Scrapping Non-Christmas Holiday Traditions

Every year at this time, the scrapbook industry brings out a plethora of new products focused on scrapping the Christmas holiday. Scrappers worldwide create a wide variety of layouts documenting their holiday traditions. However, those of us who do not celebrate Christmas face a different challenge. Many of us have other holiday traditions such as Hanukkah or Kwanzaa and would like to scrap these memories in a variety of ways as well. The challenge we face is that there are so few products available that focus on these other traditions. If, like me, you celebrate a tradition other than Christmas and would like to scrap it every year with variety, here are some suggestions that may help.

Invest in a nice stamp set

Whether you like stamping or not, stamps are a great investment for a topic that you scrap every year. You can use them in a variety of ways so that the results are different from year to year. Stamps can be used on solid cardstock to create patterned paper. They can also be used to create embellishments. By varying the colors and by using different techniques to color the stamps in, you can create variety with a single stamp set. The stamps will also come in handy for making holiday cards and gift tags.

Check into children's craft items

Even if there are not many scrapbooking items available for your traditions, chances are there are still items for children's crafts, often available at inexpensive prices. By being creative, you may discover some great scrapping options.

In my case, I have acquired Hebrew letter stencils. In this layout,

I traced inside the stencils with a black pen and filled the letters in with ink and a water brush. In this case, I used the Hebrew for the letters on the sides of the dreidel and made my title in transliteration. I frequently use a metallic pen with the stencils, and use them in a variety of ways including spelling out entire titles. (I don't actually speak Hebrew but I do have the ability to look up the spelling of a holiday or religious item.) I like to use the Hebrew letters because they give a special feel to the layout even if the rest of it is plain cardstock like this one.

Use unique color schemes

I often use royal blue with either gold or silver for my holiday layouts. To me, this color scheme resembles Hanukkah. Since I don't tend to use this color scheme at other times during the year, it gives these layouts a unique feel within my scrapbooks. If you can't find paper and embellishments that match your traditions, try sticking to colors that you associate with these traditions.

Look for adjacencies

While people have been known to dream of a white Christmas, my ancestors in the Middle East were certainly not thinking about snow in the desert. However, where I live, it does snow in December, and after much consideration, I decided that it was appropriate to use snow paper for an occasional Hanukkah layout, as I did here:

Think about things that are related to your holiday traditions that are more mainstream and look for scrapbooking products that fit them. These adjacencies may be seasonal or could revolve around food or other aspects of your tradition. As it did for me with the snow, this may require you to force yourself to expand your concept of your tradition. Use this technique carefully; don't push your comfort zone with your traditions too far just to create a scrapbook page.

Buy products whenever you see them

I don't care if it's mid-July and all you can think about is the pool, if you see a sheet of patterned paper for sale that you like and that fits your unique tradition, buy it. You know you'll use it eventually, and come holiday time you'll be glad you have it.

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