Looking for a way to document all of this year’s events in your busy life? Take some tips from Elise Blaha as she creates a Catalina album to record the events of 2011.

I considered a lot of ideas and for awhile thought I was going to go entirely digital with an album or book. But printing all those digital 8.5x11 pages seemed expensive and waiting until the end of the year to have book printed did not appeal to my impatient side. I wanted something I could work on at the end of every month.

The Catalina album I chose has two photo sleeves on each page that are about 4x7.75 and are designed to hold a 4x6 photo. Slipping a 4x6 photo into each sleeve felt a bit too basic so I decided to have my photos printed 4x8 and then at home trim off that extra quarter inch so they would fit in my book. At this size, the photos take up the whole half of the page which makes the book seem more full and less like a traditional photo album. I first mapped out how my pages would go then adhered the photos that would be sharing a sleeve back to back. Next, I slipped the photos into the removed page protectors and punched three holes through both photos, using the existing holes in the sleeve as a guide.

I am planning on doing a monthly "here's what happened" write up in addition to the photo pages.

Now, almost halfway through, I really hope this becomes a yearly tradition that I keep even when do have a bigger family and our lives are more chaotic. I love this album so much. I'm already so glad to have these photos printed and my thoughts saved all together.

Check out Elise’s blog for monthly updates on the project!

-Kate