thankful mini album download

Our Canadian friends have already celebrated their Thanksgiving and here in the US, we're just weeks away. As we head into the season of thankful thoughts and counting our many blessings, I wanted to share a free download along with my project today.

If you're not into mini albums, just print the journaling cards and have friends and family members write their thankful thoughts down during your Thanksgiving get together. And guess what...it's sized to fit in your pocket pages and Project Life albums, too.

NOTE |  This project first appeared on My Mind's Eye 

as part of my Mini Albums with Monika monthly series.

I'm adding a little twist to this month's mini album project, actually it was a first for me, but this entire mini album has been created without a single photograph. Gasp! I challenged myself to let the awesome array of My Mind's Eye products "stand in" for places where I would usually use a photograph.

The Setup
The left side of the spread has a thankful journaling card {in a colorway that works well with the Jubilee collection} and the right side of each spread has a different patterned paper embellished with flair buttons, transparent frames, letter stickers, chipboard elements and journal cards...and sometimes a combination of two or three items...making for a chunky, layered, colorful mini album.

The Design Elements

I had a vague idea of things I wanted to include in my Thankful mini album, so when browsing through the Jubilee collection, I noticed that I could create and craft my album with just the supplies I had on hand.

My thinking was that I could incorporate the design elements from the MME collections to help the reader picture what I had journaled. Let me show you how I did it.

Using the Transparent Frames from the Just Sayin' and Jubilee Live It Up collections, I inserted frames between my thankful journal card on the left and my patterned paper on the right side. I even added Rub Ons and Letter Stickers to the frames!

Layering Chipboard Elements is one of my most favorite ways to add depth and dimension to layouts and mini albums.  For the feather page, the coral rectangular shape had a sentiment that didn't fit my project, but served as a perfect anchor for my other elements. 

The polaroid frame comes with the photograph chipboard, but I separated the two items, and added the chipboard arrow between the two by adding foam squares to lift the frame off the page.

I might just be a little bit in love with the Rub Ons. I used them in a few projects earlier this month for the October challenge and haven't stopped playing around with them since. Here, I used them on a transparent frame and on patterned paper to highlight a flair button.

The Album

One can never have enough layers, I think it adds a bit of surprise and makes me want to keep turning the pages to see what comes next. Sure, I could have begun with just the thankful journal card, but instead I opted to add a transparent frame that I stapled a chipboard element to.

I lined it with patterned paper so that the raw chipboard wouldn't show through to the back side of the frame. I popped a chipboard frame atop the journal card and it fit perfectly. And no, I didn't plan it...it just happened, lucky me.

All these little pieces come together to help me tell my thankful story: life is an adventure, the good life...all a part of what I want to document.

Using journal cards is always a favorite way to jumpstart a story for me. So many times, they spark a memory of a moment that needs to be documented.

And the butter that holds this biscuit together is the awesomely gorgeous patterned papers, don't you think. And who says you can't cut into your favorite piece of paper? Not me...here I've trimmed the gold glitter nerdy glasses paper to use as journal card. Because...I am so thankful for my reading glasses!

Go ahead, it's okay. I say it's better to use your paper and enjoy it than to save it and never see it.

The Download
Don't forget to download your thankful journaling page. And, I've also included what I journaled on the left side for each right side page decoration below.

More Inspiration

And other Thankful mini album ideas here and here.