December Daily...the prep

I am back today to share my preparations for my December Daily album.  In yesterday's post, I shared the supplies I am using in the album. And today I'll share a sneak peak of some of my pages and my design process for my album.

When I am doing an album like this, I find it easiest to stick to a dedicated collection of papers and embellishments to give my album a cohesive look. I also wanted to find an element to tie the pages together like I did with the snowflake theme in my 2012 album. With the papers and embellishments this year, I decided to use poinsettias in this year's album. 

To help me plan out my pages and stay organized, I turned to my trusty Silhouette software. I love preplanning out my pages using the software and it is a great way to make sure my die cuts are the exact size I want them.  It also helps me see what the page is going to look like before I start cutting papers. :) Here are my sketches for each page in my album:

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

Once I had the pages all designed, I precut most of the elements and assembled some of the pages. Other pages I just slid all the page elements in the page protector. This way when the season starts, all I have to do to assemble my pages is print the pictures, add accents and assemble the pages. It should make it easy to keep up with this project as the holiday season progresses. 

 

 

 You may notice that I start my album before December begins. That is because for our family the Christmas season starts the day before Thanksgiving when my dad and I head out to do our Christmas shopping. This page is almost finished except for adding my photos and some journaling.

 

 

This page is also almost finished. I will add a circle accent to the middle of the poinsettia and the other side will be a 6x8 photo collage.

 

 

This is another one of the poinsettia pages. The date will go in a circle in the middle of the flower, but I am allowing myself some freedom to switch up the page order if I need to so I didn't die cut the date.

 

 

This is one of those pages where I just die cut the elements and stuck them in the page protector.  I will assemble the page when I add the photos.

 

 

On this page I just simply assembled the background. I haven't fully decided what I am going to do in front of it. I'll figure that out when I scrap it. It's fun to leave some pages without a ton of direction so I can be inspired by the photos. :)

 

 

 

This is another page I mostly finished...it is for Christmas Day so I already added the date with some stamps from Ali Edwards. The die cut phrase is from Kerri Bradford. You can see that I pretty much followed the sketch for this page and I love how it turned out. :)

 



This is my album with all the pages in it. I haven't decorated the cover yet. I usually wait and do that at the very end of the project. :)

 

And now I eagerly await the beginning of the holiday season so I can begin adding the stories to my album. I will be posting the pages on here and I can't wait to share the finished project with you all!



 

 

 

December Daily 2014

We are quickly approaching my favorite time of year, Christmas. I love spending time with my family and celebrating our favorite traditions. In 2012, I decided to document my holiday season with a December Daily album. You can see my 2012 album posts here and here.

December Daily is an awesome holiday album concept from Ali Edwards. It is all about capturing the everyday moments of December in a creative way.  You can read more about Ali's concept here and see her examples.

Last year, I was going to do a December Daily album but abandoned the project after some not so great December memories that I really didn't want to remember.

So this year I am jumping in headfirst and completing my album.  Like before, I am using a pretty dedicated group of supplies to create my album. Here is what I am using:

The album I am using is from Simple Stories. The pages are 6x8 inches and they are the perfect size to create with. They also have pocket pages but I am just using the full 6x8 pages.

The papers are all from Simple Stories DIY Christmas Collection. I just loved the colors in the papers and there are some cool elements to add to my pages too.

 

 

I am also using my favorite stamps from Ali Edwards Designs. Most of these have been discontinued but you can still find some of them online. As you can probably tell, I am quite addicted to them. :)

         

 

 My Silhouette. This is my most used scrapbooking tool and there are so many possibilities with this machine.  It makes super intricate cuts and there is so much you can do with it...the possibilities are endless. I found lots of shapes on the Silhouette Store that coordinate with the Simple Stories DIY Christmas Collection. I also used several shapes from Kerri Bradford Designs...love her titles and shapes!

 

 

I am also using some of Kerri Bradford's photo templates...they make adding multiple photos to a layout a snap. This one in particular I am looking forward to using a lot in the album since all the templates are 6x8, which is the same size as my pages. :)

 

 

This post is getting pretty long so I will be back tomorrow to share some of my base pages and how I planned out my album. :)

 

 

Crafty-ness

Hello blog friends! Man it has been a long time since I posted. Lots has happened since August including getting my dream job teaching 3rd grade and losing said job 2 months later. It was devastating to say the least but I am trusting God's plan and know that He is in control. He led me to a new job teaching Title 1 and I am excited to be able to still be in the teaching field and to fill little minds with knowledge. :)

In the past 4 weeks, I have spent a lot of time being crafty. I have worked on lots of scrapbook pages and I have also started prepping my December Daily album. More on that later....

These are a few of my favorite layouts from the past few weeks.

This layout is one of the ones I have created to document my trip to Israel in 2011. I am excited to finally be able to get these pictures and my thoughts down in my scrapbooks. I created the Jerusalem skyline with my Silhouette to add some fun detail to these photos of our first view of the city of Jerusalem.

This layout just came together so well and I love the graphic feel to it. The pictures are from our first night when we stayed in Tel Aviv.

 

 

I really love this layout for so many reasons. I love the photo one of my fellow travelers snapped of me with my camera I also love the colors in the photos and how well the patterned papers coordinate with the photos. And lastly I love the handwritten title. It is my own handwriting that I captured on my iPad with the Bamboo app and turned into a diecut with my Silhouette software.

 

I also have been working on some of my Disney 2009 photos. This one was inspired by a challenge over at scrapbook.com to scrap a Disney villain. I chose these fun photos of my dad and I with Darth Vader during Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios. I love the black, red, and silver combo on here and the fun hexagon shapes.

 

 

I will be back later this week to share the beginnings of my December Daily album. It is looking awesome and I can't wait for the holiday season to start so I can begin adding my photos and memories to the pages of my album. :)



 

 

 

We Have Arrived!

I almost can't believe it but I am writing you this post from my hotel room at Disney' Caribbean Beach Resort. We arrived in Orlando around noon and and headed over to our hotel. Our room was ready so we stopped in our room and then had lunch at the resort before heading out to Epcot. We started at the Seas with Nemo and friends and I got some awesome pics. We then rode Mission Space and it was Mom's first time on the ride. She was nervous at first but at the end I think she really liked it.  We then headed to our favorite ride at Epcot: Soarin'. We had a fast pass so it was a breeze getting on. :)

As we were getting ready to leave a good old-fashioned Florida thunderstorm rolled in so we did the Living with the Land as we waited out the storm. We had dinner reservations in Mexico so we finally had to brave the storm and but ponchos. We got soaked on our way to dinner. Our dinner was good...so much food!  

After dinner mom and dad headed back to the hotel to go to their convention but I stayed to watch Illuminations since the rain had stopped. I got some great pictures. :)

Then I headed back here to the hotel. Tomorrow I am spending the whole day at the Magic Kingdom so I had better get some shut eye! See you all soon!

On our Way

Today I am heading back to my favorite place on Earth...Walt Disney World! I will be spending 8 blissful days in the parks, enjoying all of my favorite things. Some days will be spent by myself, one day will be spent with my awesome friend Matthew, and the rest will be spent with my family. We are taking my nephew Conor for the first time. I am so excited to share this place I love with him and see him meet Mickey and ride on the Dumbo ride with him. (I was on that ride when he was born.  :) 

Some of the things I am most looking forward to include:

-seeing Wishes

-spending time with my family 

-the new 7 Dwarfs Mine Train ride (I have 2 fast passes for it!)

-dinner with Cinderella and Prince Charming

-riding on the Teacups with Matthew

-celebrating Mom's birthday while we are there

Riding Expedition Everest

-hanging out with my family in my favorite place on Earth!

We are about ready to board our flight so stay tuned...I am planning on sharing my favorite moments from my vacation here on my blog. :)

Laughing Place

Hello blog friends. I just wanted to pop in here with a Disney layout I created for one of the challenges over at Disney Scrappers. If you like to scrap all things Disney, check this group out. They are a fantastic group of ladies and there is tons of inspiration too! :)

Here's my page.

These pictures of my friends and I on Splash Mountain are some of my favorite ride photos ever! I love this ride but I hate the drop and I always have this look on my face every time I ride it! So my friends decided to have a little fun with me. Matthew (in the 2nd seat) works at Disney and he knows where all the ride cameras are. So they planned this shot and I had no idea until we went and looked at it. :) Even the photo guy was laughing!

 So as soon as I saw the Laughing Place challenge I knew I had to make this page. I created the title with my Silhouette Cameo. The font is Benjamin Franklin and I used the swirls from the Splash Mountain title to finish off my title.

 

 

 I also downloaded the Brer Rabbit "You May Get Wet!" and the lyrics to Splash Mountain off the internet and used it on my layout too.

  

 If you want the Silhouette files for the title and other Splash Mountain embellishments, let me know your email and I can send you the file. :)