Calendar-Inspired Year-in-Review Album

Design by Irma Gabbard

To make quick work of creating an album at the end of the year, start at the beginning. On a calendar, document the events -- from the mundane to the life-changing -- as they happen. When it comes time to compile your year-in-review, refer to your calendar to jump-start your pages. Even better, organize your photos and finish spreads throughout the year while your memories are still fresh. Your album will be a breeze to complete.

SOURCES: Album: BoBunny Press. Patterned paper: Making Memories (kraft), My Mind's Eye (small red dot). Font: Flip Flop off the Internet. Stickers: Making Memories (year, "Hanging"), EK Success (exclamation point), 7Gypsies (month tape). Rub-ons: Melissa Frances ("Family"), KI Memories (paws, birds), Li'l Davis Designs (January numbers), Autumn Leaves (January title), K&Company (flowers). Stamp: Hero Arts. Pen: American Crafts. Chipboard: Heidi Swapp. Brads: Making Memories (cover), Doodlebug Design (all other). Tags, metal accents: Making Memories. Flowers: Savvy Stamps. Buttons: Autumn Leaves. Twill: 7Gypsies.

Because your year-in-review album will feature photos taken at different times of the year and contain many different colors, it's important to pick a palette that will work with anything you might want to use. Irma chose a neutral kraft color as the base for her album, injecting pattern with subtle tone-on-tone patterned paper in muted hues.

Irma chose a 9x9" album that comes with blank chipboard pages as the base for her year-in-review album. She added additional pages with tabs to give her enough space. She trimmed her patterned paper using a chipboard page as a template and adhered the trimmed sheets to the sturdy chipboard.

Using the events on the calendar as inspiration, Irma determined a theme for each month of her scrapbook album and based her journaling around it. This is a smart way to flesh out your memories and link your photos and calendar pages.

Month stickers, printed monthly labels, or even handwritten monthly labels make thumbing through your album a breeze.

If you're concerned about preservation issues, scan and print your calendar pages on archival paper. Or download and print calendar pages from the Internet onto archival paper and transfer your information onto them. Irma designed a simple calendar using templates in Microsoft Word.

One clever way to recognize a birthday is to add a small photo of the birthday boy or girl to the date square on the calendar. Use number stickers to record his or her age. Birthday cake, candle, and party stickers are also fun decorations.

Decorate the front of your album with a photo of your family and, of course, a year label. Consider personalizing with a special quote or family motto. Irma added stickers and a circle-cropped photo to her front cover, then mounted a clear acrylic plate on top to keep the pieces safe and secure.

For an even more polished look, add a bit of decoration to the spine of your scrapbook album. Irma used printed twill tape to cover the seam where her patterned paper and the edge of the canvas-covered spine meet, then turned the length of twill into the stem of a rustic ribbon. Scraps of fabric serve as the petals, and a button adds a pop of color to the flower center.