December Daily® 2018 │ Days Twenty One thru The End

Hello everyone, today I wanted to share a look at the last few entries of my album. It's always bittersweet to finish but like I mentioned in my last post, finishing later than I would have liked made me want to finish it even more. I really was ready to put this all away for the season and get started on other things.

As I completed my album and looked back through a few themes seemed to be on repeat this year; tags, pockets, and transparency pages. I added more things to tags that I have ever done and I love how they look. I also used a fair amount of pockets to hold extra photos on busier days. Again, I love a good pocket so no surprise there. I also ended up with a fair number of single page days and when that happens I love to divide them with clear transparent pages, so there are plenty of those this year too.

One really significant and major change for this years album was that I didn't use any page protectors. Not one. I wouldn't say that I planned on it or set a goal not to use any but its definitely something I thought about from the very beginning. I wanted to get back to the way the project was done when Ali Edwards started it years ago by making pages using various sizes and shapes of paper and making each day different. Its my favorite style of mini album to make so I knew it would be fun to work on. I did love it a lot but the downside to this style is I used no traditionally sized journaling cards, no 3x4 and no 4x6. That meant a few things I loved from the kits I bought didn't get used. Yes I was sad about a few but I was pretty okay with it in the end. I can always use the ones I loved next year, they will happily get added to my stash of Christmas supplies.

I have no idea if I will do this next year since I wait until the last minute to figure out a game plan so we shall see next November what I decided to do. I will say that if you are feeling like you are repeating yourself too much with this project, you may want to shake up your format and give this a try.

Okay enough of that, lets share some pages. Day twenty one was a cookie making day with our friends and I used this project I had made using Kelly Purkey stamps as my inspo for the entry by recreating similar tags to dress up the pocket.

I used one of the larger 6x8 sheets of paper Kelly designed for her holiday kits and just shrunk it down and altered it to become a 4x6 journaling card. I added a digital stamp from Kerry Bradford in the top box, it fit perfectly.

 
Day twenty two was a movie day for my family. We just loved this movie, I mean, wow!! I kept the page simple with another movie image hanging off the page with tickets attached on the side with a clip. I kind of love repeating similar layouts for like entries. It gives the project some nice cohesion.

For Day twenty three I created two photo strips of some silly Santa selfies we took in Snap Chat. I wish I had taken more than one image for each of us because three just didn't seem enough so I created two strips but varied the position of our photos. I like how it looks layered and it gives the page a bit more impact.

This transparency piece was from Studio Calico last year and I just punched two holes and it fit into the rings perfectly. I like that it was smaller than a full size transparency would have been. I added in a little fabric piece from Crate Paper Merry Days and also stapled on a little clear flag to grab and turn but its hard to see in this photo.

The red heart patch came in a set of ugly sweater patches I bought from the Target Dollar Spot this year. The little chipboard Holiday Selfie piece was from this years Paislee Press mini kit. I love all this red!!

Day twenty four, Christmas Eve. Our family arrived for the holidays and we were so happy to have them here. I'm blurring out these photos because I'm just trying to be more conscious of what I share and being considerate of others privacy, so thank you for understanding. The templates I used on these two pages are from Paislee Press this year and I love her word art and the sentiments worked perfectly. I did modify the word art on the right to add in the word Eve also from Paislee Press.

In the center I added in a 3.5 x 8 piece to hold the story and a few more photos on the back.

Day twenty five Christmas Day always has so many photos so I printed the ones I couldn't leave out and slipped them into a vellum bag. The vellum bag is really old from Cosmo Cricket, I only have one left now and I'm very sad about it. The paper clip is Merry Days, the red transparent 25 is old from my stash and the Merry Christmas piece is Merry Days as is the backing paper I used for the right side. The chipboard Christmas Morning piece on the left is from the Paislee Press mini kit this year.

I used an old digital journaling card form In A Creative Bubble to hold my story. I enlarged it and recolored it to match my photos better, the base of the card was originally bright yellow which was pretty that way, I just wanted a light pink instead.

I always end my album with collection of photos showing what our Elf Twinkle did while she visited and this year I made a little Travelers Notebook to hold them all. I slipped the notebook in a vellum bag that I just adhered right to the inside back cover of the album.

The left page was made using a digital paper from the Kelly Purkey Shop 2018 Holiday Oh What Fun kit. I recolored the base to a more vibrant red and added in a few glitter stars.

To make the notebook I used a digital paper from Paislee Press, the word Twinkle is an old brush I had in my digital supplies by the designer Gina Cabrera. The Elf Shenanigans word art is from the Kelly Purkey Shop 2018 Holiday Oh What Fun kit. I printed the background and the elf word art first on my color printer and then ran the page thru my laser printer to print the word Twinkle. Then I used my Minc machine to add red foil to just that word. Super easy.

The interior pages are four sheets of vellum that I cut to size and folded in half and then stapled using a long arm stapler in the middle. I created this front cover page using more word art and paper from the Kelly Purkey Shop 2018 Holiday Oh What Fun kit. It was the perfect place to write down what the Elf did each day. I don't always do this but I had the space this year so why not.

I printed out all 24 images and sized them so I could get six on a page and laid them out in date order. I just used vellum adhesive to attach them only on the right side of the pages and it was done.

This year I made sure to snap pics of the Elf in both vertical and horizontal format every day. I've forgotten to snap pics before and I hate missing days so I'm pretty disciplined now to take them each day. I never know what I'm going to do until the end so having both horizontal and vertical pics is nice to have on hand so I'm covered with both formats. This year I also posted the images to my IG Story and added the date to each before posting. I ended up using those images here so I wouldn't also have to numbers each photo. Its super small and hard to read but its there in case I ever want to refer back. Next year I think I'll so the same but just put the date.

And that's it, the end!! I plan to film a walk through and I'll do that in two videos so its not super long. My plan is to film it hopefully today and I'll post here when the videos are live.

Thanks so much for all the encouragement online as I completed this project, it is always so much fun to do so I appreciate it if you took the time to comment, like or engage when I posted my photos to Instagram.

I'll be back soon to share more projects soon.

Take care,

Featuring Color Cast Designs │ April to August projects

While I'm on a blog roll, ha! I thought I'd also share all of the projects I made using Color Cast Design products. I've been so bad about blogging lately in general and sadly sharing the work I've done for Jessica hasn't been done like it should be. I do a good job of sharing my work on Instagram so if you follow me there you've seen these already but let me catch you up in case you don't on the last several months of work that I have done. I'll keep the commentary to a minimum but if you have specific questions please feel free to ask.

April

This month I made two pocket page spreads, this first one was using a kit that I just loved. Jessica had asked for some suggestions of what we would like to see and this set was one of my suggestions. I really love her larger icons so I thought a mixed set would be super fun. She totally nailed this set and I have two back ups, I loved it so much. Its still available and its called Punctuate This.

A little St. Patties Day spread using a lot of super cute food items from that month.

May

This was one of the first layouts I made for my Summer 2016 Notebook Mini album and what's not to love about a Pool Day! And how cute are those fish, the acrylic and the human.

This ice cream layout was super fun to make. I had to dig deep into the archives for some worthy photos but I'm so glad I did, I think it came out super cute.

Skipping ahead to July because there wasn't a release in June.

I always love when Jessica adds sports themed items to her line and this gold mirror had me all heart eye emoji! A super simple layout for a soccer tournament in my Summer notebook mini.

Holy Pineapple! I can't believe the Be Cool Pineapples are still in stock so you better grab them before I do, not to mention the gold glitter Hello Sunshine! This spread in my Summer mini had many different versions before I settled on this final product. Sometimes I push stuff around for a few days before I settle on things so if you do the same, know that you are not alone. Some things just take time. And for me, simple always wins.

I love how the images are muted in the glassine bag but then pop when you take them out.

August

And now we are current and I made three things with this release. Man was it a GOOD ONE!

Holy smokes, was I obsessed with the Olympics. Its not unusual for me to get obsessed but this year WOW! So much goodness to document and I loved that Jessica made a set for the Olympics, she'll even personalize your country name when you order. This set was the first thing I wanted to use when my box arrived.

The cards I used were a mix of free cards that Kelly Purkey sent out to her newsletter subscribers and cards that I purchased from In A Creative Bubble. I did also add in one sheet of gold star paper that is pretty old from Studio Calico.

Man I loved how this turned out!! Team USA baby. This reminds me that I also need to update the medal count card to the final numbers. Adding that to my to do list!

My next projects were spreads for my Summer notebook mini, the first was for the first day of school. Which I opted to included because its still summer and it was kind of a big deal. I used the School time set and one of the School Years wood veneers.

Jessica must have had ESP when she designed this set, the colors were perfect for my daughters back to school outfit. I did add in the hello piece from an older release.

The last one was for a hike that we took. I mixed pieces from the Take a Hike set and the Fresh Air set, that backpacker veneer is so darn cute. I kept this pretty simple with a large photo that I made sure to crop so there was room for the veneer at the bottom.

I decided to hide my journaling because this hike didn't quite go how I had planned. Leaving it hidden made more sense to me so it wouldn't take the focus away from the images. Without going into too much detail, I got dehydrated and really sick, it was too hot for me to be out that day and I paid for it big time. It was definitely a cool hike and one that I would like to repeat again one day but I would pick a 60 degree day vs. a 97 degree one.

Phew, you made it to the end! I hope you found some stuff that you loved. Make sure to check out Jessica's shop, she has so many other great sets that I didn't share here.

One last thing, Jessica is having a design team call so if you are interested in possibly joining her team, here's the info. Its a super fun team to be on and the ladies are all awesome. Think about it...

Featuring Kelly Purkey │ August Release

Hello, hello, hello! I'm really excited about Kelly Purkey's latest release. It went live yesterday and this release had some really awesome stuff in it.

This first layout was the first thing that I made. I was completely drawn to the Who Run the World? stamp in the Queen Mini Kit and knew I had to make something centered around it.

I loved how well the cards from the Queen Mini kit paired with the colors in this photo of my daughter and her friends on the first day of school. This photo was snapped by my friend DeAnna. She's an amazing photographer and we always gather the girls on the first day of school for this same pic and its been such a super fun tradition. This photo just seemed like the right choice for this sentiment, these young girls have so much ahead of them and they truly can be, and do anything they want in the future. I just love them.

I knew I wanted to stamp the word GIRLS using the Moby alpha and alternated my stamping making sure to layer over each stamping and stamp on top of the cards as I went. I used the Pink and Orange inks from the Fashion Ink Set and the colors worked perfectly with the cards. I added in a few bright yellow shipping tags to help ground and ensure the stamped sentiments really popped and two of the over sized paper clips from Pebbles to add a bit of gold into the mix. This layout will probably get displayed instead of placed right into an album, that's how much I love how this turned out.

My second project was inspired completely by an episode of the show Roadies. Do you watch it? OMG I love it! Perhaps its because of my previous life in radio (nothing glamorous, I answered the phones) but man was it fun and pretty darn exciting. Hell I met Sting my second week on the job! Anyway, so many stories that can get me sidetracked but this show brings all of that back. Plus its written and directed by Cameron Crowe and he sure knows a thing or two about the life inside rock and roll. Geez, this is really turning into a long and drawn out segue into a scrapbooking project but I promise I'll get too it. In episode three of season one Lindsey Buckingham is the guest and he has one of the best lines in this episode, "I love you Bill. Over the years I may say it less but I mean it more." This stopped me in my tracks and I just loved it, so much so that I wanted to stamp it and stamp it in gold.

The Moby alpha is seriously one of the best alpha stamps that Kelly has done. Its a classic font and can be used for just about anything. I decided this project needed a bit of drama so I made myself a black travelers notebook and used a gold metallic versa mark stamp pad for all of my stamping. Projects of this nature can be a little intimidating because I'm always afraid that I'm going to get to the bottom of the page and not have room for the rest. If I'm worried about that I usually mock it up on my computer before hand just to make sure I have enough space for all that I want to stamp. It takes some extra time but its nice for projects like this to know its all going to fit. If you are wondering how I got the foot note text on the page I used my Silhouette Cameo and the silver sketch pen to write the text on the black paper. I love using this feature of the Cameo specifically for things like this.

I added in some of the super cool plus sign stamps from the Work In Progress kit and also used the True Life stamp from that set as well. I stamped it first that then cut it out using a circle die and my Cuttlebug.

The last stamp set that I didn't have time to use is the Beach Day stamp set. Its super cute and perfect for these last days of summer.

I hope you enjoyed the newest release it sure was a good one!

See you s