I love to use dividers in my yearly albums, whether it is a scrapbooking album or a pocket scrapbooking album or a mix of both styles.  I find it very interesting to see the month at a glance and the activities that took place during that month.  It also gives me a great place for extra photos that aren't quite good enough to fit onto a layout for whatever reason.

So for this month, I decided to use a file folder as my divider.  I simply cut the divider in half along the fold lines so that I could hole punch my file folder to fit into my album.  I also made a copy of a month-on-one page layout from my planner that I hand drew in a composition notebook at the end of 2014.  Hence the messed up year!  I was able to fill out my planner page to with the corresponding events that occurred in January, which gives you a great month in review section!


All the supplies that I used for this divider were from my Stash Kit that I've been working on killing for the last several months.  Some of the supplies I used for this scrapbooking layout were Heidi Swapp gold chipboard embellishments, Simple Stories Snap Family Stickers, and the Amy Tangerine stitching templates for my own handmade embellishments (I made this specific card during the Index-Card-a-Day challenge). 


One fun thing that I did on this divider was to create a mixed media background using some taped down string and sprays.  I found this idea while watching Christy (Gulfsprite) to create the background for my folder, as well as a batch of other backgrounds that I used for several of my other layouts.  I also sprayed some hole reinforcers with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Primrose for some added interest.


On the back side of this file folder, I included a bunch of extra photos, as well as a Simple Stories Snap photo sleeve to include an extra photo.  I matted the back of the file folder with a dark blue cardstock and added some of my sprayed hole reinforcers.  I reused some of the washi tape that I had used for taping down the strings for my DIY background papers.


These photos are from several different days through the month of January.  I have a photo from our Mommy and Me day, plus several car trip photos that show my daughter's love of her Violet stuffed dog, and two from my Stepfather's birthday.  For this side of my divider I used stickers from Jillbean Soup, Basic Grey (Paper Cottage - Clothesline) patterned paper, and a pocket page cards from Simple Stories Homespun pack, and Authentique Celebrate stickers.


The journaling on this page just gives a brief recap of the month.  The bigger stories are told on the following pages in the album.  I like using these monthly dividers for just that - recapping the month and getting in small stories that haven't been told yet.