December Daily Foundation

The holiday season is in full swing and I hope yours is off to a great start! We've been busy here with decorating, shopping and planning. I've also been trying my best to keep up with my Dec. Daily album!

Here is a look at the foundation pages...
For the front and back covers I used two pieces of cardboard inserts I had saved from photo frames I bought a while ago. I covered them with Christmas scrapbooking papers and used some embellishments from my stash.




Front cover







Back cover




Close up of embellishments on front cover



For the inside pages I used scrapbooking papers, cut them to 6" x 8" and glued two sheets together to make them stronger.  This gave me the front and back of each page in the book.



The patterned paper on the right page is stapled to create a pocket.



I bound it all together with book rings and really like how it turned out, especially since I spent nothing and used just what I had on hand! I've been keeping up with my journaling each day, and I'm working on page construction as I have time. I'll share some of my finished pages soon!

Hope your December is off to a great start!

Happy Creating,

Jennifer

December Daily

I’m so excited it is December 1st!!! For the past 3 Christmas Seasons I’ve followed Ali Edwards and her December Daily Project. The basic idea is to create a mini album/journal to document the season quickly and easily. At the end of the month (I end mine on Christmas Day) I have a special keepsake album that chronicles all of our fun and festive holiday happenings as well as meaningful traditions, thoughts about the season and any other special moments I want to remember and document. This album really gets to the heart of what the season means to me and my family.

The key is to keep it simple!!! I actually created the foundation of my album (bare bones so to speak) over the past few weeks. Now I am all ready to begin adding content starting today, Dec. 1st, but you can also create you album as you go. Each day I take a picture and write a short note documenting a special moment, tradition, event, memory, etc. to add to my album/journal. Keeping it short, sweet and simple makes it doable in the chaos of the busy season. I have to say it is such a treat to look back on the years past and see what has changed (or stayed the same) and revisit those special moments with my loved ones!


Here are a few pages from my December Daily Album 2009:

Cover




Dec. 3rd
Chloe the cat knocking down my Nutcracker display!

 



Dec. 4th
I also like to document the everyday moments.
Photo idea:  take pictures of your Christmas shopping receipts and/or bags of gifts.



Use an envelope for a page.



Inside the envelope you can hold extra pictures and journaling. 
This page is part of our Dec. 9th visit to Santa



Dec. 9th

Dec. 10th

Extra pictures for Dec.10th.
I glued them back to back and inserted them into the book rings as their own page.
See other side below:




I’d love for you to play along this year!! It isn’t too late… Join me today and begin creating an album or journal to remember the season! Don’t make it too difficult!! I just used Christmas papers and embellishments from my scrapbooking stash and haven’t bought anything new to include this year. If you aren’t a scrapbooker, you can find lots of Christmas themed paper, stickers, etc. at your local craft stores (Michaels, Hobby Lobby) and places like Target and Wal-Mart. Another idea is to use found/recycled items like cardboard, holiday wrapping paper, old Christmas cards, tags, etc. and put together you album with book rings. I’ve used several of these items as well and will show you my foundation pages in the next few days! :) Looking forward to some holiday creative fun!!

Be sure to let me know if you are joining in!! :)

Happy Creating!
Jennifer

December...where did you go???

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and a great start to your new year! December sure got away from me. We had a wonderful Christmas, but I was even busier than I expected to be. My whole family also caught a nasty cold that slowed things down for a bit. It was my son's very first and he felt his worst on Christmas day. His first Christmas and he felt so yucky; I felt so bad for him! Aside from being sick we had a great time with family coming into town to visit, a surprise snowy white Christmas Eve, a fun visit from Santa, lots of yummy food and special time together celebrating the birth of our Savior, our blessings and sweet family traditions.

I did keep up with my December Daily Album, although I'm not quite finished with it yet. I'd planned to print pictures and post them along the way, but my printer wouldn't cooperate. I finally gave up and just got all of them printed at the same time last week. I hope to sit down and finish it up soon.

This week I need to finish getting the Christmas decor packed up and put away. Do you ever wonder what to do with all of the Christmas Cards you get from dear friends and family? Ali Edwards has a great post about punching out parts of your cards and making a layout with all of them. I have a Christmas Album that I include my family's Christmas photo card and newsletter in along with that season's pictures. I'm thinking I may try this and stick it in as a closing page for each year.

I found another idea for storing your holiday cards in the book Simple Scrapbooks: 25 Fun and Meaningful Memory Books You Can Make in a Weekend by Stacy Julian. Stacy created an entire album for her holiday cards. She keeps it simple and has a section for each year. Within each section she has a place for her family photo and card from that year, a photo pocket to easily store photos she received from family and friends, and a few pages for favorite cards. She also suggests keeping "Letters to Santa" and a collection of Christmas stamps in this album. Cute ideas!!

What do you do with your Christmas cards each year?

My Favorite Time of the Year

I'm so excited! I know Thanksgiving hasn't arrived yet, but the holidays are just around the corner and I'm already enjoying the early preparation in anticipation of what is to come! I'm big on nurturing special family memories and traditions and since I'm an artist and scrapbooker I love creating during this season! I've been listening to Christmas music and getting a head start on my holiday planning and projects! I find that the earlier I start the more I can relax and enjoy this time of the year. Here are several fun ideas and helpful links that you may enjoy as well!

• The Christmas Station: 103.7 Lite FM: 24 hour holiday music. If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area you can listen on the radio. If not, you can listen online.


• OrganizedChristmas.com - Simplify Your Holidays and Celebrate the Season: I found this to be a very helpful website that has everything you need to easily organize for the holidays and allow your family to enjoy them with less stress and more time for what is most important during the season. You'll find great holiday plans you can follow, wonderful articles, and creative ideas. I'm setting up my Christmas planner and following the Christmas Countdown plan. This plan officially started the last week of October, but you can jump in at any time and get going. Adapt it and make it work for your needs!


• December Daily: Ali Edwards' holiday mini album project. I am so in love with the idea of this! December Daily is a mini album you create the foundation of before the holidays and then add to each day of December until Christmas. It is a mini journal/scrapbook that documents the special times you have throughout the season. This isn't meant to be a stressful, "how in the world can I get this done?", project. It needs to be a fun, stress reducing, holiday activity that allows you to capture and remember the wonderful traditions, activities, and yes, even mundane, everyday happenings during the month. It will be so fun to look back through the albums each year at Christmas and remember the holidays before. I've been enjoying working on my pages for the album, doing a few at a time whenever I have a few spare moments. Here is a little sneak peak:

Go here to learn more about Ali's amazing ideas and philosophy behind the project. I hope you'll join me in the fun and share your album as well!

• Fit-To-Be-Scrapped Holiday Letters E-course at Big Picture Scrapbooking: I just enrolled in this fun, inexpensive, self paced class in which you learn new, out of the box ideas for your holiday Christmas card letter. I create an annual letter each year and I'm so excited to be inspired by others and get some new ideas, as well as get some tips on getting my letter done quickly and easily.
  

I'll be back soon to share some of our family traditions and fun ideas for kids, as well as more of my December Daily album. Have you started doing anything holiday related yet?

Happy creating!! :)

Jennifer

Autumn Has Arrived

I just love this time of the year. The temperatures are now down from the suffocating 100+ degrees they were during the summer. The leaves will soon change to their beautiful new colors and I love the amazing smells of the season; spiced cider and the smell of a cozy fire in the air are favorites. I just put out my apple and cinnamon candles! I'm also looking forward to finally being able to make some of our favorite fall dishes. Chili and homemade soup are especially tasty this time of the year! I've got the mantle decorated with a fall vine, scarecrow and pumpkins. The fall wreath is on the door and scarecrows are happily welcoming friends to our yard! All the fun fall activities are now beginning. We are looking forward to our yearly tradition of going to the pumpkin patch soon and Halloween is just around the corner.

So, Halloween is a big deal in our house! My daughter has always loved to dress up. She never watches or listens to anything without also dressing the part. Whether it is a Disney Princess or Velma from Scooby Doo, she is in character. Naturally she loves the opportunity to dress up and actually leave the house to go trick or treating. She is still deciding on who she will be this year. It ranges from Woody or Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story or Daphne from Scooby. Such fun memories to make. I'm so excited for her!

We will be carving the pumpkin soon and enjoying the yummy roasted pumpkin seeds to snack on. Here is last years Jack-o-lantern:

Lately I've been trying to catch up on my scrapbooking. Catching up is a never-ending process, but I figure I'll keep plugging away a little bit at a time. I found the cutest Haunted House album from Deja Views. I plan on starting an album for each of my children showcasing their Halloween Costume for each year. I'll just add onto it every Halloween. I hope to have some of it done to share soon!

What fun fall traditions does your family have?