December Daily - Day 7

Day 7 was nice and quiet. There were a few events that happened that I am probably going to include in my Project Life instead (if I ever get around to doing it), so for today I decided to focus on a subject that I have been wanting to scrap for a few days and that is Christmas Movies. I have a large collection of Christmas movies and wanted to record my love of watching them each year. This year I am especially enjoying putting one on as I sit down to work on my December Daily album. 

I seem to like the pages more that have this general formula - one photo with washi tape and a couple of small embellishments.

I think that I still might add something small to the blue journalling card, but I couldn't work out what today. It was one of those times when you have to step away and come back at a later time with fresh eyes.

Thank you so much for looking! 

December Daily - Day 5 and 6

So, I fell a day behind, but luckily I have had a pretty quiet day today, so I managed to catch up, phew!! I can imagine that this won't be the only time that happens for the rest of the month!

Day 5 was a quiet one, so I decided to include a photo of the lights on our house and talked briefly about how putting them up is one of my favourte traditions. I also included a picture of the horrible weather as I was driving home from the shops with the words Hello Summer? Underneath I journalled about how we are still waiting for the arrival of summer down here. There was even snow on the apline ranges a few days ago!! In the bottom pocket is my journalling and a printable element from the 25 Days class at Studio Calico, printed on one 4x6 piece.

I love the grey snowflake paper, so I decided to keep the page very mininal. I had always planned on doing a full page photo for our lights and I LOVE when I see other people do this, however when I tried it, it just didn't look how I wanted it to, maybe because it was too different to the rest of the album?  So anyway, I just went with a smaller photo instead!

My Day 6 page is all about my niece's Kinder Christmas concert. I had a bit of trouble with this page, I think because I wanted to inlcude more photos than I usually do. On the right I included my journalling, the program of the songs they sang and a filler card. 

I hope everyone else is still finding the time to create!!

December Daily - Day 4

Wow, Day 4 was a busy one!! I joined in with my niece and nephew's advent calender activity, which was to go to the shops to buy a decoration for their tree. They get to choose one every year to add to their collection. This was after we had already been to swimming, the library for story time and posted their Santa letters!!

While we were there we also made a quick stop to see Santa!

I had a lot of photos today, so I decided to make a collage to go in one of the 4 x 6 page protectors. I just did this in Pages on my Mac (I don't have photoshop) and printed it on to photo paper.

I then added some stars and glitter in to one of the pockets and used my sewing machine to stich it closed along the top.

As you can see although I don't have kids myself, I spend A LOT of time with my sister's so you will see my nieces and nephews feature on many of my pages!!

Another day completed, hope you are all enjoying the process as much as I am!!

December Daily - Day 3

Day 3 documented!! Today was about making Christmas play dough with my sister, niece and nephew. We also put our Christmas lights up on the front of the house, so I included a photo of my Dad hanging from the verandah with the words Lights = Danger (since he nearly fell off last year)!

I am really enjoying completing this project, as well as looking at what everyone else is coming up with!

December Daily - Day 2

Here is my page for day 2 of my December Daily. I am really loving this process so far, however I don't know how I will go keeping it up for the whole month!! I am finding myself at my scrap table pretty late in to the night!

December 2nd was all about finding our tree, so that is what today's page is about. During the day I recieved photo messages from my sisters of my nieces and nephews with their tree's, so I decided to include photos of all three of our tree's in the divided page protctor. This was actually my second go at this page, the first one just didn't feel quite right.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has visited my blog and left comments, it is wonderful to recieve some feedback! Thank you!!!

JYC Christmas Manifesto

Today I recieved my first prompt from Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas Class, which is all about declaring your intentions for the album and writing a Christmas Manifesto. I decided to include mine at the beginning of my album after my cover and intro page. I placed it back to back with a photo of fairy lights that I took while getting the Christmas decorations out. I placed this in a smaller sized page protecor, which is a We R Memory Keepers 5.5 x 8.5 page. I just punched an extra hole and trimmed a bit from the top.

For the manifesto I decided to mainly use the words that Shimelle had included at the end of the prompt, and then just added a few small lines of my own words. 

The biggest issue I had with this page was the title. I wanted to print all of the journalling and use letter stickers for the word MEMORIES. I went back and forth between about 5 different sets of letter stickers and eventually ended up using these Heidi Swapp block stickers, however I'm still not sure if I am happy with them! Titles are generally were I have the most trouble!!

December Daily - Day 1

And here we go.... December has started here in Australia as it is currently the evening of Saturday the 1st of December!! And so that begins the offical start of my December Daily / JYC album, which I have been patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) waiting for since the start of November.

Since we don't get prompts here until later in the evening I decided to do my own daily wrap up from Day 1. I'm still not exactly sure how I am going to combine the two concepts, I guess I will have to see what happens as the month evolves.

So on to Day 1....

This is the completed page for December 1st. I am hoping to keep going with the full page spread on one side and a divided page on the other side. I say hoping, as I think we all know how busy December can get and I'm not sure if I will be able to complete this much every day.

On the right side I let the star and confetti show through from the previous page and then added the Hello December card which I created (inspired by Ali Edwards' use of the word Hello in her journalling), a journalling block and a photo from the Motorbike Toy Charity run that I drove past today. My journalling is pretty straight forward (I'm not a great writer, as you can probably tell), so it's just an outline of the events of today.

For the layout page I used some photos from a craft market at Red Hill that I went to today, including a picture of the first gift I have bought, a gorgeous hat for my nephew! I am faily minimalist with my embellishments, so just a few little features and I was finished!

After the market I decided to make a quick stop at the beach nearby. I had seen this 'Tis the Season' photo idea online and wanted to give it a try myself to represent Christmas in Australia. I decided to include it in my intro page and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

So that is Day 1! I am hoping that I can keep it up! Good luck to everyone else who is embarking on this project and if you haven't had it yet, enjoy your first day of December!

Foundation Pages

To try and keep on track this year for JYC /  December Daily, I decided to do some pre-prep work. I was planning to make the pages ready to just add photos and journalling, however I have real trouble committing without the photos to work with. So I have just decided to cut down all of my papers and slip them in the page protectors so they are ready to work on daily. I have also cut and added in some journalling cards in to the divided page protectors which are going between each layout.

I am all ready to go (I think) just waiting for December 1st to roll around!!

December Daily / JYC 2012

Ok, lets try and get this blogging idea going again....

It's nearly December, which means it is time to try another December Daily /  Journal Your Christmas! I tried to create one last year, however the month of December just got out of control and I think I only managed about two pages, epic fail! This year I have tried to do some more pre-planning and preparation and I think have already done more than I achieved last year so that is a good start.

Here are all the supplies that I am thinking of using.

I am using a Red SN@P 6x8 binder, which seems to be a popular choice for this project from what I have seen online. My supplies are a combination of items from Simple Stories, My Minds Eye, Pink Paislee and Echo Park. I have also mixed in older supplies from Elle's Studio, Prima and Making Memories. Then I have included some non Christmas items that I thought would work in well including smash clips, Amy Tan paper flowers and Jenni Bowlin butterflies.

I am also going to include these gorgeous buttons from Finding Nana, I haven't used these before so I am excited to try them. I also added all of the buttons and flowers that will go with my Christmas colours and have included them in my December Daily basket of goodies.

And of course there is a whole bunch of alphabets to include in the album such as Thickers, Prima Alphabet stickers and Mini Market from October Afternoon.

So lets have a little look at how the album is unfolding beginning with my title page...

I know that I live in Australia and Christmas is all about summer, warm weather and the beach, however I just can't seem to get past the more traditional idea of Christmas including snow! I just don't think this page would have looked the same with suns instead of snowflakes!!

I decided to create this second page about the things I see, do and hear during the holiday season. This idea was scraplifted from Ormolu. Across from that I added a divided page protector which really serves as another into page of sorts. The star is sewn in to the page protector and then it is also sewn closed at the top. This was the first time I have used confetti and I think I could have used a bit less, but oh well, I'm happy with how my first go turned out, especially since it was my first time sewing as well,

As far as a page layout goes, I think I am going to have a full page 6 x 8 on one side and then a divided page protector on the other for the daily spread. Some times I may decide to have a double page depending on the day and story I want to tell. I was thinking of making some of the pages now, however I have real trouble committing without the photos to be able to lay things out. So instead I will just have to try and fit it in throughout December. I have cut down all of my papers to 6 x 8 and will slip them in protectors ready to go. I have also added a few journalling cards throughout.

I am SO excited to do this project this year, I just want December to start already so I can start adding my photos and stories!!