WOYWW 180/December Daily Prep

Well, my kitchen is now 90% done and I have finally been able to get back to scrapping, just in time for the holidays. I have been missing my weekly snoop investigation of desks over at The Stamping Ground. On my desk today, I am working on getting the supplies pulled to one spot for my December Daily album. I never thought we did enough to justify getting in on this project, but I did my first one last year and was surprised at how much I enjoyed doing it. It really is nice to go back and see the things that we enjoyed during the season.

I have decided to use the Echo Park This & That Christmas collection and mix in some Lily Bee holiday line. I am using a red Sn@p album and a combination of sizes in page protectors. I cut my papers down to match and created journaling cards from the office paper that comes with the album. I mix alphabets from both lines and added some dimensional stickers from Echo Park. I then raided my stash and pulled washi tape, stick pins, twine, buttons, sequins, and yo-yo's that I made to finish off the embellishment selection.

I still have to get together my Christmas stamps and a few ink and paint colors to mist and splatter pages, but this is pretty much it. All collected, put together in one spot, and ready to do some quick late night scrapping, even during the busy holidays.

Are you doing a December album or some other similar project? How do you go about getting those other December projects done?

Thanks for visiting!

Dani

December Daily Part Two (again, photo heavy)

Here it is, the last pages of my DD. While I am happy that I decided to do one, I probably won"t be doing another one any time soon. Mini albums are something I always had trouble doing. For some reason, doing a lot of theme pages at one time, burns me out.

So without further ado, I give you the conclusion of DD 2011!!!

Again, any questions, feel free to ask. And thanks for looking if you made it this far into day two.

December Daily Part One (photo heavy)

Today, I thought that I would share some more pages from my December Daily. I finished it yesterday and I am proud of myself for getting it done so quickly after the holidays.

I tried to keep each page simple, with minimal embellishments. If you have any questions about a particular page, feel free to ask.

December Daily 2-6 (long post)

I am still around. I have been having A LOT going on lately and I have decided to not let it get to me this year, and just let some things go. Unfortunately, this means some crafting projects are being left in the dust, which means less things to blog about. I assure you, I have not foresaken my faithful readers, I have just chosen to not feel guilty about the things that I can't accomplish this year and focus on the more important things, such as spending more time with my family. A surgery and a couple of illnesses have really taken its toll this December.

As you can see below, my DD is only up to page 6 and on my last check, today is the 19th. I have accepted the fact that this album won't get finished until sometime in January, but I am okay with that. Right now, making these memories are more important to me than recording them. Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures below. It is a bit overcast here and even without the flash on some of the page protectors reflected the glare.

First page up is day 2, making Snickerdoodles for the first time ever. I used a 6.5 x 5.5 photo on the left and a 4x6 on the right. This was the first time I used a self-timer to get a photo of myself and I must say I am pleased with the results.

The transparency in the middle was cut to size and layered with the canvas letter stickers.

Day three is all about my dh putting up our tree. I used a full page photo on the left and made a photo collage for the right. I also added tinsel trim to the edge of the left page to add some sparkle. The title was place directly on the photo along with the number coaster.

This next page was inspired by one of Ali Edwards pages that she did recently. I had been saving all of my shopping receipts from the holiday season and I even had a few photos of some of the places I went. The journaling was typed, printed, then I went back over it with stickers on certain key words.

 

Day 5 is our tradition of buying a new ornament each year. The one chosen this year was the tiger because of LSU's SEC championship. I had to order it and get it personalized.

The middle piece is a transparency with a heart doily stapled to it. I then stamped and punched out the circle embellishment and glued it to fit over the angel tag. I then added a word sticker to the piece.

The right side of the layout is the story of the angel ornament that was given to us by a grandmother who is no longer with us. I wanted this story documented so that my daughter will always know where it came from and why it is so important to us. The angel card was stamped with AE DD stamp set and sewed to the page. I sewed lots of little details on to my pages this year. I love the homemade feel it gives to my pages.

Okay, this next layout brings out my redneck side, but it was definately a tradition that I wanted documented in my book. On the left, I scanned and enlarged the dvd case into a full page photo. I then used the Silhouette and one of Kerri Bradford's files to cut the divider in the middle of the layout.

On the right, I typed out my journaling and cut it into 1/4 inch strips. I used white on white for a monochromatic look. I then added a tiny polaroid photo of our Christmas dvd collection. The title letters were added directly to the page. And of course, this story would not be complete with the line, "Shitter's full!" Sorry if this offends anybody, but that really is an important part of the story.

So, there you have it. My attempt at having a sane holiday while still getting a few crafty things done. If by any chance I don't make it back here before the holidays are over, I wish you all a very merry, little Christmas and a safe passage into the New Year.

December Daily - Day One

 Let's start today with a look at what my desk looks like while I am working on this December Daily. I really tend to scrap everywhere and I actually cleaned off the back table before I took a shot of this. I couldn't have it look like I was a complete mess. :)

This is my first DD and I am one of the SC subscribers ex-subscribers, that still hasn't received her album yet, so I really had no motivation to begin this project. I pretty much decided to copy Ali Edwards idea for the first page of my book. I used a baseball card sheet protector that I cut down to size. Once I filled up the little pockets, I sewed them shut to keep things in place.

This is the back side of the sheet protector and the first page of my book, which will eventually have a short intro to my DD on it.

Day One of my book is a large photo of us before we went out for our new tradition. The left side is a border punched pocket page which holds the journaling of our new tradition and why we decided on it. Since I didn't have a binder yet, I forgot about the holes, so I had to improvise. I cut two 1 inch by 8.5 inch pieces of transparency. I butted them back to back and stapled them along the edge of the page. One the front page, I glued a piece of trim to cover the staples, but in this view I left them show.

I know that I am way behind on this project already, but I have chosen not to stress about it. I continue to take photos and jot down quick notes for each day, and when I get to it is fine with me. Are you doing a DD? How is it coming along?

December Daily Demystified

Last Friday, I was sitting at my desk, staring at this pile of embellishments. You see, I want to do my first December Daily, but I didn't know how to start. I usually start a layout with my photos first, so without pictures, I was lost. I posted over on Two Peas and it seems like I was not the only one with the deer in the headlights look on my face. Others were also having the same problem.

Well, one sweet lady, Shimelle, answered and gave me the most wonderful advice. She said to cut my base pages, make a few embellishments, and then put the pages together as I print my pictures.  Light bulb moment!! I printed and cut my pages, sorted through and chose the embellishments I wanted, and pulled a few stamps and such to use. Finally, the clouds were starting to part, and I didn't feel so overwhelmed anymore. This was something I could actually do.

This is the whole kit that I pulled together.

This is the papers that I am using, cut down to 6 x 8.5.

I put everything in this clear storage box from my local office store.

I guess the purpose behind this story is no matter how many years you have been doing this, how experienced you are, and no matter how many classes you have taught, you can still always learn something from others. So, if you have wanted to do a December Daily and didn't know where to start, my best advice is to stop over thinking it and just do it the way it works for you. Good Luck!!