December Daily 2011 is finished. I loved it and I have found a new tradition for our family. The kids really enjoyed looking through it today, along with my first Project Life album (which I started this past May). The combination of the 2 is a perfect fit for recording my journey.
This post is packed. A video of my journal, pages #27 – #31, and a giveaway (my first one).
TweetI hope everyone had a nice holiday, or at least a nice break from work! I was out of town visiting family, so I came home to play a little (a lot) of catchup in my December Daily journal.
So once again, this is a long post, but just very picture heavy. I’m going to keep it very simple, but if you have any questions, please ask.
Day #17
Hi friends. Wow- what an incredible week! And once again, I’m finding myself so thankful that I’ve recorded it all in my Project Life and December Daily albums. Just loving this newfound combination for me.
Once again, this is a long post. But just very picture heavy. Enjoy! And don’t hesitate to ask questions, and I will try my best to answer them.
Day #10
TweetHello friends. Here are the next four days of December. With having to work 12-hour shifts and daylight savings, I haven’t had tons of light to work with. I’m all caught up though and continue to enjoy the process. This is a long post- not word heavy, just lots of photos.
Day #6
TweetOk, so today might be my favorite! But I do feel that way everyday when I’m finished with my pages.
The first layout is all about my 5 favorite Christmas must see movies. I really stuck with the theme of five. Five movies, five stars, and three number fives on the layout. I try to use my things in 3s as it tends to be pleasing to the eye.
Welcome to Day #4 of my December Daily Journal. This has become quite a big endeavor. I wasn’t expecting to be spending so much time, yet I find myself being pulled to this album at all hours (of the night) to work on it. I’m certain that I’ve adopted a new tradition. I truly find myself treasuring the season more and being more aware of my surroundings through this journaling, photo taking, and storytelling process.
Layout #1 – I included the insert from the day #4 advent box which was to decorate the house for Christmas. I continued with the 4 start theme and used 4 stars on the bottom of the second bag and attached with mini brads. I was taking pictures of the decorations and ornaments and noticed my shadow in the picture. I told Emily, who was helping me decorate the tree. So she jumped behind me and I snapped a picture. I really loved this picture and it was by pure accident.
December 3rd brought us an early Hanukah celebration with Jeff’s parents. We had brisket, latkes, and matzo ball soup. Matzo ball soup is typically for Passover, but my kids LOVE it. The girls enjoyed an afternoon of shopping with Bubbie and the boys went and saw Puss and Boots with Zaidi. And to round out the evening, we enjoyed a competitive game of Dreidel, sang songs, and lit the menorah.
Ok here is day#2 friends. I continue to enjoy this process. I had a few growing pains earlier with some technical issues with this wonderful new world of blogging. Ah- the joys and stresses of the learning curve.
For the first page, I got out my sewing machine to stitch ribbon and sew around my picture. For some reason, sewing makes me feel more crafty than any other hobby.
For the back page, I took inspiration from Ali’s layout on day #1 and stitched through various chipboard letters. I continued with the stitching around the picture and included letters for each of their initials, their ages, and their shoes sizes.
Rebecca was inducted into the National Honor Society for the second year. We were very proud and so the entire family attended her 7 AM ceremony. 7AM- really? This year, our school was relocated from an office complex to a brand new facility. Our family name is on a brick in the courtyard, so I took the opportunity to get the kids’ picture near it. Loved how the picture took the journaling into a different direction.
If you are new here, go here to see my foundation pages and here to see Day#1 of this awesome adventure.
I am loving this process so much and hope to continue posting daily. Also look for a homemade stamping and donut tutorials next week.
Have a blessed evening friends – Jenny
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Welcome December! I’ve been waiting for you for 11 months and you have finally arrived. I can already taste the potato latkes with applesauce for Hanukah and the pecan balls that I’ve had every Christmas season since I can remember.
Well I started that new tradition… December Daily. I can already tell I’m hooked. Like full on hooked. Like I needed another addiction or hobby right? But I just keep picking it up and flipping through it. So totally worth it.
If you haven’t seen my foundation pages, you can start here.
Loving this process. As you can tell, I tend to gravitate to enlarged photos, office type supplies, and my own handwriting. I try to grab ephemera (aka stuff) that adds to telling those stories. If it doesn’t, I try not to add it. All of the supplies I used, I had on hand. I did not buy a thing.
I also did not worry that a couple of my pictures were from the day before. I made my advent boxes but thought they reflected the start of the holiday season. My focus is to capture the essence of the holiday season through this album. I am also almost caught up with my project life from 2011 and will post pictures next week. I will continue that project into 2012.
My new mantra on my journaling above…
I don’t have to be perfect to have something to offer.
I hope that you take that attitude with you into this holiday season. If you only bake 2 dozen cookies or heaven forbid have to buy store bought, take them to the party with a smile and enjoy. I’m reminding myself of this as I’m new of taking pictures of layouts, learning HTML with blogging, playing with photoshop (clueless!), and working towards accomplishing things off my list.
It’s all good. And I’m perfect enough.
Blessings sweet friends. – Jenny
*** For more amazing inspiration, check out Ali’s site.
TweetI’m excited to be adding a new holiday tradition this December for our family. I just completed the foundation pages of my first December Daily album. Essentially, it is a daily scrapbook/journal for the 31 days of December. This has become a very popular idea in the scrapbooking community as it was originated by Ali.
When I committed to doing this project, I had a couple of things that I desired. I wanted my book to contain 31 days since we celebrate 2 birthdays, an anniversary, and 2 holidays each December. I believe having 31 days in my album will allow for more ordinary December days and stories, which I really want to capture. Since we are also blessed to celebrate Hanukah, I wanted the album to have some blue and not just the traditional red and green. I wanted my book to contain fabric since Samantha is all about her cloth books right now at bedtime. I wanted to use these digital overlays from Ali. And last, I wanted to learn something new. I’m working on getting out of my comfort zone and learning how to sew and quilt (as it is on my list).
So I headed to the scrapbook store with only the above criteria in my head. I got 1/4 yard of 27 different fabrics. I had printed out the overlays onto white Bazill cardstock. I cut the fabric to be slightly larger than the overlays knowing they would “shrink” with seam allowances, user error, etc. 
After I cut my squares, I used my extra fabric to die cut all of the numbers. Note: If Santa or Hanukah Harry had bought me a Silhouette Cameo, I would have kissed him right then and there.
I came home and sewed using a zig zag stitch with a stitch length of 1.0. If it sounds like I know what I’m doing, please don’t be fooled. Totally in the learning process. I used a straight stitch to sew the pages together and I inserted a piece of chipboard to give it some sturdiness for durability.
And then, my dear husband helped me put the grommets in this album. He said that if our marriage can survive grommets and royal icing (another story for another time), then it can survive anything. He might need physical therapy for his hand after using that poor excuse of a grommet tool that came with them. (If Santa had brought Jeff a Big Bite, he might have kissed Santa himself.)
Here are just some of the pages:
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