Journaling with ephemera

On Christmas afternoon, I printed out some of my favorite shots of our holiday season onto 4"x6" photo paper; I also printed forty or so smaller photos onto cardstock to cut up; then, I put them all into this Christmas ephemera journal that I had for sale in my handmade Etsy shop.  Two had already sold, and this one remained so I snatched it up for myself!

The front and back covers were an accounting book in bright red that I'd embellished.

Inside, the journal was ready made with Christmas-themed ephemera pages -- like the Hallmark postcard, to which I added a birds nest and the word, Noel.

A photo of our Christmas tree fit nicely on the back of the postcard.  Then I added some photos to the sheet music pages that followed; I used a vintage gift tag as a journaling spot.

I journaled directly on the page elements, like the envelope (oops! 'just noticed it should say Littleton instead of Castle Rock!), and sometimes I just wrote right on the page itself.

Some of the pages were scrap booking paper, not ephemera...but I used pieces that had a vintage "look".

But, most of the elements are genuinely old.

Many of the pages already had journaling spaces built in...like the shipping label above.

It was super QUICK and easy to fill the book: just glue in the photos, add a few Christmas themed word stickers, and journal a bit!

I like working with the different-sized pages.

All the pages I'd added to the journal and purposely left blank made it easy to fill with photos that fit.

The different colors and textures are eye-catching.

The page on the right, above, is actually a vintage Christmas napkin!

Later I will punch holes into this card from my husband and add it in; I also glued in a favorite gift tag from one of the my presents.

I had already sold two of these Christmas journals this year; I hope the recipients had as much fun using theirs as I did!  The journals have always sold well, but I must say the holiday ones sold more quickly than the non-themed ones I have in the shop.  Now, I think I will get busy and make up a bunch for the upcoming Spring celebrations -- in Valentine and Easter themes!