::Christie:: Making Memories. Choosing Joy.: Christmas

I had such a sweet and special time with family the past two weeks ... even though one child had the flu the day the Sister Shopping Trip was planned. But there was no where I'd rather be than taking care of my baby. That just meant we each got to spend one-on-one time with Sarah. I'll cherish this family time forever.

I took alot of photos. It felt good to have the camera back out, capturing the magic and the relationships. I took over 400 photos, and still know that I missed a bunch. We didn't get a group shot of everyone. And why didn't I take a photo of Mom and Dad with all 3 grandsons? Next time, for sure!

When I saw Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride on AC Digitals site, I knew that I wanted to use the kit with some of my photos. I love the red and turquoise together.

It feels good to have one of our Christmas' documented. Now maybe I should start buying gifts for the rest of the family!

(Sorry for the display on some of the products I used not displaying...I was having trouble with getting InLinkz to work!)

Project Life Digital Templates	Crate Paper Sleigh Ride	Ali Edwards I Heart Stories
Ali Edwards Celebration of Life	Cathy Zielske Tiny Templates 4	Ali Edwards Sisters
Ali Edwards Merry Banners

InLinkz.com

Completed Christmas Pages!!

Today I'm sharing what I've starting doing for my Christmas album. In November I finally accepted the fact that I had done nothing in preserving Christmas memories for NINE years. And so I started the prep work for a long weekend I had coming up. I sent NINE years of Christmas memories to be printed. I didn't do a lot of editing on them. If they were noticably bad, I would edit them quickly, but for the most part I just sent as is. And while there are a few that I needed to redo, I'm happy that I got them done!

I pulled all of the Christmas supplies I had been collecting over the years (what? I always had plans to document Christmas!), purchased my Becky Higgin's Photo Pocket Pages and dividers, the album, and got to work. And while I didn't get nearly as much done that weekend as I'd hoped, I am three years closer to my goal of being caught up!

Enter Christmas 2002

I stamped with red ink the year on the page divider (currently out of stock). I also enlarged my favorite photo from the year, used a circle template to cut, and then stitched the page protector to fit.

On the back I used Christmas paper (sorry...it's old...I'll have to try to look up what company it is) and our Christmas card.

During my prep work I also printed on the blank journaling cards (currently out of stock) all kinds of word art, mostly from Ali Edwards. I love the look this added to the album.

I used this page protector (Design B), and just cut off the part I didn't need.

I also used a lot of Christmas paper inside the Photo Pocket Pages.

Here is another page protector I cut and just used what I needed. I believe this may have been one of the original Project Life protectors...yep, using up supplies from projects that were never completed!

And the other side:

The next page is another Page Protector cut in half. In case you couldn't tell, I really like the different layers of Page Protectors ;o)

Here's a 5x7 insert:

And the other side:

And the last page:

I believe one of the reasons I love using these Page Protectors so much is because, as Leah commented in this post, staring at 12x12 empty white pages just got to be too overwhelming for me. I felt like each page had to be unique, its own work of art. Now I'm happy that my PHOTOS are my work of art on each page ;o)

That was the first year I did using the protectors like this. I will assure you that I am almost done with 2011 and I may not have any inserts at all...but I will have at least 6 pages of photos with journaling that was completed while I still remembered what I wanted to!