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 :)
