Christmas Stories album with Emma

Hi friends!  Emma on the blog today and I am so excited to share my completed December album!  Yep, you read that right; I have actually finished it - wohooo!  I am so happy I could dance, ha!

I've already shared the first few pages of my album in the CTK Facebook Fanpage but I thought I'd share the whole album here so apologies if you're already seen a few of these before ;)  I used the Christmas Stories kits for the majority of my album but there are also pieces from previous years kits and other random things from my stash throughout.

This year I went with a 4x4 album and painted the cover (it was white with purple spots, I covered the whole thing in white paint and added gold spots!).  I'm definitely not going to win any awards with this paint work, but I actually don't mind how it turned out!  Edges are wearing already but that's OK.

The album has finished up ALOT chunkier than I'd anticipated.  I love a chunky mini but this one is really stretching the limits!  I've had to use a band to keep it closed because it can't close properly (and I need to be a little careful turning the pages so the rings don't pop open...oops!).  I used a red elastic band I had in my stash from who-knows-what and added a few "charms" - a die cut, sticker and actual charm (from a dear friend!).

Before I go on too much, here's a quick flip through of the whole album (sped it up 2x so it's just over a minute, didn't want it to take too long and bore you all!):

Rather then show photo's of every page, I thought I'd just  share a few of my favourites and talk about those but if you have any questions about others, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you!

The most surprising thing I've noticed about my album (now that it's all done) is the amount of red I've used!  Red isn't a colour I use a lot of (scrapbooking and in real life) but it's on almost every page of this album and I actually love it!

I love my intro page - it's super simple but something different.  I had some gold craft wire in my stash so I used that to form my circle and used the hot-glue gun to stick it down.  Then I picked a few chipboard stickers and white sequins and stuck them on top (using the glue-gun again).  So easy right?

No mini-album of mine is complete without some kind of sequin pocket. I love them.  I think they add a fun interactive element to any book.  I used my sewing machine to stitch the top of my page so they don't pop out (one day I'll invest in the Fuse...).

On this page I used one of the papers from the December Add-on (Sweater Weather "Cozy") and added various stickers inside each of the boxes and added some (red!) pompom trim at the bottom of the page.  Another simple but effective page to put together (it's how I roll!).

The majority of my album relates to the elf and his daily antics.  We don't typically do a whole lot of "Christmas-themed" activities during the month (other than the crazy shopping) but we do have our elf, Freddie, and he is always entertaining so I include everything he does in my album.  All of my journaling is typed up on the computer (using a typewriter font) because I'm not too fond of my own handwriting.  Actually that's not true, my handwriting is fine until I put it on a scrapbooking page, and then I think it makes it look messy, haha.  Weird but true.

I've also included a few random notes from the elf and tucked them behind the photo/journaling and just used ribbon that's stapled to the tops so you can pull them out.  And yes, more red....

My album is actually repetitive in the layouts I've used - such as this one - I used big photos and added a word/embellishment directly on top, then for my journaling I'll either have it on the page beside or on a tag of some sort.  I love having different textures in my album so I've used various ribbons/twine/elastics to loop the tags over the rings.  (Although I picked up the WRMK Crop-A-Dile so I'm currently addicted to adding eyelets to everything!!)

I completely forgot to take photo's when we went to my brothers for our Christmas Day lunch.  I packed the camera/tripod so I could get the family photo's but never got around to it!  Just means we were having too much fun hanging out :)  I also blame the fact that I was super tired, haha - I got to bed late and Zack was up super early....I am a girl who need her sleep!

But it's not the end of the world, sure the photo's would have been great but I added a quick little note saying I'd forgotten and talked about the awesome food.  We love our food ;)

Using the Christmas Stories kits made this album so easy to put together.  And it all coordinated so well with pieces from previous years Christmas kits so I was able to use up pieces from those too (I never, ever throw out or give away my Christmas-themed items haha, they stay in my stash forever!).

I loved putting this little book together; makes me so happy to have those random little bits down on paper (with photos) so that hopefully in the years to come, we can look back and have a little giggle about the fun we had at Christmas time (while Zack still believed in the magic ;) ).

And if you've made it to the end of this post - THANK YOU!  Sorry for the novel but I'm hoping this might help inspire you to finish your own album (if you've not done so already - and if you have - HOORAY!).  Remember, if you have any questions at all, please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you!  I'll also be sharing all the photo's on my blog (all 43+, eek!) incase you wanted to see more.

This is my last post on the CTK blog for 2017 (I'm back in 2018 though!) so I just want to say thank you so much for your support this year; it's such an honor to be a part of this team and I hope a few of the projects I've shared this year might have inspired you, even if it's just a teeny bit!  Best wishes for the New Year - please stay safe and have fun!!!

Take care, Em xo