This will be my fifth year doing a December album of sorts. I started doing Shimelle's class and gradually moved into more of a December Daily mode. I love both ways of doing it and sometimes combine both in my album now. What I noticed while taking out and looking over my past lbums this year is...I don't love all of them. In fact, the last few years my albums have gradually gotten thicker but I don't feel as they are as good as the first few years I did this type of album. This year I decided to streamline my entire approach and make it much simpler for me. So far, I love how it is coming out. I hope I keep up with it.
For my album I used this one in the shop. I painted it white and then using my silhouette I cut out some fabric I ironed to a piece of heat bond. I know silhouette carries a fabric interfacing, but I could not find it in stock anywhere at the time I was doing this (and I kinda didn't want to wait for it to arrive either). It is holding up well and I am love how it turned out.
For the design I took measurements of the spine and drew a rectangle the size.
I chose some doily shapes from the silhouette store and placed them overlapping my spine piece. I was originally going to use snowflake designs but I ended up liking these doily designs best.
To combine the shapes I selected all of them and clicked on the weld button. Easy as that.
I ran the fabric through my sewing machine to give it a little interest along the spine, then I ironed on the fabric to the chipboard binder (after painting it and removing the spine). After putting the album back together I added the December 2011 button I am putting in all orders. The only thing I would have changed is made the spine piece a little wider to overlap the front more. Other than that I really love it.
My set up for my album is a baseball protector (cut down to 4 squares) and a full size page protector for each day. Because I started with the baseball protector, I was able to use the first side for an introduction page. The bottom right corner is empty still because I want to add a photo sometime during the month of our family.
This is how the album lays out for one day. You will see the next day is just reversed (baseball page protector on the right, full size on the left). Doing it this way drastically reduced the amount of pages I will have- so that reduced the need for as much content and the thickness it will be in the end. Just what I wanted. For the template I wanted to use Ali's December Daily templates but because the page protectors I bought are 5.5 x 8.5 it would not work. Instead I drew out a skeleton of a template and am stamping in the number and day.
Here is a closer look at the left side.
For day two I typed onto my template: Do you see what I see, Do you hear what I hear, (and) Do you know what I know. Then I wrote in different things I have been seeing, hearing or 'knowing' lately. I love how it turned out. I got the idea listening to Christmas music in the car...probably will keep my ears open for more of these types of 'journaling prompts'.
It's really hard to see in photos, but for the 'Do you' part I printed it in an dotted outline and then filled it in with a glue pen and sprinkled a white glitter on it. This is my favorite page so far :)
For day three I focused on photos I took of Jude playing with toys. Lately I have noticed him playing quietly with himself more and because of this I am very excited for him to open his gifts.
I don't have day four done yet, but I thought I would use this page to show how my album is set up for each day. I have each template printed and then I go in and stamp the number and day in (both stamps are from 7 Gypsies). Then the baseball card protector has a transparency with a number tag sewn to it. The number tag for on day is sewn on one side and for the next day on the other side (so on this page you see day 4 but on the other side is day 5). Then I fill in the remaining spots with journaling, photos, embellishments or emphemera. Easy. I made a few filler pieces (as seen above with the story tag- which I trimmed down from the original size). These pieces are thrown throughout the album and I can move them if I want to but this way I have some pieces done in case I need to fill in anything.
When I am all finished, I will probably tie a ribbon around the entire album. I might also add something in the front or back of the interior- not quite sure yet.
How are your December Daily's going?
I would love to see some of them so please share in the comments any links you might have!
-Kaitlin
