Hybrid Christmas Mini Album

Hi, everyone! Sarah here, and I have a confession to make. I’m a December Daily dropout. I’ve tried multiple years and something always happens, either I forget to take pictures, or if I do take pictures I give up midway through documenting. Every year I keep trying though (and probably will continue trying for years to come).

I tend to have an all or nothing type of personality, if I can’t do something to the fullest and best then why try at all. As I was browsing through my photos from December 2013, I noticed that there were huge gaps in my photos. I took a lot the first week and a bunch on Christmas day, but very few in between. I also noticed that even with these gaps, all of the photos I didn’t take, that there was still a story there to tell. Maybe it isn’t a complete story, but it’s still our story, and what I do have of it is still important.

I decided that I would make an album with the pictures and stories that I did have. I chose to use the new Memory Pockets Monthly collection that will be available in the store tonight (Nov. 27th, 2014). It’s full of awesome supplies that are just perfect for a project like this.

I decided that I would make the project as easy as possible. I used mostly goodies printed from the collection. The only embellishments I used were a date stamp and some baker’s twine. This made embellishing my pages go quicker just because I limited my choices. I began by printing all of my page backgrounds, most were 4×4 journaling cards that I enlarged to 6×6 or papers from the collection that I reduced in size. A few of the pages were made by placing journaling cards and papers together to give more of a collage effect. Then I chose all of the pictures that I wanted to use and printed and cut them. Next I decided on all of the embellishments that I was likely to use and print and cut those using my Silhouette. My first couple of pages didn’t even include photos. Just printed elements and journaling.

Next up are some of the treats we enjoy during the holidays.

While watching The Sound of Music isn’t necessarily a Christmas activity, I loved sharing this moment with my daughter and wanted to record it in this album.

We had our first major snowfall of the season. Unfortunately it kept us home. I also printed a few photos to use as backgrounds. I love this picture of the snow from our front door.

I did take a few pictures of some of the gifts that my daughter made to give as gifts. I was so proud of how hard she worked making presents for everyone.

Here are the tree pics. I actually love that I documented how imperfect we are. It took almost a week after we put the tree up to get lights on it, and a full week before it was decorated.

These next two pages record some of the new Christmas tree ornaments we added last year.

One of my favorite things about the holidays are the traditions. Every year we get our daughter new pjs. Of course I had to use the photo that she hammed it up about how excited she was (obviously after 12 years she knew what she was opening..lol).

This next page is just a quick shot of all of the presents that we opened Christmas morning and how much I love the types of presents we get each other.

Another one of my favorite Christmas traditions are the board games that always end up under the tree. It’s very rare that part of Christmas day celebration doesn’t include opening up a new game to play it.

The last two pages are about our family Christmas celebration a few days later. Another big picture as a background, this one of my daughter and all of her cousins. The second page is about my daughter’s big Christmas gift that we made her wait to open until we were around so many of the people that were in on the secret.

While this album isn’t the complete story of our December or even our Christmas, just a few minutes after I completed the album both my husband and my daughter flipped through it reliving the memories, and to me that’s what it’s all about.