It's Finally Done | December Daily

I finally finished up my December Daily! I love this project, but I'm definitely ready to move on to other things. To avoid a super long post, I'm just going to share several of my favorite pages.

Here it is in all its glory. This year's got really thick!

Day 12 | Merry Monday

I got the idea for the twine letters from Tina. These were really fun to make. Love the look.

Day 18 | Merry
I just noticed I titled this much like Day 12. Ah, well.

I love the ribbon and stars on this one.

Day 21 | Handmade Holiday

I'm glad to have pictures of the ornaments I made for my family in this book. I can't get enough of that striped ribbon.

Day 22 | Green Christmas

I knew I would include a page about how we didn't have snow this Christmas. I enjoyed using washi tape and tags throughout.

Day 24 | 'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Just loving all the pieces together on this one; tags and quick list of the day's activities, and fun stickers.

Day 28 | Treats

I've been pretty obsessed with masking titles lately. I cut the stars off of a Trader Joe's grocery bag.

So, there you go. A quick look at my finished mini. Am thinking I will make a larger album next year. I love this size, but it's also limiting when I want to include more journaling and photos, etc.

How did yours turn out or are you still working on it?

December Daily 5-11

I'm having a hard time keeping up with December Daily this year. Taking pictures has been a big fail this year too. But I'm still chugging along. Today, I have days 5-11 to share. You can see more of my December Daily here.

Day 5 | My Wish

For day 5, I wrote up my wish list for this Christmas. One of them has already come true! More on that tomorrow.

Day 6 | On This Day

For day 6, I decided to look back 10 years. I got out my journal from back then and wrote down a few notes of what was going on and made a copy of our family photo. Three of the kids weren't born yet, so it was really strange to look at that photo and not see them there! This was a fun thing to do. I'll have to remember it again next year.

Day 8 | The Best Day Of All

The journaling is on the right hand side, and since it was a bit more personal, I decided against posting it. But I enjoyed using a bunch of different letter stickers and two great Elle's Studio tags. The littlest ones are so small and adorable.

I'm still working on Days 7 and 9.

Day 10 | Top Ten Memories

For day 10, I thought it would be fun to write out the top 10 memories of 2011. Even though this was a difficult year, there was a lot of great stuff too. And I could have kept going past 10. It's good to take time to remember.

Day 11 

I realized I didn't put a title on this page. Oops. Today, I journaled a few sentences about seeing a good friend and her new baby girl. A good day.

So, there you go. I'm caught up. Sort of. It's not everything I want it to be, but I'm rolling with it. One family Christmas is coming up this weekend. I can't believe it's already here. Lots to do! Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a merry Monday!

December Daily 1-4

Wow. I didn't mean to disappear for so long. The job hunt has heated up and while I'm so thankful for these opportunities, it's also a lot of hard work and very time consuming. Something had to give and that's usually the good ol' blog. But today I'm back with the first few days of my December Daily.

This is my fourth year making a December Daily. This has become a really enjoyable tradition for me every year. I enjoy the process and having an album documenting all the goodness of the season. You can read more about this project on Ali Edwards' blog. 

ALBUM BASE 
This year, I decided to make the same size album as last year. (You can find posts from last year's book here.) It's a little larger than 4x6. The front and back cover are cardboard. The inside pages are cut to 4x6 and I bind it all with two binder clips. This size book is really easy to make, which was a really important factor for me. I cut enough pages, so I could document one day using a two page layout.

Ali encourages people to get the base of the album all finished before the month arrives, so you're more likely to finish the project during this busy time. For me, I prefer to have the pages cut, but I don't add any embellishments until I'm ready to scrap that day. I've found that if the pages have too much already on them, it alters how I tell the story. So, I make it work for me and make the pages as I go.

ALBUM COVER

As I said, the cover is just some cardboard. I covered it with a bunch of different washi tapes. Then I added the tag, twine, and a few stickers. I'm loving the tape.

OPENING PAGE

For the opening page, I wrote my Christmas manifesto. I got this idea from Shimelle Laine. 

DAY 1 | A New Do

DAY 2 | A Day to Celebrate

DAY 3 | First Snow

DAY 4 | Crafty 

SUPPLIES
I'm using the Season's Greetings collection from Echo Park as the base pages for the book. I'm also using Elle's Studio Vintage Mix and Match Numbers for each day. I'm keeping simple. Just adding a title, a few tags, buttons, and stickers, etc. I'm most interested in the photos and the journaling.

Thanks so much for stopping by! If you're making a December Daily, I hope it's going well. To everyone: I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating this magical time of year.

North Shore Mini

Today, I'm sharing the mini album I made from my trip to the North Shore. I made the base of the album at Amy Tan's class at Scrapfest. I love this album. I love that the pages are staggered, so you can see other pages peeking out. I love that fabric paper binds the album. I love all the great embellishments, tags, and stickers from this collection. It makes this album so much fun! And I had Amy sign the back. Very cool!

Here are all the pages.

I added a pocket to the back, so I could include some more journaling. I also included the receipts from the places we ate. I enjoy looking back on these.

I used primarily Amy's line, but also a bit of Elle's Studio, Basic Grey, Jillibean Soup, Smash and October Afternoon.

I hope you enjoyed seeing how my mini turned out. Enjoy your Wednesday!

On The Road|Red Wing

One of the things on my 33 list is to visit three MN cities I've never been to before. So, this past weekend, my parents and I took a day trip to Red Wing, MN. I couldn't believe how close it was to the Twin Cities and I've never been there! It's a really quaint, beautiful town, right on the Mississippi. They still have a downtown area with parking on the diagonal, which I thought was neat.

The highlights:

• Stopping at Lark Toys and getting handmade wooden block letters of my initials.
• Stopping at Lake City to see Lake Pepin.
• Shopping at Pottery Place and finding a Bell jar I couldn't resist. 
• Having lunch at Falconer's Vineyard.
• Attempting to climb Barn Bluff.
• Perusing the shelves at The Best of Times bookstore. (There are so many books I'm wanting to read right now!)

I put together this mini to record the trip.

I used two pieces of cardboard as the front and back. I added a Hambly transparency to the front piece of cardboard. Then I added a tag, a scallop punched piece of patterned paper from My Mind's Eye, a cute little owl stamp from Hero Arts, the title and a little label, both from October Afternoon.

I added travel quotes throughout from Ali Edwards' Scrapbook on the Road class. I began the album with a tag describing the reason for the trip. The first page has a piece of the brochure from the toy store, along with a picture of the new wooden block letters on my shelf.

I included a picture of the Bell jar in its new home, along with a business card from the store and a cute little tag from Office Max. I love the 7 Gypsies papers from the Lille collection. They are so pretty and perfect on their own.

Another travel quote, along with a bunch of photos from our stop to see Lake Pepin. I made this in Photoshop Elements with help from Elise. You can check out her tutorial here. I'm slowly becoming friends with Photoshop. Really loving how this looks.

I added a bunch of journaling on both sides of the grid paper. I created and printed four smaller photos from Photoshop and included a 7 Gypsies tag.

Lots of journaling on these two pages, along with a little photo of where we went hiking.

I love how this series of photos looks side by side in the album. We attempted to hike up a bluff to the summit, but just couldn't get there. Whenever we thought we were getting close, we'd realize it was just beyond our reach. Once we got to the many flights of stairs, we called it quits. My Dad climbed the stairs to see if the summit was at the top, (way to go Dad!) but there was still more after that. Seriously?! Will definitely have to go back and conquer that bluff.

I added an envelope to include a few Instax photos and the last page is another one from 7 Gypsies. Again too pretty to cover up and a great page to end on.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I love mini albums. They are so fun to flip through. They are an easy way to document an event or a trip. It's also a great way to use up some of those supplies. I just grabbed what I liked and made it work.

I can't wait to visit two more MN cities.

Have a lovely weekend.

Brag Book

For my sister-in-laws birthday, I made her a brag book. A book full of photos of her family. A book she can throw in her purse and take out at her leisure. A book she can take with her on her business trips. A book she can look at with her husband and kids and reminisce together.

I had a great time making this album. I love making gifts like this. I used a Kolo album and primarily 7-Gypsies product. I love their collage papers and tags. Oh, the tags! I'm a sucker for tags. I also used a bit of twine and decorative tape.

Year In Review Album

For the last few years, I have created a page for each month hitting the highlights of how I spent my time. I used a 12 x 12 album, my own handwriting and each page was unique. I love having these books. I love having a quick snapshot of how I spent my days. I love seeing the entire year together. I love looking back through several different years and seeing how things have changed and stayed the same. Very cool.

This year I decided to do a hybrid approach and a more consistent style to make things simpler. I'm using an 8x8 American Crafts album and am enjoying the smaller size so far. I'm writing up my journaling in a Word document and printing it on cardstock. I love how much more information I can fit on a page. I'm able to include some of the smaller details I wasn't able to include when I used my own handwriting. I'm printing photos using the contact sheet in iPhoto. A really simple way to print smaller photos.

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

I'll share each month as I finish them. Hopefully, I won't get too behind.

If you're feeling crafty this weekend, check out the online crop at Two Peas. They'll be posting a bunch of challenges with prizes. Always a good time.

Have a great weekend!