December Daily, Day 1

December 1st! Can you believe it?!? Even more so, can you believe my little boy will be a year old in 11 days??? Wow!!! Super exciting!  :)

Once again this year I will be embarking on a December Daily project. This concept was created by Ali Edwards and you can read more about it here. Ali is amazing! I have been following her blog for years, since before Japan. (2007)

The concept of December Daily is to prepare a journal/album prior to the month, and every day during the month you add to it. Each day doesn't necessarily have to be something "Christmas-y". Obviously you'll only put up the tree once, or go visit Santa once, or whatever. By preparing the "bones" of the album early, and gathering all your supplies, you'll have more success.

I did the project for the first time in 2008 while living in the barracks in Japan. My 2nd Dec Daily was in 2009, and I ended up doing the majority of it while on detachment, living in the barracks, in Fallon, NV. I didn't do an album in 2010 due to coming off of a 7 month deployment on the USS Truman on Dec 20th. And last year was my 3rd year. I owe every bit of my success with the project last year to my Mom. She brought her album in Dec when she came for Samuel's birth, and I was able to make my pages and journaling off of what she'd done. I was a little busy.  ;)

I will be posting what I do each day in my album on the blog. Jacob will be away for part of the month, and my goal is to keep myself busy with holiday stuff with Samuel to help the time go by quickly. And I will be sharing my pages with you!  :)

Here we go!

The album I put together is actually a binder from Staples (in TN) by Martha Stewart. I saw this binder while I was home and decided it would be perfect. (In past years, I've used chipboard -it's like cardboard but acid free- or clear acrylic to make the cover.) I plan to decorate it later on in the month with something I cut with my Silhouette Cameo.

 

Most of my paper I'll be using is from Echo Park, the A Very Merry Christmas Kit Collection. I bought a pack that has 1 sheet of each of the papers, as well as 2 sticker sheets. Any solid colored paper will be from my personal stash, as well as holiday embellishments.

This is the first page of my album. I stamped "Capturing December Moments" from an Ali Edwards stamp set, and used number stickers from the Echo Park kit for the 2012. The Dec 25. sticker is also from the Echo Park kit.

This is my Dec 1st page- unedited.

 

And here it is complete!

 

We tried to get a family photo today using Jacob's camera and the tripod. Well, one little guy did NOT want to cooperate, and I think the lens was dirty. So this is the best I could get. AND it's pretty grainy. But I'll take that over nothing at all!  :)

 

I tend to hand write my journaling, so I just took the page out, wrote, and put it back in the binder. As for the frame, that's actually the back of a frame that came in a small pack of chipboard embellishments. I decided the page needed a little more color at the top, to balance with the green on the next page. I used 2 Tim Holtz distress pads to color the frame. A chipboard holly and berries piece in the corner and the page is done!

 

Thanks for looking!