The Days of December Daily

I’m having such fun with my December Daily and have surprised myself with just how much I am enjoying this process. It makes me smile to mark down a little something each day. Life with a toddler seems to pass by in a blur and it’s really refreshing to pause and reflect on the day.

Day 1 is the only entry that isn’t a two-page spread. Here I wrote a little note to welcome December and to say how much I’ve always enjoyed the holiday season. I added this little pic through our window from the outside looking in to literally give a peek at our life.

Day 2 tells the story of being just a little over-ambitious with the Advent calendar. My son, who’s 2, love blocks and puzzles and I thought the Lego City advent calendar would be right up his alley. Sure, the box said it was for ages 5 - 12 but I thought, how hard can a Lego project be? Um, turns out, pretty hard! Definitely not suitable for a 2 year old. I could foresee a meltdown every day: his and mine! So, we boxed that baby right back up and went to plan B. (See Day 4 for more on the story).

On Day 3, we went to the annual Christmas luncheon at church. I used the program as my page insert. It was a little too narrow, so I added a bit of pp down the side. On the right, I wrote down who sat at our table and journaled about the program. I added a couple photos I took with my iphone, including one of Cory outside on the swing set afterwards.

By Day 4, I had found a good alternative to the Lego advent calendar. Now, a small stuffed mouse and some candy canes are marking the passing days. This calendar is from 1987, I believe, and is one my Mom used when my youngest siblings were tots. I looked online to see if I could find more information about this specific calendar, sold by Avon, and was astonished to see several sellers on ebay asking more than $100 for this “vintage” item.

If you have a December Daily, feel free to link yours in the comments. I'd love to see it!

Supply list:

Echo Park: Holly Jolly - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, stamps; Metro Dots and Stripes - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit; Season’s Greetings 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, brads; Everybody Loves Christmas 12x12 collection kit.

American Crafts: Album

Ali Edwards: calendar overlays

Hambly: Transparencies

Bo Bunny: ribbon

Fancy Pants: ribbon

Cosmo Cricket: tiny type

Jenni Bowlin: letter stickers

Martha Stewart: kraft tags

The Twinery: twine

Making Memories: Buttons

My Mind’s Eye: Stamps

Ranger Industries: Ink

Sewing Machine: Bernina
Kit club: Studio Calico

Scraptastic Club Guest Designer

It’s December and I am so happy to welcome in the holiday season. Today, I officially start my December Daily and my little one opens the first door of his Lego Advent calendar.

But first I want to share that I am a guest designer this month for Scraptastic Club. It’s a great kit club that gives you a choice of two kits each month. Both kits have great add-on options too. You can find the kits here. 

I chose the Naughty or Nice? kit.

Here’s my first project. I scrapped a photo of my Dad with my brothers on Christmas morning. I love this Crate ornament paper. I pop-dotted some of the ornaments for dimension then set off the paper by adding borders punched from cream cardstock down either side.

The large green die cut is Bo Bunny and it had a blue scallop design around the perimeter, which made the die cut too big for my design.  So, I cut off the blue and stitched a red frame to ground the die cut. On top, I added a tag using a cute reindeer stamp from Imaginesce and alphas from Lily Bee.

Scraptastic Club sponsors challenges each month with great prizes. Come play along. The first challenge is to use border punches and you have until Dec. 31 to upload your entry. The prize this month is the Random Collection from Crate Paper. Oh, I love that line!   You can find the challenges on the Scraptastic Club Blog here.

December Daily Foundation Pages: Part 2

I'm back today with more foundation pages in my December Daily.  To see the first round of pages, go here.

I used a small American Craft album that came with the Studio Calico December Daily kit.  The page protectors in the album measure 6 x 8.5 inches.  I love this size.  It's such a fun little canvas to work on. The Studio Calico kit also came with patterned paper, but I put that aside and used Echo Park collections instead.

Each day (except Day 1) is a two-page spread.  On the right, is a calendar page (purchased from Ali Edwards) and on the left is a page I decorated using Echo Park.  I sewed a frame around each page on the left to mimic the border around the calendar page on the right.

Here's December 6:

I just love those snowflake papers in the Holly Jolly line.  I took both papers (the muted one and the colorful one) and quilted them together using a square punch and a zig zag stitch.  The snowman is from the Holly Jolly chipboard.  I followed Ali's lead and added a transparency divider between each spread.

December 7: 

On this day, I will journal about getting our Christmas tree.  Love this fun paper and that cute journaling card.  I never remember Christmas trees being $2 though!  I think I will include a receipt on this page for our tree as a nice comparison.

December 8: 

This is the "Glad Tidings" paper from the Holly Jolly line.  It spells out some of my favorite Christmas traditions:  present time, a cup of cocoa and mistletoe kisses!

December 9:

On this page, we'll post our Christmas wish lists. Ali had a good idea on her blog to list not only our kids' Christmas wishes but to list our own as well.  I'll journal those on the calendar page.

December 10:

Here, I'll document a favorite family tradition: hanging stockings for each member of the family. Most of our stockings are homemade and I loved seeing them overflowing with goodies on Christmas morning.

Do you have a December Daily in the works?  If so, feel free to link yours in the comments. I'd love to see your version.

Supply list:

Echo Park: Holly Jolly - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, stamps; Metro Dots and Stripes - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit; Season’s Greetings 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, brads; Everybody Loves Christmas 12x12 collection kit.

American Crafts: Album

Ali Edwards: calendar overlays

Hambly: Transparencies

Bo Bunny: ribbon

Fancy Pants: ribbon

The Twinery: twine

Making Memories: Buttons

My Mind’s Eye: Stamps

Ranger Industries: Ink

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Ornament Card

The Create blog by Northridge Publishing is having a challenge this week to create a Christmas card using non-traditional colors.  I made an ornament card using Mitten Weather and Pixielicious lines from Cosmo Cricket. The little red star is from October Afternoon's Rocket Age collection. Love that line!

The ornament detaches from the front to hang on the tree.

For more details on the challenge, visit the Create blog.

Update:  My card was featured on the Create Blog on 12/1/2011. You can find the post here.

Supplies:
cardstock: Bazzill Basics
patterned paper: Cosmo Cricket
chipboard: Cosmo Cricket
stickers: Cosmo Cricket (tag); October Afternoon (star)
doily: WRMK
gems: Martha Stewart
twine: The Twinery
sewing machine: Bernina

The Thankful Jar

Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving and in that spirit, we decided to start a new tradition in our family this year. We asked everyone who came to Thanksgiving to bring a small item that could fit in a jar to represent something they did or something that happened this year that they are thankful for. The item didn’t have to represent something big and meaningful, just anything that came to mind. Some items were light-hearted or funny and some represented more life-changing moments. In addition to the objects, we each wrote a sentence or two on a slip of paper, dated and signed it, and added it to the jar.

Some of the items we included were: a canceled forever stamp from a letter, an airline ticket from trip, an old family photograph, ticket stubs from a Broadway show, a favorite Bible verse, a flashcard for school progress, my son’s handprint, a toy car to represent a real one, music from a Church program, a silk flower, a sweet note from Aunt Patty, a silver spoon from Nana, a shell from the beach, a plastic sheriff’s badge for my brother's graduation from the police academy, an Apple sticker to represent our love of the iphone, and a receipt for the Thanksgiving turkey.

We are going to keep the jar on a shelf in the den and add to it throughout the coming year. Then next Thanksgiving, we’ll open the jar, examine the contents, count our blessings again and add new items.

To decorate the jar, I used a border strip from Bella Blvd's Finally Fall, stickers from Crate Paper's Farmhouse line and some twine from The Twinery.  For the top of the lid, I added a circle punched from Studio Calico's Countryside.

I also made a Thanksgiving card for my folks using some of the same supplies:

Happy Thanksgiving to each of you.

December Daily Foundation Pages: Part 1

This is my first year doing a December Daily and I am having so much fun with it. December Daily is a concept started by Ali Edwards. Essentially, it is a mini-album that chronicles bits of daily life for the first 25 days of December. This year, Ali teamed up with Studio Calico to offer a December Daily kit and I purchased the kit.

I love the album in the kit. It’s a small, plain chipboard album made by American Crafts with 3-inch rings and 25 page protectors, measuring 6“ wide by 8.5“ tall. It’s a fun size. The kit came with assorted paper and embellishments but I decided to forego most of the kit and instead use primarily Echo Park.

My entry for December 1 looks like this.

　

I followed Ali’s lead and used a calendar page on the right and a decorative element on the left. Here I used 4-inch square pockets to hold introductory elements. The top square says: Welcome December; the bottom square says: The 25 Days of Christmas. To make the pockets, I used a 12x12 WRMK photo page protector that had 9 squares. I cut the page protector to just two squares and punched new holes to fit the album’s rings. I will use altered page protectors like this sporadically through the album.

My entry for December 2 is more typical of what the rest of the album will be: a decorative page on the left, a calendar page on the right and transparent divider in between.

The calendar pages are digital overlays that Ali sells on her website. I'll use these pages primarily for journaling and photos of the day's events or to record a holiday memory. The left side of the spread is a decorative page. On these pages, I stitched a red frame around each page to give continuity day to day.

Here's the foundation spread for December 3:

Throughout the album, I used Echo Park paper and embellishments for the decorative page on the left side of the album.  I primarily used a 6x6 pad of Holly Jolly and Metro Dots and Stripes.

This is the foundation for December 4:

The snowman strip at the top of this page is from Echo Park's 2010 Christmas collection and the snowman at the bottom is a Holly Jolly journaling card.

December 5:

On Day 5, I used a small photo pocket (as I did on Day 1) between the left and right pages of the spread in lieu of a transparency divider. I tucked a journaling card in the pocket and will write my list in December when I get to this day.

A lot of people put numbers on their foundation pages but I haven't added those yet, as I may move the decorative pages once December starts and I wanted to have that flexibility.

You can see my December Daily Foundation Pages: Part 2 here.

Supply list:

Echo Park: Holly Jolly - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, stamps; Metro Dots and Stripes - 6x6 pad, 12x12 collection kit; Season’s Greetings 12x12 collection kit, chipboard, brads; Everybody Loves Christmas 12x12 collection kit.

American Crafts: Album

Ali Edwards: calendar overlays

Hambly: Transparencies

Bo Bunny: ribbon

Fancy Pants: ribbon

Cosmo Cricket: tiny type

Jenni Bowlin: letter stickers

Martha Stewart: kraft tags

The Twinery: twine

Making Memories: Buttons

My Mind’s Eye: Stamps

Ranger Industries: Ink

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Halloween Wrap Up

I wanted to post these at the end of October, but our internet service was kaput for a couple weeks due to some weather issues. I hope you will indulge me for a little Halloween wrap-up.

I used Echo Park’s Apothecary line for all these projects. I so enjoyed this collection. First up, are some pillow box treats. I took these to my son’s school and they were a big hit. They were super easy to do. I confess: I used pre-made pillow boxes from the wedding aisle at Michael’s and just covered them with patterned paper. Easy peasy!

Then I made a couple of cards just for fun.

And a wreath for the front door.

Then, just before Halloween, I stopped by a thrift store and found a small wooden birdhouse for 25 cents. I took it home and started to paint it white, then realized it would be better painted black. I covered the birdhouse with little scraps of Apothecary and added an oversized Raven sticker. We sat this on our bookcase in the den and it gave just the right Halloween feel to the room. Quote the raven: Nevermore!