Gag Gift Rehab Project - A Christmas List Album - My Favorite Christmas Gift of 2015!

I exchanged gifts with my crafter cohort in crime on Saturday the 19th. I made quite the haul. She had my birthday gift, the "real" Christmas gift, and then a "gag" gift as she called it. The birthday gift was perfect, 3 awesome dies, 2 different star sets and some stitched borders, I can't wait to use them all. I opened the gag gift next and it was satin, lace and plaid, puffy and inside was an old fashioned address book, before the days when folks had a home phone, work phone, cell phone and fax, likely somewhere in the late 80s eroa? It had just one line for "phone". I loved it! She said I think you can dress this up. So I took that challenge to heart.

First before decorating I entered all Christmas card recipients names and addresses from my Google contacts.I haven't used a pen and paper contacts mechanism for years! I wrote neat and tidy using my Copics black Multiliner 0.70 thick which is my favorite for penning (writing). Then I started on the rehab of the front. I wish I'd taken a picture of the before, but posted is the after. Here's some details of the design I came up with. I own two sets of letters. Little B large all capital letters and Holtz small compressed letters also all caps. I have a few Christmas word dies and picked one of those. I had to use gold because there is gold running through the plaid and I have a great glitter 4 x 6.5 pad with a nice matching gold. With that complete I started hunting through my dies for the flourished corners I had in mind. I went with Holtz Movers and Shakers Mini Poinsettias and the Branch from the mini Pine Cone BigZ die set. This year I spent alot of time on pinterest and saw many examples of cards that had these little colored 3D balls on them. I researched what is used to make these balls and found out they are elements pulled off of floral picks. So, off to Michael's and Joann's I went and because the Christmas picks were 70% off I was able to get a good selection of Red, Gold, Silver and Green picks that I can cut off anything I like to add dimension to projects. The second picture shows the actual pick that I cut the balls off of. The balls are foam, super light and easy to work with. I am mid-process painting some balls white and that is going well too. I think I paid .99 for the pick in the picture. To finish off the front I added a swirl of clear rhinestones. I am definitely of the school where more is always better. Now that it has been rehabbed, I love this book, it is my most prized gift I received this year which is laughable because I also received quite a selection of new metal dies and typically that is what I fixate on. There's just something about this silly Christmas Card album that speaks to me.

Tonight is New Year's Eve and I wish you all safe travels to wherever you are going to celebrate. May the New Year bring you joy, happiness and lots of fun craftiness too!