December Daily 2012 - Ready to Go!

It's been a mad dash to the finish and this is the latest I've ever been getting this project prepped and ready to go.  The last two years we've traveled over Thanksgiving so I always made sure it was completely done and prepped by mid November.  Having the luxury of being home this year has been a blessing and a curse.  While the cover came together okay, waiting for kits to arrive and other items that I had ordered left me playing the waiting game. 

As you have already seen I'm using a Studio Calico Handbook album this year, the size is one that I've come to love that I know works well for the things that I like to include in this project.  The album comes with a variety of page protectors and I also purchased additional 6 x 8 inserts as well. 

I usually like to have a full two page spread for each day and the last few years I've used Hambly overlays in between each page (lets all let out a collective, 'why did you have to go Hambly!').  I was undecided as to what I was going to do until I received my kit from Kelly Purkey.  If you were lucky enough to grab her kit I'm sure you are gushing over the amazeballs-ness of the vellum and gold overlays included in the kit.  Since my pages are 6 x 8 and the vellum pieces were 6 x 6 I had to come up with what to do.  I decided to play around with printing on vellum myself as a way to incorporate some favorite holiday quotes, sayings and song lyrics that matched the size of Kelly's pieces for some cohesion.  Here is what I ended up with.

They are 6 x 6 pieces and I used 36 lb. vellum that I purchased from here.  It's lovely paper to work with, not as sheer as thinner vellum but I liked that it was a bit more opaque, plus it printed really well.  I choose a variety of things to print.  Some are quotes from favorite holiday movies and specials, some are from Christmas Carols, all things that meant something to me.

As you'll see below I used some Dear Lizzy gold dot vellum to make 4 inserts.  I used the gold doilies and wrapped them around the edge.  I will probably back these with white woodgrain paper as I like the look of this vellum when it has a backing.  The vellum envelope came with Kelly's kit and I wrapped the last two doilies around the flap.  The three letterpress cards also came in Kelly's kit and I decided to use them as inserts as well.  I just punched two holes in the short side and they fit right in between the rings.  The last four vellum pieces I've left as is.  I will probably add something to them as the month goes.

I've also decided not to number my inserts as I've done in previous years for two reasons, a) I kind of wanted to do something different and b) this will allow me to move things around if needed.  Kind of cheating I know but if an insert works better on a different day I want the freedom to be able to move things around.

I also made up some simple inserts for myself this year.  I printed these out on regular copy paper because in years past I've printed them out on nice cardstock in color and ended up not using them and going with either a full sized photo or something different.  These are here just to let me know what day is what and I have the .png files ready to go if needed. 

I also made a 6 x 4 version to use on the divided page protectors. 

I might even end up cutting some and using two pockets for one photo, like this.

Here is the whole shebang laid out on my floor.  I tried to think about events that are already planned and placed things appropriately where I could.  I still need to make two inserts and once the Studio Calico 25 Days class launches on Saturday I'll take care of them.  I'm going to make two of the envelopes that Marcy Penner designed for the class.  I loved having envelope inserts last year so I definitely will add them.

I also tackled and completed my title page.  I loved the new cut files that came out from Studio Calico and modified this star background for my needs.  I cut it with my 36 lb. vellum and backed it with pink POW glitter paper.  I stitched around the edge with gold thread and also outlined each of the stars.  The tag was cut with my Cameo and stamped.  I glitter embossed the edge of the tag using Recollections  Gold Tinsel embossing powder. 

The back of the title page is backed with some Crate Paper that I ran through my printer so I could add this quote. 

I needed to add another insert so that I could have a full two page spread for the 1st so I added a little calendar that I made and printed on vellum.  the Joy flair came with Kelly's kit and the paper was from my stash.  The date and sentiment at the bottom were stamped with the AC Christmas roller date stamp.

And there you have it, done and ready to go for Saturday!

Getting all of this done made the biggest mess imaginable so I spent some time cleaning up and organizing my supplies.  I moved some things around a bit to make space on my work table for all of my supplies.  Here is a photo of how I've organized my stuff.  I have a 12x 12 paper storage box organized with all my bits and pieces inside, a paper organizer that holds all my 12 x 12 paper and two sorters next too it; one for alpha stickers and the other for scraps.  And yes, the packaging for those deliciously evil pretzel snacks will probably made an appearance in the album.

Here is a look at my whole work table, clean and ready to go.

What has always worked well for me in the past is to work on each days pages that same night.  I usually wait for good morning light to take photos and get a post up here.  My plan is to continue that way this year as well.  If I get behind a day or so, check back, trust me I won't get too behind.

I still have not decided how to incorporate Project Life into all of this.  I guess after the first week, I'll be able to make a better call on that.  I don't plan on stopping so I just need to see if I have enough to cover in both places.  TBD on that.

Phew, longest post ever, thanks if you've stuck with me until the end.

Happy December Daily-ing to you if you are playing along as well!  It really is the Most Magical Time of the Year!

ProjectLife - Week 47

I had this done Monday night and had every intention of taking photos and getting the post up yesterday but I spent all day in bed battling a cold.  I wish I had taken the photos yesterday because its raining today and the light is less than ideal for photographing layouts.  I apologize for the glare and hope our clear morning light returns soon!

Lots of giving thanks this week, and lots of good food as well!

Here is the full spread

And the left side.  Simone made the corn cob and school a week or so ago and I knew I wanted to use it for the Thanksgiving spread.  Its much large in real life so I took a photo of it, removed the background in Photoshop and added it to the title card.  It was Larry's birthday last Sunday, managed to get some pretty good candle photos to include.  I love food, that is all.  A bit of Christmas cheer on my desk and Simone and her hot cocoa hot tub.  I used one of my favorite stamps from Prompt Shop (what the what?) and made it into a digital file same as the corn cob.  I love everything Nicole does, you should check out her shop.  I took Simone to the store to do a bit of birthday and Christmas wish list making, this is just a handful of the things she loved, as you can imagine, she loved a lot of things!  She also got a much needed haircut from her cousin last week, 6 inches off!

Here is the right side. Feeling under the weather started last week, hoping to shake it soon.  Some photos from Thanksgiving at my in laws. So much good food.  I picked up some tinsel, its tiny for scrapbooking and it makes me happy!  A really great swackett graphic from Thanksgiving.  Larry got his tank back and oh my goodness, he is so happy.  It looks amazing, and the paint color is so pretty in person.  He's taking the bike back to its original state and its looking really great.  A shot I took of Kelly's December Daily kit, love the vellum papers.  We cooked another dinner on Friday and had Simone's God parents over.  It was so great to hang out and have a really nice long visit.  And of course the civil war.  I'm not from Oregon but my mom lives there now and we've just sort of become fans and love watching them play.  Nice job Ducks!

Happy to be up and out of bad today, we have a Christmas tree to decorate when Simone gets home from preschool and I have some December Daily foundation pages that need to get finished before Friday.  Hope to be back then to share what I've put together.

Project Life - Week 46

I almost didn't get this done this week and thought about putting it off but decided at 4:00pm yesterday that I couldn't put it off and just needed to get it done, so happy I did!

Here is the full post, it's kind of all over the place again this week.  I had to force myself not to make it too Christmassy!

Here is the left side.

I had absolutely no idea what to do for my title page at 8:00pm last night and thought about some sort of thankful thought and it evolved into taking a try making some chalkboard art. It was fun, I'll do it again for sure.  I made sure to include a bit about Veteran's Day, a game that Larry brought home for Simone, a movie we saw and some early decorating.  I snapped the photo of Larry and Simone reading at bedtime and just loved it.  Its funny how I take 15 photos to make sure I got it at the right angle and 99% of the time I end up using the first shot I took, this was the first shot I took.  I participated in another round of Project Life tag swaps and this is the card I made, super Christamssy!

Here is the right hand side.

I took a trip to the craft store to buy some paint for my December Daily Cover and Simone addressed all of the invitations for her birthday party in a few weeks.  So happy to see that XM Holly is on and the Candy Cane Joe Joe's are in stock!  Simone announced the other day that she was running away from home, this was her outfit and what she packed.  A recipe share from a friend, it was so good!  Larry got some photos in of his motorcycle tank that was being painted, it looks really great.  My finished December Daily cover that you've already seen.

So excited for all the yummy deliciousness that will be coming our way over the next few days.

I hope you have a lovely day with your families and Happy Thanksgiving!

December Daily 2012 - Cover

Finally managed to tackle and take care of my 2012 December Daily cover. 

Here is a look at the finished cover

and the embellishment piece up close

I really like the 6x8 size so I decided to use a Studio Calico Chevron Handbook as my album this year.  The albums come pretty raw so I opted to paint mine.  I did a quick scratch layer of leftover ivory paint from last years cover and let that dry.  I then applied two coats of Martha Stewart Pea Pod Satin Acrylic paint.  You have to be really careful when painting this album because a) if you go to thick you will loose some of the embossed design and b) its easy to miss all the little peaks and valleys.  I did go back over once the last coat was dry to fill in some tiny spots that I had missed.  I also painted the inside of the album but I forgot to take pictures.

There is a little bracket space on the album cover but it wasn't quite large enough for what I wanted to do so I created my own using my Cameo.  I cut a label shape three times out of thin-ish chipboard.  You know the stuff you get backing your scrapbook paper orders, nothing too thick.  I glued them together and weighted it down until it was dry.  I then painted it with a fairly thin coat of light pink acrylic paint.  This was simply as a backup for my next step, in case any of the base showed through.

Once the paint was dry I covered the whole piece in a pretty descent layer of Glossy Accents.  I covered the whole piece with glitter that I got at Joann's, the color is Bubble Gum. It's a light pink, white and iridescent mix.  It's with the cheap glitter, nothing fancy here.  I let it sit for at least an hour and then dumped off the excess glitter.  Here is a shot of the piece covered in glitter, I dumped the entire container on just to make sure it was completely covered.

I saved the excess and put it back in the container and it looked like I ended up using about 1/3 of the original quantity, way less than I thought I would use.  It was really rough to the touch and glitter was falling off, plus I was worried how my next pieces would stick so I decided to add another thin layer of the Glossy Accents over the top using a foam brush.  I made sure it was really thin, just enough to cover and capture all the glitter.  I let it dry over night and it came out just fine.

The next part took some time, deciding what I wanted the date to look like and what fonts to use and what colors.  This is the stuff I agonize over, I usually know if something isn't right (to me that is) and just have to let it sit until I come up with something that works for me.

I cut the 20 out of POW Jade Glitter paper on my Cameo and cut the twelve out of Best Creations Gold glitter paper and mounted it with foam tape so it was raised a bit.  The little 25 piece was cut from POW Glitter paper in gold.  I sized it to fit exactly in the space of the gold shipping tag. 

I punched a hole in the bracket and hung the shipping tag using a cut and modified little Tim Holtz paper clip.

I have not glued the pink bracket down just yet, I still want to spray a clear coat over the whole album but its raining here so that has to wait until we dry up.  Once its sprayed and dried I'll glue the bracket piece down with either hot glue or glossy accents, not sure yet.

As soon as my kit comes in from Kelly Purkey I'll get started on the inside pages.  Hopefully that will happen next week.  The cover is always a tough one for me and doing something this different is a stretch for sure but I like that its different and like that it doesn't look anything like my previous three albums.

I'm definitely looking forward to another year of documenting our December so I'll be posting regular updates next month for sure

Project Life - Week 45

A perfect example this week of wait until its all done before you make a judgement call.  I was not feeling this at all this week, I was dealing with some pesky printer issues, feeling as if my colors were all over the place with no cohesion and then the last slot gets placed in and its all good.  After such a theme heavy week last week, its hard sometimes to get back into the everyday groove.  These are the weeks that are more real, more of the day to day that will be so fun to look back on.  Yes, holiday's are great, parties are fun but the real, that's what life is all about.

Here is the whole spread, sorry the photo is a big wonky, I guess I didn't take a very straight shot.

This week was not all about us.  The beauty of this project is I get to celebrate not only what happens in our little nucleus, but the big things that happen to our family as well.  My brother and his wife had a pretty major one this past week.  The top right flips up and you'll see that below.  A-mazing for sure!  There was plenty of living for Simone and I this week as well.  Larry was back East visiting his son, daughter in law and their new baby, so just us girls had to keep busy.  Simone's teacher does an amazing job of decorating the classroom seasonally and this week was no exception, walking in Monday morning to this was pretty cool for the kids.  We found some supper yummy seasonal cookies at the store and our state is finally catching up to fall.  I got the most amazing gift in the mail, my new Amazeballs stamp.  I used it on the title card and just love it.  Simone had her last night of soccer for the season, she's very sad it has ended and yes, there was an election.

Here is the inside of the flip up.  Makes me tear up even now, just so happy for them and the once in a lifetime opportunity they had. 

Here is the right side.  We dropped 25 degrees in a matter or two days so bring on the soup.  Simone and I kept busy doing things like making yummy muffins.  Imagine my delight to see my image in Kelly's new book that just got released.  Simone and I also watched plenty of movies, this is a new favorite for sure. Larry with the baby and the boys together.  Christmas is getting so close, the count down around here has started and Simone is super busy creating Christmas surprises at a feverish pace.  We ended the week with Larry home, happy to have him, 3 are so much better than 2.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Project Life - Week 44

A whole lot of festive Halloween this week, and it was a lot of fun, plus seeing all the orange just makes me happy. 

Here is the whole spread, see lot's of orange!

Here is a close up of the left side.  I'm not going to show each slot this week, mainly because I figured if I made the photos a big bigger on the blog you would be able to see everything just fine.

I did a massive closet clean out and switched out my summer clothes for fall/winter.  I was ready way before our weather was but that's another story.  The Giants swept, go Giants, Larry made a home made, even the crust apple pie.  Simone got her soccer pictures and I love them.  A super cute Swackett graphic from Halloween, there were so many fun ones to choose from.  A bit of remembrance for the Hurricane and our last minute dash to a pumpkin patch for some pumpkins.

Here is the right hand side.  I didn't have a ton or photos for the last part of the week, but I had a lot from Halloween so instead of doing an insert I opted to use the top two slots for flip ups to include the photos from the preschool party and then the evening.  You'll see them flipped up below. 

The subway art for the top right hand slot came from Rhonna Farrer, she posted it as a freebie on her blog here. I loved it an knew the minute I saw it I would use it this week, so thank you so much Rhonna!

The slot with a quote also flips up with some journaling that's just for me.  A shot I took of our Meyer Lemon's happily ripening in what appears to me to be an awful lot like the phases of the moon.  An ice cream that we are all currently loving.  Do yourself a favor and get some, it's that good.  Happy for some lower gas prices, yay...I guess.  Larry jetted off for a week, so on the way to the airport we stopped for coffee, I was beyond happy to have a red cup in my hand, oh happy day!  The cute sequin sleeve was from last year but they do have some equally cute ones out this year, just not sparkly.  I loved this shot Larry sent to me from the plane.  As Simone pointed out, Momma, you can see space in this picture.  And you know what I suppose you can!

Here is the flip up for the preschool party.  The text was copied from my blog post about Halloween with just a bit of editing.

And the one for Halloween night, again the text came from the blog post but I edited it a bit more since I didn't use all of the same photos on this collage.

I guess that's about it, if you have any other questions on something I didn't cover just let me know.  Thanks as always for taking a look! 

Halloween 2012 Recap

Halloween 2012 is in the books and we all had a great day.  The excitement was heightened with it also being a preschool day with a special party planned.  I signed up to be snack mom that day which ended up being a great idea although it did add a little stress to our morning because of what I decided to make.

Simone of course woke up raring to go and couldn't wait to put her costume on.  We managed to get a little bit of breakfast in her before that happened.

I snapped a few shots of her out front before we left for school.  Simone was Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  A perfect choice that took awhile to come together.  She had several other ideas that didn't end up working out mainly due to fit issues or being out of stock in her size, this ended up being her 3rd choice and it suited her perfectly.  And yes the Belle socks ended up as a happy accident after I drove all over town trying to find pretty ruffled ones to no avail.  We found these in the dollar bins at a craft store of all places. 

The parents were all invited to hang out for the first half hour of class and since I am one of the parent subs I was asked to be there for the whole class.  I needed to dress up in some way and found this cute tshirt and ran out the night before for the witch hat and some super cute striped socks.  It came together easily and ended up being just enough for preschool. 

The kids did a little trick or treating in the park which they all loved.

The kids had a fairly normal day in class and when the teachers took them out to the park for play time, the other parent sub and I stayed behind to set up snack.  I opted to make something a little more elaborate than normal since it was Halloween and found some really cute ideas on Pinterest.  I saw the idea for the cute Mummy Hot Dogs and loved it but knew it would be a challenge in the morning.  Larry was a huge help and got up early with me to help wrap the hot dogs and make sure they were all cooked and packed up for me before we left. 

Simone and I also made the cute Frankenstein treat cups.  She attached all the googly eyes and drew on all the mouths and scars too.  I filled those with crackers and pretzels.  I also brought cheese sticks for the kids that might not like the hot dogs.  Some other moms brought in the fruit and some orange juice and the teacher provided the plates, napkins and gummy worms!  The kids seemed to love it and they all took home their Frankenstein cups.

Since we still had not carved our pumpkins we had to tackle that as well.  I always love to look online for ideas for carving and found two really great ones.  Simone and I of course fought over who would do which but they both turned out great.  I drew the designs on and she pretty much carved most of hers.  Larry helped with the de-gutting and scraping of both pumpkins.

 

Here are the finished pumpkins all a glow.  I love the new tool that is available now to scrap some of the outer layer of the pumpkin away, it lets light thru but the pumpkin isn't cut.  I used it on the door edge on the pumpkin on the left and for the windows of the one on the right.  There are so many great ideas out there for this technique, I think I might try a more elaborate one next year.

We followed our tradition of having a nice chili dinner before heading out to Trick or Treat and Larry's sister came over to join us.  Of course someone could not wait to get out there and Trick or Treat so it was a quick dinner.  I photographed Simone at this house last year and was happy to snap one again this year.  I opted not to take my big camera out, I wanted to focus more on her and the fun instead of tweaking my camera settings all night.  I did take my phone with me so this was taken with that.  Not to bad for a no flash shot.

She was all excited when we got home and had a chance to inspect her loot.

So much so that she almost ate it without taking the wrapper off!

I think Simone likes to pass out the candy more that she likes to Trick or Treat.  She couldn't wait to get her chairs set up by the door to see all the kids.

She has her system down.  This one does not like lulls in the action and if she had no visitors she would run out to the sidewalk to make sure more were on the way.  We had a decent number of trick or treaters and managed to pass out a pretty large bag of candy.  I guess we shut off the light a bit before 9pm and happily no one rang our bell when the lights went out.

She's already talking about next year, but its hard for kids this age to understand what 'you need to wait until next year' really means. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!