Author: cristina

December Daily Update

| cristina
I want to give you an update on how my December Daily album is progressing. Last month I talked a bit about what my plans were for this year, and it’s time to check in and see how I am doing.
My plan for this year included: handmade album, with pages of different sizes; one story per day.
As fate has it, this December has turned out to be by far the busiest I have  ever had. I thought it would be hard to top last year’s craziness, but it has indeed happened. In the past two out of three days I have been at the office from 8 AM to 10:30 PM. And I see no end in sight, yet Christmas is less than a week away. Ugh! So while I am not up to date with my December Daily album, given that I have very little time to work on it, I have made a little progress and I have been taking photos regularly and keeping track of what story I want to tell each day. I hope to get a good chunk of it done just before Christmas, because I know my inspiration dips significantly once Christmas Day has passed. 
I haven’t bought any new Christmas supplies this year, but I have a sizeable stash to draw from and it is fun to finally use all these pretty bits that I had been hoarding.
Now it’s time to show you some pictures of my album so far. I haven’t worked on the cover yet – I will do it at the end since I need to see what size my album will have. But I plan to include this pretty gold star vellum paper at the front. of the album.
 
And here’s what all my pages stacked together look so far. I have days 1-7 done at this point.
 
I love having pages peeking out. I think it adds a lot of interest to the album!
 
For December 1st, my story was about the tea advent calendar we got this year.
 
For this spread, I included a 3×4 pocket as a page to hold some journaling.
 
I like to include stamping in my album because I love stamps so much!

And now.. I’d love to hear from you! Have you been documenting your December? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Thanksgiving

| cristina

Yeah, yeah, I know… only 9 days to Christmas (!!!).. but I just scrapped a Thanksgiving page this weekend so I want to share it with you. 🙂

This page started out with the awesome Story Bubbles Brushes by Ali Edwards, and it quickly came together thanks to the fun background paper.
It was so awesome to have both my parents with us on Thanksgiving! I am so glad I took this photo of us with my tripod.

December

| cristina

Ah, December… I love this month because of Christmas, but I hate hate hate all the bustle of the end of the year deadlines! This year is especially bad… I have started working on my December Daily in the evenings, but I have only about four days done so far.

So for now all I have to share is the layout I made for the December gallery at write.click.scrapbook.

I am really in love with this page!! Not your traditional Christmas colors, but so festive nonetheless. 🙂

December BYOC at The Lilypad

| cristina

It’s BYOC time at The Lilypad!!

I have been running all week but I did manage to squeeze in two pages last night with some of the BYOC products. They are soooo good!

Credits:
Chalet papers and Sprinkles v30 by Valorie Wibbens
Every Day of the Week alpha by Pink Reptile Designs

This next page uses a set of digital brushes by Ali Edwards. I used them to build a template for my page. I love how it turned out!

Credits:
Chalet papers by Valorie Wibbens
Daily Digital brushes by Ali Edwards

This one will get printed in 6″x8″ size for my Week in the Life album. 🙂
And it is now December 5th, and I have not even started my December Daily album yet. It is not looking good, the next couple weeks are riddled with deadlines and long work hours.. but it will all happen at some point. 🙂

Christmas Preparations

| cristina

The new releases at The Lilypad have gotten my gears going and my December Daily preparation has begun! This month’s Memory Pockets Monthly made it so easy..

I know it’s only the second month, but this month’s kit is a big favorite of mine!! I made a few pages that will go in my 2014 album. I am planning to assemble the album from scratch. These pages are 4″x6″ or 4″x4″ in size.

Here’s a closer look at a couple of pages.

Hot pink, white and black?? I am digging this combination!

I wasn’t planning to make Christmas cards this year, but this card right here is making me reconsider!!

I also combined this gorgeous kit with a bunch of the add ons to scrap a few digi pages. I simply couldn’t stop using it.. I am in love with the colors SO much!!

Credits:
Arboretum {Joy} and Joy papers by Sara Gleason


Credits:

Templates: Polly Love by Amy Martin
Joyful Papers, Joyful Elements and Pocket Full of Joy by Stolen Moments Design

 


Credits:

Joy word art by Sara Gleason
Holiday Word Art by Designs by Lili

But that’s not all to get your Christmas crafting going. This month’s Mixed Media Monthly (M3) kit is super festive:

It includes papers, elements, cut files, alpha, and even a gorgeous template that I used in this page.


Credits:

And it gets even better.. the Mixed Media Monthly kit is a perfect match with all the Document Your December products! I didn’t have time to use them last week when they were released, but I definitely did use them now. 🙂 I love them!

Credits:

DYD Collection by Sara Gleason
Pocket Stuffers no. 4 by Valorie Wibbens
Journal Junkie: Shine by CD Muckosky
Woodbitsy Christmas by Pink Reptile Designs

I love the gold and pink bits! Finally, I made another page with the M3 with more traditional colors (and some pink thrown in for good measure :)).


Credits:

DYD Collection by Sara Gleason

My plan for today is to put up the tree. Feels about right, doesn’t it? 🙂

Finally, there are also some great new products in the store that don’t fall under the MPM or M3 umbrellas. Of course I had to scrap with a few of those too. 🙂


Credits:

Background paper from Joy papers by Sara Gleason

 


Credits:

Loving Life by CD Muckosky

 


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Don’t miss the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales at The Lilypad! Nothing beats online shopping as far as I’m concerned! 🙂

December Daily – Take 5

| cristina
This post was originally posted on the write.click.scrapbook blog.
The most wonderful time of the year is starting soon.. and I am starting to make plans on how I want to document December this year.
I have completed a December Daily album in each of the past four years, and I am at it again this year for the fifth album. This really is my favorite project. I love Christmas, and I love documenting it.
In these past four years, I have taken different approaches to putting my album together, and I want to share my impressions with you. Each of these four albums was put together using my stash.
 
My 2010-2013 albums
In 2010, I used a 2-ring album. The pages were all hybrid, and I used my Silhouette extensively. In 2011, which was once again all hybrid, I assembled the album using my Cinch. In 2012 and 2013 I used pocket scrapbooking. Here’s a look at the inside of the albums.
 
 
I love combining different shapes and textures in the album – you can see how I used bubble wrap at the front of my 2010 album and vellum at the front of the 2011 and 2013 albums.
 
What I liked & what I want to change
 
 And here is a peek at some random pages in my albums.
 
 
As you can see, in my 2010 album I combined a lot of different shapes of pages. I love this and want to do it again in 2014!
In 2011, I added lots of journaling to tell my Christmas stories. I used each 2-page spread per day, one story per day. I want to do this again in 2014!
In all my albums, the number of the day is featured prominently. I want to do this again in 2014!
The pocket-album approach I used in 2012 and 2013 made it very quick and easy to put together my album and I was able to use up a lot of journal cards from my stash, but I found myself writing less. I also dislike that the different textures get lost behind a plastic protector.  I will not do a pocket album in 2014.
 
My process
In 2010, my first December Daily, I pre-made all the pages because I was traveling for most of December. I ended up not being able to keep up with the album during my trip, and finished it a few months later. The other three years I worked on my album as we went. In 2013 I actually fell behind and I finished my album after the summer. I definitely lose inspiration if I don’t work on my album in December, so I will try to stay current as much as I can. But I know now not to worry if that fails, because I can catch up when things slow down. In any case, I find that waiting to have my pictures in front of me works best, rather than having all the foundation pages made first. I will make a list of Christmas topics to use for the days in which I don’t have any Christmas-related story to tell.
And now.. I’d love to hear from you! Are you looking forward to December? What are your plans for documenting this month? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Merry Fall

| cristina

The new Christmas brushes in Ali Edwards’s store are perfect for December Daily! I am not quite in Christmas mode yet (waiting for Thanksgiving to be over) but I found that they were perfect to scrap the crazy weather we’ve had this past week! 🙂

Credits:
Nutmeg papers and Cut It Out: Gather by Valorie Wibbens
Noel Brushes by Ali Edwards

Here are a couple of details of these lovely brushes:

I also stamped a cute little squirrel to match the one in my photo.

The snow’s all melted now, but I think it will be back soon. What a merry fall indeed! 🙂

Never Too Late

| cristina

There is still over a month to go before Christmas, but Christmas scrapping is well under way here. 🙂 I never end up scrapping much of Christmas at Christmastime, but here I am now scrapping photos from last year. The deals in the Something Old, Something New (SOSN) sale at The Lilypad were perfect for this.

Credits:
Season of Joy by CD Muckosky

I have to say I really love how this page turned out!! For some reason my other page has a similar color background, but the feel is quite different.


Credits:

Tinsel and Tinsel Journal Cards 2 by Lynne-Marie
Masquerade no. 1 by Pink Reptile Design

I do hope we get a white Christmas this year too! I think we’ve only gotten one non-white Christmas in the 7 years we’ve lived here, and it was raining to boot – no fun at all!

That’s all I have for now, but be ready because some new Christmas products will be in the store this weekend for Document Your December!