Ali Edwards's Blog, page 38
November 6, 2023
December Daily® Storytelling | Special Guest Jill Kane
Hi! My name is Jill Kane and I’m excited to be a part of this blog series. I’ve been a memory keeper for decades and began my tradition of making a December Daily album in 2007.
And I’m going there — to the elephant in the room — with this topic: Grieving while working on December Daily. I know from reading past comments on the AED social accounts that grief touches countless memory keepers. Whether your grief is fresh or it’s something you’re integrating into your life over time, it’s still a part of us. I think of it as the presence sitting next to me.
Like many of us, I’ve been in the throes of new grief and older grief during December Daily time. I completed albums and it wasn’t because I bypassed my feelings and became a December Daily superhero. I was able to make the project work for me through practicing self-compassion, taking breaks, feeling my feelings, leaning on habits and focusing on a variety of supplies and products. Yes, I said it! Sometimes I focused on finding joy from playing with products instead of focusing on my words and photos.
Three grief experiences have intersected with my December Daily practice. The first occurred in early December 2011, when I received a non-renewal (layoff) notice from a job that I loved. The silver lining with this was that my termination wasn’t final until June 2012. Yet it was still a stressful and sad event heaped onto a typically fun and light-hearted season.
In September 2018, my 84-year-old mom experienced a sudden illness that took her life after a two-week hospitalization. She was expected to recover. She and my dad had been married for 62 years and were living independently in the home they moved to in 1958. While he hadn’t been diagnosed — and was clever at downplaying it— my dad was living with dementia. Within four days time, I realized the extent of his cognitive decline and sat next to my mom as she died.
In May 2019, on my daily visit, I found that dad, also at 84, had passed peacefully at home. While not necessarily unexpected, it was a shock to me. I thought his time living with dementia would be much longer. During the eight months between both deaths, I became dad’s care helper. He remained living at their home and I visited him almost every day, helping with meals, laundry, managing his finances and the house. I’m blessed with a connected family and family friends who helped me (and dad) in many ways during these eight months. It was a hard and amazing time, all at once. Truly bittersweet.
I want to acknowledge that loss takes many forms and grief is both individual and shared. And that how I worked on December Daily amidst all of this was something that worked for me. I’ll share more knowing that what worked for me, won’t work for everyone.
Two ideas:
Ask yourself and trust your response to this question: How do you want to feel while you are creating your December Daily project? In 2018, I wanted to feel like I was escaping into a playful world where I didn’t have to face over and over how much this holiday was different from any other in my lifetime. My answer guided my album choice, the products I used and the stories that I included. I wanted the escape of spending time crafting. I knew that if I went down the path of including some stories, my craft time would become crying time. I was at a point with my grief that I wanted a break from crying. Working on December Daily became that time.
Let the products you have help you build pages. Plan pages around products instead of around your words and photos. I feel brave writing this on Ali’s website, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I planned most of the stories I included in 2018 around products, especially from past Story Kits.
This story was from a really hard Sunday afternoon. I wanted to bake dad’s favorite bar cookies. He loved these so much that mom made them throughout the year. I could visualize her standing right where I was in this photo, spreading the chocolate chips into a frosting. I didn’t want to write those words then, and I wanted to show that I was in my walking gear because right after this, I went for a walk. All the products on this page are intentional. The pattern papers remind me of her Christmas table linens. The “finding joy in the doing, “things end,” and “present/past” chipboards were the only words I wanted to build this page around in December 2018. Yet I look at it now and I know exactly what was going on around me in the house and how I felt that afternoon.
Whew! Nothing like keeping it real. Thank you for reading. If you are grieving loss(es), I am so sorry. If you are looking at your new December Daily purchases or your collection of treasured supplies and wondering, “How will I take this on this year?” you are not alone. Listen to yourself. Be true to yourself. Let your mind change. Take your project in a different direction than what you had planned or how you’ve approached it in the past. I believe that our hobbies are sources of joy and ease. If joy feels out of reach, look for ways to find ease in your crafting. Ali’s created a kind community for all of us. Know that you’re not alone this season.
Jill Kane adores all things paper. Right now, she’s still into modern memory keeping and is excited about her growing interest in art journaling and collage. She just launched a new Substack community, Craft Hobby Habits, where she will share more this season about Documenting December & Grief. She’s a Feel Good Effect certified coach (not practicing), nonprofit fundraiser, lover of sunlight, wife to Chip, and cat mom to Eliza.
Instagram: jillkane25
Blog: Craft Hobby Habits
YouTube: jillkane25
November 3, 2023
In Case You Missed It | November 3
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:
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!
December Daily® 2023 | Ali's Pre-December Album Overview
Welcome back to December Daily® 2023!
What I'm showing you in this post is what my album looks like (and the general overall flow) in the beginning of November.
I'm someone who enjoys getting a head start on this project and doing some crafty play before December begins. Remember that there isn't a right or a wrong way to experience this project and the way you approached it last year might be different than how you go about approaching it this year. Let's all celebrate that!
If you are just joining us for the December season make sure to check out our awesome PLAY series we ran in September featuring ideas from Linda Jordan, Pam Baldwin, Lisa Varshine and Jill Drangsholt. There are awesome ideas in those posts for planning, playing with paint, playing with paper, and working on finishing up past projects.
Here's a walkthrough of where I'm at right now:
And here's a look at the individual pages in my album so far:
IDEA: Create a table of contents in the inside cover of your album using the gold rimmed circles from the Main Kit.
IDEA: Create a fun full page shaker introduction page. Get all the details on this page here.
Have you joined our
December Daily® Facebook Group? I've seen some really cool interpretations of this idea in there already! Love seeing how people take a concept as a jumping off point and run with it!
For my Reason Why page this year I went with a full trail of circles.
You can see how that came together here.
I repeated the same circle shapes on the back and added in a "this year I will" list.
For my first story I decided to create a foundation that repeated some of the same circle shapes from my Reason Why page.
You can see how this page came together here.
On the back I added a couple notes to myself as a jumping off point when I go to tell a story.
IDEA: Cut out the full "O" from the vellum joy paper and create a peek-through. It could end up being another shaker element or simply a window into the next part of the album. Most likely I will do this at the same time I work on my first story.
IDEA: Full page photo with journaling on top. Maybe use one of this year's digital layered templates.
Next up I'm planning to use the ornament pattern paper and three of the pocket ornaments from the Main Kit. I don't know yet what story I will tell but this will be my jumping off point.
This page might end up being an extension of my third story or it might be story four. For this one I cut up the ornament transparency and stitched it to the 6x8 page protector holding the 4x6 cards.
I love the gold foil sentiment and may use that as a jumping off point for my storytelling.
On the back I've tucked in a couple felt fours from past years offerings (love having a mixture of these year over year). If I use the front of this one for story four then I'll likely add photos here to support story five.
STORY IDEA: Five things I'm loving this season.
NOTE: I'm waiting to punch the holes on some of these papers in case I might want them to go the other way.
Details on the construction of this one using
the chipboard frames can be found here.
The back of the chipboard frames will be the home for story seven.
STORY: -ing words with the black felt eight from a few years ago. Might pair this with a photo or might leave it on it's own.
NOTE: The next page in my album is a project I put together for our $5 Prep Day coming up on Saturday, November 18th. You can get details on that fun online event here.
NOTE: This was the project I put together for Product Play (the class includes the cut file and step by step instructions).
Story elven will happen in this fun triangle shape. I'm excited to see what I decide to build on top (and what story I'll tell).
I love adding in some 6x8 page protectors into my album. I wanted to create a spread using some of the 4x6 journal cards from the Main Kit so right now I've just got the "loving this season" card in there as a placeholder.
STORY: Additional -ing words to capture more of what's happening around here this season. Paper cards are from the Main Kit and vellum cards are from the Specialty Journal Card pack.
NOTE: Circles are one of my most favorite homes for words and photos. I might cut out the centers of some of these weaths or add circles of photos or words on top. Or maybe I'll make little shaker circles to add on top (more festive fun).
STORY: Use these two cards from the Main Kit to write about the sights and sounds of the Christmas season.
STORY IDEA: Document five moments of delight.
Get all the details of how I created this mini-forest
here. My initial plan is to pair this with a full page photo on the left (the back side of the "more twinkle lights" pattern paper.
I love how the back of my tree forest turned out. I'll build the next story on top of the big page of vellum.
Right now I'm storing punched circles from one of the pattern papers along with
some circles I stamped earlier this season. Loved embossing on vellum for a couple of those circles (and mixing and matching circle stamps).
Planning to use this
page of collaged squares in some way when I document the ornaments I've been making this year. Definitely considering creating some flip ups from my collage of squares.
Next up I've got two of the 4x4 kraft pockets from the Main Kit.
Currently I've got some of the 2x2 plastic tags inside of a 6x8 page projector. This might end up becoming a full page - definitely one I'm keeping very open. I love simply sticking a few in the pockets right now as a reminder that the tags are something I want to play with.
The die cut page insert will be a jumping off point for a story in the second half of the month.
Right now I've got the vellum tag page layered on top of the pattern paper tag page. I haven't punched holes yet to give me more freedom during the month.
Next up I'll be using the tags from the Main Kit and the tags from one of the pattern papers to create some kind of tag booklet that will live inside the vellum striped pocket with the plastic nutcracker on top.
A 10x8 page protector holding one of the die cuts and one of the 4x6 journal cards is next.
When I was working on samples for the collection launch this year I created this
stamped wreath and am planning to use it for story twenty.
STORY IDEA: Use this paper as a home to document favorite gifts this year.
That's where I'm at so far this year! I'm super excited to add to this album throughout the month and I'll be sharing my ideas and stories with you here daily during December.
I've also created an Amazon page that includes many of the basic products I use regularly including printers, paper, etc.
You can check that out here.
December Daily® Main Kit
December Daily® 10x8 Album
December Daily® Advent Calendar
Holiday Phrases Clear Sticker Sheet
Gold Foil Puffy Alpha Stickers
Minc Machine
Gold Foil for Minc
Laser Printer Transparency (to go through the Minc machine)
Embroidery Thread
Grafix Transparent Sheets
December Daily® Paper Die Cut Inserts (digital available)
December Daily® Variety Die Cut Bundle (digital available)
December Daily® Specialty Paper Pack (digital available)
Red Small Plastic Numbers
Brother Sewing Machine
Big Roll of Foam Adhesive
October 31, 2023
Grow Quarterly Scrapbook Kit | Special Guest Denine Zielinski
Hi friends! This is Denine, and I’m thrilled to be here once again to share one of my projects using the Grow Quarterly Scrapbook Kit. On a previous blog post, I shared eight sketches/ideas for how I plan to use this fun kit. You can check that out here. I included a PDF file of my sketches for you to print, as well!
One of my favorite papers from this kit is the Right Now Shapes 7x8.25 paper. I just love the wonky flower shapes, and who doesn’t love the ease of using the directed story papers?
I pretty much stayed true to my original sketch idea with the exception of adding additional smaller photos. I chose not to do that.
Instead, I wanted to just document a little bit about what’s going on in my life right now without any specific photos. The only photo that I used is the one for the background.
Before I printed that background photo, I added “Attitude Gratitude + Grace” word art from the Stories of this Season Class to the left side and reduced the opacity a bit for a more subtle look.
Although I do own a wide format printer, I did not have any large photo paper when I created this spread. I ended up sizing my photo to 14 inches by 8.25 inches in Photoshop Elements and then cropping it to print each side. I cropped the left side of the photo to 7x8.25, printed that, and then did the same for the right side.
I added my journaling directly onto the Right Now Shapes paper in PSE. I used the digital version to work with and then ran the physical paper through my printer. Alternatively, you could print your journaling on sticker paper or just handwrite it yourself.
I fussy cut the wonky flowers out and decided that I wanted to add a 2.5-inch numbered vellum circle on top of each one. (Okay, so I just wanted to play with my new December Daily number stamps…you got me!) I’ve also been playing with different embossing powders and inks as I get ready for December Daily, and I wanted to emboss the numbers with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. With this particular powder, you get a smoother effect by adding several layers. I did only one layer and liked the textured look it created.
I used my tiny attacher to add the vellum to the wonky flowers and then adhered them to my spread with foam adhesive. In hindsight, I would probably have chosen to use regular adhesive as opposed to the foam since it ended up not being very noticeable on top of the photo. Oh well, we live, and we learn, right? To finish this side of the spread, I added a chipboard flower by each one of the numbers.
For the left page, I picked a canvas phrase to place underneath the word grace. I used redline tape to adhere it and then a staple to match the staples on the other page. Oh, and one last chipboard flower, of course, to bring the pages together.
Here is my finished spread:
Here’s a close up of the wonky flowers with the embossed numbers + chipboard flowers:
And here is my journaling that you can read when you flip up each of the numbered vellum circles:
You can see in my process video below how everything came together for me:
Thank you all for joining me as I created this spread with the Grow Quarterly Scrapbook Kit. I hope that you have been inspired to use this kit to just play around and have fun while telling your stories!
Keep your eyes open for other pages from this kit on my Instagram @Denine2 as well as my YouTube channel @Denine2. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions about this spread or any of my other sketches. Happy storytelling, my friends!
Grow Quarterly Scrapbook Kit | Special Guest Linda Jordan
Hi there! This is Linda and I’m so excited to be here today to share with you my process for putting together a project using the Grow Quarterly Scrapbook Kit. I love this kit because it has a very loose theme, Grow, which is great for outdoor stories, plant stories, and children/life growth stories! But, it’s also very loosely themed so you can use this kit to tell most stories. In an earlier post, I planned out ten projects using this kit. If you missed that post you can find it here.
Today I decided to use this kit to tell the story of a hike I went on to see a waterfall. I was super inspired by the gorgeous 12x12 plant print that looks somewhat tropical to me, perfect for a waterfall hike! I forgot to take a photo of it by itself before I created my page, but you can see it in the below image behind my journal.
I keep a 9x12 ongoing stories album that I add to every so often. I decided adding this story into that album was perfect because I wanted to create a larger page to hold more photos and really get the most out of this paper.
Back when I sketched out this project, I decided I would use this gorgeous paper as a decorative page to hold my title. On the other page, I would include a grid of photos + words + patterned paper and one of the window pockets.
This project was the third one I sketched out in my initial planning session. You can see the plan in the photo below. You can also see that I’ve checked off a few of the other projects already, I talk more about that in my video (or you can see those projects on my instagram).
The first step was to work on my computer. Note: I ended up using quite a few tools in Photoshop to make this work. I tried to simplify my explanation so hopefully this will make sense regardless of your skill level or the program you are using. If you are a beginner I would 100% suggest taking a hybrid or digital class to learn the basics, plus there are lots of free tutorial videos on youtube for whatever software you use. But, if you have specific questions related to my tutorial, feel free to leave them below and I will try my best to answer!
I started by creating a 9x12 canvas in Photoshop and adding my photos (the left image in the below photo of my screen). The plan was to lay out my digital elements on this canvas in a make shift grid to get an idea of sizing/spacing for my physical page. This is not my actual project, because I am going to put it together in physical form, but just a mock up to give me an idea of how large I wanted to print my elements.
For photos, I dragged in the photos from my folder on my computer that I wanted to use. I used the photoshop tools to brighten some of the images, but most of them were already edited using the Color Story app on my phone at the time I went for the hike (to share on instagram stories). When the photos weren’t the dimensions I wanted, I created a rectangle shape in photoshop to the dimensions I wanted, and then used the clipping mask function to add my photos into the rectangle.
For the photo I included inside the window I added guide lines (the blue lines) to get a feel for how wide the window would be. I ended up including it in a different spot on my finished page, but this way I knew I’d have enough room to include everything I printed on my page. To fit inside the window, I sized my photo 1.5 x 1.5 inches and trimmed slightly smaller than this. (Note: I also printed a small photo to fit inside the window, but I had to omit it here for privacy.)
I also typed up my journaling in a block that would fit on the page. Once I was happy with the layout of everything I needed to print for this page, I opened a second document.
My second file (seen on the right side of the photo above) is my print page. This is an 8x5 x 11 canvas, which is the size of photo paper/printer paper that I use. I needed to print out two print pages for this project. One, to hold the items that would be printed on luster photo paper (the photos) and two, to hold the items that would be printed on matte photo paper.
In the photo above, you can see what I printed on matte photo paper. This included the journaling and letters for the title. To add the journaling, I simply dragged and dropped it from my mock up page to the print page.
To create the title, I found a font that I liked, typed out the letters I needed, and sized the letters to be the size I would want. I arranged the letters on the page so they would all fit, no need to be in the correct order since I planned to cut them out.
Once I had finished typing out the letters, they were solid black. I wanted them to be white for my page, so I rasterized the layers (so they were no longer editable text), then used the wand tool to select each one, contract the selection by 5 pixels, and then cut out the center. This left me with an outlined letter.
You will see below that I end up cutting out these letters and using the ones I printed. But you can use this same technique if you want to print letters to use as a template to hand cut them out of a different paper. Even if you’re doing this, you would want the letters to be white to save ink.
To print my photos, I deleted everything from the print page (after printing it out) and then dragged and dropped my photos onto the print page. I had to rotate/rearrange them to fit, but I was able to get them all on one page to print.
Then I got to putting together my project! In the video, I walk through my process for assembling this page.
And then here is a look at the completed project:
I’m thrilled to have this story told and living in my stories album. I hope you enjoyed my process and that this helped give you the nudge to pull out your Grow Scrapbook Kit and get crafting!
If you want to see more of my projects, you can find me over on instagram and on my YouTube.
October 27, 2023
December Daily® 2023 | Ali's Foundation Page Idea 02
One of the stories I know I am going to want to tell in my December Daily® this year will be the story of colorful lights on our tree.
For this foundation page I started with the die cut tree from the Die Cut Page Insert Pack and one of the 4x6 journal cards from the Main Kit. Because one of my intentions this year is colorful, festive fun I decided to grab the 6x8 Tree Stamp and a selection of inks and create a mini forest of colorful trees that could be adhered to the top of the journal card.
Check out the video to see how this foundation page evolved:
And here's a closer look via photos:
I'll add something to the back of the tree and on the front of the journaling card during December. I'm also initially planning to pair this with a full page photo to the left.
I'm using a Attacher Sticker to add this card to my album.
This page started with using the large tree stamp. To bring in some color I played around with stamping the tree using two different colors per tree and I seriously loved how that looked. They were inspired by these super cute ornaments I recently pinned to Pinterest. I used McKenzie, Willamette, Rose Garden, Redwoods, and Honeyman.
After stamping the trees I cut them out using scissors and reminded myself that IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE PERFECT.
After the colorful trees were done I stamped and embossed two smaller trees using gold and red embossing powder on vellum.
I layered the vellum trees on top of the stamped trees and stapled them together on the bottom. I added one of the dark green chipboard phrases and added a gold glitter star from the Sticker Advent Calendar.
I used a strip of red line tape to adhere the mini forest behind the 4x6 journal card.
BIG NOTE: Learn from my mistakes and if you want to do anything to the backs of the large trees do it before you adhere and staple. Ha. It's all good.
While creating my mini forest I decided to take care of the back of the trees now vs. waiting until December.
On the backs of the two outside trees I used the text silkscreen and the red and green paint from our paint pack. Much, much easier to do this before you attach the trees together but I made it work.
For the middle tree I stamped and embossed in gold on vellum and adhered that to the back of the other tree.
On top of the three large stamps I added two of the felt tress from the Main Kit and the pleather Fa La La heart sticker from the Advent Calendar.
Rather than leaving the back of the 4 inch x 6 inch journal card open I decided to add the Dear Santa vellum from the Specialty Journal Card Set and another mix of sequins from . This time I just used red line tape around the outside edge to hold the squins in place.
I super love how this turned it! So fun + festive.
December Daily® Main Kit
December Daily® 10x8 Album
December Daily® Die Cut Inserts (digital available)
December Daily® Sticker Advent Calendar
December Daily® Specialty Journal Card Pack (digital available)
6x8 Tree Stamp
Gold Embossing Powder
Red Embossing Powder
Versamark Embossing Ink
AED Inks: McKenzie (dark green), Willamette (light green), Redwoods (red), Rose Garden (pink), Honeyman (yellow)
Vellum
Attacher Stickers
AED Paint Pack
December Daily® Silkscreen
Red Line Tape
(restock coming November 4th)
In Case You Missed It | October 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:
Buy our 2023 Halloween Kit before 11:59pm tonight, 10/27, and receive the Halloween Painted Wood Veneer Pack free! Cart must include a physical Halloween Kit at checkout and the Halloween Painted Wood Veneer Pack will be automatically added to your cart for free when you enter the promo code TREAT4YOU. We can’t wait to see your spookiest stories! Shop the kit now via the link in our bio. Terms: Offer valid through 11:59pm ET on 10/27/23. Shop the kit 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 today. 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!
October 26, 2023
December Daily® 2023 | Foundation Page Ideas 01
Welcome back to another December Daily® 2023 post!
This year I'm sharing my foundation pages a bit differently than I have in the past by breaking up it up into a few posts vs. one big post.
So far I've shared the following:
Reason Why + Intro Page Simple Collage Square Page Idea
In this post I'l be sharing two foundation page ideas and then I'll be back with another post soon sharing a few more ideas along with a look at all the things I've pulled out that I think I'd like to play around with in December. In that post I'll share images of what I'm planning and the general flow of my album at this point. What feels the most fun for me this year is to keep things a little more loose heading into December which will give me more creative freedom going into the month (which is similar to how I approached it last year).
Check out the video below for some foundation page thoughts + a flip through of some of the things I've got in my album so far along with step by steps for today's page ideas:
As I was looking at what I might want to do as a foundation for my first story I couldn't help looking at the back of my Reason Why/Intro page and the circle trail. I decided to create a mirror image of the 1/2 circle and the large wreath (from the Main Kit). I used the Noel 1/2 circle from the Die Cut Page Insert pack + one of the wreaths + a pattern paper from last year from my stash + the awesome dark green chipboard phrase from the Main Kit + an embossed number 1 on the pattern paper. I also added a chipboard star from the Sticker Advent Calendar.
Here's a look at the back:
Knowing that I would see the back of the wreath when I add my words + photo(s) I went ahead and used a dotted stencil and gold embossing powder.
On the first of December - when it comes time to tell a story - I'll likely add journaling onto a 3.5 inch circle and add a 1/2 circle photo and call it good (or a 3 inch circle photo and longer journaling). This is what I love about foundation pages - I get to do some of the work in advance and then focus on the words/photos in December.
In this case I even hand wrote on the backs to help me remember what my initial intentions were (even if I change it up a bit on December 1st).
IDEA 02
The second page foundation page I put together features the chipboard frames.
I love a good grid set up and arranging six of these together is a great way to create some homes for words, photos and/or embellishments.
I laid these all out upside down and used scotch tape to temporarily adhere them before running them through my sewing machine and added a zigzag stitch with a fun green thread.
Along the left edge I added a plastic page attacher (you could also use the attacher stickers for this or simply adhere the group onto a piece of transparency and punch holes in order to add it to your album). Along the outside edge I adhered dark green pom trim with red line tape.
Right now I've got the "people, places, + things" card from the Main Kit inside one of the frames and I might use that as the jumping off point for my story. It would be wonderfully simple to add a combination of words + photos right behind each frame.
Have you started playing yet?
Don't forget that our Product Play workshop starts next week that includes 30 days of ideas for using items from our December Daily® collection this year.
SUPPLIESDecember Daily® Main Kit 6 inch x 6 inch Square Dot Stencil Pom Pom Trim December Daily® Chipboard FramesPage Attacher (another option are the attacher stickers) Versamark Embossing Ink Gold Embossing Powder Paper Pouncer Snappy Tray Heat Gun 3.5 Inch Circle Punch Number Stamp Set Red Line Tape
December Daily® 2023 | Revisiting Ali's Pages 01
Hello friends! This is Lisa. Today I thought it might be fun to share some of my all-time favorite December Daily® pages created by Ali. My original thought was to put together my personal top ten favorites, but I quickly realized after looking through nearly 15 years of pages that she's shared here on the blog...it would be impossible to narrow it down. Instead I'm going to share some of my favorite page designs using circles and tags. Even narrowing those down was tricky! For those of you that are new to the community, Ali has been sharing her December Daily® pages on an almost daily basis since 2007. The inspiration available from her here is endless. You can find those posts by searching the tag "December Daily®". Each of her daily posts incudes a process video, her thoughts on the page and story, as well as multiple photos. Let's dive in!
December Daily® 2020 | Story Thirteen
December Daily® 2021 | Story 08 + December Daily® 2021 | Story 09
December Daily® 2021 | Story 11
December Daily® 2022 | Ali's Album Start
December Daily® 2023 | Ali's Start + Reason Why
December Daily® 2018 | Day Twenty-Three
December Daily® 2022 | Story 20
December Daily® 2018 | Day Twenty
December Daily® 2018 | Tag Book Bonus Video
I had a lot of fun going back through Ali's pages and have lots of ideas I want to try and translate to my own albums. Do you have any favorite Ali circle or tag pages you think I should have included? Please share in the comments! Don't forget that each of these posts includes her process videos, thoughts on her stories, as well as additional photos.
Shop the collection
here. Join a group of like-minded and passionate crafters in our December Daily® With Ali Edwards Design Inc Facebook group. Find inspiration and updates over on our official Instagram account: @decemberdaily. And check out our newest December Daily® classes for a wide variety of topics related to the project:
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.
October 25, 2023
December Daily® 2023 | Ali's Collage Of Squares Foundation Page Idea
Last night I was wanting to do a little clean up here in my office but I got distracted by a simple idea to use a 2 inch punch to create a bunch of squares that could be used as a foundation page in my
December Daily® project. I grabbed my 2x2 inch Passport Punch and got to work punching + gluing squares (using a glue stick - so easy) to a sheet of 8.5 inch x 11 inch piece of cardstock.
Here's a look at how this came together:
I used collage papers I've been creating over the last few months for my ornament project. I've shared a couple posts about that project already including my
and . I'm still working on making more ornaments and I'll share again when I have more completed.
For this simple foundation you could use pattern papers, scrap papers from your stash, or even cut up something such as Christmas cards or catalogs that come in the mail. Most likely I'll pair this foundation with a story about making all my collage ornaments this season.
After I punched, adhered and let it sit overnight I ended up trimming this down to 10 inches x 8 inches. When I use this to support my story in December I'll punch the holes (waiting to punch the holes gives me a little more freedom to make additional decisions during the month.
December Daily® Paints December Daily® Stencils December Daily® Silkscreens 2 Inch Passport Punch UHU glue stick Deli Sheets
