Hi Peas! I am sharing this year-in-review mini gift album that I created for my parents here and in the Two Peas Garden this week. I am sharing some tips for putting a project like this together that will delight your creative soul and the recipient at the same time. For tips on how I put this album together in 4 easy steps, please look at the site here. 

Rather than address how I put this together, here on the blog I wanted to talk about ways to make it more personal or some creative ways to think about what you want to include when making a year-in-review mini album. 

Create a couple of "big" spreads, or higher profile pages. A few really nice, signature layouts that you can make colorful and creative. These can be your main headers… think big events for these pages. Perhaps first day of school, or birthdays.  Use these pages/layouts for your feeding your creative soul. Make these ones really special. Use those products you love and make these pages be your statement pieces. You will love those pages the most. Especially because my next tip is to not use the best photos that you have.

Try to include photos and document events where the child and recipient shared time together. This is so special. Even if they already have those same photos printed out, and probably remember the event themselves. Having it documented as an important part of your child's year, showing how special this time shared together was to your child's year makes it that much more special.  In my case, I include a trip to Chicago that we took with my parents. I didn't do a lot of journaling, but instead made sure to include the photos that were the most indicative of the time together. We had a fun meal at a fun restaurant and using those photos I knew would get a good chuckle out of my parents was my tactic. I knew they would look at them, remember right away that it was a fun time, perhaps not remember the exact things, the name of the place, but remember the feeling of being there and how much fun we all had together. 

For more information, tips and photos of this year-in-review album, please see this post on the Two Peas in a Bucket website.  Thanks for looking! - Kristina