Christmas gifts...handmade with love

When I found out this summer that my younger sister Lindsey was having a baby girl, I was excited. When I saw this 8x8 felt album by KI Memories on sale at Tuesday Morning, I scooped it up knowing I'd be able to use the PINK for a girl some day soon. On a later trip to Archiver's, they had 8x8 paper packs of a Christmas line by Fancy Pants that used A LOT OF PINK. When I saw them, I instantly thought of the little felt album I had at home and for the price, knew it was going home with me.

Finally, two days before Christmas, I STARTED the Christmas album for Reese. Surprisingly, I was able to finish it on time, too! I wasn't sure if Lindsey would add a photo of Reese to the cover or not, so I went ahead and inserted a piece of one of my favorite patterns into the front frame. The paper pack I had purchased included two sheets of each pattern. I took the style I was going to use for my title page and cut the trees out of one of the papers. I then adhered them on top of the same pattern with pop dots for my cover. The chipboard Thicker title and some bling accents finished the page.

The remainder of my pages were kept simple to allow for easy photo placement. I used my scallop punch on some pages, hand cut a few accents from the papers and adhered them with pop dots for dimension.

The pages here appear in no specific order...

I should probably apologize for the poor photographs. I took these pics right before I wrapped the album!

I even offered to add the photos to the album when Lindsey decides which ones she'd like to include in the album. Another neat thing is that the pages can be rearranged to fit her photos, too. I also made several ornaments this year (13 to be exact). I kept a set of the boys for me, but forgot to get photos of the others before I either gave them away or wrapped them up! To make the albums this year, I took mini acrylic albums by Clear Scraps that I purchased at Archiver's. There were six "pages" per album and they were already punched with a hole for the binder ring. I purchased the albums in Stars and Snowflake shapes. I took photos of the kids in both of our families and punched the photos with circle punches. I also punched out circles of patterned paper to back the photos. I wrote the year on the patterned paper.

On the side with the photo, I accented the shapes with silver and red Stickles and finished them off with a ribbon. They make a great keepsake.