I love December Daily…last year was the first year I consciously put an album together to chronicle in words and photos our December holidays.  I find it a great way to document the season and all the everyday things big and small that happen during the month.  Every year there are the traditions that are the same…fun things that are different and the sweet cycles of everyday life weaving in and out of the holiday preparations.

Last year and this, I’ve been “playing along” as I call it with Ali Edwards “December Daily”   I view this project as part documenting and memory keeping and part design project.  My approach to this project is evolving but basically, I follow along with Ali as far as size, general organization, and I use her templates and overlays (which you can find at Designer Digitals HERE)   It simplifies the process to set up a framework and a vocabulary to work within, that way I can focus on the stories and not reinvent the design wheel every day.

This year I purchased the December Daily kit from Studio Calico which had some fun embellishments, papers, and other goodies and (most importantly) an album sized for the project.  I also pulled out anything from my stash that could be included and christmas-ey.  I found a vintage paper kit that really spoke to me and how I wanted the album to look…I loved the “Dear Mr. Claus” collage kit by Cosmo Cricket.  I also picked up christmas bakers twine, a few different kinds of brads, stickers, alphas and a stamp or two…I figured the best way to start was to organize everything by type on my worktable…

My next move was to print out all of my December Daily base pages using Ali’s overlays and cream card stock.  It took some tweaking before I got things just the way I wanted it but eventually I got everything printed and trimmed to 6×8.5″

The next task (kind of concurrent with nursing the printing project) was to cut and assemble the dividers for each day.  I used a lot of Hambly overlays for this but I also used some super fun red glitter paper (think Dorothy’s shoes) for the 5th,

10th, 15th, 20th & 25th and some white velvet paper for the 8th (my birthday!) and the 31st.  Last year I swapped out the prepared dividers for ones made from packaging and other items I picked up during the month…I think this year I might incorporate those things in a different way.

So here are the finished base pages…Over the course of the month, I’ll be adding photos and writing and all sorts of stuff that tells the story of this month.  I’ve set up the dividers and the “right hand” page.  The “left hand” page of the layout will evolve depending on the day and what story there is to tell…or not…may be just some pretty paper or something fun.

So ready to start documenting the fun of December!  As last year, this will be a hybrid album…some digi scrapbooking and some cut and paste…hand written and typed and hopefully incorporating more from Charlie and the girls this year.

All ready and waiting …

yay