Ali Edwards's Blog, page 17
October 4, 2024
In Case You Missed It | October 4
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:
2024 DECEMBER DAILY® UPDATE
As you’re reading this, our incredible warehouse team is working hard behind the scenes to pack and ship your orders! Please note that we will be prioritizing shipping international shipments first due to the project timeline and extended shipping delays internationally. We are exceedingly grateful for your continued support and we are counting down until you receive these products and start documenting your stories. Our remaining inventory of products is now available on the website, ready to ship.
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. Workshop begins on October 11th to correspond with our December Daily® Digitals release the same day.
December Daily® Prep Day is happening this year on Sunday, November 3rd starting at 10am ET. You can sign up for this $5 online event on Tuesday August 27th during Order Selection Period as well.
SEPTEMBER REVEAL
Final days to subscribe and receive this month’s Story Kit™ theme: SCHOOL! Everyone has a story about school. Most of us probably have more than one from all the years sitting in a classroom (or maybe your experience was totally different - that's a story too). This month we are coming together to tell stories about education and school experiences over the course of our lives (stories could be about you or someone you care about). In addition to our new Story Kit™ theme, we also have a brand new Stories By The Month™ kit, a New Halloween Kit, the next edition in our Alphas Are Awesome series, and our most recent One Little Word Mini Kit. Head to the link in our bio for Ali’s blog post with all the details about this month’s release.
Head to the blog for Ali's post with all the details about this month’s release.
OCTOBER 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. As a special bonus, we've released our Halloween collection early for those wanting to play before October.
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!
October 2, 2024
December Daily® 2024 | Done By December With Lisa | Part 01
Right about now is the time I am inevitably feeling inspired to break out last year's December Daily® album and attempt to get it done, or at least make significant progress, before starting my 2024 album. I love Done By December. I am an unabashed member of the "doesn't always finish" club and find so much value in 1) the stories I do finish, 2) the joy in the process of noticing and documenting, 3) the community spirit around the project. Over the next few weeks, myself and other community members will be sharing our process and progress towards completed albums.
Last year I put together a more in depth post about my approach, you can find it here. It includes quite a few photos from previous albums. I also put together a progress post after that one, sharing the additional pages I made for my 2022 album. You can find that one here.
Each year I have a very similar approach to getting back into my December albums. First and foremost, I consider what's important to me and revisit why I do this project in the first place. This may change from year to year. Some seasons will be busier than others, some seasons I may feel more creative than others, some years I may want to lean into the words or products more than photos (hard to imagine for me). Starting here helps alleviate some of the pressure I may put on myself to create certain types of pages, or reminds me to prioritize progress over perfection. Next, I purged supplies and got organized. This year I have a designated work space as opposed to floating from one surface to another. That has helped tremendously. The next step in my process was revisiting my older albums. I can't overstate how much this helps me each year. Then I'm taking inventory of what I've actually finished. It's inevitably less than I thought. Sigh. After I've recreated the month, I make my plan and get to work. I'm writing this posts a week or two after I've begun and I actually have a bit of progress to share.
Here's a little more on that process:
Lean in to what you love.
I like to manage my expectations and remind myself of what's important (to me) before I jump into this project.
Like most people, I pack away all of my December Daily® supplies at the end of each season. Since joining the AED full-time a few years ago, I’ve been lucky to receive the entire collection. That translates to a lot of product. Before I get started, I decided to go through and pare down my options to my favorites. I was ruthless this year, more so than in years past and it felt great. The pages that I have created since then have come together much more quickly because I'm not digging around. I'm still using the cart I bought last year. It's amazing. I also bought two of the storage boxes Ali recently shared and they have been a great addition.
Revisit my albums.
Revisiting my albums each year is a big part of my process of diving back into this project. As I flip through each album I’m looking for a few things:
Recurring stories I want to be sure to include. Or favorite photos I tend to take from year to year. As I look at these albums/stories do I have questions? Meaning, do I want to dig deeper? Am I curious about something related to the story? I make a running list of things to add to the upcoming album. For instance, 2023 was 10 years of Chillbert from our Elf Chippy. I'd like to see each of the little figures. Maybe that's just in a 2x2 page protector. Maybe it includes rankings from the kids. Page designs I like and want repeat. Or things that didn’t hold up well. For instance, Minc on transparency does not hold up well. I love the look and have found if I laminate it, it lasts longer and feels more like our shop transparencies. Also, I hate glitter. It always seems like a good idea and I always regret it later. Perspective. Flipping through albums and reminding myself that it’s the stories and not the pages that I love…keeps me motivated and focused on my goal. It’s also a great reminder that I am not looking at any imperfections…so stop stressing about the little stuff. I will also ALWAYS have typos. It is what it is. I love to include photos from previous Decembers. I rarely do that and it adds context to these stories. Especially for years where I have not completed an album. More stories about our spaces. For us this is even more relevant for 2024. We're starting construction on our pool, and a few other projects in the house that include ripping out some older spaces. It might be nice to have pictures of the old spaces to look back on. Make space for the hard stories. This is a personal choice. You may not want to include hard stories in your album. But I do, with certain constraints.It's sometimes a nice reminder of how much you and your family may have grown or overcome in the past year. Take note of a few design-related things I 'd like to do more of:
Include more pictures for individual stories. I rarely use dimensional embellishments and that means I always have tons of space left in my albums (probably doesn't hurt that I rarely finish, either.) I don't need to stress about choosing only one or two photos from a day/story. Some people are strongly against this and Ali does a fantastic job of choosing just one. But I have the space and since the photos are a big source of joy for me...why not include them all? Include more transparencies and patterned paper to add more interest and break up so many photo heavy pages. So many pretty papers this year and in my stash. I need to use this stuff. I really like using cut files and my silhouette. It's such pain for me (probably because I only use it for this project), but the end result is almost always worth it. More easy shaker pockets made with the Fuse. I love these in other people's albums and they are pretty easy, even for me.
A year later it can feel overwhelming to revisit a project like December Daily®, especially when I have so little of the album complete. But even without a dedicated journal, it can definitely be done. And I’ve done it before. Here are a few of the tools I use to reconstruct the month:
My phone. A quick search in photos will pull up all of my photos for the month. For me, that includes a lot of screenshots. Things like emails and text messages. I’ve gotten into the habit of taking screen shots so I know they will be in one place when I come back to the project. Your calendar/schedule is also a great resource for what was going on during the month.
Social media. I'm typically sharing updates over on Facebook for out of town friends and family and sometimes I can grab captions (or even photos) from there.
School calendar. With school age kids, the school calendar basically dictates my life. I make sure that I keep the physical copy the school hands out with my supplies when I pack them up each year.
Lightroom Catalog. This is where all of my DSLR photos live. I export and organize by year, then by month. You can sync your smartphone to your Lightroom catalog to simplify, but I choose not to for a variety of reasons.
My husband. I also do a quick search of his photos for the month of December. He will sometimes have photos of me or the kids that he never shared. We’re also in the season where we have to divide and conquer for practices or events, etc, so he will have photos I don’t. Additionally, there are sometimes photos I like to grab that share pieces of his life I’d like to include in our album.
Once I've done all of the above, I sit down and make a spreadsheet of stories. I'm not much of a planner, but I find a lot of value in this one document. I like to spend a minimal amount of time planning, allowing for the bulk of my time to be spent making. I know for some folks planning helps the work to flow more efficiently. Do what works for you!
Here's the spreadsheet I put together to work on my 2022 album. I'm following the same template for 2023. For me, my list has to include a chronology of the month and then a list of stories. We often have multiple events happening on the same day. I choose to include those as separate stories. I knwo everyone has to find the approach that works best for them. You can see I have a list of "micro stories" on the spreadsheet. These are stories or photos that happen during the month where the chronology doesn't matter. For me they are similar to the concept of "filler stories" (holiday decorations, around here, wrapping paper...stories where the date doesn't matter and they can fill in any gaps you may have), except that they are also meant to take up very little landscape in my album. Maybe one photo included with an attacher sticker, etc. They are also stories that I don't feel are absolutely necessary to include. If the album gets too full, I let them go.
My next step is to take a look at what I've actually completed. Not much, to be honest. Maybe half a dozen pages. As I mentioned, I also started in a 6x8 album and transitioned to a 10x8. Here are the pages I completed last December:
After starting out in a 6x8 album, I knew almost immediately I needed to switch to 10x8. Here are those pages from last December:
Do the work.
This year's process was slightly different than years past. I had started documenting in a 6x8 album. I thought I wanted a change from doing 10x8 that past few years. I knew after a few pages that that was a mistake. I think I got maybe three or four pages/stories in before I started making 10x8 spreads. When I revisited my album a year later and was thinking about my strategy, I went back and forth about remaking those pages. It's not something I've ever done. Those pages are so easy to transfer to a different size album, and I actually love a variety of page sizes in a 10x8 album. What was bothering me was having so many 6x8 pages then oddly transitioning to all 10x8. In the end, I decided to re-do the stories I had completed. A few quick notes before I share those pages! You'll notice I am occasionally using product from this year. I have consolidated all of my December Daily® supplies and will be using whatever I think works. I don't feel like I have to "save" anything for this year. Some of these pages feel like they need a little something more...I may end up adding additional embellishments as I progress with the album. I think that's it!
Here are the spreads I've created recently:
This is a remake of the 6x8 version I did during December 2023.
This page is another remake. One thing I noticed putting this page together is I miss that full page December first morning photo. I really didn't take one, despite having done it every other year. Similar to below. I don't know how many years they will actually let me dress them in matching jammies...I need to document it while I can. Honestly, last year may have been the end of that era.
This page is another remake from an insert to a full page 10x8.
This marks the end of the pages I remade for 10x8. They didn't take long and I was actually able to copy paste the original journaling and use pieces from those spreads.
This little story is so important to me and all I had was a real, really crappy iPhone photo from very far away. You don't need a photo to tell a story...but that's the way I typically do it. Looks fine to me in black and white, even enlarged to 6x8.
This page was an addition to the pages I put together for this story in December. I wanted to include the story on the reverse, which meant I could either come up with another micro story...or select a photo that didn't make the cut last time. I went for the latter.
This is one of my favorite stories so far. It's about Ava, but really it's told from my husband's point of view. I like opportunities to include him since he hates photos. We have a very competitive family fantasy football league. Ava takes is very seriously and she struggled with injuries last year. We really didn't think she would make it to the playoffs, and she wanted to so badly. She was in a must-win situation and the game was wrapping up at 11p (she was not allowed to stay up that late on a school night). But mike did. It looked like she lost...right up until the final minutes of the game when she was trailing by .02 points. Mike kept texting me and sending me screen shots (he was watching in the basement). She ended up winning the week by 1.54 points and made it into the playoffs. This page is a good reminder for me that not every story needs a photo.
Same shirt. Same age. Same love of accessories. VERY different kids.
I'm still going back and forth about adhering the pocket onto the photo, or just clipping it into the album. Love, love, love including video with QR codes in my albums. I'll be doing that this year.
This is an example of a page that just "needs something." Ultimately, I'm fine leaving it...but if something inspires me while I continue working on it, I'll fix it. It may be hard to see (I hate pictures of pictures), but this is a series of photos where Ben gets hit in the face. It's a stuffed animal and he's obviously fine. Something is always being thrown in our house. Ava's just as bad. Occasionally I'll join in.
This page is not story sixteen. It's another micro story that can be fit wherever there is space.
I'm really happy to have made this much progress. I'm up to story fifteen and I know I'll be going beyond 25 this year. I have TONS of space left. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments. I'm looking forward to hearing from more of our community members as they wrap up their albums.
I'll be sharing the majority of my progress on Instagram, but I do plan to do another post. You can also find all of my December Daily spreads from the past seven years on IG:
@frecklepickle
September 30, 2024
Project Life® 2024 | Week 34
Week 34 in my Project Life album for 2024 is a quick + easy collection of photos and label stickers from the August Storeis By The Month Kit.
SIMPLE FOR THE WIN.
Let's dive in to the quick video overview:
And here's a look via images:
For this week I didn't have a lot of words I wanted to add so the fun sticker sheet from the August Storeis By The Month Kit worked great for adding a little context. I also added three label stickers to the vellum checkered card to hold additional journaling.
On the "AUG 2024" card I added a cut up die cut oval and wrote "transition coming" knowing that September is always a crazy month around here as we move from summer to back to school time.
On top of the black checkered vellum card I added label stickers and number stamps and a little journaling for the week.
SUPPLIES9x12 Album
9x12 Page Protectors
August 2024 Stories By The Month Kit
Micron Pen
Label Stickers Illustrated Faith Typewriter Alpha Stamp
Other basics available via my Amazon Storefront (trimmer, printers, paper, etc)
September 27, 2024
In Case You Missed It | September 27
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:
2024 DECEMBER DAILY® | FINAL DAYS TO ADD TO YOUR BOX!
The 2024 December Daily boxing period is currently live. From now until September 30th 11:59pm ET you are able to add items to your box for a single shipping charge. Order will ship the first week of October. Due to manufacturing constraints, sold out items will not be reordered. Our 2024 Collection Preview Post is available here. We also shared a How It Works post for all of the information you need to know related to the boxing period. Not signed up for our newsletter? Head to www.aliedwards.com and sign-up in the footer of our site. Be sure to follow us over at @decemberdaily, our official account for all things December Daily®. We also invite you to join us in the December Daily® Facebook group for more merriment. Find additional resources and inspiration, including Ali's completed albums, on the blog via the December Daily hashtag. Learn more about the project 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 and available at an intro price of $20 during the Order Selection Period. After that time it will move to the official price of $25. 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 open and available at an intro price of $12 during the Order Selection Period. After that time it will move to the official price of $15. Read below for more details (workshop begins on October 11th to correspond with our December Daily® Digitals release the same day).
December Daily® Prep Day is happening this year on Sunday, November 3rd starting at 10am ET. You can sign up for this $5 online event on Tuesday August 27th during Order Selection Period as well.
SEPTEMBER REVEAL
This week revealed a new Story Kit™ theme: SCHOOL! Everyone has a story about school. Most of us probably have more than one from all the years sitting in a classroom (or maybe your experience was totally different - that's a story too). This month we are coming together to tell stories about education and school experiences over the course of our lives (stories could be about you or someone you care about). In addition to our new Story Kit™ theme, we also have a brand new Stories By The Month™ kit, a New Halloween Kit, the next edition in our Alphas Are Awesome series, and our most recent One Little Word Mini Kit. Head to the link in our bio for Ali’s blog post with all the details about this month’s release.
Head to the blog for Ali's post with all the details about this month’s release.
SEPTEMBER 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. As a special bonus, we've released our Halloween collection early for those wanting to play before October.
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!
Project Life® 2024 | Week 33
Jumping back in to sharing some
Project Life spreads from this year's album. This is Week 33 (August 12th - August 18th).
For this particular week I decided to do two inserts. The first is a piece of Grafix Plastic I cut to 9x12 and stitched vellum letters from the Alphabet Quarterly Scrapbook Kit on top for a fun, graphic insert. The second one is a 2x2 pocket page protector to hold some collected ephemera (from packaging, etc) and a bunch of photos of the current roses in bloom.
Let's dive into the process video:
And here's a look via images:
I love how inserts give us a chance to go big with words and/or photos within pocket page albums. I temporarily adhered the vellum letters and then ran them through my sewing machine. On top of the center of the "O" I added a die cut from the August 2024 Stories By The Month Kit.
Every once in awhile I like to add in a 2x2 pocket page protector to hold some packaging from recent purchases. I use a 2x2 punch to make them into a square and slip them in the pockets.
In addition to the ephemera I also punched squares from one of the 4x6 vellum cards from the August Stories By The Month Kit. Love that black + white monthly pattern.
On the back of the 2x2 pockets I added in a bunch of photos of roses that were in bloom during this week.
The regular spread of pockets were filled with photos of life: beach volleyball, seed saving from sunflowers, dahlias in bloom, tomatoes turning red, Aaron and I watching a storm from our bedroom window, and a photo of taking the girls + friends to the movies. Loving this season.
SUPPLIES
9x12 Album
9x12 Page Protectors
6x8 Page Protectors
Augsut 2024 Stories By The Month Kit
Alphabet Quarterly Scrapbook Kit
Grafix Transparency
Brother Sewing Machine
Avery Index Tabs
2x2 Passport Square Punch
Micron Pen
Label Stickers
Other basics available via my Amazon Storefront (trimmer, printers, paper, etc)
December Daily® 2024 | Special Guest Jen Wong
Hello, friends! I’m happy to be back to share more ideas for creating a December Daily album for kids. I’m using the vertical 4x6 album this year to prepare an album for my 9-year-old daughter. I want to include lots of fun, interactive elements and make it easy enough where she can just slip in photos, some short journaling, or a drawing. In case you missed the first blog post where I talked about my strategy and approach, you can find it here.
Although I’m using the smaller 4x6 album, all of these ideas can be adapted to one of the other album sizes and can also be used for non-kid albums. In fact, I loved making some of these pages so much that they might just carry over to my own album!
My daughter loves doing crafts and when she found out that I was going to make a December Daily album just for her, she wanted to help with the preparation! Having your little one make their own pages is a great way to have them participate and get excited for the project. She’s so proud of the pages helped make. I’m sure seeing one of them later in the month will also help keep her motivation high.
Not a surprise, but she really wanted to play with the stencils! She inked up the gingerbread stencil herself and then drew faces on them with a white pen. We cut out her work and adhered the paper to some colored cardstock and then to one of the 4x6 cards from the Paislee Press mini kit.
She can use this page to document some holiday baking!
She helped with a few more pages that are shown in the album walkthrough. Meanwhile, I made a few more interactive pages which I’m sharing in detail here.
Idea 01: Gingerbread Folk with Die-Cut Insert
When I saw the scalloped die cut insert with the boxes, I immediately thought how fun it might be to have some gingerbread folks peeking out of them. Using the digital version of the insert, I resized it to fit the page protector size, 5” x 6.25.”
I then stamped a girl and boy gingerbread. Adding clothes and the tiny details like the mustache was super fun! To make the page interactive, I cut 1.75” square pieces of pattern paper and solid colored papers from my stash, which I sewed on top to serve as flaps for the windows.
Because I wanted to play with the stamps, I used the Scalloped stamp to stamp some patterns onto the colored flaps. The patterns are embossed in gold and white.
I added the gingerbread people to two of the windows temporarily and the remaining windows can be used for small photos or journaling in December.
The video below shows a closer look at how this page came together.
Idea 02: Scratch-off Joke page with Pocket
My daughter is at the age where she loves silly jokes so I made a scratch-off joke page using the light bulb stencil.
I found Christmas-themed jokes on the Internet and printed them on ornament shapes. I printed the answers out onto white cardstock and then, using the light bulb stencil, I first colored the light bulbs with ink. I placed packing tape over the inked answers so the paint wouldn’t damage the paper, and then used the stencil again with acrylic paint to create the scratch-off portion.
The light bulbs and ornaments are strung with thin gold string and placed on top of black cardstock. Using the stars silkscreen with white paint, I added a star pattern to the background. To include a place for a story for the day, I made the right side into a pocket where one of the 4x4 scalloped cards resides.
You can see me make this page in detail in the video below.
Idea 03: Flip-up and Flip-out Page with 10x8 Paper
I love the large text on a couple of the 10x8 papers this year and was trying to think of an idea on how I could incorporate them into the 4x6 album. One way I decided to do this was to cut the sentiment from the middle to make a flip-out page. I cut the “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” paper to 9.25” from the left side and scored it at the 5” mark so that it would flip out on the right. I also trimmed 1” from the top and bottom of the page to make it the height of the page protector, 6.25”.
To add more interactivity, I added additional flaps to the top and bottom. After cutting 2 pieces of pattern paper to 4” wide by 3.75” tall, I scored 3/8" on each end to create the flap. This size allows for some overlap with the top and bottom.
Since the papers are all single-sided, I wanted to decorate the blank sides. I used the leaf pattern silkscreen with an old AED acrylic paint in Timberline on all of the blank spaces. If you watch the video, you’ll see I wasn’t very happy with the job I did on the backside of the green paper, so I ended up covering this with the floral paper from the Paislee Press mini kit.
Lastly, I cut one of the watercolor hearts from one of the papers in the Merry Merry Paper pack and glued it to the top flap.
You can see how this page came together in the video below.
Having lots of flaps adds some play and makes it possible to include even more photos and stories!
In addition to the ideas shared above, I’ve created several more pages in the album, which are a mix of simple and interactive ones.
Here’s a look at the new pages I’ve made, starting at the place where I left off on the previous blog post.
I’ve included extra photos of some of the pages from the new pages in the album below. As in the previous blog post, my daughter added some drawings to show some examples “photos” that might go in certain spots. :)
This is a double-sided flip-out page that uses the December Details prompt paper as a place where my daughter can document her elf’s daily antics. There is a shaker pocket inside to store the notes she receives from Keena, her elf.
I continue to use the chipboard frames to make easy spots for photos (or drawings). Many of the 4x6 cards can be turned on their sides and used in this album.
This hybrid page is made from one of the digital papers in the main kit which will be used to document our holiday movie watching. I plan to make another one for my album so my daughter and I can play together!
The back of the bingo card contains a side pocket which contains a 3x4 card to document the movies and date watched.
My daughter helped me with a few of the pages, including the one to document her elf shown above. She is at the age where she can do a lot of the crafting steps with some direction. She loved using the stamps, stencils, and embossing with the stencil using a die cut machine.
As I mentioned in the walkthrough video, I’ve finished around 21 pages for the album so far. I still have other ideas I want to try, but I’m undecided between finishing up the remaining pages or waiting until December so my daughter and I can work on them together.
I hope I was able to inspire you and give you some ideas! If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below. You can also find me on Instagram @circleplusarrow or YouTube @circleplusarrow. Happy December Daily!
September 26, 2024
December Daily® 2024 | Merry, Shiny + Bright with Nolana Lynch | Part 02
Hi Friends! How are you today?
It’s Nolana and I’m ecstatic to be back with you to share more of my foundation pages for December Daily this year! Earlier this week, I did my second Live Crafting session in the December Daily Facebook Group and I enjoyed it all! Thank you for all your support - I loved reading your comments and crafting with you.
In this blog post, I will share some more of my foundation pages, in addition to my “completed” layouts and the process video from the Live Crafting Session with how it all came together.
Here are a few page ideas that I’ve worked on leading up to the live:
Idea No. 1: Scalloped Plastic Tag PageI used a series of scalloped tags to create a border for this page. This included a mix of the Plastic Tags, the Holiday Tag Stamp Set and the Scalloped border stamp.
I embossed some of the stamps from the Scalloped 6x8 set on to patterned paper from this year’s collection to create some variation in the tags present.
I also used several dye inks to stamp some of the holiday tag stamps in various shapes.
I then combined these all around the December patterned paper, at various distances from the edge of the paper, to create a staggered frame around the page. I cut the excess off the edges, used my trimmer to create a rectangle in the centre of the page.
The vellum I adhered behind the paper. Then I placed a piece of acetate behind the frame, and adhered three sides to create a pocket. In this, I would place a family photograph and perhaps some journaling.
Idea No.2: This is Joy Flip Up PageI thought it would be great to use this stamp page to document things that bring me joy in the month of December. This page has 26 spaces, so many possibilities to document Joy throughout the month.
I’d been hoarding this Joy vellum from last year’s collection, and decided it would be perfect create the flip up with. I used my craft knife to cut the hole, and use two of the wreaths and embellishments from previous December Daily collections to bring the vellum flip up together.
I then created some shaker segments to the right side of the page - using a mix of sequins, as well as the “This is Joy” vellum piece from this year’s collection.
Here’s the process video of how it all came together:
Idea No. 3 - Night LightsI’ve also been going through my stash to see pieces of foundation pages I made last year, and which pieces can be paired with this year’s collection. I love this circle of lights patterned paper.
I made this lovely wreath using tree stamps, and stencils last year but it didn’t make it into my album, so I decided it would be perfect for this year’s documenting night lights!
Idea No. 4 - Gift PageI played around with the idea of a Gift Page using patterned paper, bows and three flap pocket envelopes on a page. I thought I could even add scalloped Squares to the red scallop tag pockets as flaps or as a lower border - there were so many ideas bouncing around for this page and I played with them all.
In the end, I decided to use the MERRY paper - my favourite, along with the green scalloped cards. I used vellum bows from the Paislee Press kit and the circular die cuts to bring this page together in yesterday’s live. Here’s how it came out.
I created an ornament tree with vellum, paper, and acetate ornaments. I cut out the ornaments from the patterned paper and used some from the main kit and die-cut pack to bring this together. I decided to save the transparency ones for another layout.
These die-cut ornaments can be backed with photos and journaling. You may also want to mix things up and add some of these to the front portion of your tree. I also added a pull-up star behind, which is an additional spot for photos and journaling.
Here’s the process video from the Live.
I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s blog post. It has been great working through foundation pages for my 2024 album and sharing them with you! I hope you’re excited to set up foundation pages for your project this year!
As always, if you have any questions or comments, please share them below!
Happy December Dailying!
September 24, 2024
December Daily® 2024 | Special Guest Jill Drangsholt
Hi again friends! For my final blog post during this year's boxing period, I will be focusing on ways to use the die cut trees. This pack comes with a whopping 50 trees in it, so I not only have a few pages ideas, but a couple of ideas for what to do with the rest in the pack if you are not joining Ali in her mixed media adventures.
First up, I have some gift tag ideas for you! These trees paired with a few of the stamp sets make the cutest little gift tags!
My favorite way to make gift tags was using the fun mixed alphabet stamp to stamp out the names in two colors. But I admit that it is not super practical for doing more than a few tags. So for a quicker tag option, check out my samples using the Scalloped and Holiday Tag 6x8 Stamp Sets.
My second idea to use up a bunch of the trees is to make Christmas cards with them! And as an added bonus, you can stash bust some Christmas patterned paper for your backgrounds! Or snag the digitals if you want a bunch of the same pattern, like this HOHOHO paper.
Check out the process video to see how I used the silkscreens, vellum, and some stitching to add some flair to the trees for my cards.
For my first actual page idea, I decided to carry over the layered vellum trees I made for the Christmas cards. How cute are they as a little grove of trees!
I really wanted a subtle tone on tone look with these white trees, so I paired them with the white garland transparency. And then for a pop of color, I had them sit on top of this "deck the halls" card.
To give this page some room for a story and/or photos, I turned the "deck the halls" card into a flip up and added a tab. My plan for the back is to add some more trees and maybe a photo at the bottom.
I finished off the page with some glitter stars at the top of the trees because every page needs some sparkle!
For my last idea, I thought it would be fun to use the trees as a home for the new ornaments I get this year. For the purpose of this lesson, I used photos from past years. When I use this page later this year, I will take the photos a little more zoomed out so that the ornaments fit better within the trees.
I chose to make a pocket for my trees using the neutral garland 10x8 paper. I love that it allows the trees to pop off the page and that the garland fits with the trimming the tree theme. To make the pocket, I stitched a bit of the green brush lettering transparency on the page.
After I had cut down my paper with the garland centered, there was an awkward partial white star on one side. It was really bothering me so I experimented with adding the gold glitter stars on top of the garland to hide that and balance the page out. I love the result!
Painted Wood Veneer Stars
Merry Christmas Envelope Bundle
Main Kit
Gold Foil Number Puffy Stickers
Small White Plastic Numbers
December Moments Phrase Sticker Sheets
3x8 Transparency and Journal Card Set
Stars 6x8 AlbumCardstock Die Cut TreesAlpha & Numbers 4x6 Stamp SetScalloped 6x8 Stamp SetHoliday Tag 6x8 Stamp SetDecember Moments Silkscreen PackMerry Merry 10x8 Paper PackDecember Memories 6x8 Transparencies
I hope you enjoyed following along with all of my December Daily ideas this month! You can find me on Instagram at @jill.drangsholt if you want to follow my December Daily journey and my other crafty adventures.
September 23, 2024
December Daily® 2024 | Ali's Mixed Media Trees | Part 01
One of the super fun holiday crafting projects I embarked on last year was creating .
Here's how that turned out:
I loved that adventure so much last year that I decided to do something similar again using a tree shape instead of an ornament shape. Because I knew I wanted to do tree shapes for 2024 we were able to offer a die cut tree pack as part of our December Daily® collection (includes 50 die cut trees). In addition to those die cut trees I'm also incorporating a shorter, wider tree shape that we are offering as a metal die. I haven't decided if I'm going to do a wall hanging again or use these on a tree or something else - I'm simply diving in to the process of playing.
NOTE: Don't forget that our December Daily® Boxing Period is coming to an end on September 30th. Make sure to get everything added to your box to take advantage of our shipping specials. Also, this week we are doing some fun 24 hour sales happening on the sale page.
I've been filming myself through the process of working on these trees and have the first video to share with you today showing how I'm getting started and some of the things I'm playing with this year.
Let's dive in:
Here's a look at some of the trees I've created so far:
Bring on the layers!!!
I'll be back again in a couple weeks sharing another look at where I'm at with the trees.
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
December Daily® 2024 | Special Guest Pam Baldwin
Hi friends! I’m excited to be back with you this week, sharing more foundation page ideas for the 4x6 album. This week the 3x8 journaling card and transparency pack is my jumping off point. I kid you not, the hardest thing about documenting this December is going to be deciding which pages to use, because I’ve got enough foundation pages from the 3x8 set for a whole second album/year of stories, it’s that good! Why don’t we start with a little album flip through and then we’ll break it down into the specifics of how I made these (very simple!) pages.
The pages I made with this collection fit into 3 categories: transparencies, pockets and tags/journaling spots. Although my pages are designed to fit the 4x6 album, this set and these ideas will definitely translate easily into a 6x8 or 10x8 format.
3x8 Transparencies
I LOVE including transparencies in my projects! There’s something about being able to sneak a peek at the layers beyond that makes me so happy. For this project, I was used the transparencies as dividers, pockets and see through elements.
Dividers: Start by trimming the pages down to fit the 4x6 album and have fun embellishing! Consider adding ribbon and trim to the edges for extra texture and a playful touch, or try cutting your divider into a different shape (eg. half circle)
Pockets: Custom pockets are my favourite way to add extra journaling, photos and ephemera to my projects. Consider playing with both traditional horizontally oriented pockets and non-traditional side pockets to maximize the space you have to work with.
“See through” elements: Two fun options to play with the “see through” features of the transparencies. 1) Cut out a window. Remember, this window can by any shape you want it to be! This would be a great use of the Christmas tree die from the 2024 collection. Also consider shaped punches, or play with a custom shape. 2) Create a “see through flap” on an enlarged photo or patterned paper. Trim the transparency to 6.25” in height (this is the “outside the page protector” size of the pages). Score the transparency vertically on the side of the holes app ¼-1/2” from the edge. Fold and adhere this edge behind an enlarged photo / cardstock / patterned paper to create a flap.
Here’s a break down of the supplies I used for each of these transparency pages.
My approach to using the journaling cards was pretty much the same as what I did with the transparencies, but because there are repeated designs in the journaling card collection, I approached these next few pages with ideas for each design style. These journaling cards come with pre-punched holes, but that doesn’t mean you need to use them. You can definitely cut them off and have fun creating new shapes (eg. My love for tags!) that can be used on either the right or left side of a spread.
Scalloped borders: These lovely cards can be trimmed down to fit the 4x6 format while maintaining the design AND be turned into a pocket, all at the same time!
They also make a lovely home for extra photos, ephemera, embellishments and/or journaling as an interactive “flip out” from a full page photo or patterned paper.
Gold foil stars: I adore this pattern! It was very tempting to use them all up right now, but I managed some restraint and have 1 left still to allow for some flexibility in December. I used the other two as an interactive “flip out”, a folio style pocket, and tags in 2 different sizes. A bonus feature of this design is that it’s reversible; with pre-punched holes, this design can be flipped upside down and still make sense when you put it on the left side of your spread.
Gold foil word art: When I see this style of paper, with a beautiful design oriented to the top of the page and a clearly defined horizontal line, my brain immediately thinks “make a pocket”! So that’s what I did. I like the idea of using punches and/or shaped scissors along the top of the pocket for playful bit of detail. I have one card left still, and I’m thinking next time I’d like to score the paper a little further down the white section to leave a white line at the bottom of the design where I can stamp the date.
Journaling prompt: The journaling prompt papers are so lovely in their simplicity and have me wanting to use that space as intended for journaling. That’s pretty much what I’ll do here. They can be cut to size, and in the smaller 4x6 format, they can absolutely be a story all on their own with the addition of a small photo. They’re also another great opportunity to play with your scissors and punches, or reshape them into tags.
Individual designs (Colourful Christmas trees, Ho Ho): I loved cutting up the colourful Christmas tree card to highlight the shape of the trees and create a custom “die cut insert”. This might be one of my favourite cards from the bunch!
Bonus mini tags: Save your scraps!! Because these transparencies and journaling cards are sized to “outside the page protector”, they’re actually 3.75” x 8.25” in size. When you trim them down to fit the 4x6 format, you’ve got an extra 2” x 3.75” canvas to play with. You can turn these scraps into super fun little tags that could create an entire series that could be used in this project or saved for something else! In theory, you could create a coordinated collection of 31 numbered tags!
Friends, thank you so much for joining me today! I hope this post has brought you some inspiration (and maybe convinced you to love the 3x8 transparency and journaling card sets as much as I do!). Definitely let me know if you have any questions in the comments below, and happy December Daily-ing! Those packages will be arriving before you know it!
