with pretty papers and embellishments, I’m getting creative in the studio teaching dance and setting choreography on competition students. I love the color combination of yellow, red and mint (a la my craft room), I survive on diet Dr. Pepper (I know, I should really quit), and I’m currently re-living high school by binge watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have been an Elle’s Studio fan for many years and feel blessed to have the opportunity to be a guest designer this month!

Please visit Tessa’s blog, Precocious Paper, Facebook page, Instagram and YouTube accounts to see more of her beautiful projects! Thank you so much for working with ES products this month, Tessa. We’ve been truly inspired!

We are delighted to welcome Tessa Buys as the Elle’s Studio guest designer this month. Tessa’s designs are intricately layered, with pops of bright colors and highly-contrasting neutrals, and we can always pick out her layouts in a lineup! Let’s take a look at how she used the October exclusive kit to create a gorgeous page!

Hello, Elle’s Studio friends! I’m excited to be sharing a layout with you that I created using the October 2016 exclusive kit and add-ons. Fall is absolutely my favorite season of the year, so I really enjoyed working with the colors and themes in this kit. It might just be the dancer in me, but I wanted to create some fall-like movement on this page:

Supplies | October 2016 exclusive kit, Family Fun stamp, Autumn wood veneers

To create a fall effect on a layout of your own, try these tips:

1.  I started with a selfie that I took about this time last year. By printing my photo three times, I was able to overlap my selfies in a cascading pattern down the page, just like leaves falling from the trees. You could re-create the look with three similarly-posed photos, too.

2.  Put heavier pieces at the bottom of the page, like a pile of leaves when you’re done raking the lawn. I trimmed the “Remember this Moment” element from a 4” x 6” tag. Attaching it to the bottom of the page anchored the layout with a big punch of orange.

3.  Create a fall breeze by swirling leaves and droplets of ink across the layout. I started by stamping leaves from the Family Fun stamp in gray and black. Next, I added splatters of mustard yellow, orange and black ink. I can feel the wind stirring up some leaves just looking at it!

4.  Fall leaves have some crunch to them; don’t be afraid to crumple some of your paper elements. I slightly bent the edges of the 3” x 4” tags I used for a photo mat, title, and journaling. I love the texture that simple technique adds, and fall is all about texture to me.

I love how the page turned out and I still have oodles of the October kit to go. If you picked up the kit, I’d love to see your take on some of these fall ideas. And if you don’t have the kit in hand, what are you waiting for? Happy creating!

I live in Sacramento, California with my husband, three boys, and little girl. They’ve been the darlings of my scrapbook pages since I started a family, but I had been playing with paper and glue long before they came along. I currently design for Pink Paislee and We R Memory Keepers. I am also a creative team coordinator for Scrapbook Circle, where I host challenges and curate exclusive content for kit subscribers. When I’m not documenting life with pretty papers and embellishments, I’m getting creative in the studio teaching dance and setting choreography on competition students. I love the color combination of yellow, red and mint (a la my craft room), I survive on diet Dr. Pepper (I know, I should really quit), and I’m currently re-living high school by binge watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have been an Elle’s Studio fan for many years and feel blessed to have the opportunity to be a guest designer this month!

Look for more of Tessa’s work on her blog, Precocious Paper, Facebook page, Instagram and YouTube accounts. Stay tuned for another project from Tessa here on the ES blog next week!