Day 18--Kristal's Keepsakes

I was a little perplexed when I saw the challenge for today. I have a (mostly scrapbook) crafting basement which does need some tweaking in the organizational department. Toni at A Bowl Full Of Lemons
(oh man, I am figuring this linking and blogging stuff OUT!  Go me!) hinted at photo organization, so I am kinda thinking the craft room is going to be the project for this weekend.....so I thought, how do I do just keepsakes for today?  So I read through the people who have already tackled it and looked for ideas.   I think it's Kristy, over at Mom 2 Maya who posted about her daughter's keepsakes and how she had saved a note she put in lunch every day in 3rd Grade....so I gave her some ideas about making a keepsake of that for her to give her daughter when she leaves home....It got me thinking about a similar project I did last year to save my Christmas pictures, Christmas letters, cards, etc.  I LOVE what I did and plan to do one of these every year, so thought I would share that with you here today.

Overall Project--Used Christmas ribbons that I wrapped presents with and the ornament is a gift tag that went with some of my wrapping paper.

You may already know that I pick a different Christmas Theme every year.  Ya, I am THAT GIRL!  I usually try to plan the theme a year ahead so I can pick up my thematic wrapping paper, ribbons, special ornaments to commemorate the theme/year, etc. at the after-Christmas sales.  But sometimes, something happens that makes me change the theme.  This happened in 2009.  (That also happened this year, but that's another story.)  My husband and I got an AMAZING deal on a last minute cruise in 2009 (we LOVE Vacations To Go.com) but it happened really fast and we got back close to Thanksgiving and I was just inspired to change the theme from "A Homespun Christmas" to "A Caribbean Christmas!"

This is the "Christmas theme" that I used stickers to stick on the back of a photo Christmas card I received.

So, we put up my smaller tree (easier to decorate with what I had, since I was switching to something non-traditional) and I added in my small blue tree (I call it my Dr. Suess tree, it has a curvy trunk--DH hates it.) and also a small pink tinsel tree that I thought was cute at Big Lots after-Christmas Sale the year before (they have the best sale, got that baby 90% off, I think it was 50 cents.)  My mom came over after we decorated and took some pictures for us for our cards and I happened to find a template with a blue, a pink and a green tree!  Too perfect!

Our Christmas Card, 2009

This was a pretty card from Fidelity Investments, which I wouldn't normally save, but it had a beautiful quote on the front and the back was even pretty, so I added it to the book and embellished it a little, too.  Notice I hole punched the corners of everything with a small snowflake punch.

I added Christmas Letters and the left side are samples of my wrapping paper, so I can recall how pretty my packages were before they got ripped open!

The left side is a pre-made journaling spot that I attached to the back of a photo Christmas card and the right side is a picture of a souvenir ornament and rhinestone "ho ho ho" that I got at after-Christmas sale!

This is an envelope I made to hold a large Christmas Letter.  Attached to the plain back of a Christmas card.

Here is the envelope closed, with two brads and some cute green gnarly yarn.  Seriously, where do I come up with this stuff!?!?!  I'm pretty proud of this one!

This is the back of my little Christmas Keepsake.  This is a card we received from my cousin who got married on the beach in 2009, so I flipped it around and made it my back page.  So this is pretty from either side, as I have it hanging in my scrapbook basement so I can recall the tropical sun in my dark basement ; )

What did you do with your Keepsakes, today?  I can't wait to see everyone's post!