December Daily® 2016 │ The Beginning

Are you ready? I'm ready and I'm excited! This year I'm surprisingly less anxious as I was last year. Perhaps its because we had a good solid week between Thanksgiving and December 1st. I have come to realize I need that week. I need the calm and I need the time to decompress Thanksgiving and get my mind ready for Christmas. I'm also doing very little prep this year. I have gathered my supplies as you will see below and I have made a cover page for my album but that's the extent of my prep. I'm winging it again this year and that's just fine by me. I've really come to enjoy a less hectic and free flow approach the past several years so if it isn't broken, why change it.

One major change this year is that we did not get our tree Thanksgiving weekend like we normally do. For some reason I just wasn't ready, I needed time. We have pulled all the Christmas bins down and we put out most of the house decorations yesterday. I'm so excited to really dive in tomorrow and jump into all things holiday. Our elf Twinkle will return tomorrow so that's exciting and my daughter will receive her advent calendar for the season. I'm looking forward to all of that fun and what I hope to be a pretty relaxed and chill holiday season.

I do want to share what my album and supplies look like this year. I'm using the Jasmine Jones grey 6x8 album this year. It's a complete departure from what I normally do and I'm excited about that. The grey merry's across the front are so pretty. I may do something small to the lower right side of the cover but I haven't decided yet.

For the cover page I used a digital paper from Paislee Press that I modified a bit in Photoshop elements to thicken up the line so I could add some gold foil with my Minc. Because I only have the 6" Minc I needed to mount it to a larger piece of paper that I layered an older piece of Studio Calico gold star vellum to add in some more gold. The twenty sixteen banner is from Studio Calico.

This base page is sized so that it will completely cover the pages underneath which is a style that I like to use in my albums. I don't like the page protectors showing when you open the album which is just a quirk of mine.

The only other decision that I have made for this years album is to use a wide variety of numbers to mark my days versus a consistent style of numbers like I have done in the past years. The main reason I decided to do this is because I have amassed such a large collection over the years I felt it was time to finally use them all up. I've listed the sources below but please note that many of these are pretty old. I'm sure I'll add in some other items as I go along but this is what I have pulled so far to use in my album.

one // an old flip calendar from Target - two // Kelly Purkey 2015 mini kit - three // Jasmine Jones 2016 mini kit - four // Kelly Purkey 2016 December kit - five // Ali Edwards 2016 main kit - six // Ikea - seven // Ali Edwards very first December Daily kit - eight // Studio Calico - nine // Studio Calico - ten // Studio Calico - eleven // Ali Edwards 2015 December Daily kit - twelve // Pink Paislee 2015 - thirteen // Becky Higgins

As far as the rest of my supplies goes, I have pulled out my collection and pulled out only the items that I'm currently loving. I've placed most of the larger items in this bin that sits on my desk. Its a mix of the current kits and older kits and other seasonal items from other companies. I'm super excited to really mix it up this year.

I also have this divided container for some of the smaller bits that I didn't want to get lost in the bottom of the other bin. Again this is a mixture of old and new items.

The last thing I have done is make sure my calendar is updated with key dates and things that we already have planned for the month. I usually keep a running list of what I have done and what needs to be done so I can plug in some generic stories as needed. In this blog post I listed out some of my favorite things to include in my album so I thought I would list that again for you.

1. Documenting cooking and baking seasonal treats
2. Our Christmas card and the stuffing and mailing of them
3. Buying our Christmas Tree
4. Decorating our Christmas Tree
5. Hanging outdoor lights
6. Around the house shots
7. Shopping for gifts and the receipts
8. Simone's gifts and the wrapping paper (I pick one just for her each year)
9. A visit with Santa
10. Simone's birthday
11. Favorite Shows/Movies/TV Specials
12. Starbucks and their yearly cup design
13. Making a Gingerbread house
14. Holiday lights
15. A letter from me to Simone
16. Simone's letter to Santa
17. A self portrait
18. a play list of favorite Christmas songs
19. Simone's wish list
20. My wish list
21. Photos of new items we added to Simone's stocking

You can also peruse my blog posts from the past five years of albums by going to the list over on the right side bar and clicking on each category label.

Thank you Ali Edwards for creating this project, it just wouldn't be the holidays without it and I cannot wait to document another year!

Here we go Christmas!

Featuring Kelly Purkey │ October release

I think its pretty funny that the two projects I made this month featuring Kelly Purkey's October releases are TV show related. I think its funny because I wouldn't consider myself an avid TV watcher. I watch a handful of quality TV shows and live sporting events but that's it. Lucky for me I get to share some of my favorites with you today.

This first project is very near and dear to my heart. You could categorize me in the OBSESSED category as far as my fandom for this show goes. It's really bad people, like really bad. I was pregnant with my daughter when this show ended and the ugly cry, OMG it was BAD! So when they announced that this show was coming back for a reboot on Netflix, oh my gosh....I was giddy. If you have no idea what I'm talking about by looking at the pictures, I'm talking about GILMORE GIRLS!!

When Netflix decided to host Luke's Diner Pop Up Coffee shops all over the US on October 5th to coincide with the official Gilmore Girl's birthday my friend and I decided we couldn't miss it. Luckily for us there were two coffee shops in Sacramento that were doing events so we had a 50/50 chance of getting a cup and some cute pics. We got there fairly early and waited about an hour in line before it was our turn. The excitement was overflowing from all of the folks in line. I was so glad we went. It really got us both excited for the reboot in November.

Luckily Kelly had sent me an advance heads up that this But I'm a Gilmore stamp set was coming so I made sure my photos were on point.

I used all of the stamps to create the background for my travelers notebook spread and then created a replica of the coffee cups they gave us at the event. I wanted to keep mine so I just scanned the sleeve and created a cut file for my Silhouette Cameo. I made sure to add the same text that was on the cup before I cut it out. One the right side I added in a few pictures and added in some more stamps. I know I will use this stamp set when the reboot airs so I'm so glad I have it in my collection. If you're a true Gilmore Girls fan you need one too. #teamlogan

My next project is a pocket page spread that pays homage to all of the currently airing TV shows that I love. I much prefer quality over quantity so these three shows are the ones I will not miss. They are all historical dramas which says something about me. Living in the past much! Ha! These shows are just so beautifully done, I blame Downton Abbey and of course my other love Outlander for spoiling me with such quality television.

This was a pretty simple and quick insert to make for my album, I found all of the images online except the one of me lounging on the couch. I used stamps from the It's Show Time stamp set and the stamps from the October Kit: My Favorite Things. The sentiments worked really well when talking about my love of these shows.

If you are looking for some good quality TV shows to binge watch, I can personally vouch for all four of these shows. They are pretty exceptional.

I hope you enjoyed the release this month. I can't wait to use the Sweater Weather stamp set. That was my other favorite this month and I have some fall pics waiting to be documented.

Have a great week everyone!