December Daily 2011 details

November 30th. I'm glad that I was able to finish it all and organize before December first. Can't believe that tomorrow my DD gets it's first recording. Very excited! I love that my kids like to be involved and they even offered to journal everyday in their notebooks just i case mom will miss a day.

So, for my DD cover I wanted it to be light and simple. I cut out title with Silhouette and used negative part of it for a cover with a word paper underneath. Very simple, just the way I thought I wanted:

But then, I wasn't sure if I will be inspired to work with it throughout the whole month, and decided to make one more cover, just in case I like the other one a little better. It seems like a tradition now to make two covers each year.

For my second cover I still tried to keep it light (last two albums from previous years were burgundy), but with a little more details this time:

I added some stitching and had to add some rhinestones (because my little helper had them glued all over the table):

Added some ribbon and roses:

It was the skinniest ribbon I ever made roses from. It wasn't exactly the color I wanted but it kinda worked:

And this is what my DD has inside:

I keep a box with extra patterned paper and daily numbers to include when needed. I didn't want to number my pages now, because you know me - I need a freedom to choose and change things around as I go.

Here is one of the diecut pages glued onto the transparency:

And a gold transparency by Hambly:

Ok. I always wanted to see how a 4x6 December Daily would look like and that's why I made another little book. I did have a special person in mind who could use it, so if she reads this and decides she want to give it a try - it's all hers.

Here is the what it looks like:

I didn't punch holes in it because she has the cutest little hole puncher. I saw it.

One picture a day, which is glued to the back of a patterned paper from a previous day. Add a journaling tag and a day number and it's done. Here is an example of how it can be used:

Or if you have more than one picture for that day - make a photo collage:

I wanted to see how big this little DD will look at the end, so I grabbed random 25 pictures and stacked them underneath:

It will be a little thicker if you use all of the tags, that I premade for this book:

That is it for today. Hope all of you have your camera batteries charged and ready to go. My biggest goal is to write something down few times a day, so I don't have to spend any extra time when assembling a page together. And my wish is to actually work on my December Daily during December, when it's all fresh and I'm still in the Holiday mood (not January or even later).

Great DD post by Ali Edwards as she looks back on her albums from previous years here: http://aliedwards.com/2011/11/december-daily-2011-25-ideas-and-story-inspirations.html

Enjoy your last day of November and have the best December ever!

Happy Thanksgiving

Is it too late to say that? Well I meant to post it right that evening or next morning, but it just didn't happen. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few Thanksgiving pictures before diving into December Daily. I made this cake with chocolate leaves (they are so much fun to make) and a few frozen berries:

And here is a collage of some other food from the holiday:

My little sister was making a turkey this year, but to be on the safe side we decided to bring one of our own:

I love Thanksgiving, and family is something I most thankful for - big and happy family:

There are only three more days left till December. It doesn't really feel that way when temperatures are in sixties, but winter will be here soon anyway! Hope you have a great day and find something to be thankful for not just on Thanksgiving Day but each and every day of your life!

I'll be back soon.

December Daily 2010

This will be my third year participating in December Daily project. The first year I heard about DD I thought the idea was so incredible, that I decided to make two albums that year. Not a very good idea. I did complete one of them (the one I sent to my in-laws), but I was burned out to complete the other album (my own).

Today I pulled them out of the box ('09 and '10) and looked through both of them. I don't feel like finishing the first one, but I'm thankful for the experience it gave me. Having both DDs side by side, I realized that album from 2010 is twice as thick. It required larger rings to hold everything in place.

So looking through them helped me to get in the mood and finally start working on my album for this year. This is the latest I've ever started working on it, but on the other side, that means I wouldn't start collecting stuff before December comes (I could barely wait last year, so I added two or three pages before December 1st).

I realized, I never posted my finished DD 2010 here, so I'm sharing it here today!

One of those intro pages (I added a picture and journaling into a flyer I got in the mail):

Last day of November (I know, it was supposed to be DECEMBER daily):

December first:

We wanted to decorate Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, but I told my kids that we have to wait, so it gets recorded in DD:

I bought a box of red Christmas cards and used punched out pieces of those cards throughout my album. It worked perfectly for me. Left side has inner piece of the card:

I like when pages differ in size by their width, but will never cut them in different height as I did here. It still bothers me when I look at this page (left side):

I liked adding my journaling on these cards (originally came from photo boxes):

This is the smallest page in the entire album, but I like that it fells complete with a photo and journaling (for some reason this size didn't bother me):

Adding journaling directly to a photo was one of my favorite tips, and I'm sure I'll repeat it again this year:

Loved enlarged photos too:

Another one of those cards but used sideways. The back side of it has a journaling for the day:

Black and white pictures was always a good solution for yellow and not so perfect shot (or when kids wore too much color):

Plan to take more pictures of food (these were from Christmas Party at Progress Grill):

I also plan to keep it very simple. Don't like too much decoration in this type of documenting:

I had a few flip-open pages, which let me include more pictures:

The pocket underneath photo was supposed to include a recipe of crapes:

It was a little hard for me to switch from reds to blue, so I wanted to make sure a previous page doesn't show any red, since this page was skinnier:

I would really try my best to record the stories on the day they happened. Here I have empty card... Maybe, I should ask Suzanna to write something down:

I love how stores look at this time of the year and wanted to record some of that:

A tin of popcorn is one of our Christmas traditions. Here is the picture of it under the Christmas Tree:

We ate popcorn and played some family games:

Again, no story here... originally I planned to have story instead of that green strip of paper:

Here is the card I used bits and pieces throughout my album. There were enough to send out and to use in my DD:

And a picture we included in our cards:

This is one of my favorite pages - the mail going out:

I couldn't find many transparencies, so I just had to make a few of my own:

This day didn't have a picture and I was totally fine with it:

It was impossible to pick just one or to pictures for December 24ht, so I made a collage with lots of little pictures:

I ended up with three pages for December 24th:


And a Christmas Day (really wanted to keep it light):

Two pages for December 25th:

And I did go all the way through New Years day. Here are just a few of them:

Last page:

Lots of memories:

So picked all the papers I want to use throughout my DD this year. Cut my numbers for each day (really liked having some large numbers last year) using Silhouette. And, I really hope to get my covers done this weekend and a few pages. I don't plan to do a lot of preplanned pages this year, because I really had to do a lot of adjustments as I was filling the album up, because some days I needed more space for pictures when others I didn't need much space at all.

How is your process coming along? Hope to have another party after December is over.

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to record little details of your life!