A Note from Erin
Every Christmas morning, I set up the tripod and take our annual family picture in front of our Christmas tree, a tradition started when Michael and I were first married. We’re always in our pajamas and always take the photo after we’ve opened presents. I love seeing how our family has grown, what the girls are wearing or which toy they’re holding. This year, I decided to use them in a mini album. It’ll be an easy way to see how we’ve changed year-to-year and also be a great album to display each Christmas season.
When creating the mini-album, I wanted to keep it simple. I’m using an American Crafts 6x6 Modern Album in Chestnut. (Sadly, the last one in my album stash.) I’ve used the new Jillibean Soup Chestnut Soup collection plus some border punches and number stickers. I’m going to pre-make the pages for the next, oh, 18 years or so, just leaving a space for each year’s 4x6 photo. This way, all I have to do each year is stick down the picture and I’m done.
6 x 6 mini-album | materials cardstock, patterned paper (Jillibean Soup) + journaling spots (Jillibean Soup) + letter stickers (American Crafts) + punch (Fiskars) + fringe scissors (Martha Stewart) + ribbon (Jillibean Soup) + pop dots
One thing I try to make myself do is embrace the imperfections. While this has not yet extended to my handwriting, when I make mistakes I try to make the best of them. I also don’t dwell on perfection, so things are often a bit crooked or not quite lined up. I say it gives my page personality.
If you look at the title page, you might notice that the album title is printed on strips of cardstock that is adhered to the journaling spot. Recall that line above about not embracing my imperfect handwriting? I didn’t like the title I wrote, and since I only had one of this specific journaling spot, I had to figure out a way to salvage it. That way was printing my title on strips of cardstock and using them to cover up my handwriting. Is it perfect? Nope. But it works, and I still get to use the “tradition” definition journaling spot on my title page.
Here's another album idea that you can set up once and just add to year after year:
Each year, my mom gets me, my sister and her grandchildren Hallmark Keepsakes ornaments. The girls and I (and soon Ryan) pick out an ornament for Michael. I wanted a way to both keep track of the ornaments, whose is whose and all, plus have somewhere to showcase them. I wanted to keep each year’s ornaments together. It’s a neat way to see how our interests have changed, as each ornament represents something we care about or are interested in.
Merry Christmas!
A Note from Jody D-P
Now that our Santa Photo days are behind us, I had 13 years of the boys on Santa’s lap. Time to put them all in an album. Luckily I had jotted down a few notes each year about our visit, so this really helped when it came time to journal plus these are the little details that are so easy to forget.
Merry Christmas from Australia!
[Ed. note: The Write.Click.Scrapbook. team would like to congratulate Jody's son Oscar, who recently passed his Australian exams and will be admitted to university to study graphic design!]
A special thanks to Jillibean Soup and SEI for their generous sponsorship of our second annual WCS For the Holidays celebration!
