Gratitude Documented

November is the perfect month to focus on all that you are grateful for.  I have always loved seeing peoples posts online and on Instagram in November where they share the things that they are grateful for.  When my friend Shanna Noel asked me to work along side her this month documenting the things that I am grateful for I said yes without hesitation. 

You can see all the posts she has done so far on her blog here which you will definitely want to check out because she is giving you all the files so you can make your own album too.  Like this one below, which has one of my favorite cards that I modified for my album cover.

She has a really great video showing how she pulled together different products that she wanted to use and I did the same thing but just not in video form.  Below is a snap shot of some of the things I pulled from my stash, I went quickly and just grabbed what felt fallish and what would go with the color scheme of the printables.  I'm sure that more will be added but this was a really great start.  Clearly I'm in the mood to use a lot of wood pieces, you just can't beat the texture.

I decided to use a brown Simple Stories album that I grabbed on clearance at my local Hobby Lobby. It came with protectors and some cute chipboard dividers and a few insert sheets.  If you want to see what came with it you can see it here.  If you have specific questions on products please ask but most of it is from my Studio Calico kits and from Freckled Fawn. 

For my cover I spent some time deciding if I wanted to cover it, paint it or leave it just the way it was. I new it needed some sort of adornment so the first thing I did was modify one of the cool stamp brushes Shanna included with the downloads and cut it from some woodgrain cardstock I had on hand.  I also modified that one card I mentioned above for a background that I printed on vellum. It wraps around the Kraft cover and is adhered to the inside of the cover.  I left a space in the middle for the cut file and added the rest of the album title which is part of the vellum overlay.  I really love how it turned out, the graphic is just so cool.

Here you can see the texture of the woodgrain paper a bit better and the triangles up close.

I also made a title card using another image from one of the cards and some text.  I added a few enamel dots that matched the colors perfectly and a little gold glitter arrow on top of the protector.

My plan is to sit down and really think about the things I am grateful for in my life and plan out some pages. I will have more to share the later part of this month once I have some content completed.

I do hope you check out Shanna's posts, she did such an amazing job on this and I sure hope you join us.