Phew! It’s finished!
I’m so glad to have it done. Well, mostly done. I actually have a few pages left that I sat and stared at off and on for a whole day and just didn’t end up finishing. But, if this year is anything like last year, I have an inkling that come October 2015, I’ll have this huge excitement bloom for all things Christmas again and I might have the motivation to finish up a few extra stories for this album. If not, that’s okay too.
Anyways, get ready for quite a few pages.
This was a fun page to put together.
I had received the city stamp set (from Studio Calico’s November card kit) the weekend after we went to Beau’s holiday party and it was the perfect fit, as I don’t get to the “city” often. Added lots of gold since it was a fancy evening out for us. The ‘good cheer’ sentiment is from Ali Edwards’ digital set found here.
Love the gold embossing on those city buildings. Probably one of my favorite pages in this album.
This page told the story of our visit to see Santa at our neighborhood clubhouse. He arrived by firetruck (weird, right?) and neither of my kids would sit on his lap, of course. But great memories.
The various embellishments are from Michaels, Studio Calico and Ali Edwards. A great way to both use up some of my stash and draw out the colors from that top photo into the rest of the spread.
The next page is the story of our elf. I didn’t take as many photos of him as I wanted this year, but two of my favorites made it into the book, along with a story about what the boys called him this year. I’m sure Alwyn won’t be calling him “shelf” next year when he’s 3 years old. 🙂
For the star, I used an exacto knife to cut the shape and then placed a stamped piece of paper underneath it. I was having Silhouette envy when I put this page together, can you tell? I did the same with the square on the bottom right card, which is from Ali’s December Stories Layered Templates found here.
Another favorite page. This one told the story of our Christmas cards. I stored a list of who we sent them too in the kraft pocket (which I think I found at Michaels a few years ago?) – something I always wish I had kept from the previous year when I sit down to address cards.
I included a clear divider on this page, with painted white stars using a silkscreen from Studio Calico. Sending Christmas Cards is one of my favorite December traditions, and so I wanted a way to easily turn to that page to see what we sent out that year later. I would love to do the same with next year’s album.
I wanted to include more photos of the holiday decor around the house but only ended up photographing the wall gallery I had shared on the blog, so that’s what made it in. And it went so well with this sentiment Becky Higgins shared on her instagram as part of her Cultivating a Good Life set.
This page was just a collection of moments around the house, including a favorite story of finding the boys playing “santa” one morning. The open heart cardboard piece is actually the remains of chipboard heart stickers found in Studio Calico’s January kit and the idea to include it was all Marcy Penner’s. See through embellishments are so fun.
Another story I included in this album was the holiday party our Moms Club had. That pic of Ephram and the Santa props just kills me.
Of course a December album wouldn’t be complete without cookie baking. I found that recipe card on Pinterest and immediately knew I’d be using it for my favorite Spritz recipe.
For the right page, I cut the photo of the cookies we made in half diagonally and sewed a triangle to include some floating embellishments.
On the back I included another piece of patterned paper since I didn’t have another big photo. This page told the story of Ephram wrapping gifts with me. And I found it so cute that the wrapping paper I bought had elf quotes on the inside!
You can see the front side of the wrapping paper here, along with a story about the anticipation of Christmas and the interest the boys had in all the gifts that were showing up each day from our family in Minnesota.
This page was a simple list of what we bought for who this year using the printable found here. I sewed up a smaller sized page protector to include a short story about how we finally started a trial for Amazon Prime this year before purchasing all of our Christmas gifts we sent to family in Minnesota.
The opposite side of this page protector is one of those ‘to-be-finished-later-this-year’ pages.
Can you tell I was losing steam by this page? Really simple page, but I wanted to include this adorable photo of the boys playing with toys by the tree. It was a common sight throughout December, and reminded me of how some of the simple December traditions can bring cheer to us during that time of the year.
And then Christmas Eve/Day!
I created a 4×6 photo out of a vertical photo of the tree I took Christmas Eve night by extending the black part of the photo. Ali did this in her album as well and you can see a tutorial she made on how to do it here. Over top of it I placed one of her sentiments from this set.
I had SO many photos to include from both days, so I sewed up 8 2″x3″ pockets so I could include several. Of course, sewing them up was completely unnecessary, especially since I had already printed them on a 4×6 prints, but I like the look it creates, so I did it anyways.
And the backside of that sewed up page protector, with more photos, of course. We celebrated Christmas day with Minnesota friends who moved here last fall. So fun.
Believe it or not, that calendar card is from a Studio Calico kit from July 2012, but matched December’s dates perfectly. Another hoarding success!
Lastly I summarized the holiday season using a card set from Studio Calico. A good ending.
2014 was my first time completing (or even starting) a December “Daily” album. I knew I’d struggle to keep up if I truly did a daily album, so from the start I knew I’d focus on traditions, moments, and events more than a daily story. This was a good choice for me, but I did fall “behind” a bit since I didn’t know how many stories I’d have to tell in the end. And I didn’t realize just how much motivation I’d lose on the project once we started to pack up Christmas. So if I’ve learned anything from this album, it’s that I need to do at least *some* sort of foundation page prep next year, or start printing from home, in order to “keep up”.
How about you? How did your album turn out? What will you do differently next year?
