The one with a Christmas Tradition

Welcome back fellow DIY-ers!!

With less than 2 weeks to Christmas I am starting to look forward to the events coming up.
If I survive this finals week.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is exchanging ornaments.

My parents started getting {at least} one ornament for me every year since I was born and they kept a list of which ornament was received each year. 

I have carried the tradition on with The Boyfriend and continue to do it with my Mom.

My family also does an ornament exchange instead of exchanging presents. Everyone brings one ornament already wrapped up. We put them in a big pile in the middle of the room and we start picking one by one {youngest first}. The fun part is that you can "steal" someone else's ornament if you really like it, instead of picking a new one from the pile. We have been doing this for years and its really fun. So everyone leaves with a new ornament for their tree :)
And I am hosting the ornament exchange at our new house for the first time. 
I am so excited. Lots of pictures to come!!

So when this Teresa Collins December daily album showed up on a deal-a-day site for half off, I immediately knew I wanted to do an album about all of my ornaments.

I have a page for each years ornaments, and anything I remembered about them from way back. I sat down with my mom for my early years to see what she remembered. 

Its getting pretty thick!

The first page has a picture of the tree I decorate every year {that was my Grandma's}, and all my ornaments put out on my coffee table when I was getting ready to take all the pictures. There are multiple layers there. They don't all fit on my small tree. 

I have through 1999 done. I still have to add the years and add some embellishments to the rest of the pages. I hope to have this done before my family comes for Christmas so they can see how important our traditions are to me. 

It will definitely be one that I continue to do and will pass along to my children someday.

What is your favorite tradition?

The one with some scrapbook layouts

Welcome back fellow DIY-ers!!

Its a scrapbook day!

I took a week off for my 30th birthday a couple of weeks ago and spent 4 of those days crafting!!

2 days in Michigan at a wonderful Quick Quotes event

1 day with my mom creating some of the items we sold last week

and 1 day with another crafty friend at her house doing whatever I wanted

It was really a great week off

I also spent a day thrift-storing. You will see some of those items get a facelift in the coming weeks :)

So, when I went to my friend's house to spend the day scrapbooking I took a Bo Bunny line called Baby Bump. 

No, I am not pregnant. lol But seriously, check out the line, isn't it adorable?

But as soon as they released the line I just feel in love with the colors and patterns on the paper! I knew I could use it for something other than baby pictures. So instead, I used them for kitty pictures!!

I miss baby Harley!

I figured this one page layout could be the first page in a book all about my Harley.

When the paper is this cute the pages just came together so easily!

I did use a sketch for the first page that if I could find again I would share...

These are all pictures from the first week we had her.

On this layout you also see some Elle's Studio wood veneers that my friend graciously gave me as a present for coming over to scrap for the day! How sweet :)

The background paper for the 2page spread has a pregnant lady in the bottom left corners. Can you see her? Nope! I just really love how versatile this line is! I can't wait to do more pages with it soon

:)

Thanks for stopping by!