Ali Edwards's Blog, page 37
December 1, 2023
In Case You Missed It | December 1
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:
Today is the day! December Daily® is a December mini-album project that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas. The simple goal is to capture the spirit of December via one story per day. Ali and Lisa have been chatting all this week about various topics related to the project. Find those recordings on Instagram and on the blog. Get free shipping today only on any products from the December Daily® category with a purchase of $75+ using DDSHIP23. Ali will be sharing her stories in the same way she has in years past, almost-daily blog posts and videos, beginning tomorrow. Thank you all for making this project so incredibly special.
DECEMBER DAILY® DIGITALS
The 2023 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. Want to learn more about creating with digital files? Our newest class December Daily® Hybrid Product Play is live and available to watch at your convenience.We have incredible content from six amazing contributors ready to explore at your convenience. Shop digitals here.
NEW CLASSES
2023 DECEMBER DAILY® PREP DAY. Join the December Daily® community for a fun online December Daily® prep day on Saturday, November 18th, 2023. Use this opportunity to finish past December Daily® projects or start working on your project for 2023. The first live video will start on Saturday, November 18th at 10:00 am Eastern. Cost is $5.
DECEMBER DAILY® PRODUCT PLAY | TRY THIS. December Daily® Product Play is all about ideas and inspiration for working with physical products from the December Daily® Collection. For 30 days in November, you'll receive one idea per day from the contributors to this class (includes Ali). Ideas in this workshop will focus on physical products from our 2023 December Daily® collection. Whether you are preparing to document 2023 or finishing up telling stories from past years, we hope these fun, creative ideas help you use your products to get your stories told.
2023 DECEMBER DAILY® HYBRID PRODUCT PLAY. Hybrid scrapbooking combines digital products with physical supplies to create paper (or printed) memory-keeping projects. For this class, our contributors will share with fun, creative ideas and inspiration for working with these digital products from the 2023 December Daily® Collection.
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® 2023 Kick Off | Process + Finishing Chat
Let's get this December Daily® party started! TODAY IS THE DAY! All this week,
Ali and Lisa have been live on our @decemberdaily Instagram account chatting about a different December Daily®-themed topic each day. These conversations happen at the same time each day, 1pm ET. All of our conversations will be recorded and available here to watch/listen to at your convenience.
Monday, 27th: All About Preparation. Find the recording here.
Tuesday, 28th: All About Stories. Find the recording here.
Wednesday, 29th: All About Photos. Find the recording here.
Thursday, 30th: All About Finishing + Playing With Product
Friday, December 1st: Kick-Off + Pep Talk
Here's the recording of yesterday's chat. Thanks so much for those of you that were able to join us.
Here are a few of the resources/links mentioned during Wednesday's conversation:
Just Write subscription
Storytelling With December Daily®
Ali's Amazon shop
Ali's current printers
Our lineup of December Daily® classes
Please let me know if there was a link I've missed!
December Daily® 2023 | Special Guest Nolana Lynch
Hello Everyone! Happy 1st of December! I am Nolana and I’ve enjoyed sharing with you this past month. I am excited to be here with you to share the final steps of my December Daily preparation process as we head into December and commence documenting this joyous season!
As I approach the week when December begins, I take stock of the foundation pages I do have, and I focus on some quick and easy foundation pages inspired by the products in the December Daily collection.
There is no shortage of “standalone” items that can be used this year - from the cutest ornament pockets and matching ornament papers (which I am trying my best not to hoard), to envelopes, polaroid frames, and so much more.
This week I put together some quick foundation pages with items I went “googoo gah gah” for when I first spotted them in the sneaks!
Here is the video of me putting these all together.
Page Idea 1: All the Window Cards
Last year I forgot to use my window cards, all but one made it into my album, so this year, I purposed to use ALL MY WINDOW CARDS!!! Inspired by the product photo, I created a mirror image with the 6 cards present. As there are three members in my family - these groups of three are perfect for stories where I want to include things from each of us. I can’t wait to fill them with our wishes for the season.
I ADDOREE the abundance of tags in this year’s collection and I can’t get enough of them! I wanted to create a page with ALL THE TAGS (see a pattern here)! I even pulled out tags from the advent calendar to put this one together.
I couldn’t unsee this gold outline chipboard frame - as a foundation for a page. It’s a great way to use something that we’d otherwise throw away and who could resist using something that’s already gold-foiled?
Of course, I couldn’t resist layering these kraft pockets - I usually write letters to my family members, including myself, every year, and these are perfect for this - they’d make a perfect day 3 story. I needed to pop them into my album before I hoard and forget to use them.
From patterned paper to 2-inch circles in the collection, to mixed media circles - the possibilities are endless. I am adding in some of the circles from this year’s collection and will layer in photos, journaling, and so forth to complete this layout.
I love a good envelope and this year’s collection does not disappoint! I always want to decorate them and tuck something in - I am feeling this can work well for our Decor and Tree pages which I usually put back to back in my album. I can easily slip in ephemera, and decor inspiration, related to the theme I have chosen for this year. I love using the largest envelope to tuck in our greeting cards at the back of my album (see this video where I did it last year) and the stripes I would love to pair with the Dear December card from the 3x8 journal card kit.
I feel like I have only just touched the surface of things I want to create for December Daily - but alas here is a complete flip through video of foundation pages I am starting the season with!
Here is a list of supplies I used:
December Daily Main KitDecember Daily Wooden StarsDecember Daily Felt StarsTim Holtz Velvet Trim Sequins Tacky GlueAli Edwards Acrylic Page Attachers Nuvo Drops Gold Ribbon and Thread Red Line Tape Tweezers Paper Trimmer Precision Scissors
I look forward to documenting the season with you! I’d be happy to connect with you over on Instagram.
November 30, 2023
December Daily® 2023 | Special Guest Kristin Ladstrom
Hello friends!
I’m Kristin and I’m here to share how I batch made last year’s December Daily album! I hope it can give you some ideas if you feel like this is an approach that would work for you.
December 2022 didn't quite turn out how I had expected. Nothing serious, but I spent the first two weeks of December working a lot after an already stressful autumn, and then I came down with the flu. I was well enough by the 24th (Swedish Christmas!) to spend Christmas with my partner and parents, but then needed to spend the last week of December mostly resting. I was still taking photos (although not every day) and journaling, but I missed out on most of the fun December activities I had hoped to do.
I had decided to do a 10x8 album, as I loved that format in 2021, but I only made two spreads during December. After that I just wasn't feeling it ... My December had been so meh! But NOT making an album wasn't an option for me - I love this project too much. And I truly believe that stress and illness are worth documenting, too; not to mention the lovely bits that were also still there, in between the hard or boring parts.
So I let the project rest - this is what I do when inspiration isn’t flowing. And then, in April, I unexpectedly had a free weekend, when something I was going to do got cancelled. With all that free time, I decided to, for the first time, batch make a December Daily album! I switched to a 6x8 album as I didn't have enough photos I loved to want a 10x8 album, and designed the whole base of the album in one go on my computer.
For me that meant:
1. I started by deciding what story I would tell for each day (referring back to my journal), roughly how much space that story would need, and whether I wanted page protectors or not. I also decided what photos I wanted to use for each day and in which sizes.
2. Then, I laid out the designs of each spread in Photoshop. I added the photos where they should go, and used white squares to stand in for the blank spaces (pocket pages) where journaling or patterned paper would go later. Here’s what a spread could look like in Photoshop at this stage:
3. After that I realised that I wanted to simplify the decision-making and use a cohesive design for the journal cards - more on that in my next blog post!
4. Then I wrote all the journaling. Usually I strive for a mix of handwritten and printed journaling in my albums, but for this batch making process, writing it all out on the computer was faster and simpler. I based the journaling on my personal journal from December (which I write in every day anyway).
5. Then I printed everything out in one big printing bonanza.
A few weeks later I had a crafty day booked with a local friend, and then I spent a few hours cutting out all the photos and cards I had printed (I tend to assemble everything on A4 photo paper sheets and print many things at the same time), putting them into pocket pages in the correct places (referring to the layouts I did in Photoshop - those decisions were already made), and gluing full page photos back to back.
Over the next few months, I spent a couple of hours here and there embellishing and adding details like this flipout above, until I felt done. This part was the least "batch making" type part. Embellishing takes the longest for me, and I need to let it take a while, otherwise I don't enjoy it. At this point, do whatever brings you the most joy!
So there's my process! In my next blog post, I will go into some design concepts that I chose to make this process simple and enjoyable for me. Hopefully they can give you an idea or two too!
December Daily® 2023 Kick Off | Photo Chat
Let's get this December Daily® party started! Can you believe that December 1st is FRIDAY? All this week,
Ali and Lisa will be live on our @decemberdaily Instagram account chatting about a different December Daily®-themed topic each day. These conversations will happen at the same time each day, 1pm ET. All of our conversations will be recorded and available here to watch/listen to at your convenience.
Monday, 27th: All About Preparation. Find the recording here. Tuesday, 28th: All About Stories. Find the recording here. Wednesday, 29th: All About Photos Thursday, 30th: All About Finishing + Playing With Product Friday, December 1st: Kick-Off + Pep Talk
Here's the recording of yesterday's chat. Thanks so much for those of you that were able to join us.
Here are a few of the resources/links mentioned during Tuesday's conversation:
Storytelling With December Daily® Ali's Amazon shop. Ali's current printers. Our lineup of December Daily® classes.
Please let me know if there was a link I've missed!
November 29, 2023
December Daily® 2023 Kick Off | Stories Chat
Let's get this December Daily® party started! Can you believe that December 1st is FRIDAY? All this week,
Ali and Lisa will be live on our @decemberdaily Instagram account chatting about a different December Daily®-themed topic each day. These conversations will happen at the same time each day, 1pm ET. All of our conversations will be recorded and available here to watch/listen to at your convenience.
Monday, 27th: All About Preparation. Find the recording here.
Tuesday, 28th: All About Stories
Wednesday, 29th: All About Photos
Thursday, 30th: All About Finishing
Friday, December 1st: Kick-Off + Pep Talk
Here's the recording of yesterday's chat. Thanks so much for those of you that were able to join us.
Here are a few of the resources/links mentioned during Tuesday's conversation:
Storytelling With December Daily®Ali's Amazon shop.
Ali's current printers.
Our lineup of December Daily® classes.
Please let me know if there was a link I've missed!
November 28, 2023
December Daily® 2023 | Organization That's Working For Ali
A quick December Daily® video sharing a look at some of the things that are currently working for me to organize my supplies. Organization is like so many other things: you have to find what works for you and know that sometimes it changes based on the season of life you are in (and so many other factors).
Let's dive right in:
Here are a list of the things I share in this video:
Embroidery Floss Boxes: these have been working so great to hold smaller embellishments (such as washi tape, chipboard, etc) 5x7 Boxes: these are great for storing larger embellishments such as the large hearts from this year's collection, tags, story cards, etc. Rolling Cart: love having a cart dedicated to just DD supplies (if you don't have a dedicated craft space in your house this might be a great solution that can be moved around your space Scrapbook.com Organizer Boxes: currently storing puffy stickers, alphas and number stickers, etc December Daily® 2023 Collection
December Daily® 2023 Kick Off | Prep Chat
Let's get this December Daily® party started! Can you believe that December 1st is FRIDAY? All this week, Ali and Lisa will be live on our @decemberdaily Instagram account chatting about a different December Daily®-themed topic each day. These conversations will happen at the same time each day, 1pm ET. All of our conversations will be recorded and available here to watch/listen to at your convenience.
Monday, 27th: All About Preparation Tuesday, 28th: All About Stories Wednesday, 29th: All About Photos Thursday, 30th: All About Finishing Friday, December 1st: Kick-Off + Pep TalkHere's the recording of yesterday's chat. Thanks so much for those of you that were able to join us. Please note the first five minutes of the conversation were not recorded due to at technical glitch.
Here are a few of the resources/links mentioned during Monday's conversation:
Ali's Amazon shop.Ali's current printers.Our lineup of December Daily® classes.Please let me know if there was a link I've missed!
November 24, 2023
December Daily® 2023 | Special Guest Nolana Lynch
Hi Everyone!
I'm so happy to be here with you today to share my December Daily shenanigans!
How fun was Prep Day? I got sidetracked wanting to make all the things!!!
I made a few fun pages before focusing on my topic for this week “Paint on Acetate”!
This has been one of my “Must Try” mixed media techniques for December Daily this year and I'm so happy I had a play with paint, paint pens, stencils, texture pastes etc.
Here's the video of these adventures.
Here are a few photos and the list of supplies I used:
Insert remainder of images here
Supply ListAli Edwards Paints and Stencils
Glitter , Lunar and WhiteTexture Pastes
Wishing you a wonderful holiday weekend!!!
November 17, 2023
In Case You Missed It | November 17
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:
Ten amazing hours, so many fantastic downloads, eight awesome contributors, countless fun moments and a partridge in a pear tree! Our team is always very proud of the value of our $5 Prep Days and this year is no exception! December Daily® 2023 Prep Day is THIS SATURDAY, November 18th, and we are thrilled to share that our finalized schedule is now available! Join the December Daily® community for a fun online prep day with ten hours of incredible content for only $5! Register here.
50% OFF DIGITALS, CLASSES, AND RETIRED DIGITALS
Get 50% off digitals and classes now through Sunday, November 19th at 11:59pm ET. This sale only happens a few times a year! Our Retired Digitals have been brought back for the 50% off event. December Daily® 2023 Digitals and December Daily® 2023 Classes are excluded from the 50% off sale. Files are available immediately upon purchase and saved in your account to access when it's convenient for you. We hope that this sale inspires you to try new ways of getting your stories told.STORY PLAY LITTLE MOMENTS
For the last Story Play week of the year we are focusing on the lens of Little Moments while we seek out the seemingly insignificant moments that are often overlooked, or dismissed. All this week Ali has been on theblog sharing a series of prompts and projects. Find them here.
DECEMBER DAILY® PRODUCT PLAY IS HAPPENING NOW
Class has started in the December Daily® Product Play classroom. It's not too late to sign up! December Daily® Product Play is all about ideas and inspiration for working with physical products from the December Daily® Collection. For 30 days in November, you'll receive one idea per day from the contributors to this class (includes Ali). Ideas in this workshop will focus on physical products from our 2023 December Daily® collection. Whether you are preparing to document 2023 or finishing up telling stories from past years, we hope these fun, creative ideas help you use your products to get your stories told. Register here.
DECEMBER DAILY® DIGITALS
The 2023 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. Want to learn more about creating with digital files? Our newest class December Daily® Hybrid Product Play is live and available to watch at your convenience.We have incredible content from six amazing contributors ready to explore at your convenience. Shop digitals here.
NEW CLASSES
2023 DECEMBER DAILY® PREP DAY. Join the December Daily® community for a fun online December Daily® prep day on Saturday, November 18th, 2023. Use this opportunity to finish past December Daily® projects or start working on your project for 2023. The first live video will start on Saturday, November 18th at 10:00 am Eastern. Cost is $5.
DECEMBER DAILY® PRODUCT PLAY | TRY THIS. December Daily® Product Play is all about ideas and inspiration for working with physical products from the December Daily® Collection. For 30 days in November, you'll receive one idea per day from the contributors to this class (includes Ali). Ideas in this workshop will focus on physical products from our 2023 December Daily® collection. Whether you are preparing to document 2023 or finishing up telling stories from past years, we hope these fun, creative ideas help you use your products to get your stories told.
2023 DECEMBER DAILY® HYBRID PRODUCT PLAY. Hybrid scrapbooking combines digital products with physical supplies to create paper (or printed) memory-keeping projects. For this class, our contributors will share with fun, creative ideas and inspiration for working with these digital products from the 2023 December Daily® Collection.
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!
