Whew - The Holidays are OVER!

Fall - September through Christmas - is always the busiest time of year for portrait photographers and this year was my busiest year yet. After last year's craziness, I knew how it would be, so I was bound and determined to stay caught up this year. And I did pretty well at keeping up. But it was a brutal 4 months and I'm so glad to have it over with.

I made quite a few things for people this year. I made a bunch of felt and fabric flowers for friends and nieces. But the funnest thing I made was the little mini album for my neighbor Rachel. This summer, I had one day where I took a break from my photo editing craziness and went on a little macro lens - flower photographing journey. I had so much fun collecting flower photos, it's one of the best times I had with my camera all year. To see a post about it, click here. Anyway, as I was taking the photos, 6 months or so before Christmas, it occurred to me that since Mel and Rachel have put so much work into their flowers and yard, I should make them a book from the photos and give it to them for Christmas. This is what it looked like:

I made the covers out of chipboard covered in scrapbook paper and I used my newly acquired felt flower making skills to make some little mini flowers for the cover. I heart felt!

I love giving photos as gifts, they're so much more meaningful and relevant to the recipient. And this little album was really easy and enjoyable to make. I wish I had the time to do lots more projects like this. One of my new year's resolutions - if I believed in those things - would be to blog more and start making actual scrapbook pages again. Keeping 471 balls in the air at all times can be a bit tricky - I'll just have to do the best I can.