Christmas Journal (Neighbor Gifts)

Hey there, Happy Thanksgiving eve...I hope your busy making pies, rolls, and getting ready to roast that turkey. Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite! I love spending time with family (and eating).
I've been working on some projects to give away to my neighbors for Christmas. As a scrapbooker I'm passionate about memory keeping and documenting our stories. This year I'm hoping to share a little bit of that passion.
By leaving a small journal on your coffee table or mantel you'll be surprised what conversations will be started and what memories will come. Here are a few of the journals I created.

 

I created each journal with a small composition book (I got them at Walmart for 1.47 for a pack of 3) and the Peppermint Express line from American Crafts

This is what is written in the front of each journal:

This book is to be left on your coffee table during the Christmas season with a pen nearby. Encourage everyone to document a Christmas memory, tradition, an ornament, a decoration, a party, or simply record the happenings of the day. When the Christmas season ends pack this book up with your Christmas decorations and then do the same thing next year. Before you know it you’ll need another journal and it this will become a tradition everyone looks forward to.

This is a tradition we're starting in our family. Hopefully you can start if in your family as well. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thirty Grateful Days Mini Album

The girls over at Paper Issues have joined together to take photo each day for the month of November documenting things we're thankful for. Today I'd like to share with you a little bit of my album. I created it using the Thankful line from Bella Blvd. Here's what I came up with:

This album is going to be much bigger than I initially thought it would be. So when it's finished it will probably be in large binder rings instead of the clipboard album.
I created the album with heavy brown cardstock cut into 5x7 pieces. I completed the entire album before I added any photos. I left room for one photo each day and planned on having 2 pages for Thanksgiving day since I know I'll take more photos that day.
Here's an example of what the pages look like before I added photos.

I added a few embellishments when I added my journaling and photo(s)

 On this page the journaling is under the photo. I used designer tape as a hinge so you can flip the photo up and read the journaling. It's a bunch of "kissy stuff" as my kids would say because it's about the note my husband wrote to me.

 Most of the photos I printed at 3x3. If I had more than one photo sometimes I printed them at 2x2.

On days that I had too many photos to fit on one page I made pockets for multiple photos either out of patterned paper or transparencies.

Here's what the transparency pocket looks like. There are several photos tucked in there because it was my birthday on the 10th. I took lots of photos with the kids and the presents they had given me.

And here are a few more pages...

Even if you didn't take a photo a day grab a few photos that you've already taken and put together an album of the things that you're grateful for.
Thank you for stopping by! I appreciate you visiting my blog today.