December Mood Board at Jot Magazine

There's nothing better than Christmas crafting right? And the idea of a December journal of some kind (call it what you like!) is really appealing. When I saw the new Mood Board Challenge at Jot Magazine it became just the push I needed to decorate the front cover of my December not-quite-a-Daily notebook. Here's how it turned out....

As you can see, I took my inspiration mainly from the image in the top left. In fact, the notebook itself actually started off white, but I covered it in brown paper (just like those packages) and made sure I included a bit of string for good measure.

I mixed and matched some of my holiday-themed Sizzix dies to create the iconic car carrying a Christmas tree. I added a bit of an Aussie spin on things by using the Coastal Off Road die for my car. This is from one of the sets that Sizzix Lifestyle have released exclusively to the Australian and New Zealand market through Spotlight and they all feature summery and beachy themed shapes which of course is just perfectly timed! (Also... Spotlight happen to have them all on SALE at the moment too. Check them out here!!)

The Christmas tree is from an older Sizzix set which is sadly no longer available, but I'm fairly confident that anyone who has been papercrafting for any amount of time has some kind of Christmas tree stamp or die or paper they could cut out! Right?!

Anyway, that's what I created using the Mood Board as inspiration. Where does it lead you?

You can find all the details for the Jot Magazine December Mood Board challenge HERE.

2014 Not-Quite-a-December-Daily

Given my 2013 Not-Quite-a-December-Daily album took over a year to put together, I decided to seriously rethink my approach. Not that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the process, or that I'm disappointed in the final product - those two statements couldn't be further from the truth. It's just that, you know, for someone who likes to be organised, taking 13 months to complete a project is just not my style!

So here's the someone genius plan I devised for my 2014 album....
I simply combined all the other Christmas projects I had completed for other 'assignments' and attached some photo collages I whipped up in the Project Life app on my phone whilst on the go! That meant there was barely any new work that went into this after Christmas was finished. And that's why it's already finished!

Let me show you what I mean:
The base of the album is the cards I created for the 12 Studio Calico Kits of Christmas project I shared as part of the Papercut Labs Blog Hop.
I intermittently strung some of the tags I created for the girls Rainbow Christmas Bags to serve as sort of bookmarks.
And I tied the whole thing together with some leftover Christmas Stamped Ribbon!!

Will I do it this way again next year? Don't know. Each of my albums is completely different from year to year and I don't mind that. What I'm most happy about with this version is the amount of story I was able to include, and having written it as the month progressed means that it's full of accurate detail. I can't necessarily say that about an album I finish a year later ;-) So I think I might keep the digital aspect of it. But I guess only time will tell how it will actually look this year.

Until then,
Happy Scrapping!
xx

My very-late and not-quite a December Daily

Oh yeah, I'm well aware of what year it is! But the honest truth is I've only just finished my 2013 December Daily and rather than feeling ashamed that it's taken this long, I'm rather chuffed that it's actually done. Late and done is better than not finished at all in my opinion ;-)

So forgive me whilst I share what I've accomplished!

Filled with plenty of photos, heaps of kid-art (I let the kids draw a picture whenever they felt inclined), a truck-load of ephemera from the season (tags from presents and Christmas cards galore) and decorated with whatever I had at hand (lots of Kellie Stamps and Studio Calico). I made sure to document the story thoroughly as I went along too.

Do you want to know what the most ironic thing is?
It might have taken me a year to finish this album, but doing so inspired me to get my 2014 album done at the same time and I can confirm that one's pretty much done as well! I've taken a completely different approach and it was much easier. Lesson learned!

I'll share that one soon ;-)

The Story of the White Tail Deer

Right back at the beginning of November I was reading a tutorial on the Crate Paper blog by the amazingly talented Megan Klauer who mentioned oh-so-casually about creating her own custom files for the Silhouette, including this fabulous deer that she was demonstrating in the tutorial. Now I consider myself fairly computer-literate and I've had my Silhouette for over 2 years, but I was like "what?! how do you even do that?"

So I dropped an email to my friend Megan ('cos I happen to know she's also super-sweet and generous) and asked her pretty much in those words the same question. Not only did she answer it but she also kindly shared her deer file with me! I've since learned a lot of things - including the fact that this isn't really a reindeer as I so naively suggested!

I think it probably still does the trick though doesn't it? As a reindeer I mean. Especially since I've used him to grace the cover of my Not-Quite-a-December-Daily. And especially since I smothered him in green glitter! Happy days :-) Thanks Megan.

xx

The Story of my Not-Quite-a-December-Daily

I have to be honest with you - I don't buy a lot of themed Christmas products, mainly because it's difficult to use them for anything else. But I don't mind the opposite challenge... that is, making a Christmas page out of non-Christmas products. This is my first attempt at doing just that, what do you think?

I went Christmassy because that's the way the newly released Scrap Friends Sketch Challenge was pulling me in. This is the sketch (below) which consequentially is also my last one as part of the DT :-(

If it wasn't already immediately obvious to you, I wanted to show you that my 'layout' is actually the first page in my not-quite-a-December Daily. Here's the double spread....

I did buckle under pressure and buy the incredibly beautiful Studio Calico Wonderland Handbook as my base. It means that many of the pages are already decorated in some way which just makes my job easier :-)

And with the addition of some stars and a liberal sprinkling of glitter, even with the non-traditional bright colours I'm using I still think this page is pretty Christmassy.

I'm calling it my not-quite-a-December Daily because after attempting a DD a couple of years ago I realised that whilst it's a fabulous project, there's just no way I can fit that sort of commitment into my real life. Plus, given I'm scrapping my Christmas photos from last year I already know I didn't take a photo a day!

Even now I'm wondering if I'll manage to get this album finished this year! But I've started... and that's gotta count for something! I've even done the front cover too which I'll share with you real soon. I'd love to hear what you guys are doing (if anything) for a December/Christmas album.

But in the meantime check out the Scrap Friends Sketch Challenge where you could be the lucky winner of a $25 store voucher. All the details are over here on the blog.

Supplies:

Studio Calico Wonderland Handbook	Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Garmine Collage	Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Bailey's Brush	Crate Paper Pretty Party Die Cuts
Teresa Collins Tell Your Story Tickets	Teresa Collins Tell Your Story Cards	Teresa Collins Christmas Cottage Flash Cards	JBS Kit Cuts: Backdrops 1
Heidi Swapp Vintage Instaframes	Heidi Swapp Day Glo Neon Washi Tapes	Candi Dotty Wedding Silver	Cosmic Shimmer Glitter: Iced Crystal
Crate Paper Paper Heart Phrase Stickers	Foam Thickers Delight Cherry	Authentique Splended Petite Type Circle	SODAlicious Start Counting
JBS Fiskars Classic Bird Punch	JBS Mini Chipboard Stars	Jenni Bowlin paint dabber Lemon Drops	Jenni Bowlin paint dabber Chicken Feed

InLinkz.com

December Daily ...... part 2

Hold on tight, here's the next instalment of my exciting adventure into a December Daily!

As you can see, for each day I printed out one normal size photo (6x4") and one photo collage. I think this is a great way of getting lots of photos into your album without overcrowding it.

And it also allows you to use those photos that aren't necessarily good quality or don't feature a prominent subject because it's all about telling the story. And you can tell by all my scribblings how much I love to tell the story!

I love how Studio Calico seal up their kits with these round stickers that consistently feature beautiful vintage colours and patterns. I'd been saving them up for months to get enough to use as a basis for my number labels. Maybe chalk that up to one more reason why it took me forever to finish this album!

As for the actual pages in my album I used a mixture of all the Christmas papers I have in my stash. A whole host of manufacturers and collections! Man it felt good to put a dent in that pile!!

Some pages were also made out of wrapping paper, brown paper bags, packaging material, Christmas cards, Munchy's drawings.... whatever I could find at the time. Just one way of adding more memorabilia into my album. 

Another way was to incorporate any of the tidbits I had salvaged from last Christmas such as clothing tags, present labels and ribbon. I also threw in my leftover Tim's Tags as pretty embellishments.

Using some of the Christmas cards we received was a brilliant idea (if I do say so myself) because it served a triple purpose..... 1) it's pretty, 2) the memory of who sent it and what they wrote, and 3) heaps of space on the back for journaling!

So I guess the question is "would I do this again?" Well obviously I couldn't even bring myself to contemplate it this year, although in a way I still feel like I did given how much time I spent on this one!

But I think I would do it again. Certainly the idea of taking daily photographs, journaling it all down at the time and then assembling everything is pretty intensive. But you have to admit the end result is pretty fabulous for recording a set period in time in detail. In years to come I'm sure this will be a treasured piece of history. So maybe next year I'll attempt another version? I guess we'll see!