Holiday Challenge #3!

I know this is a day early, but I have a very busy weekend ahead of me and it starts in in about an hour! So, with that being said, I want you to get ready for your holiday pictures. I don't know about you, but I am far to busy to do much scrapping during the season and by the time I have time to sit down after the first of the year I am sick and tired of all the holiday colors and such. So finding inspiration after the fact is just too hard. I like to create a mini album for the season and then display them as decorations over the the following years. You may like to do a Layout for your album, so whatever it is get started on it! Do a LO or album and leave room for your pictures. That way when you are done all you have to do is slap the photos down!

This is what I started with:

It is a 9 by 9 inch accordion mini album by CTMH. I have had it it my stash for years and never knew what to do with it. It really is not my style. I just have it because it was a promo one year. I turned it into this:

The first holiday that we celebrate that never has a good LO after the fact is Thanksgiving, so I made this:

I know it is not the typical Fall colors, but...well....ummmmmm....I am sick of the typical fall colors, so I pulled out this line from Basic Gray that I had in my stash and used it. I also threw in the typical fall PP from Cosmo Cricket that I have tons of to make it a little more Thanksgivingish!

Sorry this is out of order. I had a hard time uploading today and some of the pictures did not even upload correct, so sorry. I hope you can get the idea though! Anyways, I sealed up the accordion and made it into a pocket for the kids' letters to Santa. We have a tradition (it is actually a German tradition) in which the kids write letters to Santa, stick them in their shoe, and then wake up the next morning to find a small toy or treat as a hint to what Santa will bring them on Christmas.

Here is a close up of the Beaver on the Thanksgiving page (again sorry about it being out of order)

My boys have their Birthday a week a part from each other. Logan's is right after Thanksgiving! We have a big party for them between the two days (yes on their day they still get a cake, balloons, their choice of meal, and their presents from us)and we call it Brother's Day. I always like to include it in the Holiday album.

Here is the Christmas page. I really like this one for this year. I stink at designing Holiday pages, but this year I love it!

A close up of my tree and girl.

I stamped her (CTMH), used my tonic markers to color her in, and used this puffy type stuff to make the snow. I then pop dotted her and placed her on the page making sure to leave an open space to slip a picture under it.

The following photos show how I made my pocket. First I used my oval cutter and cut half an oval on one of the flaps:

Next, I placed a continuous strip of adhesive around the edges:

Finally I sealed it up! Now, instead of an accordion album I have a useful 4 page mini album!

I look forward to seeing what you create for your holiday LOs! Make sure you upload your link in my comment sections so I can go leave you some love! I will post the next challenge on Nov. 12 and it is a fun one in which you will be altering ;-)