Hello!  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!  We sure did.   We are spending this rainy holiday weekend together doing a whole lot of nothing before our crazy week begins (my sister gets married New Years Eve!!).  That means time for catching up in December Daily!

I start my album the day we cut down our Christmas Tree which is usually over Thanksgiving Break with our dear friends the Carpenters.  I saved a shopping bag from our favorite tree farm to use on the left, and added a business card of the place we always have lunch beforehand. The tree journaling card from the Elle’s Studio November 2015 Kit was the perfect addition to this page.

On the left page, I inked the wood Star from the Joyful Wood Veneers with my red ink pad, and layered it over the “Love this Time of Year” Vellum found in the Joyful Bits and Pieces Pack.

December 1st and 2nd were all about getting our tree decorated after the homework was finished!   The Documented Journaling Card is also in the November 2015 Kit.  I used some older labels I had in my stash to place throughout the spread to create a visual triangle.  The vellum star is something I saved from the Elle's Studio July 2015 Kit!  (Fourth of July stars work great for Christmas too!)

I just adore the photo on the right and decided to enlarge it and leave it fairly simple.  I layered our beautiful Acrylic “Merry and Bright” Piece over the photo.   I have found the keeping my pages simple is the best way to get it DONE!   Can't wait to share more.

Elle's Studio products used: Joyful Wood Veneers, Elle’s Studio November 2015 Kit, Joyful Bit’s and Pieces, Merry and Bright Acrylic, Joyful Stickers,

December Daily Update (December 11-18)

Today I wanted to share my fourth update from my December Daily album: December 11-18th.  The end is in sight!!  

I have been using the October Afternoon Very Merry December Mini- Book kit and combining it with the Elle's Studio Be Merry Collection and my own stash of goodies :)

Dec 11/12.

I wanted to mention the events of Sandy Hook on the 14th.  I mention this a bit more in my Project Life spread from that week (i will share this soon), but I didn't feel right not mentioning it here.  i didn't go into great detail but that night i snapped a photo of Jonah and myself on the couch.  We were watching Rudolph on TV-- even though i am smiling, my mind and heart were heavy with the news from that day.

Dec 13/14. That weekend we stayed home the entire weekend.  Todd and I both were recovering from bad colds so it was a nice family weekend.

Dec 15.

Dec 16.

Dec 17.  When creating this book, i did not put the dates on the pages prior to the beginning of December.  In hind site, that is something I am really glad I did.  On some pages I used both pages for documenting the day (like the page above and below), and some pages just one side.

Dec. 18.

You can see my cover page here (with my process/supplies/over-all plan), Black Friday- December 2nd update here, and December 3-9th update here.

Thanks for swinging by today.  And happy--- friday?? or whatever day it is!!!

December Daily Update (December 3 - 9th)

Hey everyone!  I wanted to share my third update of my 2012 December Daily album.  

You can see my cover page here (with my process/supplies/over-all plan), and the Black Friday- December 2nd update here.  

I have been using the October Afternoon Very Merry December Mini- Book kit and combining it with the Elle's Studio Be Merry Collection and my own stash of goodies :)

This first page is a photo of our Elf on the Shelf (yes, named "Fishpan") with a backpack treasure-- a drawing from Jonah on the back of a school assignment.  This might be my favorite page of the album- it melted my heart.

I added our Christmas card on December 5th- which was also the same night we had a family dinner where my dad found an old Christmas card from 1956.  I LOVED the comparison.  I literally went home after seeing that card at dinner and addressed our own cards.  The whole time I wondered if my grandchildren will be passing around this very card 56 years from now at a family dinner.  what a neat thought.

December 6th features a Moody Blues concert Todd and I went to with my mom, dad, brother and sister.  This is the music of my childhood-- my dad played his favorite college music for us as kids (so fun) and we have some great memories of listening to the Moody Blues while riding in his car back in the day.

December 7th was a Friday and ended up being a double page.  I love that i left my album very loose- not adding the numbers until I was ready to design the page.   On friday I went to Jonah's kindergarten's class for a gingerbread house activity.  That night we had a family movie night watching Home Alone so I included that in my album as well.

Saturday December 8th ended up being a double page as well.  I went out with some girlfriends for Girls Night Out to Barcelona Tapas in Downtown Indy.  After dinner we walked Momument Circle and I got this fun shot of the Indianapolis Monument.  Since the previous page was a 4x6 photo this was the perfect photo to back the photo with.

Sunday December 9th was a quiet Sunday- church, Colt's game, and some holiday baking.  Monday December 10th was a BIG shopping day for me... both the kids were in school and i was ready to cross some things off my list!

I added this little insert after the December 9/10 page.  While I was out on the 10th I went to Trader Joe's for a few things and picked up my first EVER Candy Cane Joe-Joes's.  Does that not deserve it's own page or what?  The arrow stamp is by Studio Calico and Gold Alpha's are by Thickers / American Crafts.

Yesterday I posted my Project Life December 3 - 9th post (click here to see more photos).  I wanted to offer a bit of a comparison of the same week of documentation.   

I DO share a few duplicates photos in my Project Life spread (approximately 5 photos).  And I DO cover some of the same topics (like the gingerbread house activity at school) however, for these particular events, I focused on recording different stories in Project Life. (like how myself and three other class mom's spent all morning making icing for the gingerbread houses).  

I think it's fun to see a different angle to documentation and how it's possible to complete both a Project Life album AND December Daily while covering different topics and stories.

Thank you so much for swinging by today!!  Have a lovely Wednesday!

December Daily Update (Nov 23- Dec 2)

Today I wanted to share an update on my December Daily album!

In this post, I share my process / supplies / and plan.  I am using October Afternoons Very Merry December mini album kit and  absolutely loving it.   I am taking a much more loose approach this time, with only putting the pages in the album prior to the start of December.  I decided that way I can decided if i want to use one or two pages for each day as the month progresses (instead of being "locked into" a plan if it was pre-made).

This Santa tag was found at Anthropologie a few years ago-- I have been holding onto a few of them for awhile because i just think the pipe-smokin' santa is too cute. :)

Like last year I began my album on Black Friday.  We have so many Christmas traditions in the days following Thanksgiving, and I wanted to include those.

I also shared this page above in my last post, but love our Christmas Tree Farm expedition every Thanksgiving weekend.

Nov 25 / Nov 26.   Keeping it real with broken ornaments.  Ironically the same day there was a crack in our iPad.  :(

Nov 27 / 28.  We had a Polar Express Movie night and I included a photo of Jordan playing with the Snow Village.  It was too sweet-- this was her first time seeing it.

Nov 29 was Yuletide.  A family tradition to go downtown and see the show.  Last year we took Jonah for the first time and this year was Jordan's first time to attend.  She was DYING over the reindeer in the front, and I am DYING over Jonah's hilarious face in the family photo. ha!

Nov 30/ Dec 1.  Movies seem to be a theme so far this month!  We had a family night and watched Sound of Music on Nov 30-- one of my all time favorites.  December 1st I took the kids to see Rise of the Guardians.  I used the Jenni Bowlin Perf Mark Grid Stamp in the Dec 1 page.

December 2-- i used two full pages for our Nutcracker ballet event.   I used a portion of the program on the right side and photos on the left.  

I am working a little at a time on December Daily.  Since I am also working on Project Life, I am not pressuring myself to get a page done every day in December Daily.  So my goal is to share a December Daily update on Friday's. :)  

Thanks so much for swinging by today!

December Daily Cover and Plan

It's hard to believe it's that time of year again- December 1st is TOMORROW!? (and my kids are still eating halloween candy!!)

I wanted to share my December Daily cover with you today and share a little bit about my plan and approach for this years mini album.

This year I fell head over heels with October Afternoon's "Make it Merry" line, so when they offered the Make it Merry Mini Book kit, i jumped all over it.

source: October Afternoon

I love the colors and sentiments of this line, and it matches perfectly with the Elle's Studio Be Merry Collection.  

Last year I pre-made my entire mini book--- and i finally finished it this past fall.  December it's SO busy, so I decided to take a slightly different approach this year.    I did very little "prepping" of the album.  Since the kit came with pre-punched pages I just slid them in the album and decided I would add the date numbers later.  That way I could decided if a certain day needed the full left and right page, or just one side.  

However, I did make my cover.

The cover is a chevron Hambly overlay with stitching.  I layered an Elle's Studio tidbit with some of the October Afternoon stickers on top of a Martha Stewart doily.   

This is what it looks like when you open the overlay.    The green pattern paper, snowflakes, and journaling card is from October Afternoon.  The red journal tag, circle alphas, and silver stars are from Jenni Bowlin.

Like last year I decided to start my December Daily on the day after Thanksgiving-- we have so many Christmas traditions the weekend of thanksgiving and the week after that i wanted to include it in the album.  

And I already have two pages done!  I don't know if that makes me ahead or behind at this point ;)  Not stressing about it though and enjoying the process.

One thing that has helped already is that i have my list ready to keep everything straight.

And I collected all my December Daily materials and organized it in a shoe box.  Now everything is separate, yet all together.

Thanks for stopping by and happy Friday! 

December Daily 2011 (Part 2)

Yesterday I shared Part One of my December Daily 2011 album, and today I am sharing Part Two.

Here are a few of the basic details of the album:

1. My foundations can be seen here (part 1) and here (part 2).  
2. Size of the album is 5 x 6.5 
3. Supplies:  Base of the album was created with Elle's Studio 'Tis the Season Project Kit (released last year).  As I completed the pages this past weekend I incorporated many items from Elle's Studio's new "Be Merry" Line.
4. Completion:  Last December, I completed up until December 6th.   December 7-25 were completed this past weekend. (there was a key factor that helped me complete this project, I will share what it is tomorrow!:)
5. Dates: I started my December Daily on November 25-- the day after Thanksgiving, and the last day was December 25th.  I LOVED starting it on this date because our Christmas festivities begin at this time. I plan to do this again for 2012.
6. The completed first half of the album can be seen here.

All of the pages seen in this post were created this past weekend.  There were a few things I did that helped put together at December Daily ten months after the fact.

1.  I saved EVERYTHING in a plastic baggie (all photos, memorabilia, and the album itself).  This was super easy to pull it out and have everything there.

2.  Keep the pages simple.  I knew it would NOT get done if I tried to make intricate pages.  It would be too overwhelming. This is my goal as I was also creating in December for my December Daily.  Simple and add lots of layers. :)

3.  Limit your supplies.  As I was creating this weekend I pulled out only my Elle's Studio Be Merry line and the supplies I used to create the foundation of the album.   This too, is something I do when I create the december daily in December.  It saves tons of time to have fewer options.

4.  Add extras.   I added a few extra elements that had no relation to what day something happened-- such as our Christmas card, a gift bag as a page (the Christmas card is on the gift bag), a letter to santa, my favorite things during Christmas).  This helped pull the album together quickly.

5.  Journal.  When I didn't have a photo for that day, add journaling.  It's a nice way to mix things up. The following three photos contain pages with no photo/only journaling.

6.  Add pockets.   I used these pockets from Studio Calico in two different pages so that I could add MORE photos.  It was the perfect solution for those days that contained a series of photos that I wanted to include.

7.  And finally, Keep a list.   Yes this was KEY in being able to complete my Decemeber Daily album. Last year around Day 7 I started to fall behind.  So i created this list on scrap paper of what happened each day-- just a sentence.   This was put into the bag where I stored my album and photos.  When I pulled it out over the weekend it was SO easy to complete the mini album.  

I kind of laugh when i look at this paper because it's so beat up but it was a LIFESAVER.  I referred to this for each day I completed ten months after the fact.

I hope these tips help as you begin to prepare for your December Daily 2012!!!   Thanks for swinging by!