December Daily® │ days 24 and 25

It's done and like I mentioned on Instagram last night, its always bittersweet to finish this project. Its always an amazing feeling to be done but its always sad because it means the season is over. When writing the very last page of my album I really thought about why I do this project. You'll see more of that below but I really could not image going thru December without it. It really does make such a huge difference for me.

These oversized gold letters and numbers that came in the kit were probably one of my favorite items this year. Why I waited until the second to the last day to use them is a mystery to me. I think I was just so enamored with them I didn't want to use them. I'm pretty happy with what this turned into and I loved using a bit more of the tissue confetti. I just stuck them down with vellum adhesive and it worked great.

These last two days always end up being longer than just a single spread  so here it is all laid out.

Its a tradition that Larry and my daughter check out Santa's progress every Christmas Eve so when this digital file came up as a freebie at Digital Design Essentials I was so excited. I love this graphic and it totally made the page.

I actually wrote this piece after the album was done because I didn't like that I didn't have any details of the day written down. I printed it on 65# white vellum and added a few stars to dress it up along with another one of the tabs, another favorite from the kit this year.

Under it are some photos of my daughter opening her jammies. She gets new ones every Christmas Eve. Its something my mom did for my brother and I and I like carrying that tradition on. I cut half of the protector off and added another tab and a few little bits to dress up the top slot.

I loved this photo of her after she put the cookies and milk out for Santa. I sure hope Santa was hungry, that's a lot of cookies.

I layered one of the plastic stars between two glitter stars.

That gold 25 paper was a must for the last day. I added a simple gold label from Studio Calico and the plastic December from the kit and two red pearl dots. I used the gold transparency and layered two photos front and back. In hindsight I probably should have made the photos a bit smaller so more of the transparency showed but once its stuck its not coming up.

Love the shine of these two pages and more layered gold glitter hearts.

The next section is all about my daughter. The photo on the left is one of my favorites from the morning. I made the collage using one of Ali's templates from last year for the right side.

This Merry Christmas banner is one of Ali's from a few years ago, I clipped a gold digital element to it to match up with the transparency.

Here is my last page. I used the my reason why that Ali put on her blog at the beginning of the month. It was the perfect way to journal about the project and the day and I love the simple ending.

The spine was the last bit to decorate and I just used my rolling date stamp to add the year and added one of the blue glitter stars I used throughout the album. 

Here you can see how full the album is and I love it.

Again its bittersweet but I'm already looking toward 2015 and I promise to keep creating and sharing. The how and the what is still TBD. In fact, as of right now I'm unsure of my Project Life® plans for the coming year. The only thing I'm sure of right now is that I plan to freshen it all up and do something different, what that is yet I don't know.

December Daily® │ days 19 to 23

Merry Christmas Eve! I didn't want to wait to post these so I'm taking a little time out of my day to get these up. Its been an amazing season and I'm so happy this project is just about done and the big day is here. Here are the last few pages...

I had every intention of doing a spread about my Christmas clothes but at least I got this one in. The cut file on the right came as part of the 25 Days Class at Studio Calico.

A fun day at the Ballet with friends and then a party at our house that evening. I covered up the back side of the program with the silver star paper that you can see below. It was an ad that wasn't super Christmasy so by covering it up it gave me a space to add in some more details.

Black and white cures most bad lighting issues.

My last full collage for Twinkle, I loved adding these in and the plastic Twinkle from Ali's kit was the perfect addition to this spread.

A fun night out with friends and a more black and white photos to salvage the bad lighting. They took my ticket from me (and thought I was nuts when I asked for it back) they wouldn't give me my ticket back but at least I had the cool postcard to include.

The 23rd was baking day and I cut apart part of the box from the Gingerbread house because it was super cute.

I made a template from the box that I could clip a photo too and added the large photo to the back, super easy.

On the back side of the baking photos I added in my last three days with Twinkle. The Twinkle card came in Ali's kit and it was the perfect way to end the story. We sure had a good elf experience this year.

Someone asked on Instagram to share the letter, you can see them both below. The letterhead and the Notice were found on Pinterest, they are on my elf board here if you are interested.

I know this post is short on the details so if you have any questions just ask. I'll share the last two days after Christmas but I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

xoxo,

December Daily® │ days 17 and 18

Day 17 was our big wrap day. We always tend to do it all in one shot instead of spacing it out. Its a mountain to be sure but once you put your mind to it it goes fast. Especially with a Christmas Playlist on full blast. One tradition I started a few years back was to wrap all of Simone's gifts in the same paper. It makes it easy when its time to pass out and you don't need a tag on each gift, extra bonus points. I have picked the paper for her in the past but Simone was with me one day at Target and I asked her if she wanted to pick out her special paper this year. She said yes and as we walked the wrapping paper aisles at Target I was laughing to myself trying to think of creative ways to make Ariel wrap and then Frozen wrap she was picking work in my album. I was very happy when she ended up picking this pretty blue and silver snowflake paper. I may have done a quiet happy dance. (Disclaimer its raining buckets right now so the lighting is less than ideal so my apologies for the less than stellar grayish looking photos).

The page prior was 5x7 so I just cut a piece of the paper that came in Ali's kit the same size and worked from there. I layered a piece of the wrapping paper on white cardstock just to frame it a bit. I placed the tiny alpha that came in the kit right on the paper using the curl as my guide. A simple red pearl dot and the title and I was good. I did add one of the little tabs after I was done just because I want to use those little guys up, they are so cute. You can see the color of the paper a bit better below, its definitely bright blue and so pretty.

Day 18 had a few story options but I've been waiting to get a shot of our tree in and I'm quickly running out of time so the other stories got bumped. The star transparency on the left lays on top of the tree image, that you will see below. I cut the merry and bright from Jen Kinkade on my cameo and used a really pretty thick red foil paper that I purchased at Michaels. My blade had to be set on 10 to go all the way thru that's how thick it is. Its just gorgeous in person. I just added a tiny bit of text on the photo and adhered the veneer 18 right on top of the protector. A bit about the photo, I did use my tripod to take the photos of the tree and made sure to get them on a day when it wasn't raining. I had a really long shutter to get the little flair on the lights so a tripod definitely helped get clear non blurry images.

Here is is laying on top of the tree image.

And here is a better image of the red foil. The silver star transparency was from Allison Kreft for Websters Pages and I got it last year.

Here are the two pages in the album. I love that pop of bright blue with all the red.

Its going to be a crazy busy weekend for us. We are going to the Nutcracker tomorrow and then having a small cocktail party, gift exchange with our friends later that night. I hope you have a great weekend!

December Daily® │ days 15 and 16

The one thing I have always wanted to share in my album is something about holiday music and this year I finally made it happen. Holiday music starts for me before Thanksgiving and I have a playlist on my phone that's on constant repeat. When I sat down to finally make a page for it this is what I ended up with.

I really loved that number paper that came in Ali's kit and really wanted to find a way to incorporate it in so I thought this might be a good spot. I added in some really old candy cane striped thickers and a piece of ribbon and the veneer number to finish it off. On the right I had my full playlist typed up and ready to go but opted at the end to show just my 9 top faves from the list to correspond to the number paper. I added some more ribbon and the chipboard music note piece from Ali's kit.

Here is my full playlist if you are curious what I'm listening too. Some of the songs are duplicated because they are done by different groups.

One of the things my husband and I always do is head out on our own for a shopping day that's pretty much all about us. Its easier for us to just do it together so we get just the right things. There are still some surprises on Christmas Morning but for the most part the big stuff is done together.

I used a piece of the printable silver foil for the list on the left. I laid out the design in Photoshop Elements first and save it as a .png file and then opened that in my Silhouette and laid it on top of the torn page cut file that I bought from their store. I printed and then cut out the whole thing. I could not get my registration marks to read properly, a problem I have had ever since I upgraded the software awhile back so I just had to cut it without reading the marks and it worked just fine. In the image below you can see the shine a bit better. I was really pleased with how well the color printed on this, I wasn't sure it would show well enough but it really did print well.

I'm off to wrap all of the girls stuff before she gets home from school so that will be the story for today that I will share soon.

Take care,

December Daily® │ days 11 to 14

It was kind of a busy weekend around here. Christmas gifts to purchase, wrap and ship back East and other places, a cocktail party with friends and a birthday party for a certain seven year old. It didn't leave much time for creating but I stayed in my cozy's yesterday and got myself caught up.

Day 11

I had originally just made the page on the left but I decided I wanted to tell more of the story. This past Friday we were supposed to have a crazy stormy day and a lot of area schools shut down in anticipation for the storm (our district didn't shut down) so I wanted to get some of that down and I didn't want to cover up any of my photo to do it. As you can see below the text is on top of an acetate sheet that I stuck down to the top of the page protector with the cutest skinny washi tape. I did that because I didn't want to staple it or sew it because it would show on the previous photo which I didn't want. I think it will hold up okay as long as no one tugs to tight on it. I added the ribbon to grab on to to open it up to reveal the photo which I snapped with an intentional blur.

The journaling card I made and used the paint chip cards in Studio Calico's Grand Central addon as my inspiration. They gave the storm a hashtag and how dumb was that! I mean come on!

I'm glad I added the story in it makes more sense and its a bit of history documented. Plus is gave me a small space to use for the 12th which was all that I needed.

Day 12

My husband and I had a busy day of shopping, wrapping and shipping gifts and I didn't take any photos but I did snap this one that night at our friends house so I made a quick and easy entry for the album. Some days just need to be easy and fast and that's okay. If your curious what's in my drink its Cranberry Sprite, Vodka, fresh lime juice and a splash of cranberry juice. It was really good! The Cranberry Sprite comes out only during the holidays so make sure you grab some now.

I attached this photo directly to the back of day 11 and it helped cover up the staples I used on the attach me stickers. I typically staple them down because the adhesive doesn't always grab like it should.

Day 13

I kept this to a minimum just the group shot and one of her with her cake. It will get covered more extensively in another form but I wanted it to be my story for today. I made sure to add the 12 13 14 because the date was pretty cool.

Day 14

I initially had this planned for today but since I was in catch up mode yesterday and I didn't really have a story to tell I moved it up. I used the same templates that I did on my previous Elf spread and since I had used the divided page protector on the 13th I just modified it a bit to print on two 6x4 photos and it worked great. I just cut the top one down the middle and everything lined up fine.

I didn't cut the Twinkle out of glitter paper this time but I still made it aqua blue and just printed the whole thing on photo paper. I added blue stars on either side of the number this time instead of the red pearl dots.

I do love how these weekly recaps are working for me so I'm really glad I went this route.

I'll be back soon with more, I can't believe Christmas is in 10 days!