This will be my fourth year to participate in Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class. Yesterday I took down the basket that I set out each Christmas that holds all three previous journals. I looked through each of them and am so glad that I've recorded the events and experiences that make up our holidays each year. I hadn't forgotten that Adam and Sarah got stuck in New Jersey last year and Tracy had to make the six hour trip down to Newark Airport to get them. I had forgotten, however, that when they left to fly back to California, Rochester was experiencing winds up to 60 mph. I'm very sad that they won't be here this year, but traveling during the winter holidays certainly is iffy.
My first album is documented in the side bar of the blog. I thought I'd post a few photos of 2007 and 2008 here so you can get a taste of how different these albums can be. I bought a 6X6 post-bound album at Hobby Lobby yesterday for this years album. I don't do a lot of prep work, since I won't necessarily do a page every day. Between Shimelle's prompts and the prompts from Jessica Sprague's new course Holidays in Hand, I'll have plenty of inspiration. I also subscribe to Ali's blog and get inspiration from her December Daily album.
Here are all three journals:
The first two were pretty traditional 8X8 albums. Last year I did an acrylic album which I loved.
Some pages from 2007:
The apparent blotch on the page is actually my shadow!
And from 2008:
I had totally forgotten about our stolen tree last year!
Some days I did two-page spreads, others were only one page. Although the overall colors stayed pretty consistent if I wanted something different for a page, I didn't worry about it.
The back of the Sing page is an envelope that hold a Children's Sermon that was preached during Advent last year. It really spoke to me, and I asked for a copy for the album.
This is actually two pages, a Hambly transparency with the title and number on it, overlayed on the photo collage. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have some of this year's journal to share with you. I bought a black album since the only red was too bright for my color scheme this year. I hope to get it decorated tonight or tomorrow.
