Journal your Christmas.....should I be bothered?

Well actually yes I ought to journal my Christmas because my photos never turn out on Xmas day how I expect them to.

When Georgia was 4 they were all blurry because I was ill and I only took 3 photos all day. Last year there were a few photos but they got lost when I hadn't backed them up. So I guess my best chances are to do more journaling and less pictures. Therefore I have joined the ranks of crafters who are falling for the sneaky tricks of Shimelle and Ali and getting us to write our thoughts down on paper!

I know the rules are that you are supposed to make your own album and I have in a way I just didn't use left overs because I'd spend all day trying to colour match and not have enough of the right supplies and it's not my fault I just can't help myself!!! You know I can't do eclectic so don't make me fight it!!

I started with 6 sheets of Cosmo Crickets Christmas Papers 12x12 from Tillys shop and 2 pages of matching tags and journaling sheets.

I cut each page in half and then took off 4 inches, creating 2 pages of 6x8 from each. Being double sided means I can get at least 24 pages into my album and space for more by using the left over strips for pockets and flaps.

So far there is no definite cover just a collection of pages that make the cover. This way you can see onto the next layer, (obviously no photos...and knowing my luck there probably won't be any!!).

The Cosmo Cricket tags are perfect to just add in between the larger pages, and are already printed with journaling ideas on each side.

Using the whole page of the 12x12 has left me with only the tiny bottom strips that you cut off, so I have chopped them up to make pull tags on the edges The leftover 4x6 is turned into a pocket or flipped over sideways and left as a flap and when placed horizontally can host a regular photo or 2 small ones or a sweet sentiment.
I may have nearly run out of Christmas embellishments but at least I still have my masses of co-ordinating alphabets from the QVC TSV in October and they are a perfect match!!
So now I need to make tags for the pockets, put numbers on each page and decorate a few more of them so I'm ready to go in 4 days........eeeeeeekkk!!!!!

Finally I would like to congratulate my friend Stephanie Garbutt who is the British 2008 Winner of Scrapbooker of the year!! Congratulations Stephanie you are so talented and you really deserve this. Please pop over to her blog and leave her a comment I'm sure she will be thrilled.

Ruth xxx