It’s Time for December Daily Nettio-Style, Round 2

POSTED ON November 17, 2012 IN Announcements, Holiday Faves, Holiday Faves 2012, Shop News & Releases

Wow, November is half already half over! The holiday season will be here before we know which means it’s time for one of the scrapbooking projects I most look forward to every year: December Daily.

Back in 2010, I created a 7×9 mixed-sized paper mini book and I have to say I LOVED it. Of all the scrapbooking projects and layouts I completed in 2010, my December Daily album is the one I never stopped thinking about.

There is just something magical about putting together the foundation of the album ahead of time and then seeing it fill up with memories over the course of the holiday season.

But in thinking about my December Daily plan for 2011, I realized there were a few things about the album that didn’t work for me: the daily-ness of December Daily, the mixed-sized pages and the lack of any digital goodness.

So last year I came up with a new plan for my not-so-daily December Daily mini book which I lovingly called the Holiday Faves. It was a 5×7 hybrid mini album complete with foundation pages which I printed and then filled up with goodness over the Holiday season.

And I have to admit, I may have done a happy dance or two in excitement over it because it worked out even better than I’d hoped.

(You can find an entire video of my 2011 Holiday Faves album here.)

Which brings me to today’s Sweet Shoppe Saturday New Release!

The Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album Templates Vol. 2

Yes, the Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album templates are back with an all-new more awesome design combined with the same hybrid 5×7-inch tree-saving style!

And I could not be more excited. Seriously, lots of oh-so-excited (and occasionally awkward, I’m sure) happy dances going on over here, haha. Especially knowing just how well the Holiday Faves worked out for me last year.

You can read about all the details of the Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album Templates here at Sweet Shoppe Designs but here are a few specific things I want to point out:

The mini album templates are 5×7 inches which for me is the perfect balance of size and at-home printability since you can print 2 5×7 pages on a single 8.5×11 pages. Woohoo for saving trees!
I designed the templates to be a starting point for building your Holiday album foundations pages so I kept the design simple so you can dress them up or down depending on your personal style. The goal is to let your photos, memorabilia and memories take center stage.
I will be going with a Holiday Faves theme for my album with my plan being to document my top ten favorite things from this Holiday season (with the backup plan being if I only get to say, 5, it’ll be ok). But if you’re not a Faves fiend like I am, haha, I also included a “Holiday Memories” cover and journaling option as well a list of the fonts I used so you can customize your own.
One thing I missed from December Daily last year was capturing a few of the more broad holiday themes, like decorations, music, etc so this year I’ve included 8 additional more general holiday-themed journaling cards for documenting those stories.

What’s really cool about these templates is not only can you use these mini album templates for creating your own Holiday album but I will be using them to create my own album as well.

And starting next week here on the blog, I will be sharing more details on how I’m personally using these templates to create the foundation for my own Holiday Faves album and of course throughout December I’ll be showing how it all comes together as well. It’s going to be fun so I hope you’ll come scrap along with me!

The Holiday Faves 5×7 Mini Album Templates Vol. 2 are available now at Sweet Shoppe Designs and are 20% off thru Saturday, November 17th.

So now’s a great time to get yourself ready to scrap your holiday heart out.

How Can Customers Lower Their Remedy Costs

30 Days of Lists: Days 6-11

POSTED ON March 13, 2012 IN 30 Days of Lists

The 30 Days of Lists list-mania continues! Here’s a look at my 5×5-inch mini album pages for days 6-11. Have to say, I am totally loving this mini format – SO quick and easy to put the pages together every day!

Day 6: Things To Collect

Day 7: I Am Inspired By…

Day 8: I Need To Say No To…

Day 9: Happy Places

Day 10: Today Was Awesome Because…

Day 11: Right Now I Am…

All papers and elements are from the Happiness is… digital scrapbooking kit by Zoe Pearn. Fonts are Bebas and DJB 4 Lynnette.

Want to know my trick for getting my digital tape to look so realistic? Check out this video tutorial by Peppermint of One Little Bird Designs.

Psst…Want to know what this whole 30 Days of Lists is all about? Check out 30 Days of Lists, Part 1 here.

How Can Customers Lower Their Remedy Costs

30 Days of Lists: March 2012

POSTED ON March 6, 2012 IN 30 Days of Lists

My apologies in advance to the poor soul who requested “less lists” in my 1st Anniversary survey…because I’m afraid the list craziness is just beginning my friend, hehe.

If you’ve been around NettioDesigns for long enough, it’ll probably come as no surprise to you that I LOVE lists. Between my Faves series, my 28 at 28 list and numerous other list-inspired layouts I’ve done over the years, it’s pretty safe to say lists are a have of mine.

I mean, does it get any easier storytelling-wise than jotting down a few random thoughts in list form? Not in my book.

Which is why when I heard I could get 30 days of list-inspired prompts in March for just $8, I jumped at the chance…

30 Days of Lists: March

If you haven’t heard of 30 Days of Lists before, it’s a month-long challenge hosted by two lovely ladies: Amy of Lemon & Raspberry and Kam of Campfire Chic.

Each day on the private 30 Days of Lists blog, they post a new list-inspired prompt. You then create your own list based on that prompt and the great thing is anything goes – your list can be as artsy or simple as you want. There are people creating mini books and then there are others writing out their lists on post-its or on their blog. It’s so fun!

You can see a bunch of examples in the 30 Days of Lists Flickr gallery.

My 30 Days of Lists Plan

After all the fun I had with my Holiday Faves mini album, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to tackle another mini album.

So I decided to create my lists as 5×5-inch digital pages which at the end of the month I’ll have printed at Persnickety Prints and then insert into this adorable mini album I made…

The album is by Maya Road, all the letter stickers are by American Crafts and the fabric is something I picked up forever ago in Denver and have been dying to find a good reason to use.

Here’s a look at the entire album. The spine is painted with Cranberry paint by Making Memories.

For my digital list pages, I’m using this super adorable Happiness is… kit by Zoe Pearn:

This kit includes a bunch of journaling cards and bits of tape which I knew would be perfect for this project.

My Lists: Days 1-5

Since today is Day 6, here’s a look at my Day 1-5 lists:

Day 1: Challenges To Accept

Day 2: This Month’s Goals

Day 3: My Perfect Weekend Recipe

Day 4: Things I’m Putting Off ‘Til Tomorrow

Day 5: Words To Live By

My Process in Photoshop

And for all you curious types like me, here’s a peek into how I’m managing it all in Photoshop:

To keep things simple, I’m using the same basic design and just alternating between left and right pages and swapping out new papers and elements.

Right now I’m using a single file for all my pages (if it gets too big, I’ll just split it up). Each page is grouped and I’ve created eight versions of the pages, one left & one right that I’m using as templates. To create my page, I just duplicate the group of the list style I want and add in my journaling, papers and accent.

I may turn some of these lists into digital scrapbooking layouts eventually, but for now I’m loving this project, especially since it only takes a few minutes to put together my list each day. I can’t wait to see all 30 lists together!

Now It’s Your Turn

So what about you? Anyone else playing along with 30 Days of Lists? Anyone have any fun projects they’re working on for this month? Let me know in the comments!

Can I take Levitra if I am taking other remedies at the same time

Holiday Faves Mini Album | How to Add a Fabric Spine & My Final Thoughts on this Project

POSTED ON January 13, 2012 IN Holiday Faves, Holiday Faves 2011

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post I have finished my Holiday Faves 2011 Mini Album. Woohoo!

My final task for finishing the album was to add a fabric covered spine to the mini book. I had seen this tutorial forever ago on Ali Edwards site but I hadn’t had a chance to try it out. Since the fabric spine has to be added after the album is finished, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

If you want to give it a try yourself, I recommend following the tutorial linked above since she includes more detailed directions, but below is how I did it. Excuse the less-than-stunning photos. I was doing this at night and the overhead light in our office is wacky, haha.

How to Add a Fabric Spine to your Mini Album

Materials you’ll need:

Book cloth tape (like this) – I bought mine at Paper Source. It’s 3″ wide.
Patterned paper for the inside of your album
Super Tacky Tape – I bought mine at Michael’s.
A glue stick or tape runner

Step 1: Measure the thickness of your completed mini album. Mine was 2″ thick at the widest part.

Step 2: Cut a strip of book cloth tape a little longer than the height of your album.

Step 3: Trim the width of the book cloth tape to be equal to the width of the album, plus 1/2″. So I trimmed mine my 3″ tape down to 2.5″ (2″+ 1/2″=2.5″) using my paper trimmer. I really expected this not to work at all but it was surprisingly easy to cut with the trimmer – only took one pass!

Step 4: Once you have the book cloth tape trimmed to the proper size, lay the tape flat, fabric side facing up and place your front and back covers overlapping the tape a 1/4″ in on each side.

The space between the covers should equal the thickness of your album from Step 1. I used a cutting mat and ruler to help line everything up.

Now we’re going to attach the covers to the fabric side of the book cloth tape.

Step 5: Flip one of your covers over and attach a small strip of Super Tacky Tape along the edge of the cover.

Step 6: Remove the plastic protector from the tape, flip your album back over so the right side is facing up and attach it to the book cloth tape 1/4″ from the edge. To help keep it lined up, I placed a metal ruler at 1/4″ and line my cover up with it as I pressed down to stick the tape.

Once you’re done repeat steps 5 & 6 for the other half of your cover.

Now that we have the two covers attached to the front of the book cloth tape, we’re going to add the paper on the inside of the cover.

The directions in the tutorial are designed for you to use one big sheet of paper to cover the entire inside of the album but since I didn’t have a big enough sheet of paper on hand, I cut two papers for the sides and a third for the spine. This will make more sense in a minute.

Step 7: Flip your album over so the inside of the covers are shown.

Step 8: Measure and trim to size your papers for inside the cover. If you’re following the tutorial, you’ll only have one sheet of paper but in my case I had three. Since I wanted a little of the red painted album to show, I trimmed my inside cover papers to 5″ x 7.25″ and my spine paper to 2.5″ (the width of the book cloth tape) x 7.75″ (the height of my mini album covers).

Step 9: Remove the paper backing off the back of the book cloth tape so the sticky back is exposed.

Step 10: Add glue using a glue stick or tape runner to the back of your paper and attach it to the inside cover of the album. I didn’t bother measuring for this step, I just eyeballed where I wanted to paper.

It’ll now look like this:

If you used one sheet of paper for the inside, you’re inside cover should be done. Skip ahead to Step 14. If you’re using multiple papers like I am continue to step 11.

Step 11: Repeat Step 10 for the right hand inside paper so it looks like this:

Now we’re going to add the third paper to cover the inside of our fabric spine.

Step 12: Grab the strip of paper you trimmed for the inside spine, flip it over so the backside is facing up and add a small strip of glue to each edge using a glue stick or tape runner. This will make sure the paper sticks to the areas that don’t touch the sticky book cloth tape backing.

Step 13: Flip the inside spine paper over and attach it down onto the sticky backing of the book cloth tape. Smooth it down firmly to make sure all of the paper gets attached to the backing. You want to make sure this paper is nice and attached since it’ll get moved every time you open and close the mini album.

Step 14: Once your glue is nice and dry (I let mine sit for a little bit to be sure), fold in the front and back covers one at a time to make a nice crease on the spine. The tutorial recommends scoring it but since I don’t have a scoring tool, I just used a ruler and folded it using that as a guide. I wanted my spine to be more rounded so I was fine with now having a super sharp crease.

Step 15: Punch holes for where you want the binder rings to go through. Since I already punched holes in my covers when I originally put my album together, I used a screw (a nail would work too) to poke through the paper on the inside of the album. It’s not the cleanest hole ever but since I didn’t have a hole punch that could reach the holes, it worked well enough.

Here’s what the album cover looked like with the fabric spine attached and the holes in place:

And here’s what the fabric spine looks like with the rings added back in. Pretty, no?

The fabric spine from the other direction. You can see how the spine is rounded:

I really love the way it finishes off the album. It looks like a real little book now.

And that’s my final completed version of my Holiday Faves 2011 Mini Album!

Since I know it’s kind of hard to see how it flows all together in the blog post photos, I put together a 1 minute little video of all the pages together:

Holiday Faves Mini Album 2011 from Lynnette Penacho on Vimeo.

My Final Thoughts On My 2011 Holiday Faves Mini Album

So now that I’m officially finished with this album, here are a few of my final thoughts on this project:

1) WOOOHOOO, I’M FINISHED!!!!!!

Umm *ahem* *finishes happy dance* *composes self*

Sorry about that, but after 3 failed attempts at December Daily, I’m really excited that I actually finished this album this year! Which brings me to thought #2…

2) Holiday Faves is WAY easier than December Daily

I have no doubt THIS is the reason I finished this year. As much as I love the concept of December Daily and the numbers and all that jazz, it’s just not realistic for me to do keep up with a page a day and to be honest, I don’t want to commit to that amount of work in December. I want to be able to actually enjoy the holidays and not be hunkered down in my scrap room every night, trying to stay caught up.

That’s what I loved about this project. I was able to include things when I felt like it but not worry about capturing something each and every day.

3) I LOVED this mini album size

In my previous attempts at December Daily, I had done an 8×8-inch album and a 7×9-inch album so I was a little nervous that 5×7 might end up seeming too small.

But I actually think it was the perfect size. Not too big to carry around but still big enough to include memorabilia and photos. I especially loved the full size 5×7 photos – they’re stunning. Plus I loved being able to fit two photos/pages onto one sheet of paper. Yay for saving trees!

And as much as I love the mix and match look of some albums, I have to admit, keeping all the pages the same size definitely makes the album a whole lot simpler to put together.

My Top Tips for Finishing a Holiday Album

If you’re wondering what my top tips for finishing a December Holiday album it would these two:

1) Be honest with yourself about what you can actually get done.

I know, we all love projects. Especially ambitious projects like December Daily, A Week In the Life and Project Life.

But you really need to really ask yourself whether a project fits into your life, and if it doesn’t, figure out a solution that works for you. Don’t be afraid to go against what everyone else is doing if it’s what’s best for you. Doing something different is better than stressing yourself out or doing nothing at all.

2) Start with a plan but keep it flexible.

Starting December with the focus and foundation of your album ready to go is key. Having a clear idea in your head of how much and what exactly you want to capture makes the documentation process so much easier because it allows you to say free yourself from feeling like you need to capture every.little.thing.

And if you find you have to adapt your plan a little along the way, it is ok. Don’t be afraid to let things go or change things up when something doesn’t work out like you had planned. Again, doing something different is better than doing nothing at all.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed the 2011 Holiday Faves mini album adventure! I absolutely love how it came out! I did want to send an extra special thank you to everyone who left a comment or sent me a nice thought during this process. I know having people waiting to see what I was up to definitely kept me on track. : )

And with that it’s time to wrap up and move on to some new and exciting projects! Weeee, I can hardly wait!

Psst…if you haven’t shared your Holiday Faves or December Daily album in the comments, feel free to do so! I’d love to see what you’ve done!

Psssst…looking for more Holiday Faves inspiration? Check out all my Holiday Faves posts here.

Benefits Of Using Canadian Pharmacy

Holiday Faves Album | Faves 5-10

POSTED ON January 12, 2012 IN Holiday Faves, Holiday Faves 2011

Woohoo, I have done it! I have finished my Holiday Faves mini album.

That’s right, stick a fork in this baby because it is done.

And I’m quite thrilled with how it turned out!

When we left off at the end of my last Holiday Faves update in December, I had completed Faves 1-4 and was working on 5 & 6. I had been hoping to squeeze one more update in before we left for two weeks of holiday vacation bliss on December 19th, but Adam seemed to think packing was more important than me working on my album.

I know the nerve, right?

So instead I’ve got a nice big update for you today!

As a nice little recap, here are the Holiday Faves I’ve shared so far:

Thanksgiving
Local Events
Holiday Decorations
December Weather

Holiday Fave #5

For Holiday Fave #5 I chose our anniversary as we celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on December 10th. Hard to believe it’s been 6 years already!

To celebrate our anniversary, we headed up to Austin for the weekend. Since I had a couple of extra memorabilia type items from our trip I wanted to include, I added them directly onto the foundation page:

The top card is a business card from the restaurant where we had dinner and underneath that is a post-it from the Westin where we stayed. We love staying at the Westin – their bedding is like sleeping on a cloud, plus they do nice things for anniversaries. Last year we got rose petals and chocolate-covered strawberries, this year it was wedding balloons, chocolate and wine.

On the right is an anniversary card my mom sent us. I totally agree that the 6 years have flown by!

The drawing on the front of the card is so cute. I especially love that it has “adventure” on it since that was my One Little Word in 2010 and ’11.

The back of the card and the accent page. The card is just added in between the foundation page and the accent page.

On the back of the accent page, I added a photo of Adam and I. We tried to do the whole mirror photo thing but it totally didn’t work (how do you get it to focus??) so this was a quick one we took using the remote on our way out to dinner.

I printed some text directly on the photo and then added a 6 using a foam alpha from American Crafts. Although I think I’ve officially decided I don’t love these AC foam alphas – they always go wonky on me when I try to stick them down. But I like the subtle dimension it adds to the page.

On the right side behind the text overlay is a photo of the Zilker Park Holiday tree in Austin. The picture really doesn’t do it justice because it’s seriously huge – like 150 feet tall! It’s made of all light strings and if you stand in the middle and spin around it makes crazy patterns. There were a bunch of people doing that and it was quite hilarious to watch.

On the back of the tree photo, I added a photo collage of our anniversary day’s events. It was a definitely a day of food bliss as we had Italian at Asti for dinner and then the Melting Pot for dessert. It was delish but we were definitely stuffed by the end of the night!

Christmas Highlights

In between Faves 5 & 6, I added some photos from our pre-Christmas Christmas. Since we were traveling to California for Christmas, we decided to celebrate early rather than lugging all our own gifts with us on the plane. Believe me we had enough stuff, like Adam’s ski boots, going with us as it was!

On left side I printed a journaling card from Cathy Zielske and wrote some bits about our early Christmas.

At the bottom of the card I added a scallop trim from Ormulu and stapled a little accent and word sticker from Making Memories.

In between the pages, I added a coffee sleeve from Panera. I thought the wording seemed fitting for the day.

As I was putting the book together, I did end up moving some of the printed transparencies. This numbers in this one seemed to fit better with our early-25th celebration. I added a little 25 chipboard bit from Making Memories onto it.

Behind the transparency I added another photo collage from the day. I really love the 5×7 photo collage pages because the photos aren’t too small but it’s simpler to print out than multiple photos at once. So glad I included all those photo-page templates in the mini album set because they really came in handy, hehe.

It was a good day filled with hot chocolate, Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls (so amazing!) and yes a Toy Story puzzle. (Adam bought me Toy Story legos last year so it’s kind of a thing around here, hehe.) Although I have to say it didn’t take us very long to put together that 100 piece puzzle, haha.

Holiday Fave #6

For Holiday Fave #6, I kept things simple and documented our favorite holiday movies.

This year we watched Meet Me in St Louis which I love but Adam had never seen. It’s not specifically a Christmas movie per-se but it’s hard not to feel Christmas-y when Judy Garland starts singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

And of course we watched our other fave, Elf! I’m not always a Will Ferrell fan but oh how I love that movie.

Travel Highlights

On the accent page on the back of the movie image, I added a few items from our flight out to California. Every time I fly Southwest I always save the drink napkins planning to use the map on them but this is the first time I’ve actually done it and I love how it came out.

*A tip when dealing with napkins, take the napkin apart (they usually have a couple of layers), glue the top image layer onto a piece of card stock and then glue the card stock into the book. If you don’t, the napkin tends to fall apart (learned that the hard way when dealing with the turkey napkin for Holiday Fave #1, haha)

Here’s a closer look at the map. I used an American Crafts Slick Writer and a ruler to draw our route and then added some word strips for the places we went. The Southwest tag was an extra luggage tag I grabbed at the airport. All of the journaling strips are from October Afternoon.

Holiday Fave #7

Cookie baking is a huge deal with my mom’s side of the family down in Southern California (although my aunt and uncle refer to it as “Cookie Gulag” which I think scared Adam a bit, haha), so for Holiday Fave #7, I chose Cookie Time as it’s not Christmas without cookies!

We were lucky enough to be there for cookie decorating day which in my opinion is the best day:

My sister with one of her super adorable cookies:

Holiday Fave #8

Adam and I ended up being in California for a few days before the rest of the family arrived so on our second day there, we decided to make an impromptu trip to Disneyland, which is Holiday Fave #8. Yeah, it was tough being in California for Christmas, haha.

On the foundation and accent spread, I added our tickets and the map from our day. I always love saving the Disney maps since things change every so often around there.

The back of the map and accent page:

Adam and I in front of the castle. This photo must have been a Christmas miracle because it’s the first time I’ve managed to hand over my DSLR and not get a blurry photo back. So a big thank you to the random guy who offered to take our photo! This shot came out way better than the hold-the-camera-out-try-not-to-squint-but-still-get-the-castle-in-the-background photo I was trying to take would have.

On the right is the giant Disneyland tree. I love Disney at Christmas, it’s so pretty and festive. Crazy crowded but the pretty and festive makes up for it. I’ve been several times at the holidays before but this was Adam’s first Disney Christmas trip.

On the back of the tree photo I added another photo collage. (Are we sensing a theme here?) I still feel a little bad about eating that gingerbread man. He was almost too adorable to eat. Almost.

Holiday Fave #9

After spending several days with my mom’s side of the family out by the coast, the fam and I headed out towards the desert where my 94 year-old grandma lives. The town where my dad grew up isn’t the most exciting place ever but it was Adam’s first trip out there so we had to show him some local culture, which on this trip included the local Holiday Lights Tour, which is Holiday Fave #9.

It’s hard to tell in this photo but the display in that bottom photo had a working ski lift full of super cute little animals and fake snow that would blow when you parked near the display. Considering the size of the town it was actually rather impressive!

Here’s the Holiday Faves #9 journaling card. On the right side is the holiday lights tour map from the local paper.

I’d say it’s a sure sign you’re in an old school town when they include a map of the lights tour in the local paper. It was really fun though and we saw some parts of town we had never seen before. We only did part of the tour and we were still gone for almost 2 hours.

On the foundation page on the back of the map page, I kept things simple and added a Christmas tag from Ormulu.

Holiday Fave #10

And finally we’re at the very final Holiday Fave, #10!

For Holiday Fave #10, I went with Family Time as getting to see both sides of my family was my favorite part of the holiday. When you live so far away all the time, it’s nice to get to spend time with everyone. Since Adam has been gone so often, this was the first time a lot of them had seen him since our wedding!

In addition to whale watching, cookie baking and decorating, family time included hopscotch with the cousins:

On the printed transparency I added a little holiday accent by Making Memories:

My final journaling card. I wasn’t so sure at first about the handwritten nature of the cards but it was definitely nice to be able to have my journaling completed as the month went on. Much better than trying to remember everything all at once.

Adam and I also got in on some bowling action. And yes the weather was gorgeous in California. We didn’t even need coats most of the time!

In between the pages I added a card from my aunt and uncle:

And as my final photo entry, another collage, this time of all the family. It was a fun time seeing everyone!

The final accent page and back cover:

And that’s the end of my Holiday Faves mini album! Since this post is already crazy long, I’ll be back tomorrow to share a little bit more about how I finished up the cover binding and my final thoughts on this project overall.

Now It’s Your Turn

In the meantime, I’d love to hear how things went for you!

How did your holiday scrapbooking go? Did you finish up your Holiday Faves or December Daily album?

Let me know in the comments!

Psst…looking for more Holiday Faves Mini Album goodness? Check out all of the Holiday Faves posts right here.

How Can Customers Lower Their Remedy Costs

Holiday Faves Album | New Cover and Faves 3 & 4

POSTED ON December 14, 2011 IN Holiday Faves, Holiday Faves 2011

Things are moving along on my Holiday Faves Mini album. I made a new cover, finished up Faves 3 & 4 and have started on Faves 5 & 6.

I’ll admit I wasn’t totally sold on how things were coming together at first but after this latest installment I’m really starting to love it. I think maybe it just wasn’t feeling Christmas-y enough yet?

As I mentioned before, the cover for my album at first was just a 5×7 card stock page I printed on the computer, like this:

But I’d always intended to put together a stronger cover (no way would the paper cover survive traveling) so last week I got to work putting together a new cover.

Since I didn’t have any chipboard on hand that was the size I needed, I decided to stop by our local Michael’s to see if I could find something that would work. My goal was to find something that would not only be strong enough to maintain it’s shape but that would be able to handle some paint as well. And lucky for me, I found something that was perfect!

It’s called Watercolor Board – it’s a sturdy 1/8″ thick piece of board that has a watercolor paper texture one side. It’s a lot like this although my board is acid-free. The piece I purchased was 16×20 inches so I used an exacto knife and ruler to cut two pieces that were each 5.5 x 7.75″ for my cover. Then I painted them each with a couple of coats of Making Memories paint in Cranberry.

Once I had the covers painted, I decided I wanted to add a little pizazz by adding some horizontal stripes. So I broke out my trusty Frog Tape (seriously, LOVE this stuff!), and taped out some stripes. On my first attempt I taped out 5 stripes which meant I ended up with really skinny painted stripes, so on my second attempt, I only taped out 3 stripes instead so the stripes would be thicker.

I knew I wanted the stripes to be subtle so rather than painting with another color, I painted the stripes using Making Memories Scrapbook Glaze in Pearl. I like the subtle shimmer it adds.

Here’s the look at the finished cover. I ended up using the thicker strips for the front cover and the thinner stripes for the back.

Here’s the back and front together. It’s a little mis-matched but since you’ll never see them together, I’m fine with it. (See, embracing imperfection is working!)

The painted stripes look a little uneven but it’s just because of the way the light was shining as I took the photo.

On the front, I added a cluster of elements. The star is from Jenni Bowlin which I painted with the MM Pearl Glaze as well and the green accent is from Making Memories. The chipboard numbers are from Basic Grey and I painted them with Making Memories paint in Funky Vintage – Sea Foam.

I love the subtle dimension the elements add to the album without it being too bulky to take with me. This is also the truest representation of the stripes. You can see how they’re shimmery but subtle. Love that.

Once I had the cover finished, I decided to go back to that bare spread from Fave #2 and add some photos. This is what it looked like sans photos:

Rather than adding photos on top of the pages I already added, I added a new photo page in between. On the right side are our photos from our dinner at Luke the night of the River Parade.

On the back of the photo page, I added photos from our trip to the Renegade Craft Fair. This was my second time attending the fair (you can read my recap from my first trip here) and I have to say, it is SO fun to shop Etsy-style shops in person. They are finished for the year but if you have a fair near you next year, I definitely recommend checking it out!

On the back of the Renegade Craft page, I added a 4×6 photo to the foundation page. Just a fun photo of a cup of hot chocolate but I loved the way the lights from the tree turned out in this photo. It feels very Christmas-y to me.

After the handwriting fiasco last week, I took the advice of my lovely commenters and went and bought a pack of one of my most favorite pens from college – the Uniball Gel RT Micro. I love these pens because they not only write smoothly but they don’t smear which when you’re a lefty becomes incredibly important (and surprisingly difficult to find). Plus I love the thinness of the tip. I still say my handwriting is a bit out of practice but at least it’s mostly readable this time, haha.

For Fave #3 in my album, I decided to feature some of the decorations around our house. On the left side I included a 5×7 photo Adam took of me putting the lights on the tree. And as an extra attempt at embracing my handwriting, I even wrote right on the photo with a Sharpie white paint pen. I’m no Ali Edwards, haha, but I still think it turned out pretty cute.

On the right side of the page I added one of the divided page protectors I’d sewn and included some Instax photos I took around the house. I love the vintage feel of the Instax photos. They remind me a lot of the photos my parents have from when I was a kid.

Another look at my awesome handwriting. I think the little hearts really make it, haha.

Here’s a look at the backside of the page protectors. To fill the pockets, I taped two Instax photos back to back. Then in the bottom corner, I added two pieces of the wrapping paper I used to decorate around the house.

On the right side of the spread, I created a photo collage in Photoshop of a bunch of our decorations. I have to say the photo of Yukon Cornelias and the Bumble might be my favorite. Although Bumble looks rather cute and happy considering he’s suppose to be abominable, haha.

A little detail shot of the page protector. Although I don’t bother to add eyelets to any of my paper pages, I did add them to the page protectors as the hole I punched with my Crop-o-dile was a bit messy. Just makes it a little easier to turn the page. You can also see the stitching a bit better here. I just did a simple straight stitch right through the page protector to make my pockets.

On the back of the photo collage is my Faves #3 journaling card complete with my handwriting. I love that depending on my mood, I’ll either write in a cursive-y all lower case font or in all caps like on this card.

To the right of the journaling card, I added a photo of our decorated Christmas tree. And yes, we do have an olive-y green wall in our family room but it’s not quite as bright as it looks in the photo, haha.

For Fave #4, I decided to talk about the weather, which considering the extreme heat we had for so long this year, this cooler weather has definitely become a fave of mine. I mean, I know I’m from California and all but it’s just wrong for it to still be 78 in December!

Originally I had this printed transparency in front of the journaling card but I decided to move it in front of the photo instead. I love that it kind of looks like falling snow or rain.

The photo on the right is a 3×5 photo of the day our thermostat finally showed a temperature below 40. I think that was the same night it actually went below freezing!

On the back of the foundation page, I added a photo of one of the trees outside our house. I loved the bright fall colors of the leaves, but it’s a good thing I took the photos when I did since all of the leaves have fallen off now. So sad.

On the right page is some more handwritten journaling. Woohoo, go me for embracing the handwritten imperfection. I’m rather liking the home-y touch it’s adding to my album.

And that’s where my Holiday Faves album is at so far! How’s your Holiday Faves (or December Daily) album coming along? Has anything surprised you about the process and/or your album? Feel free to share in the comments!

Psst…looking for some more Holiday Faves inspiration? I had the chance to chat with the lovely Melissa Shanhun as part of her December Daily Inspiration podcast and best of all it’s free to listen! You can check out my episode here.

Can I take Levitra if I am taking other remedies at the same time