Mini Album- masculine themed, with distressing and black and white pics...

This album is a gift for one of my good friends. I was inspired by some pictures she posted of herself with her boys- six of them in all! She's a great mom, and I thought it would be neat to celebrate that in an album, as she doesn't really get much time to scrap and is overwhelmed by it all. I started out with the pictures in color, but there were so many competing colors, that I thought it would get really distracting. So, for the very first time, I changed them to black and white, and worked with them in black and white, and was so much happier with how they worked with the paper colors and print. I also distressed and inked around the edges of the pictures- a first for me there also, and I'm really pleased with how it looked- especially with the black and white pictures. I hand stitched around the pictures and various aspects of the album- again, another first for me. I've been working on it since the latter part of September- it was supposed to be a birthday gift (in October), and yes, I'm aware that it's the middle of December... and very late.... Fortunately my friend is very understanding- I showed her what I had started when I saw her on her birthday, so she knew to a degree what was coming. I've changed and added a lot since I showed her the beginnings of it. I painted and crackled the chipboard on the cover and added the pearls- it coordinates with the layout I did with the same paper not too long ago-inspired by the album and using extra pictures from this project. I would have liked to have added some of the pearls to the inside, but I was trying hard to keep it masculine- being all boys for the album- and I thought I was kind of pushing it with the scroll/flourishes on the pages for accents, so I opted not to add them inside. The cover though, I thought I could get away with it more, and like I said, it coordinates with the layout I made and framed for her that matches this. So, stick me with a fork, for I am done.. finally...