December Daily 2015: (Nov) Day 27-Day 30 and (Dec) Day 1 - Day 18

It's almost the Christmas season! aaaaand I'm just working on finishing up last year's December Daily. You know...I don't care so much. As long as I get it done I'm happy. So instead of posting 18 posts for 18 days I'm doing a 1-18 post. As these pictures are posting I'm working on the second half of the album. In year's past I only had one album but it ends up being so big and thick that I need two. I could probably condense down but I honestly don't want to. I tell the stories that need to be told and occasionally I use more than one picture. p.s. I'm from a HUGE family so it's hard not to keep it to one picture.

For my December Daily I use Ali Edwards' 2014 and 2015 kits as well as some of my own stash. If you'd like to know about something specific please let me know and I'll post a link to the product.

Here's my album: part 1: I believe this design is by Jasmine Jones.

Cover page with gold embossed wooden numbers, large red chipboard and a rubber banner. This was so easy and simple and it makes a splash.

My Reason why: Ali does something like this every year and I never wrote an intention before but I kind of like it. It sets the tone for the season. It reminds me of what I want to get out of of Christmas. It makes me remember what's important.

Close up of each page:

Second page of the layout. I got to have some fun with product! Oh do I love to play with product and these small 2" square page protectors are perfect for it. Just enough to highlight embellishments without going overboard.

Day 1 which technically for me is Day 27. I decided to start in November with my December Daily because really for me that's when it starts. Right after Thanksgiving. This is the first year I've done it this way and I think I'm going to continue that tradition. Why not right?

Day 1: Black Friday Shopping!

This actually isn't in a page protector. It's a fold out spread I created using a couple sheets of paper. It's a flip up, so grab the bottom and lift up. Inside I have some spending on Christmas. I'm not going to post that picture but I thought you'd like to see the cover.

On the inside top cover I put my journalling and below the stores I shopped at, how much I spent and brief description of what I bought. I thought it would be interesting to see that information 20 years down the road.

Shopping with the sisters. Always fun and crazy. I bought an Instax today so these pics are the first ones. I had fun playing with it during the day.

Day 28 (Nov): Cutting down my Tree! Woohoo! my favorite and a family tradition. The left-hand page I cut out with my Silhouette. The cut file was a freebie. I can't remember whose blog I downloaded it from. If I remember I'll add a link. I loved that cut file because I felt like it was the perfect symbolization of picking out a tree. There are all these options you just have to find the right one.

The picture on the bottom is not in a page protector. I just added it directly to the album with a tab for easy flipping.

Day 29 (Nov)

The first full year having my homemade quilted tree skirt. I love it so much. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Day 30 (Nov): New Ornament. I like to document the new ornaments that I have for the tree each year.

The ornament on the left was cut out using my silhouette. I just love that green plaid paper. If feels very cozy and representative of the season and the northwoods where I live.

Day 1 of December! - December doesn't seem like December unless it snows and there is a fresh coat of snow on the ground. We were lucky this year and a nice storm fairly quickly.

The #1 is adhered to a transparency that has white dots that look like snow. It's beautiful and makes my picture look like it's snowing. It actually was snowing but it wasn't big flakes so it's hard to capture on film.

Day 2: Twinkle lights! I absolutely love twinkle lights. I love trees that have lights on each and every branch. It's magical.

Day 3: Cookies. mmm.... I only did a one-pager here because, let's face it, I only needed one page. I like doing a mixture of larger layouts and smaller ones. I also like doing a mixture of handwriting and computer fonts just to mix it up. Usually if I am writing something longer or more complex I'll use the computer so I can refine it and get more of the story out.

Day 4: Hometown Holidays

I took this picture at night which is always difficult and then made it more sepia to fit the old-fashioned feeling of the Village of Yesteryear. It seemed appropriate.

Day 5: My nephew had a sleepover at my house so this was all about getting to spend some time with him. It wasn't necessarily about the holiday season but more about some time with my nephew.

Day 6: Movies. Christmas Movie Marathon to be exact. It's a tradition my family started several years ago. We all gather together on a Saturday and start at 8 or 9 in the morning and watch Christmas movies all day long. We make breakfast, go grab lunch and order in dinner. Sometimes we pick by drawing a movie out of a pillowcase and sometimes each person gets to pick. It usually will go in the order they got the the house. (usually Kimmie's house). It's a fun day. Usually people come and go. Some are diehards and stay all day. I myself usually try and bring my Christmas card supplies so I can make them while I watch movies.

I used my sewing machine to stitch on the glittery letters. They never seem to stay on very well but I love the look of them.

I wanted to put in a lot of pictures so I used the 2" square page protector so I could get more in.

Day 7: Pinochle Night.

Pinochle is a card game I learned when I was young and have continued to play since I was 10. I used to play with my grandparents and my great-grandparents and now I play with my aunts, my cousins and my sister.

Day 8: a Motley Crue Christmas. LOL okay not really but since the concert was in the middle of December I HAD TO put this in even though it isn't Christmas-y.

I added another flip out page on the bottom because I wanted to add more pictures.

I made the Motley Crue card using some really cool thick red paper that's glittery without the glitter getting all over. It's like it has a coating on it. It's awesome for people like me who love the look of glitter but hate using it because it gets everywhere. No matter how hard you try to stay clean. I used a plastic star with bokeh on it in the background, used an Ali Edwards circle star stamp around it and then used some black letter stickers. I also added a star stamp border. It was fun creating this. I used stars throughout the layouts with paper that had stars, I stamped stars on the Number 8, I embossed a red star on the piece of cardstock. Basically I was star happy!

aww me and my Bruce.

Day 9: Just a day in the life of me and my boyfriend. This layout was tricky for me because I had never used Instax images on a page before. So finding the right way to put them on the page so they didn't look like they were just floating on the page was tricky but I eventually

Day 10: Winter Walk in Northfield, MN - this has turned into a tradition with a friend of mine. We go every year. It's a nostalgic and beautiful downtown area that definitely exudes the Christmas spirit. I chose pink because it's my friend's favorite color and it seemed appropriate for the layout.

I oftentimes will turn "busy" or lower quality photographs into black and whites. I think it's less distracting and especially with buildings it gives a nice sophistication to it. Plus I won't overwhelm the page with too much color meaning a lot of color in the photograph and a lot in the paper and embellishments.

I used some colored tree plastic embellishments. Not that easy to see but you can tell they are there and they don't distract from the picture they only enhance it.

Day 11: Christmas Cards. I like to do a layout about my Christmas cards. Cards I make. Cards I receive. Stuff like that. I think it's fun to see what it is that I made that year. I change it up each year. sometimes they are more complex and sometimes not. Just depends on my time constraints and how motivated I am.

I made an envelope in my silhouette that I could add in to the page that would contain my Christmas card list. I have never added that before but I thought that I should because it changes every year. A lot of times I'll add new people to it and take off old ones too. I rarely take off but that's the truth.

This is my favorite Christmas card that my mom sent out. She likes to get a picture of our entire family each year to send out on a card. I absolutely love this picture. We took it on thanksgiving. It was snowing outside. People were a bit cranky about having to go outside but I think it's one of the best one's we've done.

The top picture is of all of the cards I made for the year. I usually do 5 to 6 different designs and I create 10-15 cards per design. For me I don't like to do a mass production of cards. Doing about 10 is about enough for me. It's fun to try different techniques and create different types for different people/groups that I send to.

Day 12: DUV which means Daughters of the Union Veterans of the Civil War but I shorten it so it'll fit on this page.

My cute little nephew that I got to cuddle with for a bit.

Loved pairing the black and white colors with gold. I had never done that before but it was fun and very classy.

Day 13: One pager about me and Bruce and our weekend breakfast tradition.

Day 14:

My friend Lynn doesn't like her picture taken so I blurred her slightly so you can't see her. Plus I didn't get her permission. :)

I love this page. It's so simple but fun. All about making cookies and friendship. It doesn't get better than that at Christmas.

Day 15: Cookie Breath!

oh it's a thing. My boyfriend was teasing me and said I had cookie breath after kissing me. It was hilarious. It cracked me up so I HAD TO do a page on that one. Another cookie page. I think I have about 4 cookie pages maybe more?

Day 16: Ugly Sweater Contest at work. Super fun and an awesome way to use that sweater paper.

Day 17:

Christmas music - concentration on a certain song. One of my absolute favorites and what it means to me. I had considered doing a layout about what new songs I added to my itunes account but ended up going with a concentration on a specific song. I can always write in my new tunes next year.

I put the lyrics to the song in a 3x8 page protector. I like doing those smaller protectors because I think they add an interesting size and they are fun to work with.

I loved using the triangle sideways to get the "play" symbol similar to what you would see on your ipod.

Day 18: Work Christmas Party

Loving the teal mixed with silver glittery embellishments. So fun and festive!

Okay that's about it for now. I'm working on the rest of my album and will post it once I get it done which I"m hoping is soon. :) Thanks for looking!