December Daily - Preparation for 2013

Happy first of November peeps!  Yep, that's right... November is upon us ALREADY!!!  Can you hear the sound of Christmas calling?  Have you noticed that all the shops have all their decorations in store and have had for the past few weeks?  The kids are organising their Santa letters and us parents are starting to prep for the silly season.

I truly love this time of year, all the excitement, all the frantic shopping (thank goodness for online buying nowadays) and one of my biggest thrills...  My December Daily album.  If you have never heard of it before, be sure to check where it all began with the lovely and highly talented Ali Edwards here.  She is so inspiring and her tutorial videos and ideas are simply amazing!

I have been doing this Christmas-themed-way-of-documenting-the-month-of-December for the past 3 years now and each year I thoroughly enjoy the whole concept, getting more creative each time I take part.  This year will be no exception however I plan to be totally organised before the month of December hits, as we all know how crazy it can be.

My first steps are to:

• keep a notepad and jot down my ideas
• search pinterest for inspiration, you can find my board link here.
• go through and sort my over flowing stash of Christmas themed goodies
• start cropping and making inserts

I have just downloaded the Ali Edwards December Daily 2013 Overlays & Cards to use in this year's album.  I am so pleased with the colour of them as they are uncannily the exact ones I was hoping to use, green, teal and red.

They will also match perfectly with the album I have chosen to use which is the Stampin' Up! Seasonal Stripes 8"x8" album.  It came complete with 10 page protectors that are in a variety of designs.  I have also been looking at the journaling tags and sticker set that match the album and think I will use them too.  I have my eye on the Sesaon Of Style This & That Journal which I think will be a fun and helpful way to organise all my Christmas lists.

 

So I hope you follow along and keep me motivated on my December Daily preparation journey and enjoy seeing how my album unfolds.  Now I'm off to do some serious stash sorting and get into the 'spirit of Christmas'...  I might even put on some Michael Buble to help me be merry; he's a sure way to make me 'whistle while I work' lol ;-)

Happy Friday peeps
xo

December Daily - Days 1, 2 and 3

Slowly and surely I am working on finishing this album.  I am quite enjoying going back over all the photos as it seemed to go by so quickly.  It has taken me back to those special moments, whist I've been working on it late at night in the quiet, and helped me to again appreciate such a wonderful time of year it is with a young family and be surrounded by loved ones.

This is the inside of the front cover.  I decided to use the kid's annual Santa photo to start the album off. It was quite bare without it and it was the perfect size.  I embellied it up a bit with a banner, Thickers and a tag.  The plastic pocket has some foil Christmas trees sewn into it and a printed calendar card by Bananafish Studio from the Studio Calico kit I received when I joined their class 25 Days.

Day 1 - Pretty simple with again printing out tags and inserts.

Day 2 - More printing with a little of my own messy handwriting (it was late and I was tired).  I love this full page of the boys playing in a box.  It's these simple things and these moments that I cherish most at Christmas.  It really makes all the stress and chaos fade away with their gorgeous giggles.

Day 3 - Another full page and this one captures the wonderful faces that my son makes whilst playing video games.  Peace and quiet amongst all the Christmas crazies was lovely this day.  A cute little Colour Fusion Sn@p pocket is used here to hold a note that our Elf On The Shelf left for the boys.

All of the pretty papers I have used are by Simple Stories.  I have alternated between two, Summer Fresh and Harvest Lane.

I am hoping over the next few days to continue with a few more pages but as Murphy's Law has it, I ran out of ink for my printer today when I was on a roll.  Would you believe it?  So off to buy some more tomorrow and then run my printer ragged.  I've got literally tons of photos waiting to be printed.

Hope you like what I have done so far :)

December Daily 2012

Well, firstly I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  The time has just flown over the past few weeks and it feels like it has been forever since I have blogged.  The seasonal sillies are finally slowing down and I'm trying to get back to normality.  Although, it is a little hard in Melbourne at the moment with this scorching heat so I'm just going with the flow of things and just concentrating on keeping cool.

One thing that has kept my mind off of the heat is my December Daily album.  I have been so busy with Christmas, our holiday and then New Year that I haven't had a chance to do anything with it.  I am now sitting with an iced lemon drink. . .  No. . .  No alcohol but that may come later when the kids are in bed tonight LOL.  I have all my papers, stickers, photos, ephemera, the works.  All ready to tackle my album full steam ahead!

I really did have high hopes that I would complete a little bit each night.  But that went out the window quite quickly and I think, last check, that I only got up to day 3.  Admittedly, I have been quite good with the documenting though and jotting down events and things that happened so that when it came to putting it all together it wasn't so daunting.  I have all my photos in order on my Mac and it's just a matter of now printing a few off.

So, here goes...  Wish me luck as I don't plan to resurface until I have it all completed in my hot little hands.  As long as I have a cold beverage, the air con and some peace from my tornados for a bit (they're currently watching Ice Age 4), then I may just accomplish what I am setting out to.

December Daily, get ready, you're about to be TACKLED!!!

:) Kye

December Daily 2012 - The beginning

Hands up who is doing December Daily?  Who even knows what it is?  Admittedly, I hadn't heard of December Daily until last year when I stumbled across it on the Ali Edwards blog.  If you would like to learn more about it, I suggest you check out this very talented lady's approach.   This wonderful project is going to be a much loved tradition in my household for many years to come, such a lovely way to document the excitement of Christmas.  Click here to see what the December Daily project by Ali Edwards is all about.

Anywho, I have just received my Sn@p album, page protectors and some paper pads that I intend on using to put my album for 2012 together.  I chose not to go with all Christmas themed papers as everything I looked at seemed too wintery.  December in Australia consists sunshine, balmy nights, bbq's and swimming not snowflakes and cosy fireplaces lol.  I wanted something colourful and fun that reflects how I feel Christmas in my family is.  Besides, I have a huge stash of Christmas scrap stuff already so I'm sure I can put some of that to good use too.

Here are some of my Sn@p goodies that I will be using from Simple Stories.  The album size is 8"x9" in size and the binding is covered in red material (quite fitting for Christmas).  It holds 6"x8" in pages and comes with 10 page protectors and other Sn@p pages included.  I purchased them from Craft Online which have a sale on the albums at the moment.  I decided to purchase another 2 sets of assorted pages protectors so I have plenty to include the 25 days of December.

I have signed up for the Studio Calico 25 Days class and am still waiting on my bonus kit (which has apparently now sold out).  So I am sure I will have more than plenty of yumminess to fill my album.  The online class looks fantastic and I think this will help me keep on track with my album each day.  Nothing like a bit of inspiration and motivation from some amazingly talented scrappers to get your butt in gear!  Check out the content here.

I can't wait to get started and see my album fill up with lots of Christmas memories over December in such a lovely keepsake.  I have relatives visiting from Scotland too so I'm sure my album will be jam packed with bbq's, family catch ups and lots of fun photos.

I have a bunch of pins on Pinterest for inspiration which you can find here and I hope to update my blog with my progress.  I also have my Personalised Santa Letters that I am working on again (mustn't let the kiddies down) so that is going to keep me ultra busy too. Our Elf on the Shelf that the boys have named Jack will be coming to life in a little over a week which I'm soooo excited about.  So, all in all December is going to be C-R-A-Z-Y and I hope to have fun with every second of it.

But now I'm off to take my pooch for a stroll in the sunshine :)  He's been quite ill and we're waiting on some results that we're hoping is good news.  But that's a whole new post and I really don't want to shed any more tears at the moment . . .   Trying to stay positive and give him lots of love and cuddles.

Take care peeps and I'll be back soon with photos of my cover, wish me luck ;)

Kye

xo

December Daily 2012 - Album Cover

I have started my December Daily album cover and am pretty happy with how it is looking so far.  I seem to always play around with colours, papers, embellishments, etc for quite some time before I actually decide on anything and this cover was no exception.  It took me ages to finally come up with something I liked . . .  As per usual lol ;)

I have used the Simple Stories Summer Fresh 6"x6" paper pad for my banner and flower.  The rub-on text on the tag is by Christmas Carnival Collection by Kaisercraft as is the bottom stars and patterns with some Ice Stickles for a little bling on the bauble.  The 2012 numbers are by Amy Tangerine and the the banner is mounted with double-sided foam tape to add dimension.

The inside cover is a page included with the Sn@p album by Simple Stories with again my own handmade banner and Amy Tangerine Thickers for lettering and tape.  The paper for the banner is the Dear Santa Collection by Kaisercraft and the 'daily' wording I printed onto a tag from the Simple Stories Summer Fresh 6"x6" paper pad.

The green flower is made from a Hot Off The Press flower template that I cut out and adhered with tape.  The red underside of the flower was punched out with a Fiskars circle border punch.

I didn't want to open the album and jump straight into day 1 so I searched the web until a quote/poem caught my eye and was suitable for an introduction to my album.  I found this Christmas Manifesto wording on a blog and the link is here; it was perfect!

I still want to add perhaps some ribbon to the binder and a label on the spine, not sure what but definitely something with some hanging trinkets.

So this is where I am at for now with my album . . .   I think I will do each page as I go throughout the month.  I previously decided to do my foundation pages beforehand but now think that I will just limit myself if I do that.  I would much prefer to see what photos I have for each day, what events took place and then decide how I will do each page.

Getting excited now, not long at all and the fun begins (oh and Jack comes to 'play') lol ;)

Cheers peeps,
Kye
xo

Items Used

These are the links for the items I could find on Amazon.