Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Here in America we don't really celebrate St. Nicholas Day the way they do in other countries. In Poland, for instance, Sw. Mikolaj brings all the children their presents on December 6th rather than on Christmas.

Whether you call him St. Nicholas, Sw. Mikolaj, or Santa Claus... whether he comes on December 6th or on Christmas... he is loved by children (and adults) around the world. I'll bet you have some photos of yourself and/or your loved ones with the gift-giving dude. In honor of St. Nicholas Day, here's a great free digital scrapbooking kit so you can create wonderful layouts with your photos.

This kit was make by Moune? (sorry but the blog is in French and I can't find the designer's name). Anyway, go to her blog http://escrapade.canalblog.com/ and scroll down to 21 November 2007 and you'll see the download link right below the image.


Here's a page I created with this kit.



Your turn! Let's see what you can do with the St. Nicholas kit...

Now go get creative with your genealogy!

Jasia's Christmas Card

Here's the cover of my Christmas card for 2007. It was created using the November megakit at SAS.


The photo is of the Nativity at Sweetest Heart of Mary Church in Detroit, Michigan.

Another Place and Time: Holland 2

I wanted to let you know about a non-Christmas ethnic kit while I'm at it. It's a follow-up kit for Holland by Lia Holland which I featured previous on this blog. Lia did a great job with her first kit and now she's created another kit of Holland that is just as great if not better than the first!

You can download Lia's second kit here. Aren't these terrific kits?!!! No excuses now...

Go get creative with your genealogy!

Another Place and Time: Russian and Aussie Christmas

The digital scrapbooking blogs I follow are all in full swing with Christmas and Hanukkah kits being featured left and right. I've been on the lookout for any Christmas kits with an ethnic or era theme. Victorian Christmas kits are fairly common and I'll be posting some of them in an upcoming blog post. Other than that, there haven't been too many for me to share with you here. However, dear Kyra has created both Russian and Aussie themed Christmas kits that are just adorable!

Ded Moroz is the title of the first kit. You can see right off that this is the Russian one. It's a great little kit and you can download it here.



The next kit is called, An "Aussie" Christmas. This is large kit with lots of great embellishments. Makes me wish I had some Aussie ancestors! Check it out...

Don't ya just love it? You can download Kyra's Aussie Christmas kit here. Don't forget to leave a note of thanks for Kyra. She's one hard working designer!

Now go get creative with your genealogy!

Another Place and Time: Mayan and Oriental

Who's got Mayan ancestors? ...raise your hand.

I'm not seeing any hands go up. Hmm.

I guess there aren't many of you who have traced your family history back that far, eh? Well, if there should come a time when you do, I have just the digital scrapbooking kit for you!

Here's a kit called, Mayan Delights, by Lesley at the Nutkintails Designs blog. Don't you just love the bold, rich colors? Terrific! You can download this kit here.

If you have Asian ancestry, perhaps the Let's Go Oriental kit would be more to your liking. This wonderful kit was designed by Snowraven and is available here on her Snowraven's Cave blog.


I hope you enjoy these kits offered for free by these talented and generous designers. Don't forget to let them know you appreciate their efforts!

Now go get creative with your genealogy!

Time to Make Your Custom Christmas Gifts!

Only 35 more days until Christmas! I know you don't want to hear about it yet but the time will fly by quicker than you think. If you're planning to make custom gifts for Christmas the time to start is now! I know you may be thinking that a family history book or family cookbook would take too long to put together. Calendars... you can never find enough of the right photos? Here's an idea that's quick to create, inexpensive, very personal, and is sure to get you oohs and ahhhs.

Remember your loved one with a photo Christmas ornament!

Custom Christmas ornaments are a snap to create at CafePress. All you have to do is go the site, click on "Make Your Own Stuff", then "Fun Stuff", then scroll down till you see the ornaments (round or oval) and click on one. The web site will take you step-by-step through uploading your photo and ordering your ornaments. You can literally do this start to finish in less than 15 minutes! And the price can't be beat... $5.99 per ornament! (Plus a small charge for shipping.) These aren't tacky-looking plastic ornaments, they're ceramic. And they are beautiful.


These are the ones I created just last week. Aren't they lovely? I collect Christmas ornaments and I add new ones to my personal collection each year. So these I made for myself, not as gifts. These are remembrance ornaments. I lost my mother this year, and my cat and cousin last year. I created an ornament for each of them that will hang on my tree. On the backs of each, I wrote a short message in permanent marker. I've made some photo ornaments in the past inserting photos into photo-frame ornaments I bought at the store, only to find that the photos had faded by the next year. These photos ornaments won't do that!


Here are some custom Christmas ornament ideas for all you genealogists and family historians.

• If you attended a wedding this year and took pictures of the bride and groom (you did take your camera didn't you?) you can make the most unique and appreciated "First Christmas Together" ornament they will ever see! A great Christmas gift!
  


• How about set of 4 ornaments on a common theme for a friend... say the two of you together over the years. They will love it!
  


• If you have vintage family photos you could make a fabulous set of ornaments that will have visitors to your home asking, "Where ever did you get these?". I'm planning to do this with some of my period family photos... one from each decade.
  


• Got teenagers in your house? Surprise them with one of these in their Christmas stocking. They'll treasure a photo ornament of themselves with their boyfriend/girlfriend!
  


• Never know what to get for your elderly aunt, mother, father, neighbor? Make them a set of four ornaments featuring the faces of their loved ones! Even if they don't put up a Christmas tree they'll find a place to hang them!
  


• Even younger children and preteens will get a kick out of receiving a photo ornament with them and their BFF (best friend forever)!
  


• You could do a set of travel photos from places you've visited. You can enjoy them on your tree now and pass them down to your children or grandchildren as a remembrance of you in years to come!

The possibilities are endless. The pleasure they bring will be as well.

A bit of advice if you decide to create your own custom ornament. Keep to simple photos. Close-up portraits with solid backgrounds work very well. You can use an image that has a whole scene in it but people will have to lean in close to see what it is.

Ready to get started? Here's the place...

Now go get creative with your genealogy!

My Veteran Uncle

Here is a layout I did today to honor my uncle. Sigmund Lisowski was in the United States Air Corps during WWII. I used Sindiego's Lest We Forget kit (for U.S. veterans) along with a paper from digidiva's Autumn Essentials Papers (sorry, I don't have the link).