Hanukkah Layouts

Hanukkah is in full swing!  With so much going on and our house in complete shambles, Hanukkah has been a bit different for us this year.  Normally I do all my gift shopping ahead of time and place all the wrapped gifts in front of the fireplace and put up Hanukkah decorations so our house looks very festive.  This year I've had to wing it and buy and wrap gifts as I go each day.  Luckily the girls haven't minded.  And I normally make a couple nice Hanukkah dinners, but with all the kitchen stuff going on, I haven't been able to cook much.  But it's okay . . . we're together as a family, and that's all that matters.  And we've all been enjoying our Hanukkah . . . clutter, dust, and all!

Here are a few Hanukkah layouts that I made for Creating Keepsakes.  The journaling on this first reads: Every year we follow the established traditions of Hanukkah, like lighting the menorah, saying the prayers, playing dreidel, and opening presents on each of the eight nights. But in our family we have a very special Hanukkah tradition. Every night after we light the menorah, we turn up the volume on our favorite Hanukkah music, then Daddy, the girls and I all dance around the living room together. I’m not talking about mellow dancing. I’m talking about anything-goes-build-up-a-sweat-crazy-chicken dancing. This is definitely one of our favorite family traditions – one that we will hopefully continue for years to come. It’s usually just our little family of four, but if you happen to be invited to our house for Hanukkah dinner, you’d better bring your dancing shoes!!!

I used Shimmerz paints on the alphas and the flourish:

As seen in the November/December issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.
There, now you know our goofy little family secret. ;-) 

Lighting the menorah:

As seen in the November/December issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.
All the papers are Lily Bee, and I used shimmery, Shimmerz paints on the chipboard.
 

Playing dreidel (with more beautiful Lily Bee papers):

As seen in the November/December issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

As for the shoe template, I'm still working on it!  I thought it would be easy to just trace the cut-outs onto paper, but the perfectionist in me wants it to look pretty and perfect for you all.  So I spent hours yesterday trying to fix the template in Photoshop.  For the life of me I couldn't get the margins right.  It kept cutting off parts of my drawing.  But I *think* I finally got it!  Now I'm working on a tutorial and step-by-step photos.  Hopefully I'll have it all done soon!  

And one final little tidbit:  Shimmerz has extended their 30% off sale through December 20th!  

No coupon code is necessary.  Go take advantage of this great deal!!