At Least 2008's Holiday Pictures are Scrapped

It's midway through January 2010, so naturally I am working on finishing up scrapbooking the holidays...from um..2008 that is! I won't mention that I still have a few things from '07 to do too, oh whoops, I guess I just did. To make things easy on myself I mainly used a coordinating kit I by Making Memories that's been in my craft stash longer than I'd care to admit. Some of the pages from the finished mini book are throughout this post.The approximately 5X7 inch spiral notebook has ten cream pages with coordinating stickers and patterned paper that all came in the set. As I wanted to fit an entire month of pictures into this mini, kinda along the lines of a Daily December book, I was going to need more pages. To remedy that, I pried the spiral binding open and and added red and green cardstock pages, cut to size, as well as some velum quotes which gives it a fun eclectic look. Use the cover as a template to know where to punch holes on the new sheets. It was easy to add the extras and push the spiral back into place. Assembly was really quick, pick only one or two pictures to represent for most of our events that month, lay them out in order, and then place them to get a feel for how the book would lay out. Then cut the photos and large paper blocks. The small size meant it was a great way use "okay" photos that could be cropped fairly small.I used a tape runner to stick everything down because I want the book to be handled and looked at. But I also don't want any thing falling off. Once the pictures and papers were down, time to go back and embellish. Some stuff is from my horde of crafty goodness but I tried to really use up the kit's contents. Only one square and a few random letter letter stickers are left, pretty good huh? Hmm...judging from these pics, I must really like using my large scalloped scissors to make little borders! Are you wondering...what, no journaling? To make this book go quicker, get lots of pictures in it, and have them be the focus I used a tip I learned from Simple Scrapbooks, my favorite but sadly now defunct magazine. The first page in the book is my title page and the last two are for journaling. I'll tell the longer story on those pages.Have I mentioned the one of my favorite parts is of the book is how you can see through the velum and get a glimpse of what's next, so fun! Okay back on topic...through out the book scalloped circles and paper scraps were used to make small labeling spots as needed. To further streamline the process I handwrote the journaling spots, which is hard for me.

Perfectionist that I am, I prefer typed print, but do think having some of your own handwriting in your scrapbooks is important. These represent baby steps for me. The preprinted tags and stickers from the kit also helped give the pages some related text.The glittery red poinsettia design was preprinted on the cover. I added a fun rhinestone title, 3D reindeer sticker, and a cute picture of ER in a metal frame to the front. I love having a full season of memories all in one place and more imporantly DONE. Well except for some ribbon I may or may not tie onto the spiral.
I finished 95% of this in one sitting, granted it was a long sitting but still. It's nice to work hard and have a finished product. How do you make hold onto your holiday memories? Do you have any ideas for streamlining the process? I'd love to know what you do too.