Things are moving along on my Holiday Faves Mini album. I made a new cover, finished up Faves 3 & 4 and have started on Faves 5 & 6.

I’ll admit I wasn’t totally sold on how things were coming together at first but after this latest installment I’m really starting to love it. I think maybe it just wasn’t feeling Christmas-y enough yet?

As I mentioned before, the cover for my album at first was just a 5×7 card stock page I printed on the computer, like this:

But I’d always intended to put together a stronger cover (no way would the paper cover survive traveling) so last week I got to work putting together a new cover.

Since I didn’t have any chipboard on hand that was the size I needed, I decided to stop by our local Michael’s to see if I could find something that would work. My goal was to find something that would not only be strong enough to maintain it’s shape but that would be able to handle some paint as well. And lucky for me, I found something that was perfect!

It’s called Watercolor Board – it’s a sturdy 1/8″ thick piece of board that has a watercolor paper texture one side. It’s a lot like this although my board is acid-free. The piece I purchased was 16×20 inches so I used an exacto knife and ruler to cut two pieces that were each 5.5 x 7.75″ for my cover. Then I painted them each with a couple of coats of Making Memories paint in Cranberry.

Once I had the covers painted, I decided I wanted to add a little pizazz by adding some horizontal stripes. So I broke out my trusty Frog Tape (seriously, LOVE this stuff!), and taped out some stripes. On my first attempt I taped out 5 stripes which meant I ended up with really skinny painted stripes, so on my second attempt, I only taped out 3 stripes instead so the stripes would be thicker.

I knew I wanted the stripes to be subtle so rather than painting with another color, I painted the stripes using Making Memories Scrapbook Glaze in Pearl. I like the subtle shimmer it adds.

Here’s the look at the finished cover. I ended up using the thicker strips for the front cover and the thinner stripes for the back.

Here’s the back and front together. It’s a little mis-matched but since you’ll never see them together, I’m fine with it. (See, embracing imperfection is working!)

The painted stripes look a little uneven but it’s just because of the way the light was shining as I took the photo.

On the front, I added a cluster of elements. The star is from Jenni Bowlin which I painted with the MM Pearl Glaze as well and the green accent is from Making Memories. The chipboard numbers are from Basic Grey and I painted them with Making Memories paint in Funky Vintage – Sea Foam.

I love the subtle dimension the elements add to the album without it being too bulky to take with me. This is also the truest representation of the stripes. You can see how they’re shimmery but subtle. Love that.

Once I had the cover finished, I decided to go back to that bare spread from Fave #2 and add some photos. This is what it looked like sans photos:

Rather than adding photos on top of the pages I already added, I added a new photo page in between. On the right side are our photos from our dinner at Luke the night of the River Parade.

On the back of the photo page, I added photos from our trip to the Renegade Craft Fair. This was my second time attending the fair (you can read my recap from my first trip here) and I have to say, it is SO fun to shop Etsy-style shops in person. They are finished for the year but if you have a fair near you next year, I definitely recommend checking it out!

On the back of the Renegade Craft page, I added a 4×6 photo to the foundation page. Just a fun photo of a cup of hot chocolate but I loved the way the lights from the tree turned out in this photo. It feels very Christmas-y to me.

After the handwriting fiasco last week, I took the advice of my lovely commenters and went and bought a pack of one of my most favorite pens from college – the Uniball Gel RT Micro. I love these pens because they not only write smoothly but they don’t smear which when you’re a lefty becomes incredibly important (and surprisingly difficult to find). Plus I love the thinness of the tip. I still say my handwriting is a bit out of practice but at least it’s mostly readable this time, haha.

For Fave #3 in my album, I decided to feature some of the decorations around our house. On the left side I included a 5×7 photo Adam took of me putting the lights on the tree. And as an extra attempt at embracing my handwriting, I even wrote right on the photo with a Sharpie white paint pen. I’m no Ali Edwards, haha, but I still think it turned out pretty cute.

On the right side of the page I added one of the divided page protectors I’d sewn and included some Instax photos I took around the house. I love the vintage feel of the Instax photos. They remind me a lot of the photos my parents have from when I was a kid.

Another look at my awesome handwriting. I think the little hearts really make it, haha.

Here’s a look at the backside of the page protectors. To fill the pockets, I taped two Instax photos back to back. Then in the bottom corner, I added two pieces of the wrapping paper I used to decorate around the house.

On the right side of the spread, I created a photo collage in Photoshop of a bunch of our decorations. I have to say the photo of Yukon Cornelias and the Bumble might be my favorite. Although Bumble looks rather cute and happy considering he’s suppose to be abominable, haha.

A little detail shot of the page protector. Although I don’t bother to add eyelets to any of my paper pages, I did add them to the page protectors as the hole I punched with my Crop-o-dile was a bit messy. Just makes it a little easier to turn the page. You can also see the stitching a bit better here. I just did a simple straight stitch right through the page protector to make my pockets.

On the back of the photo collage is my Faves #3 journaling card complete with my handwriting. I love that depending on my mood, I’ll either write in a cursive-y all lower case font or in all caps like on this card.

To the right of the journaling card, I added a photo of our decorated Christmas tree. And yes, we do have an olive-y green wall in our family room but it’s not quite as bright as it looks in the photo, haha.

For Fave #4, I decided to talk about the weather, which considering the extreme heat we had for so long this year, this cooler weather has definitely become a fave of mine. I mean, I know I’m from California and all but it’s just wrong for it to still be 78 in December!

Originally I had this printed transparency in front of the journaling card but I decided to move it in front of the photo instead. I love that it kind of looks like falling snow or rain.

The photo on the right is a 3×5 photo of the day our thermostat finally showed a temperature below 40. I think that was the same night it actually went below freezing!

On the back of the foundation page, I added a photo of one of the trees outside our house. I loved the bright fall colors of the leaves, but it’s a good thing I took the photos when I did since all of the leaves have fallen off now. So sad.

On the right page is some more handwritten journaling. Woohoo, go me for embracing the handwritten imperfection. I’m rather liking the home-y touch it’s adding to my album.

And that’s where my Holiday Faves album is at so far! How’s your Holiday Faves (or December Daily) album coming along? Has anything surprised you about the process and/or your album? Feel free to share in the comments!

Psst…looking for some more Holiday Faves inspiration? I had the chance to chat with the lovely Melissa Shanhun as part of her December Daily Inspiration podcast and best of all it’s free to listen! You can check out my episode here. 

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Welcome to my Holiday Faves Album Update #1 – the Intro Page and Faves #1 & 2!

I’m not going to lie – this little Holiday Faves album and I got off to a bit of a rocky start this weekend, due to some printing issues and my inability to punch holes on the proper side of the page, haha.

But despite that little non-digital reality check, I’m feeling good about how things are coming together so far.

As I mentioned in my Foundation Pages post, on the backside of the cover page, I planned to add an intro page. Here’s a look at what I did:

Here’s a close-up look at the intro page. And no, my handwriting is not usually that neat, haha. I added the journaling onto the card in Photoshop using my custom handwriting font from Darcy Baldwin and then printed the entire card out at once. So it’s my handwriting but WAY more perfect, haha.

On the transparency page on the right side, I added one of the free downloads from Shimelle’s Journal Your Christmas class. On the front is a fill-in-the-blank card…

And on the back is a copy of the Christmas Manifesto from this year’s class. Sums up my thoughts on the season perfectly.

For Fave #1 in my album I went with Thanksgiving or you know, that holiday you have to get through to get to Christmas, haha.

On the left page I glued one of our extra Thanksgiving paper napkins down as a background and then added a turkey I cut out from the center of one of the paper plates.

(And of course my buying them had nothing to with the fact that I thought they’d look adorable in my album. That would be craziness, hehe.)

Here’s a close-up look at the turkey – isn’t he cute?

As you can see, the paper strip journaling says “so thankful to spend this holiday with you” which as much as I love that little turkey, would have made WAY more sense had that page been next to the page I’d originally intended, this lovely 5×7 photo of Adam…

But I suppose that’s what happens when you don’t pay close enough attention to which side of the page you should be punching holes on, haha.

I’ll admit, I was really really tempted to reprint the Faves #1 journaling card and 5×7 give thanks photo (I’d already glued them together) but in the end I decided to embrace it’s imperfectness figuring no one but me will know. Well and all of you now, haha.

A close up of the text I added onto the photo. I just added a simple stroke to my text and reduced the Fill of the text layer to 0.

Here’s the backside of the Thanksgiving photo collage page. On the transparency page on the right, I added a little 12 days of Christmas element from Making Memories.

For Fave #2, I decided to write about some of the local events we attended Thanksgiving weekend. The photo on the right is from downtown San Antonio, the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was SO crowded down there due to the Holiday River Parade but I loved the contrast of the Alamo next to the giant Christmas tree too much not to include it, crazy cotton candy seller and all.

On the backside of the Alamo page, I added some photos from the San Antonio River Parade, one of my favorite holiday-themed events here in San Antonio.

On the right side, I added a page from the River Parade program that I trimmed down and folded to fit my 5×7 size. On the back of the folded part of the page, I stapled one of our tickets from the parade using my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher (love that thing!).

Here’s a close-up of the ticket. I also punched two holes and added some baker’s twine to make it a little easier to open the flap.

Here’s a look at the whole page folded out. It wasn’t too long but just long enough that there was no way for me to trim it to fit without cutting out part of the poem.

A closer look at the page. I love the way they rewrote Twas the Night Before Christmas to be River Parade themed – it summed up the spirit of the event quite nicely.

On the back of the program page I included a map of the parade route as well as some journaling about that weekend’s events.

If you’re wondering how I added the titles and journaling to the two Faves cards, the answer is I ended up adding the text in Photoshop and then reprinting the cards, which was not my initial plan. My attempts at printing the titles directly onto the pre-printed cards didn’t work (I couldn’t get the spacing quite right) and my handwriting looked crazy messy due to the pen I used. Clearly I need to mess with this a little more because I really don’t want to reprint all 8 of the other Faves cards I’ve already printed.

On the last page of the Faves #2 section, I included two more pieces of memorabilia – one from the place we had dinner at after the parade and one from the Holiday Renegade Craft Fair we went to in Austin on that Saturday.

I mention both of these events in my journaling but I think I may end up adding another photo card in between these two pages. Right now it feels a bit unfinished.

What I have learned so far

So with 1/5th of my Holiday Faves Album completed (2 of 10 Faves), here are few of my take-aways so far:

1) It doesn’t have to be perfect. Really.

And I’m going to repeat this to myself 8 million times a day until I believe it.

2) It’s OK if I don’t tell every story.

Right now I’m aiming for about 2 Faves a week to keep me on track, which is much more do-able than a page a day. Yes it means I can’t share every little thing that happens but I’m ok with that.

3) I really really need to practice my handwriting.

And find a pen that I like. Because my first attempts at handwriting my journaling? Not pretty.

So that’s my adventures with my Holiday Faves Album so far. Anyone else super picky about the pens they use? (Adam will tell you horror stories of me browsing the pen aisle at Office Max in college. Maybe it’s a lefty thing?)

How is your own Holiday Album going? If you’ve finished any pages be sure to link me up in the comments so I can check them out. I’d love to see them!

PS…In case you missed it, I have a FREE Holiday Album Idea Book available for download in this post. It’s a little Christmas gift from my CT and I. : )

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Happy week-after-Thanksgiving everyone! Since Thanksgiving officially marks the start of the holiday season around here, I figured it was time to share my completed Holiday Faves Album foundation pages now that I have them all nice and pretty and printed.

As I mentioned before, I am using my Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album Templates to create a hybrid foundation for my 5×7 mini album which I’ll then be adding photos and journaling and memorabilia to the album as the holiday season goes along.

For my foundation pages, I mixed two fun digital kits: Tis the Season by Zoe Pearn and Kitschy Christmas by Jenn Barrette and Sahlin Studios. Since I wanted to keep my album fairly flat at this point (I know it’ll expand as the holiday season progresses), all of the elements I added onto my pages are digital. The only exception right now are the transparency pages I printed, some stitching and some pocket page protectors I added at the back.

My Holiday Faves Foundation Pages

Here’s a look at my cover page. Right now it’s just printed card stock but I plan on adding a thicker chipboard cover as well to make the album a bit more sturdy. This page will then become the first page inside the album.

Here’s a look at the back of the cover page:

Right now it’s blank but I plan to add an intro for the album here. On the right side, I added one of the transparencies I printed over an accent page. I haven’t entirely decided how I want to use the transparency pages so for I may end up moving them around as I add stuff to the album.

Because I printed all my pages on double-sided paper (I used Epson’s Premium Presentation Matte Double-Sided paper), I have quite a few blank pages and spreads in the album like this:

For now I’m choosing to leave them blank figuring I will either add photos, memorabilia or patterned paper to them as I put the album together, or if I end up not needing those pages, I can simply glue the two blanks together to make a single page. Plus this gives me more flexibility if I end up needing to move pages around.

Here’s a look at one of the journaling spreads. I chose to leave the right page blank figuring I will likely add a photo/photos to it.

Here’s a look at one of the foundation-accent page spreads. I plan to add a smaller photo on the left page (either a 4×6 photo or some 2×3-ish Instax photos) and leave the right side as is.

It’s a little hard to tell in this photo but I also added some real stitching onto left page. So easy to do – I just ran the paper right through my sewing machine. I was worried it might be a little odd having digital stitching on the right page (the circles) and real stitching on the left but I actually really like the extra dimension the real stitching adds to the page.

Another look at one of the ink-jet transparency pages. Right now I have the majority of the transparency pages placed in front of the journaling cards with the idea that I’ll add a 5×7 photo in there, but I may end up moving them depending on how the album comes together.

At the end of the album, I included some divided page protectors that I plan to use as holders for some of my Instax photos. Since I’m not sure where I want to use them quite yet, I’m leaving them in the back of the album and will move them once I’m ready to use them.

If you’re wondering how I made the page protectors, the one on the left is an American Crafts 8.5×11 inch divided page protector that I trimmed down to 5×7 – I got lucky that the pocket size worked for the size I needed.

The two page protectors on the right side are both 6×12 inch American Crafts page protectors that I trimmed down to 5×7 and then stitched to create four pockets sized for my Instax photos (which are around 2×3 inches).

Here’s a look at all of the pages in my album:

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A Little Creative Team Inspiration

And if you’re wondering how the NettioDesigns Team Awesome is using the Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album Templates, here’s a peek at what some of the lovely ladies are up to…

Aly

 Brynn Marie

Crystal

Sherly

 

MissKim (See more on her blog here)

Inga (See more on her blog here)

I have to say I’m totally loving seeing all the different takes on these albums. It’ll be so fun to see the albums come together over the holiday season!

So what about you? Do you have your Holiday/December Daily album foundation pages all ready to go? Are you getting excited to start documenting yet? I’d love to see what you’re up to so feel free to link me up in the comments!

Psst…want to make your own Holiday Faves-style album? Pick up the Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album Templates here.

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