I saw this grid frame* on Pinterest and immediately a light bulb flashed. This is the ideal frame for a photo progression collage. You know the ones – one frame, multiple holes, photos from repeating years to show growth and change. My parents have one with photos of all the houses that we have lived in. They also have one with my brother and me in our Halloween costumes and us on Santa’s lap. The frames get brought out every year with the holiday decorations and were always my favorite growing up.
I was so thrilled to find my own version in such a clean and simple style. I plan on filling it with Christmas photos each year starting this year. The original plan was to put photos from our first three years of marriage in but after some digging (in the blog archives), I found that my holiday photo taking skills have seriously lacked the past few years. (I blame Paul being deployed for one Christmas and me not doing Project Life the year before that.) Instead of framing some not great photos or having to leave 2011 blank, I’m just going to start with the Ellerie years and call it good.
To fill the empty slots in the meantime, I choose favorite Christmas papers – some are old from Hambly and American Crafts, others are from this year’s Studio Calico December Daily kit*. I cut my papers down to 4×4 and added just a few embellishments. It’s going to be fun to add photos each year, but I actually love how this looks as just a paper collage too.
It’s crazy to think about 16 years from now when this frame is full of photos and not patterned papers. So much can and will change. I get sentimental in advance just thinking about it. I’ll pull out that last paper, stick in a photo and shake my head over how fast time flew while similtaneously trying to pour myself a glass of wine and squeezing my teenager(s) to pieces.
*links to the frame & kits are affiliate links, which means if you purchase through them I recieve a small comission.
enJOY it 
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