You know what my favorite part of Holiday Faves is? Finally getting to put together my pages! Since it’s December 5th already, I’ve been feeling a little behind the eight ball in getting my album ready as I’ve been busy with the Holiday Faves Mini Class, but that’s exactly what I love about Holiday Faves. If I were doing a daily holiday album, I’d already be five days behind and stressed out but instead I know I’m exactly where I need to be. Love that.

This year for my hybrid mini album I’m using a Studio Calico Handbook 6×8 ring album I purchased last year (seen here) with a mix of single 6×8 page protectors and pocket page protectors to hold additional photos and elements.

Since this year is Ryan’s first Christmas, I’m also thinking I may reprint the digital pages as a photo book that would be easier for him to flip through when he gets older. Kind of depends on how my album comes together this year, but that’s one of the many perks of digital – duplicate copies without duplicating the work.

I admit this year I really struggled with choosing my digital scrapbooking supplies because there are SO many good ones out there. But I finally narrowed it down to these four kits from Zoe Pearn & Kristin Cronin-Barrow (all available at Sweet Shoppe Designs): Memorable: Christmas, A Homemade Christmas, Christmas Spirit: Comfort & Joy and Life Stories: Christmas (and a paper or two from A Fairy Tale Christmas: Noel).

Once I had my supplies chosen, I got to work putting my pages together using the Holiday Faves Mini Album templates. I also planned out the order of my pages using the interactive Holiday Faves planner (which is included as part of the Holiday Faves mini class). This is the first time I’ve planned out my album this way and I have to say – it’s was so much fun moving all the tiny thumbnails around! As you can see, I’ve left a lot of blank pages in the album – those will either be filled up with photos, paper scrapbooking pages or I’ll combine some of the pages back to back and remove the blank pages altogether if I don’t need them.

Since I haven’t printed out my digital pages yet (that’s on my to-do list for this weekend), I thought I’d share the digital versions of my Holiday Faves Mini Album pages with you. I love this stage of the process because it’s really when the templates start to come alive.

Since I’m planning to print out a copy of my album as a photo book once the album is done, I’m planning to add my journaling and photos to the Holiday Faves journal cards digitally rather than handwritten like I’ve done in the past. I’m also planning to add digital elements at the bottom of each card but I’m waiting to do that until I know how much journaling I’ll have on each card.

One new thing I’m trying this year is printing several of the accent pages as black text on white card stock. I’ve been loving the mix of black and white lately and I think it’ll add a nice dose of contrast and balance to all the patterned digital pages.

One thing I do know about my album is that the order of some of the pages will definitely change and evolve as I add photos and stories to the album. Plus I’m pretty sure I don’t need three pages with red polka dots in the last six pages. I plan to keep my interactive album planner updated as I create the album so when I go to print my photo book after Christmas, I’ll know exactly what order to put the pages.

And that’s a quick look at my foundation pages for my Holiday Faves Mini Album this year! I can’t wait to start capturing my Holiday Faves and adding actual photos and stories to the pages – that’s when the real fun begins.

Want to join in the Holiday Faves fun? Registration for Holiday Faves 2014 ends Monday, December 8th. Get all the details here.

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