Ali Edwards's Blog, page 14

In Case You Missed It | December 6

Happy Friday, friends! Welcome to the latest
In Case You Missed It. Just a reminder that this is a quick post that will happen every Friday afternoon with all the updates and links that have happened throughout the week. So, let's get to it:

END OF YEAR SALE HAPPENING NOW

After 9 incredible years of storytelling and creativity, it's time to say goodbye to our Story Kit, Story Class, Just Write, and Scrapbook Kit subscriptions. These products have been at the heart of so many treasured moments, and we're beyond grateful for the community that has grown with them. To celebrate and show our appreciation, we're offering a special end-of-year sale— a heartfelt thank you for making these kits such a meaningful part of your creative journey. Let's honor the memories and look forward to what's next together! Shop $10 kits, Story + Story By The Month classes, and add-ons now!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS | STORY PLAY READ

Mark your calendars for our next Story Play documenting week: READ! We'll be sharing daily content beginning next Monday, December 9th. Shop the mini kit here. 

NEW CLASS | MIX + MATCH STORY SPARKS

We are excited to offer this new self-paced class that celebrates fun, creativity and playfulness in our memory keeping projects. The Mix + Match Story Sparks Class will feature a combination of story ideas and creative techniques in a variety of formats with the goal of providing you with product inspiration using the Mix + Match Kit as "story sparks" or jumping off points for their personal storytelling. Join contributors Ali Edwards, Sabrina Poole, Laura Wonsik, Jill White, Pam Baldwin and Jamie Leija as they share how they were inspired or prompted by the products (i.e., story spark) and then how they implemented those products in their final designs. Learn more and register here. 

2024 DECEMBER DAILY® DIGITALS ARE HERE

The 2024 December Daily® Digitals are here! Kits, Stamps, Paper, and Embellishments...the same fun & festive designs as the physical @decemberdaily products, only in digital format.⁠ We love to see how this incredibly creative community plays with digitals! Resizing elements and cards, adding journaling to papers, creating cut files, transforming files into transparencies, the sky is the limit with digital files. ⁠
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Want to learn more about creating with digital files? Our newest class December Daily® 2024 Hybrid Product Play is live. 
 Shop digitals here. 

NEW DECEMBER DAILY® COMMUNITY SPACE

We invite you to join us in this free December Daily® community classroom. We know that many in the community don't care to share their December Daily® projects on social media. And for those that do, constant algorithm updates and unreliable hashtag searches make it challenging to connect with others or to find inspiration and encouragement. So with this in mind, we are excited to offer this space as a place to share your work with other memory keepers and storytellers who are participating in this special project. Register for free here.

2024 DECEMBER DAILY CLASSES

December Daily® Product Play | This + This + This workshop registration is open. More details on this year's workshop can be found at the bottom of this post (workshop begins November 5th).  
December Daily® Hybrid Product Play workshop registration is available now. 
December Daily® Prep Day is available for those who missed it. All content is recorded and available. 

NOVEMBER REVEAL

This month we are revealing a new Story Kit™ theme: FAN! This month we are focusing on stories related to the theme of Fan. Every single one of us is a fan of something. We might be fans of a sports team or a movie franchise or a way of cooking. This month we are coming together to tell stories about what it's like to be a fan in this season (or any season) of life. ⁠In addition to our new Story Kit™ theme, we also have a brand new Stories By The Month™ kit and the next edition in our Alphas Are Awesome series.
⁠Head to Ali’s blog post for all the details about this month’s release.⁠

DECEMBER DIGITALS 

The first Friday of every month we have a new digital release available in the shop. Play with scale, recolor objects, add journaling, print multiples…the sky is the limit when playing with digitals. Shop digitals here. 

2024 PROJECTS + PRODUCTS SCHEDULE

As we continuing easing into 2024 we put together an overview of our schedule of projects + product releases for the upcoming year. We are sharing this as a way for you to plan, think about what you might want to participate in this year, and simply share some of the things we have coming up to help support + inspire storytelling. For the last few years we've followed a fairly similar cadence for our releases and our major projects will follow that release schedule again this year. Please note that, as you might imagine, this schedule is subject to change throughout the year based on a variety of variables. Find the post here.

As always, we’re so grateful to have you all as members of this community! Thanks for joining me today and have a great weekend!

December Daily® 2024 | Story 05

Welcome to Story 05 in my 2024 December Daily® project. 

Today I wanted a simple story so I chose to document the foggy nights we've been having this month. I printed a full page photo and then cut a slit in the photo with a craft knife that becomes a home for the scalloped journal card + my short story. After I recorded the video I went back in and added the scalloped trim along the line I cut into the photo in order for it to feel a little more finished. 

Here's the process video: 

And here are some additional images: 

I love playing around with ways to incorporate a story onto a full page photo. Sometimes I will add a plastic pocket directly onto the photo with red line tape and other times I'll cut into the photo in order to create a pocket. 

Today I cut a slit in the photo just a but wider than the scalloped journal card and added adhesive trim right along the bottom. 

On top of the tag I used the gold puffy alpha to add the word "fog" and then journaled below. I used a POSCA Paint Pen to add a touch of red within the journaling. Attached to the tag is a vellum ornament with a puffy number 5, a perforated phrase strip, and a plastic word "facts" which is from a recent One Little Word® Mini Kit. 

SUPPLIES

6x8 Star Album
December Daily® 2024 Main Kit (digital available)
Scalloped 3x4 Tags
Gold Foil Puffy Alpha
Gold Foil Puffy Numbers
Black + White Twine
Large Foam Tape Roll
6 Hole Punch 
POSCA Paint Pen .7mm
Plastic Words from One Little Word® Mini Kit 
Additional basics via my Amazon Storefront (printers, etc)

December Daily® 2024 | Story 04

Welcome to Story 04 in my 2024 December Daily® project. 

Today's story has been added to a foundation page I created for our Product Play workshop this year. The jumping off point for my journaling comes from one of the Prompt Papers which I end up cutting up and adding to the backs of the stenciled ornaments. I used a Kuretake Brush Pen to add my current four joyful things. 

Let's dive into the video: 

Here are additional images of this story: 

For this story I'm working on the back of Story 03 and then on the foundation page I previously created using elements from this year's product collection. I love when I have a wonderfully simple prompt that invites me to capture basic everyday things in this season. 

Brush pens are fantastically messy and I love it! I added "four joyful things" to the back of story 03 and just filled the space with the repeated title. 

In between the written words I added gold glitter stars and phrase strips from the Main Kit. 

I cut up the Prompt Paper to fit on the back of each of my ornaments. I then used the Brush Pen to add one joyful thing to each of the four ornaments. 

SImple joys right now. 

I added a phrase strip to each of the glitter stars on the ornaments. 

Here's what this transparent page looks like from the back. I'm pretty sure that I will just leave the back as is and start a new page for Story 05 tomorrow. 

SUPPLIES

6x8 Stars Album
December Daily® Main Kit (bows, glitter stars, half-circles)
December Daily® 10x8 Transparencies (you can also use the 6x8 size)
December Daily® Prompt Papers (digital available)
December Daily® Stencils
AED INKS: Deschutes (navy), McKenzie (dark green), Willamette (green), and Pendleton (red), Metallic Gold
Kuretake Brush Pen
Tim Holtz Loop Pins
Red Line Tape
Embroidery Floss + Needle
White Cardstock
Picket Fence Paper Pouncers
Blue Tape
We R Memory Keeper Hole Punch
Additional basics from my Amazon Storefront 

December Daily® 2024 | Story 03

Welcome to Story 03 in my 2024 December Daily® project. 

Today's story is about how I'm making magic at this point in the month. You can see the initial process for building the page foundation here. 

Let's dive in to the video: 

And here are images of my completed spread: 

Added an entry to my table of contents. I'm using a Staedtler Lumocolor Pen (fine tip) for writing these words. 

Today's spread includes the back of Story 02 + a belted ribbon section with a vellum journal card inside a frame + two of the same photos adhered back to back + washi tape + a cut up piece of one of the 10x8 pattern papers. 

It's always fun to take it out of the album and photograph it on its own too. 

To create the "belt" for this spread I used magnets. Thanks to Lisa Soares for sharing what magnets have worked for her! I used red line tape to adhere the magnets to the ribbon and then folded the ribbon to cover the magnet and ran it through my sewing machine. 

Using magnets was a great way to reduce bulk with the ribbon (in my already bulky project). 

On top of the vellum I used two weights of Staedtler Lumocolor Pens to write my journaling. I used the Medium Tip of the title and the Fine Tip for the individual items on the list. 

Behind the vellum is a photo of our tree that I printed twice. It measures 3.25 inches x 4.25 inches. 

I love the reminder today that journaling doesn't have to be paragraphs to capture a story. Lists for the win!

On the back of the vellum/chipboard frame is the second printed photo of our tree. 

Around the outside of the photo I used a thin cream washi tape (from my stash) to adhere the photo to the back of the Main Kit frame. 

SUPPLIES
Red Star 6x8 Album December Daily® Main Kit (digital available) December Daily® Die Cut Pages (digital available - includes Studio file) December Daily® Chipboard Set (digital available) December Daily® 10x8 Paper Pack (digital available) December Daily® 3x8 Transapency + Journal Card Set 6x8 Page Attacher Red Line Tape Red/Cream Ribbon May Arts Red Scallop Adhesive Ribbon (May Arts has some that's not red here) Magnets Cream Washi Tape (check out the various Christmas Washi Tape available at Scrapbook.com) Staedtler Lumocolor Pen Additional basics via my Amazon Storefront 

December Daily® 2024 | Story 02

Welcome to Story 02 in my 2024 December Daily® album!

Today I'm working with a foundation page I created for our 2024 Product Play workshop. As many of you know, I find value in setting up some of foundation pages prior to December. Today is a great example where I came to my table and all I needed to do was add my photo and my story. I love that I was able to focus a little more on the words for my story since the majority of the page was crafted in advance. 

PROMPT IDEA: Tis The Season

I ended up using "tis the season" as the jumping off point for my journaling today. You could use this prompt to write up a list of things that it's "tis the season" for in your own life or pick one thing and go deeper like I did. I've been thinking a lot about how dark it gets here during December and am really working on embracing it for the short time it's here. 

Let's dive into the video: 

And here are images of my pages for Story 02: 

A nice big full page photo is always a good idea! I considered adding some embellishments to my photo but decided to just let it breathe and let the second page do the heavy lifting. 

Since most of this page was put together in advance, my main focus today was typing up my story and printing it on MACO Sticker Paper before adding it directly to the tags. 

I measured the tags (2.5 x 3.75 inches) and then set up two text boxes before printing on the sticker paper. Along the top I added a couple stickers from the December Daily® Advent Calendar (this was a nice option vs. ribbon to keep the bulk down a bit) as well as a couple number stickers to designate which to read first. 

Today's writing is about how I combat the darkness with twinkle lights in December. 

Creating your own December Daily® this year? We'd love to have you share your project + pages in our
free December Daily® Community. Get the details here. 

SUPPLIES

December Daily® 6x8 Album
December Daily® Main Kit (digital available)
December Daily® Die Cut Inserts (digital available that includes silhouette files)
December Daily® Tab Stickers (digital available)
December Daily® Sticker Advent Calendar
December Daily® Gold Number Stickers
MACO Sticker Paper 
December Daily® Wood Veneer Stars
Gold Foil Number Sticker Sheets
Uppercase Alpha Stamp Set
Gold Embossing Powder
Versamark Embossing Ink
Anti-static Pouch
Heat Gun
Grafix Plastic Sheet
Craft Knife + Metal Ruler
Glue Stick (to adhere vellum)
Basics via my Amazon Storefront

December Daily® 2024 | Story 01

Welcome to the documenting portion of 
December Daily® 2024! I'm so excited to dive into this part of the project alongside you. 

Let's have some fun! 

To start off my storytelling I printed out a full page photo of my house the night that we got our lights put up. This year is was extra early and we still had Halloween pumpkins hanging from the porch. I had set aside one of the pattern papers from Main Kit knowing that I wanted to figure out a way to include it in my 6x8 album. I've used a variety of the 10x8 papers in my foundation pages already and have enjoyed folding many of them to create flip outs. For this one I was interested in playing around with the idea of cutting up the phrase and orienting it vertically on the page in some way. Check out the video below to see how this came together and the decisions I made along the way. 

Looking for a flip-through of what my albums looks like before today?
Check out this post.

Here's the process video: 

And here's a look via images: 

This year I'm doing a table of contents again using the banners from the Main Kit. Each day I'll be adding a story title using a 
Staedtler Lumocolor Pen. 

I ended up cutting up the words on the pattern paper to create little banners. I printed my journaling on vellum and then embossed the "01" using gold embossing powder and one of the stamp sets that was part of this year's collection. I stitched those pieces together and then used a cut up piece of page protector to create the flip up. 

On the underneath side of each of the strips I used a dot pattern stamp to create the dots with gold embossing powder. There are all kinds of things you could do on the other side of those strips including adding more words, pattern paper, word stickers, etc. 

Creating your own December Daily® this year? We'd love to have you share your project + pages in our free December Daily® Community. Get the details here. 

SUPPLIES
Star 6x8 Album December Daily® Main Kit (digital available) 4x6 Alpha + Number Stamp Set  6x8 Scalloped Stamp Set (dots)  Red Line Tape Printable Vellum Gold Embossing Powder Versamark Ink  Staedtler Lumocolor Pen Fine Basics from my Amazon Storefront 

December Daily® 2024 | Ali's Mixed Media Trees | Part 02

Man I love this playful, handmade project! 

I wrapped up my mixed media tree project yesterday and got them all added to my Christmas tree that I put up this past week. We do still have some cardstock die cut tree packs in stock if you'd like to make something similar. I think this could be a fun craft project to do with kids too! As you'll see below I played around with using the trees to make a garland but ultimately decided to add them to my tree this year and then string them together as a garland for future seasons. 

You can see Part 01 of my mixed media trees here.

Let's dive in to the video that shows more of the second half of my process: 

Here's a bunch of the newer ones: 

I added 
wood stars in between each group of five trees. 

I thought about hanging them as a garland but then decided I could do that next year and pivoted back to my original idea which was to add them to my tree to create a tree of frees. 

Before I took them off the string and added them to the tree I used Posca Paint Pens to create simple patterns on the back (dots, stripes, etc). 

I also decided to add some of the wood veneer stars. I used a Crop A Dile to punch holes and then an ornament hanger to add them to the tree. 

I also cut a bunch of trees using the
tree metal die. These ones are double sided: 

For these I used the metal die and a manual die cutting machine. I used papers I painted along with papers from a past Tim Holtz Christmas release (those were double sided and made this even easier). To attach them together I run them through my sewing machine. 

Side Two: 

I decided to hang these on the tree too. I love how they look on there and I might do a few more. I punched a hole in the top tree and then used an ornament hanger to place them around the tree. 

SUPPLIES
December Daily® Die Cut Trees December Daily® Metal Tree Die December Daily® Holiday Tree 6x8 Stamp December Daily® Scalloped 6x8 Stamp Set December Daily® Holiday Phrase 4x6 Stamp December Daily® 4x6 Number Stamp Set  AED Paint Pack (on sale) December Daily® 2024 Stencils December Daily® 2024 Silkscreens Grafix Plastic  Deli Sheets  Sizzix Big Shot Manual Die Cutting Machine POSCA Paint Pens Blue Tape  Scrapbook.com Artis Craft Glue (dries clear) Anti Static Pouch (for embossing) Gold Embossing Powder Embossing Ink  Embossing Pen  Distress Rock Candy Glitter Heat Gun  Snappy Tray Tim Holtz Stencils The Crafters Workshop Stencil Butter Holiday Pack  Palette Knives The Crafters Workshop Foil Transfer Sheets The Crafters Workshop Tacky-When-Dry Gel Medium  Additional supplies via my Amazon Storefront

Project Life® 2024 | Week 38

Here's a look at Week 38 in my Project Life album for 2024! 

My design formula for this week was to add the days of the week banners from the September 2024 Stories By The Month Kit, along with a phrase sticker, to each of my 4x6 photos. I also added a sentiment 3x4 card cut into a tag (from my stash) and a September Memories card for some basic details about the week. 

Here's the process video (in this one I talk a lot about not judging myself while I'm making these spreads): 

And here's a closer look at each side of the spread: 

SUPPLIES 
9x12 Album 9x12 Page Protectors September 2024 Stories By The Month Kit Phrase Stickers 
Basics via my Amazon Storefront 

December Daily® 2024 | Using QR Codes With Lisa

Hello, friends! Over the past three or four years I have been incorporating video into my documenting projects and I love what they add to my albums. Videos are just another fun option in our storytelling arsenal. I think December Daily® in particular offers an opportunity to capture some special memories via video, but I've included them in travel albums, December Daily®, my project life albums, and Week in The Life.  Here's an example from my 2022 Week In The Life album.

Another from an older December Daily Album. 

While creating a few foundation pages for my 2024 December Daily® album, I decided I would make a page with the numbered paper flags from the 2024 Main Kit with the intention of capturing one video per day this December. Here's how that page turned out.

Some of you may know I'm also simultaneously working to complete my 2023 album (you can find my most recent progress here on the blog or on instagram). After making this page for 2024, I immediately knew I'd like to do the same for 2023. My first step was to take inventory of how many videos I actually had, and the answer was 20. So I adjusted the design accordingly. Obviously I can't add any December 2023 videos at this point. Now that I've completed the page below for my 2023 album I know that using sticker paper to adhere the codes to each flag take quite a bit of time. For me I don't enjoy spending a lot of time on an individual page. In hindsight, I would probably make this page all digital and print all the codes at once. That being said, I save my Photoshop template for the stickers and all the other resources so it may go more smoothly for the album. 

This page is a carbon copy of the page I created for my 2024 album. In my opinion there is absolutely no need to reinvent the wheel. I purposely adhere these in a wonky layout because as soon as I decide I want something to be straight and evenly spaced, that's when it gets dicey. Someone in the Facebook group asked what types of things I'm capturing on video. Just like your photos and words, this will vary wildly given your own family situation and traditions. But here's a list of the things I captured in 2023: 

Our family at Walt Disney World for the filming of the Christmas Day parade. This trip happened in November when they film the parade, but the kids made it into the TV broadcast, so I wanted to include it in this album. My husband hitting the ball drop jackpot at Dave & Busters. He hits it every time we go and it is Ben's favorite thing. The kids horsing around on the couch.Clips from his field trip to see Rudolph at the Center for Puppetry Arts.Her band concert.Highlights from his basketball game. The kids arguing on the train ride after visiting Santa. Ben in the cages prepping for spring evals (which happen in January.)His school holiday sing-along.His holiday solo.A very random competition we set up at home and spent hours playing. Essentially a red solo cup hung by yarn from the second floor catwalk. Yep, this sounds absolutely ridiculous to type...but it got so competitive and we laughed hysterically, These are the moments I want to remember. A trip to the Georgia Aquarium where we got to feed penguins and went behind the scenes with the whale shark and beluga care team. A video that Ava secretly recorded of Ben playing Just Dance. She was so proud of his moves. A random song they made up and performed for my parents and me. A "breaking news" video that Ben recorded on my phone. A play date at a trampoline park.Highlights from our trip the the Atlanta Botanical Garden Holiday Lights. One of our very favorite traditions. A big group countdown before the ball drop at the new years party we went to.

This is what I captured without being intentional. Just the moments that inspired me to pick up the phone and record. A few other things I've recorded in the past that I'd like to document this year:

Both of them reading their lists for Santa. I did this for Ben a year or two ago and his list was five pages long and had hilariously extravagant items (a baby sister), and he went from standing to sitting to doing a headstand, all while reading his list. Opening special presents on Christmas morning.Interviews. I love interviews!! The interview from the Story Prompt pack came from an interview I filmed with each kid and included in an album a few years ago. 

You'll notice that a lot of these moments are "nothing special." Some not even holiday related. You may wonder why I would record them arguing...well, I didn't know they would. We were on a train after visiting Santa and I thought it would be a nice moment. But it still makes me laugh and captures what life is like with siblings. 

Something to think about is whether you'd like to include videos individually, with the corresponding story or if you'd like to make a page that aggregates them. For me, a lot of the videos I captured in 2023 were not necessarily worthy of a story unto themselves. So that page made sense. If you have a video that really should be its own story or perhaps you don't take enough videos to justify a full page, including them in the individual story is a great option.

A few quick notes about videos before we talk about how I create and incorporate my QR codes:

Don't forget that LIVE photos take on an iPhone can be exported as a video. It will be short, but you can combine a few LIVE photos to make a longer video, too. For an event where I may be taking several videos, I use an app to combine them into one video. For instance, during our trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens Holiday Lights I took five or six little videos. For me, I don't want to have five separate videos for that story, nor do I want to deal with five QR codes. I use the app called Filmm to edit my video clips. It's free and user friendly. Beyond combining the files, I don't typically edit my videos. You can also export most social media posts as QR codes. That could be any easy way to include something you've already taken the time to create. How I Create + Incorporate QR Codes

Like many processes that involve technology, there are a variety of ways to do this. I am sharing mine. I do all of this from my phone via apps. I haven't ever used my desktop for this process. It's extremely intuitive and takes less than a minute. Here are my steps along with a few quick notes:

I take all of my video with my iPhone. It's a 16ProMax. If I'm exporting a LIVE photo as a video, I open my photos app, tap on the tree dots in the upper right corner, and select save as video. With a few constraints (which I believe are file size), you can select multiple LIVE photos to be combined into one video at this step. Don't forget to have the LIVE photo option selected for taking your photos in December. Also, you can access all of you LIVE photos at once under Media Types in your photos app.Once I have recorded a video, I upload it into a designated folder in DropBox. I have a 2023 December Daily videos folder. I use dropbox for work, so it's my cloud storage provider/host of choice. I select the three dots next to the file, select share, and select copy link. At this point, different folks are using different cloud storage options. You can upload your videos to a YouTube account while keeping them private. I can't elaborate more on that option because that's not what I do. Other options include Google Drive and One Drive. Next, I open my QR code app. I use QRbot. I've used it for four years and it's free and easy to use. Please note several people have shared that they have used QR code apps that will transition from free to paid and basically hold your codes hostage if you stop paying. Some apps have gone out of business. I am by no means the definitive expert on this piece. If that were to happen to me, I could essentially combine all of my videos from that year into a single file and create a new code and basically have just one video that encapsulated December. That would mean that the codes you've included previously are no longer linked to your videos, but it doesn't impact your videos themselves. Now that I have the QR code app open, I select the my codes option across the bottom. Next I select the plus sign at the top (+) and I paste the link I copied from dropbox into the link field and select create. In the next screen you are taken to your newly-created QR code. I then select share image and it is exported as a jpg file to my photos. At this point I can treat the jpg of the QR code as I would any digital element I incorporate into my hybrid scrapbooking. You can change the color and size. Quick note about that: be careful changing colors, your camera needs a certain level of contrast to read the code. Also be aware of making the codes too small. I've added the codes directly to photos I print at home, to journaling cards, or via sticker paper. Lots of options here. 

I also created a step-by-step video of this process in my 2022 December Daily Prep Day lesson. You can grab that class for $5 here. 

You can find more December Daily® inspiration from me on the blog here. 

Hopefully this post has helped to inspire some ideas for your own storytelling. I'll be sharing my 2023 and 2024 pages on instagram, if you'd like to follow along. You can find me here.

Project Life® 2024 | Week 37

One of my favorite things to do when I'm working on filling the pockets of multiple weeks in Project Life is to create a design formula. I generally pick an embellishment or a group of embellishments and then repeat that "formula" on each of my photos. 

For this week I dove into my stash and pulled out some puffy heart stickers and perforated phrase strips from the Wander Story Kit. Journaling was added, along with number stamps, to tags from the September Stories By The Month kit. Filling in the pockets + getting some stories told! 

Here's a short process video: 

Here are images of the spread: 

SUPPLIES 

9x12 Album
9x12 Page Protectors
Honeyman InkNumbers Are Awesome #9 Stamp Set
September 2024 Stories By The Month Kit
Puffy Heart Stickers
Wander Story Kit Perforated Phrase Strips
Gold Dot Ribbon
Clear Phrase Stickers 
Tiny AttacherBasics via my Amazon Storefront