Welcome to my holiday book updates! Hoping to share a few times in December, usually in the afternoons, in addition to other daily posting. I've eased up in a big way on my minibook making. They just don't excite me the way they used to. But I have started (and more importantly finished) holiday books for the past two years and I really love them. I am always so glad that I started this project (and relieved to finish) on December 26th.
You might remember I do not do anything daily for this album. I just add photos and stuff when we do something Christmas-y or I have something relevant to add. Sometimes this means four pages about our holiday cards. Sometimes this means a week goes by without me adding to the book. Super low pressure.
I use one of my 4×6 holiday minibooks. Love the mix of patterns, shape cards and cardstock (considering I choose them, it would be a major fail if I didn't). I never have a plan going in and I often move around the pages and patterns depending on what works and what I need to share my photos.
Here's the start of my book with relevant information about how I put the pages together below.
I used gold thread to machine stitch a piece of green and white fabric to the back of the chipboard cover. I love a pop of pattern on the inside, so this is a common addition for me. I also love machine stitching, so you'll see a lot of that throughout the album. The white card comes with the frame to act as a bit of a "title page." I always hand-write something sappy in there.
No photo for the beginning so I just stamped a star a few times on the backside of that white card. To the diagonal card I added a photo of the Blaha fam taken the day after Thanksgiving and some text in cute little Evalicious journaling spots.
I am sort of obsessed with the look of them all in a row like that. Added the white zig zag stitching to finish it off.
Handwritten journaling on strips of paper is a major go to for me. Too easy. I like that I can move them around and play with location and if I mess up, it's on the strips, not the book. Those letter stamps are from Target this summer. I used paint and not ink on them and the impression isn't super clear (that paper is textured) but it works. Used the paper clip that comes with the book to hold a felt star in place.
Obviously I do a lot of journaling on labels too. Those Martha Stewart & Avery labels (sold at Staples) were probably my best purchase of 2012. Love the folded tabs and badges (also from Evalicious) as simple embellishments.
Pretty self explanatory. I glued down those small felt leaves and then just wrote on a diagonal. Sometimes I like my handwriting more on a diagonal than straight lines. Odd, but true.
Annnnd, an 8×6 photo. You'll see me do this often in the album. Love the look of a big photo cut in half. I added the zig zag stitching around the whole thing to sort of bring it together. Love the tree. Love the quilt. Mostly love that framed photo of Paul.
That's it so far. Simple, simple, right? (If you have questions on how I construct minibooks like this, check this post. It's about summer books but the concept is the exact same and you'll find videos with relevant information.) I like to add a few pages at a time so the next update will probably be Thursday afternoon.
Supplies used : holiday mixed paper book, Evalicious embellishments, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, Office Depot date stamp, American Crafts red Slickwriter, Zig Millennium pen, Paper Source star stamp, ColorBox chalk ink, Target letter stamps.
enJOY it 
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