December Daily: Days 6-18

Let's talk December Daily, shall we? I have been quiet on my blog about it, because I've been so busy trying to keep up with it and not spending everyday photographing, editing pics of my layouts, and updating my blog! I am behind by 3 days now, but still up to date with photos taken + printed! I think it is much easier to "catch up" when I have fallen behind here and there when my photos are already printed and in their pockets (with papers selected at least) - then I can just get started!

Anyway, so I took some pictures this morning, but they're still pretty glare-y. I've been posting as I go to my Instagram: ScrapperEmily, which may or may not have better photos.

Day 6:
These may be my favorite photos this month so far, ahhh look how cute Natalie is in her coat, hat, and boots!! Oh and yeah Chris finally strung up our lights. Nothing that awe-inspiring, but you can see I stamped under the tree and then added a star sticker to the one pocket.

Day 7:
Christmas on the Canal, and we brought Natalie's cousin! We talked about making this a new tradition, since this is the 2nd year in a row that we've gone - I really hope to see it throughout all my December Daily albums to come! I added silver phrase stickers and of course how cute is that polar bear from the Waldorf add-on kit this month at Studio Calico!

Day 8:
I basically cheated here and took a photo of the same thing three times, but kept zooming in to get a different shot each time! This was a great way to get more from only one photo really. I wasn't sure where to put my journaling so decided to just print it up on top of my photo along with a stamp brush from last year!

Day 9:
I had already decided to do something similar to Ali's page while building my foundation, so I knew I was planning to use that number paper. I was going to add a photo on top but instead chose not to and ended up doing the same thing as Ali with the journaling to the side. I like how this turned out! I added a little transparency flap with a tab just for a little extra something since that whole side didn't have any photos.

Day 10:
Another appearance by a stamp from the Waldorf add-on from Studio Calico in the form of the little owl! I kept pretty closely to my foundation page and the inks just happened to match my daughter's pants, bonus!

Day 11:
I grabbed a few photos from a ladies dinner we had at church from a friend's Instagram feed, since my pictures came out really blurry! I had a mishmash of cards for this one for the left side, since I pulled from a few different foundation page spreads. So I just added my journaling down the right side of the right page.

Day 12:
I was planning to do something similar to Ali's pages again, so used that wonky circles chipboard page, but ended up backing with transparency and just happened to realize the title fit perfectly, so I found some unused wood veneer letters from my stash and then went over them with white pen and outlined the circles with white pen so they would stand out a little better.

If you look closely at the picture I used for this side, there's a guy walking by in the background next to my husband, all blurry... it ended up being the perfect place for some journaling!

Day 13:
A really simple page - I used a digital stamp for the photo on the upper left and a simple outline in pen around the card on the lower left with a stamp. I just listed my daughter's favorite foods right now for the "All I want for Christmas" card and already have plans to use it again later in the album to list her favorite things to do.

Day 14:
Again just keeping it simple. I used some of the small white letter stickers that came in the kit to add "Jesus" to the top left card. Got my husband to snap some quick photos at church :) I bought the nativity cuts from the Silhouette online store and almost bought a scene that seemed to be missing the baby Jesus! Luckily I realized that was missing before I purchased that one and bought a different cut (there were quite a few to choose from) ha!

Day 15: (Natalie turned 16 months old)
She said "love you" and smiled for the camera when I said "smile" for the first times, awww! :) I think I can tell when I start to lose my creativity with December Daily... queue the use of gold glitter everywhere...

Day 16:
I didn't really have one nice photo to fit 6x8, trimmed or full page, so I used two crumb-y ones I got with my iPhone(4s) and added both. That stamp again :) I also had some other AE stamps from Technique Tuesday, so used that to stamp "Favorite Memories" next to the owl.

Day 17:
I went back and forth and finally decided to cut the word "December" from one of the 4x6 cards and trim it to fit across the 6x8 photo. One thing that's been helping me, photos-wise this year, is since I'm home during the day, taking pictures around the house of some decorations during the daylight. Even if I don't end up using them, I have backup in case I don't get anymore good ones, even on days we had planned to do stuff!

Day 18:
I decided it was time for another flap type element, so I used some gold stars vellum paper I had from last year, and trimmed it to 3.25"x12" then folded it in half so it would sit 3.25"x6" in the album. I added the E on the front for Ezra, Natalie's friend, and the N on the back for Natalie.

Here's the other side of the flap.

OK, so there's my update!! Hopefully next time I'm back, I'll have finished the album and can write up some conclusions!

December Daily: Day 5

I only got a few photos inside of my mom and daughter playing while Chris was at a men's dinner at church. The lighting wasn't good and I have no idea how to use my camera, ahhh! I had a few better photos from earlier in the day with the sunlight coming through but I wanted to keep all the photos for just one event.

Despite not having great photos, I used one to make a 6x8 full page since I didn't know what paper to use here, and just cut a strip for the bottom portion on the left. I added a small puffy star sticker from the kit.

Originally I was going to do another see through pocket with the number six on the other side, but decided against having another one so soon. If I use the 6 on the other side, I'll back it with paper. I wanted a place to journal in one pocket and wanted to decorate another pocket. I kept it simple by just adding one of the plastic hearts and the wood veneer 5 on top.

And this concludes the first 5 weekdays of December and I'm still caught up, woohoo!! That's an accomplishment in and of itself, especially after watching 2 kids on Wednesday and making it to church Wednesday night!

December Daily: Day 4

So yesterday I didn't take AS many photos, which was nice I didn't have to cull through a million, but I didn't really have that great of a story to tell (we did nothing), and I didn't have any particular shot that I was like, oh I should definitely include this. That is, until I went to Instagram the left page first, thinking I would leave the right side for tomorrow. I started commenting on Instagram how I was messing around and wasn't very productive, but on the other hand and in stark contrast to me, Chris had come home early from work to drop off the car to get it checked out, took some calls and brought home some work to do, put together our new desk for the kitchen for us, cooked both of us dinner and the next day's lunches, then brewed us some Oolong teas so he could stay up and finish packaging a bike he sold for some extra cash for new brakes for my car (and so I could stay up and finish December Daily). Then I realized, that's my story for the day!

So I made the left side very simply, mainly I added the gold embossed "December Moments" stamp from Ali Edwards (I cut off "Wonderful Magical" from above those words). I am already wanting more of those gold foil labels, especially because last year I used the Studio Calico printable labels by Hello Forever all throughout my album but am feeling lost without them this year! I left the back of the "3" unfinished so as not to draw attention to it.

I used some of the tiny letter stickers for my title and other than that I just added my journaling around the edge of the page and finished it on the back. It was 1am and I wanted to go to bed! Queue the gold glitter heart in the corner of my photo and that's a wrap!

P.S. If you want to see my pages up to date, please follow my Instagram feed: @ScrapperEmily!

December Daily: Day 3

I took a billion photos yesterday. This made is super difficult to pick out my favorites, but lately Natalie's been super smiley so this one was perfect. Here's Day 4!

You can see here my original foundation page for this layout. I included a title for the bottom left card that said "tradition" but that didn't really fit my story for the day so I was stuck with the stars I had stamped the length of the title. I ended up adding more stars (in the wrong color ink oops) to the right side and kept my journaling to the left side.

Also, since I'm not sure if I will feel like stitching in the "3", I figured I'd rather have that in a bottom pocket, so it will be less likely to fall out of the album. I ended up using the back of the other card that was in there, since it matched and I didn't have another story or photo to put on top of the orange pocket. I also got lazy and didn't feel like making a fancy decoration so I just covered it with gold glitter tape and called it a day!

On a side note, I first heard Chris "taking shots" of whipped cream at 6am! Then of course, Natalie heard it too and had to run over and do the same as Daddy. No pun intended, I whipped out my camera and caught them helping themselves to whipped cream directly in the mouth!!

December Daily: Day 2

I definitely won't get a chance to take better photos of my Day 2 tomorrow, but I still wanted to post my pages as I go to my blog if I can... so these were taken with my iPhone 4s in my basement at 11:30PM... you can imagine what kind of lighting I've got going on etc. Oh well, here is my day 2 layout! Yes I had a whole different set of photos picked out and again, the evening didn't go as planned (which was a good thing) and we took a surprise trip out to dinner with Natalie! She did great and we had a nice family dinner, complete with balloon making and no tears or fussiness!

I definitely relied heavily on the foundation pages already having my paper picked out etc, though I ended up not using one of the 3x4 cards and instead dropping another photo in there with the digital overlay from Ali Edwards. I really love the stamp set that came with her December Daily kit this year - I contorted the "Let Your Heart Be Light" stamp to follow the lines on the 3x4 card and stamped with Lime Light Color Theory ink by Studio Calico. I masked off the same stamp to stamp the sentiment word by word on that strip across the small photo.

The other thing I changed from my foundation was use that Twinkle Twinkle chipboard banner instead of the lighter green plastic Merry & Bright banner, I just felt the coloring worked better with this layout, but you can see how I don't mind that not every photo is holiday-themed or matches the way I decorate the page. I just like the overall look to be Christmas/holiday looking.

December Daily: Day 1!!

So far so good, I am not behind yet!! Day 1 was great, I had Chris bring up that LED tabletop tree that I scrapped about here. I decided that would be a great first day post again, and it would be fun to compare how different that room looks every year that we live here! And look, you can already tell how much has changed - Natalie is no longer in the swing, but has her little walking and riding toys, awww! So prior to leaving for Monday night prayer at church, I had another photo for the bottom right, a nice 4x6 of Natalie playing with her never-before-used Fisher Price Little People Nativity set that I had bought last year at a discount after the season was over, but c'mon how cute is that picture of Natalie and her older friend pointing to their eyes together! I had to use it.

So I had to do some rearranging from my foundation page - originally I had that scripty paper on the left, but it made it look too busy and I didn't want to mess with lots of layering etc. to make it work. I also didn't use the trees chipboard piece with the "1" on the right, since it didn't really go and I ended up liking just the number by itself with the label.

Aside from those minor changes, it was now time to play! After I selected my embellishments for the left side, I had 2 thoughts. 1) It's not enough. And 2) Ahh, I can't use up so many embellishments on one page!! Then I had to talk myself out of these thoughts. 1) Yes, I could spend another hour and come up with something way more intricate, but will I want to do that for the next 25 days or would I rather get this page done? And 2) I have yet to "run out of product" while working on a scrapbooking project, I have plenty leftover from the last 2 years if need be, and if there's any day I should use more, it might as well be Day 1!!

So my plan is to keep chipping away, and at the very least, I will take photos and document as needed. If time allots, I will also try to print as I go, as I think this will make it easier down the road. I love this project, it makes me so happy! Oh and one more thing, I took out the last 2 years of December Daily albums, and already Natalie has looked through both a few times, asking me to "rea, rea, rea" them to her. She likes seeing Mommy and Daddy on so many pages haha!

December Daily 2014: Foundation Pages Day 1&2

DECEMBER DAILY, HERE WE GO!!!

OK first of all, for the most up to date DD posts, you can visit my Creative Instagram: @ScrapperEmily, since I will be posting there as I complete everything, but will probably have to post to my blog in batches.

I bought the Ali Edwards December Daily kit and received it in the mail last week, then the album came as I was getting started on my first page this past weekend! I got the off-white album and love it!! I'm not too much into altering the outside of albums, so I will probably end up keeping it as is and just labeling the spine. That's not fun for me, the fun is what's inside! So here we go...

So the first thing I did was go back and read this blog post that was my Day 25 last year and the conclusions I had. I've done December Daily twice now, and have finished both albums successfully! However, 2012 I did no prep and did not finish until September 2013. Last year I prepped and finished a few days after Christmas! This year I have no expectations to repeat last year, since last year I had a full extra month to work on prep work. My goal is to finish this album before I preorder 2015's album :) But I am going to try to keep up as much as I can, but not feel like I am behind if I do in fact fall behind!

Anyway, then I did the same as Ali Edwards, and put in my page protectors in a semi-random order, except I did not want any page spreads that had one side with 4 3x4 cards and the other side 2 3x4 with 1 4x6 - basically that would be too many 3x4 cards for one spread for my liking. Next I added a few of the 6x8 sheets that I knew I def wanted throughout (the big gold foil 25 def on Day 25). And then I cut up sheets of paper that I knew I would want to be cut up, example, a lot of sheets have 2 3x4 cards and 1 4x6.

Then for this first page, I simply used the transparency with the gold Ali Edwards' writing on it - I knew I just loved that page so I wanted to use it first! I added one rubber label (love these!!) and decided to go big with the gold numbers!

Last year I couldn't really imagine my album with photos, as it was the first pocket page album I ever worked with, so the first few pages I did prep, I over-prepped and tried to fill every pocket. This time I want to be intentional about where I will place photos and how it will look

As I wrote on Instagram, here is my plan of attack: get some papers in; pick a number and a couple of basic embellishments; don't adhere anything; if there's time (prob not) then go back and do more detailed work such as stitching/stamping.

So my plan with this Day 1 layout is to have 1 square or vertical photo on the left and 1 horizontal square or 4x6 for the bottom right. Depending on the spacing, I will add my story alongside either photo and leave the two 3x4 pockets for embellishing.

For day 2, again just keeping it very simple and easily changeable, I first chose where my photos would probably go (lower left and upper right), and then picked some papers. I added the wood veneer 2 (I plan to use those wood veneer as much as I can), and added another rubber label here there I thought would go as well.

I'm not adhering anything this time because last year there were certain cards that I embellished that I would've liked to have changed slightly once I had my photos (because of colors or arrangement etc), so then I was stuck. This will allow me to change as I see fit. Also, since I changed my goal - from finishing by end of this year, to finishing before preorder next year, I know I can spend some more time on some of these later.

My other goal is to use mostly just the kit and the digital overlays that I purchased from Ali Edwards' site. I bought the combo pack to have the various sizes. I'm not sure yet how I will incorporate these, but I will have them if I need them! I love the look of them, but not sure I am so good at playing off the simple look like Ali does, so I might end up using them more for overlaying the photos, we'll see.

Anyway, good luck to everyone who is participating this year!!

December Daily Day 25 and Conclusions

So even though I'm posting this a few days later, I actually completed the last spread and this year's DD album on December 26th!! Not only do I feel great about completing this on time, but it felt so good to clean up my DD supplies that I left out on my table all month long!! I love that I can go back to my 12x12 scrapping once again yay!

For this last layout I really wanted to keep it simple again so I could just be done with it. Even though it's the last spread and I should've wanted to put more effort into it, I got more and better pictures for Christmas Eve and had spent the most to that layout, so I felt ok with just keeping this one simple. So the left side I just added a few embellishments and a picture of Natalie and her cousin Joey "playing" together :)

For the right side card, I used Shanna Noel's 3x4 layered template sold at Studio Calico, and customized it to a similar color scheme as the page! This is the tutorial video she made that I watched to customize the colors and text! So far, I am REALLY enjoying Photoshop Elements and I hope to get a new printer soon!

So now that I can say I successfully completed my December Daily right after Christmas, here are a few things that I learned worked for me that I would like to remember this time next year!

1. Prep work really paid off for me! Even just having papers cut up and put in there helped me have enough of a head start that most of my page spreads didn't take longer than an hour - about 2-3 hours total with photo printing/editing. I will definitely do this portion ahead of time again next year!

2. Filler cards - luckily I had placed most of my premade filler cards towards the end of the album, and that helped because the beginning of the month is when you're all amped up and ready to tackle this project, use all your creative ideas and get going... then it becomes hard! But thankfully I didn't have to do as much as I did at the beginning because of the filler cards I had!

3. Die-cuts: I wasn't too sure if I should pre cut all my diecuts or not. I didn't except for a few that matched the papers. If I precut the diecuts next year, I will cut them for specific layouts after I have the paper selected etc. I like that my diecuts are not all the same color card stock. Some in glitter POW paper, others in gold, others in white or vellum.

4. Which reminds me, next year I want to buy some more card stock or POW glitter paper that I can use throughout the album - maybe gold or silver or even sparkly white... it helped to have a sort of "base" to be able to use on almost all the pages (for me it was mostly gold).

5. Even though prior to the month, I liked the pages that I did the most prep work for the best, some of those turned out to be the hardest to embellish, depending on my photos. I ended up liking the pages best that I just stuck embellishments into the pockets loosely for potential use but didn't adhere down in case I changed my mind! I will do that next year - I will not adhere anything and just stick them in the pockets - maybe even stick a piece of paper with my ideas in it.

6. If next year's kit doesn't come with thin washi tape... I will go to great lengths to find more! I used that stuff on more than half my layouts - it was so awesome!

7. Also, if next year's kit doesn't come with some sort of numbered decor like the gold numbered circle clips, I will pre-make all the numbers in the same way. I loved having the clips as the first embellishment I could use, then build up from there. It made it super easy.

8. Another super easy (and unexpected) go-to item were the gold glitter star stickers I had purchased as a Halloween set from Target! I liked the idea of being able to use stars throughout the album, so I might get something similar - something simple I can use on every layout, if the kit doesn't come with something like that.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a happy New Year!! Looking forward to next year's December Daily challenge :)

December Daily Day 24

Woohoo, I finally dug into Photoshop Elements a bit more and made the right side of this spread with it!!

I definitely need a new printer now - I purchased a constellation template from Studio Calico and edited my pictures and added them to the circles, but I only printed on my old printer that isn't a photo printer. So in order to get better pictures, I made a new file on a 4x6 canvas, and added just the pictures in the circles to it and printed it separately on my Canon Selphy, then hand cut them! It turned out pretty great, then I embellished a little here and there and voila - my first hybrid layout!!

It was so much fun to make this layout and learn a little more about how to use Photoshop!

Christmas Eve is done! That means one more page to go and I can say I've completed December Daily successfully!! Woohoo!!

December Daily Day 23

OK I kept this spread super simple because, as you can see from the picture, Chris completely surprised me and bought me Photoshop Elements!! It was something I've been talking about getting but then saying no no because it's not something I wanted to spend money on for myself, but something I've wanted to learn how to use! So I just wanted to get this spread done because I knew I wanted to use the program for my next spread!

My friend stopped by at lunch the other day and Natalie actually let her hold her for a minute or so, just long enough for me to get a couple good photos! I kept it simple and used some premade cards from In A Creative Bubble by Geralyn Sy!

Almost done!!

December Daily Day 22

I made it a few days before I caved! Chris and I have NEVER made it to Christmas to actually give each other presents, and this year I thought I definitely could because I knew for a fact I had convinced Chris I didn't get him anything and he didn't get me anything. (Btw, I am not someone who tells someone not to get me something and then is disappointed when I don't get anything.) Anyway, so I had bought Chris the iPad Air and had it safely hidden in my scrap room/area, where it's impossible for anyone else except me to find anything in there haha! But then last night Chris and I were talking and he said he wanted to buy a new iPad of some sort and ended the conversation by asking if he could order the iPad Mini with Retina display. So you see how I was FORCED to tell him I got him a little something?? He LOVES it, yay!!

So for the left side, I had a random pic of Chris and Natalie from earlier in the day - she was looking so cute in her little sweater onesie from Target. Then I made him pose with his new iPad Air, but of course in the background you can see Natalie had fallen asleep in her car seat because it was around 5:30pm and she had been up 8 hours during the day already! I just added a "Merry Christmas" stamp and embossed it, some gold glitter tape and the number clip. I added washi and the word "GIVE" in wood veneer. About the wood veneer letters - one thing I had done before starting the album was use all the letters to make as many Christmas-y words as I could. So I still have the words "LOVE", "JOY", and "GLAD" left to use!

For the right side I cut out the Love December with my Silhouette, and then cut out my picture of the trees near church covered with ice that Chris had taken for me since my journaling had a bit about the ice storm that hit our area. Luckily it wasn't too bad though.

OK, 3 more days... I love that my album is almost completely filled up! I love that I've been able to capture several "firsts" that Natalie had this month - sucking her thumb, rolling over, eating solid foods, etc. I love that when this week is over, I can go back to 12x12 scrapbooking! OK, enough with the "love" because the real love of this Christmas season is remembering what Jesus did for us! The message at church yesterday just happened to cover this most precious verse as we're going through the book of John - John 3:16!!

December Daily Day 21

OK so a few things - Natalie ate her first solids yesterday, just a little banana mixed in with mama's milk! She wasn't too sure about it, but did a few swallows. Also, she really got into her rolling over and every time I put her on her back she flipped immediately to her stomach! It was so fun to watch her in her cute little giraffe print cloth diaper!

For both sides, I used a combination of apps - Afterlight to edit them a bit, then PicFrame to drop them into frames and add the little captions. I like having the option to do this, but I took most of my time on doing all that so by the time I got to work on the page spread it was LATE! I was so tired today!! For this left side, I added the stamp along the top, embossed in gold glitter Zing and used that thin washi tape yet again to help make the star on the patterned paper stand out - I really need more thin washi tape!!

For the right side, I kept it real simple here too, and just tried to incorporate some of the same elements on both sides. The silent night card is from In A Creative Bubble by Geralyn Sy.

That's all - it has taken me a couple days to post these because Natalie has been awake A LOT lately. Not sure if it's a growth spurt or what!! Oh well, only 4 more layouts to do and my DD will be complete AND now that we're on the final stretch, I think I will get it done before the end of the year - WOW! That means I will have done 2 December Daily's this year haha since I had to finish last year's album in September :)

December Daily Day 20

Day 20 I had to rearrange some of my cards and didn't have really any journaling, so kept it pretty simple so I could get to bed at a decent time!

For the tree on the left side, I cut it out from a card my mom sent us. I punched some stars from some Silver Glitter POW paper - I love the added sparkle those give and how easy they are.

For the right side I finally cut into that Allison Kreft piece of transparency paper with the stars on it - I think it's my first time using a piece of paper like that and I just love it!

Final countdown!!