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:

1. Thanksgiving
2. Local Events
3. Holiday Decorations
4. 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