Pages 3 & 4 are cute and simple.

Start with a 4 x 5.5 piece of the Wrapping Paper paper, and adhere it to the back of the previous page. Trim any unsightly edges, and give it a good coat of ink around the edges. This will hide any minor flaws or white edges. Punch your holes.

Trim your yellow paper to 3 1/4 x 3 1/2. Trim your Yuletide paper to 3 1/4 x 1 1/4th. Cut out the green snowflake strip from the Merry & Bright paper. These green snowflakes are one of my favorite bits of the Oh Joy collection. I will be using them a lot. If the green isn’t doing it for you, you can always use one of the red on white strips or the white on red. When you trim this strip out, leave a little red on the one side and a little yellow on the other to create a small border.

Ink all of the edges and layer them on the page, slightly left so you don’t cover your holes. Adhere them with a dimensional adhesive. Add faux stitching around the edge of the yellow with your brown pen. Trim two strips of twine to fit across your photo mat. Tie two knotted pieces around these strips and glue them down using a liquid adhesive. When you add a photo here, crop it to fit just inside the yellow box. I will have photos added to all of the pages by the last day of the class; we haven’t been doing anything terribly festive the past few days unless you count croupy kids and trips to the doctor. ‘Tis the season, no doubt!

For the larger page, trim two pieces of Reindeer Games brown snowflake paper to 6 x 7. Stick them together, brown sides out, and use a scallop edge punch on the opposite side. My scallop trimmer is by Stampin’ Up, I am pretty sure Fiskars also makes a similar punch. (Actually, I know they have this really cool one with a scalloped edge with little holes in the scallops called ‘threading water’ - if anyone wants to put that in my stocking for Christmas. . .hey. . .that’d be cool). Ink the edges.

Trim the green Wrapping Paper paper to 6.5 x 4 3/4. Adhere it to the left, and punch your holes. Trim a piece of Yuletide to 5 x 1, adhere that so the edges come close to, but do not overlap your holes. Add a shorter strip of my favorite green snowflakes at 4 1/4 inches, and adhere that with a dimensional adhesive.

Add a small bird accent. I used twine, grunge board and two stamps on this little guy here. If you are having trouble coming up with your own birds, do not worry- tomorrow there will be a quick tutorial on how to piece the birds with lots of pictures. Just get your pages prepped and ready for them for now.

Both kids now have croup.

The good news is, Maggie is not nearly as severe as Jonas’ was, and they’ve both been to the doctor and gotten steroid shots to help the swelling. The bad news is: no one will let me sleep!

Maggie had a high fever yesterday and it broke in the late evening. She literally soaked my bedsheets and her blankie with sweat. I didn’t know one little kid could make that much perspiration.

I have been running the shower in the master bath on hot, while keeping the window open at night to let in the cold, moist, foggy air. I have created my own little weather system in my bedroom, with the two fronts hitting each other just over my bed. As irritating as it is to turn the shower off and on every half an hour throughout the night, it really did slow down their coughing and let them rest.

They are both well enough today to be quite contrary. Contrary children aren’t terribly sick children, so even though I’m fighting to get them down for naps (which I’d give a lot to be able to take), this is a good sign.