December Daily Pages: Days 22-26

Read my first post here. Days 1-13 here. Days 14-21 here. Two more pretty low-key days. I love the sparkly snowflakes that I added to the stripe card.

Christmas Eve! Of course we had to do two pages to cover all the fun. And I had to add some journaling to finish everything off.

Getting a present from Santa! Arthur wasn't so sure, but loved his present. I kept the right side of the page pretty clean to balance it out.

Christmas morning. Even though the pictures aren't great, I still had to include all three boys opening their presents. The black letters on the bottoms are very subtly sparkly. A very nice effect.

Christmas Day with the family. There's a lot going on with this page, but I love how the filler cards work with the pictures.

December 26th and the last of our Christmas celebrations. We spent the day at the in-laws. Lots of fun and awesome presents for Arthur. I finally found a place for that "joy" card from the Take Ten Christmas kit.

December Daily Pages: Days 14-21

Read my first post here. Days 1-13 here. A simple layout with some pics for Arthur and the twins. I added a bit of journaling about our days to complete the layout. I love the silver glitter tape under the photos.

Favorite panel from the page: Arthur made some friends at the playground. So cute!

Seems like the days leading up to Christmas have been full of quiet activities. This page features pictures from the playground and the library. My little secret is the presents covering an arrow on the "Deck the Halls" card. Sneaky sneaky.

This may just be my favorite picture in the entire album. He climbed into that rocking chair with the book all by himself. I had to include it!

Last page of the week. After three low key days, we ended with the Buffenbarger Christmas. Love the picture of the twins, my dad, and Arthur all in a row!

2015 Project Life Plans

I started Project Life in 2013 with the birth of my youngest son.  It was a lifesaver.  I wanted to have scrapbooks for all three of my kids, but I just didn't have the time to really sit down and create full page spreads from scratch.  I needed some help.  Enter Project Life.  This scrapbooking system gives me the direction to create nice weekly spreads without a huge amount of time or brain power.  I love it!  Over the past year, I have made two spreads (family and baby album) per week filled with pictures, journaling, and embellishments.

As the year progressed, I have started to think about what works and what doesn't.  After taking some time off my spreads, I have come up with my 2015 plan...

What I'm keeping the same:

• Page Protector Size -- I really love 12x12 size.  I toyed with the idea of sizing down to a 6x8 album, but if I can't do it for December Daily I can't do it for the year. I'm staying big.
• Daily Journaling -- I tried to jot down a little bit of something every day.  It helped when it came time to journal for the albums.  I will be continuing this idea, although I am now going to use a planner to remind me to journal every day.
• Page Protector Design -- I used mostly Design A and loved it.  I am not one of those people that can keep to just one design, but I like having A as my default.  I'll be keeping that aspect while occasionally using other designs and smaller inserts.

What I'm changing:

• Format -- I did weekly spreads in 2014.  They worked out well highlighting the quickly changing nature of the baby.  But how many pictures of chickens at Deer Hollow do I need? Some weeks I struggled to get enough pictures to fill the pockets and some weeks I struggled to cut pictures out. This year, I will be doing monthly sections in the album.  No set number of spreads, no set format. I want to include all our fun and not be concerned about limitations.
• Extras -- I added a little monthly wrap page with my TBR piles and photo a day, but it was restricting.  This year I want to add more interesting photos and features.
• Monthly Card Inserts -- Since i am not doing monthly instead of weekly spreads, I want to create monthly cards.  I spied some cute ones from Simple Stories that I might use.  Or I might create my own...

Aspects to work on:

• Organize card inventory and supplies -- My supplies are everywhere.  As part of my new craft space, I want an area dedicated to PL supplies.  Still debating about how to organize my cards: maybe by color, maybe by theme. But I do know that I want them more visible and accessible.  Being in boxes doesn't inspire.
• Day in the Life -- I would like to try this challenge at some point this year.  Maybe seasonally?
• Week in the Life -- Another challenge I really want to try.
• More Stories -- I wrote down what we did each day in 2014, but not many things were written out as stories.  I want to tell more stories in 2015.
• New ideas from Pinterest -- I have an entire board of PL ideas and never use any of them.  I want to challenge myself to start using these great ideas. Maybe a monthly challenge to myself.

December Daily Pages: Day 1-13

Read my first post here... I jumped into this project with little set plans. So far, this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach has worked.  Every few days I print some pictures and sit down with my travel craft kit.  So far I've almost completed the first 13 days of December.

My favorite part of this spread is the panel below. I love this candid picture of Arthur crawling through the island at my in laws' house.

Obviously I am using a big assortment of papers and embellishments.  My PL spreads don't feature only one kit or card set.  Instead, I love mixing and matching.  The same is true for my DD album.  I pulled all my Christmas supplies to use for this project.

No pictures from the night mom and I saw The Nutcracker, but I had to include the event.  I went with my ticket stub and these fun silver glitter letters.  Love it!

Any cute candid pic of Arthur to include in the album. I even included a few heart stickers despite my more traditional color scheme.

The next few days I took a slightly different approach. Not much journaling, but I love these little pictures.

You might notice that there is a blank insert at the top middle.  Somehow I forgot to print the picture of our Christmas tree. I'll print it on the next go round. I also somehow lost the #9 for the top left insert.  Guess I will have to recreate it once i get home.

Another missing photo. I forgot to print my picture of my Starbucks red cup... Guess I will print it next week.  Other than that, I dedicated the rest of the page to our visit with the reindeer and Santa at the Botanical Gardens.  I love these pictures!

Favorite panel of the page.  Just look at the look on Arthur's face!

December Daily Pages: Cover and Pre-December

As I arrived in Indiana on Nov. 24th, I decided that my DD album would start then... I didn't want to leave out the holiday related festivities just because they happened in November. My cover page isn't completed yet.  I need to capture a good picture of my three boys to add in the bottom right corner.  But otherwise, I love the fun little inserts I made.  My favorite is the top right with all of our names.

The first real page documents the night before Thanksgiving fun.  The city has a big event where they light all the decorations.  The best part is the lighting of Santa and his reindeer.  Arthur was in awe of it. The night was chilly but not freezing (a big change from some years). We even ran into my stepmom, sister, brother-in-law, and brother at the courthouse.  My favorite embellishment is those glitter snowflakes I bought on a whim at Michael's.  They really add to that panel.

Thanksgiving day we watched the parade, had dinner, and went to local hockey game.  Just like we always do.  It was a nice relazing day.  My favorite panel is the pic I caught of Arthur and his Great Grandma Frances. Simple embellishments complete my page.

The last page for today highlights our weekend activities.  The twins and I saw Big Hero 6 and we all went to Science Central to see the train exhibit. Arthur especially loved the water table. I wasn't going to use those reindeer in my album, but they seemed just right for the panel with Arthur's reflection. I'm especially loving the washi tape on this page.

30 Days of Gratitude: Days 26-30

For the first time, I'm participating in 30 Days of Gratitude.  I even joined a FB group with other listers. While many use mini albums to document, I created a simple insert to my regular PL pages. You can see my prep work in this post. Once the month started, I realized that I did't really want the extra duty of picture taking, so I'm going strictly with journaling. I thought I would share my daily cards and a few extra decorative ones.

Day #26: Without modern medicine, I may not have had three healthy children...

Day #27: Happy Thanksgiving! Thinking about all that I am grateful for today.

Day #28: I love leftovers! And I'm grateful be able to have leftovers.

Day #29: Every time I visit Indiana, I have to grab a coney dog from Coney Island.  Grateful for long standing businesses.

Day #30: It is downright cold herein Indiana.  Grateful for central heat to make us nice and warm.

December Daily Prep - Embellishments

All the pretties!  My favorite part of making my DD album has been choosing all the embellishments that I want! I went a little crazy buying some great supplies, but I imagine that some of it can be used for other projects.

Washi Tape, glitter tape, and glitter snowflakes -- I am not a fan of ribbon anymore. Washi tape it my new addiction.  Somehow I narrowed it down to five rolls of washi: gold chevron, black stripe, red polka dot, green design, and red stripe (in another bag right now). In addition to regular washi tape, I had to buy some great glitter tape. I ended up with silver, gold, and red.  A late addition to the stash was this package of glitter chipboard snowflakes from Michaels.  Love the sparkle!

Die cuts, sequins, and punch outs -- Buried in that pile is a few packages of die cuts that coordinate with some of teh paper.  I also punched out a ton of trees and ornaments from the leftover paper stash.  Oh course I had to include the gold sequins and snowflake shaped sequins to the stash.  You can also spy a "Christmas" word flair and a bag of small star, ornament, and tree punched out pieces.  I think I'll use those piece for a confetti pocket... Plus, I have a bag of numbers for the main bulk of December.  I didn't want to adhere them to the paper right away.  I like to have options of switching things around during the process. 

Stickers, alphas, enamel shapes, extra paper, and journaling tags -- I pulled a ton of supplies from my regular PL stash but also bought some new holiday themed stickers. These piles are huge, but I love having options.

Stickers and Alphas -- Lastly, I have a few 12x12 sheets of stickers and alphas that coordinate with the paper collections i bought. This alphas are the perfect size for titles.

30 Days of Gratitude: Days 21-25

For the first time, I'm participating in 30 Days of Gratitude.  I even joined a FB group with other listers. While many use mini albums to document, I created a simple insert to my regular PL pages. You can see my prep work in this post. Once the month started, I realized that I did't really want the extra duty of picture taking, so I'm going strictly with journaling. I thought I would share my daily cards and a few extra decorative ones.

Day #21: Today is moving day!  I'm so excited about getting more space and less neighbors.

Day #22: The view out of our master bedroom is just hills. Gorgeous!

Day #23: Arthur and I are traveling back to Indiana for the holidays.  Thinking a lot about family today.

Day #24: After a long night, we made it to Indiana.

Day #25: Moving companies.  Grateful that we didn't have to move the house ourselves...

December Daily Prep - Base Pages

After much debating, I decided to do 12x12 pages and put them into my regular PL album.  I'm just not a mini album kind of lady. Without further ado, here are my base pages. I used a hodge podge of papers and cut aparts to create the bases. As the month progresses, I will add the embellishments and journaling spots. Other than the first page, I won't decided on the order of the pages until I start documenting. Right now I'm happy to have the paper done...

December Daily Prep - The Big Plan

December Daily -- Oh my! I've wanted to participate in documenting our holiday season for years now, but it always seemed just too far out of reach.  Last year, I switched over to Project Life and thought, maybe this year?  But a 2 month old baby made it very difficult to prepare and think though the project.  So I scrapped that idea. Going into this fall season, I started to seriously think about doing some type of DD album. By September, I was determine that this project would be part of our holiday season. Now on to the hard questions:

Dates

Most people do their DD album from Dec 1st to 25th.  But I knew I would be back in Indiana from Thanksgiving on.  And we have a ton of activities the night before Thanksgiving (hometown tree lighting), the day after (tree decorating), and the weekend after (activities with the twins).  I didn't want to limit my album to just December.  So I've decided to run my DD album from Nov. 24th (when I fly to Indiana) to Dec. 31st. To me that time period is the holiday season.

Size and Format

Most people go with a mini album (6x8 or 6x6).  I pulled out a 6x8 PL album I had bought on clearance awhile back.  It could work...  But as I started planning out the other aspects of DD, I realized that I am not a mini album type of person. I didn't want to be looking through our family PL album and then have to switch over to the mini album for Thanksgiving on. I ultimately decided that I would just dedicate regular 12x12 pages in our PL family album to DD. I'm planning on featuring four days per page protector (two on each side) plus on one page for Thanksgiving activities.  Plus I want to do some type of cover page. Nothing super fancy, but just a little introduction to that section of the album.  I planned it out and they should all fit into our 2014 Volume 2 album. When I get back from Indiana, I'll be all ready to start my 2015 Volume 1 album.

Paper, Embellishments, Stamps, and Washi Tape

Now on to the fun part... I started with gathering my Christmas supplies, but realized that I wasn't in love with most of it.  This led to a huge shopping spree online.  Some of those supplies ended up being dedicated to the three Christmas memories albums I am creating for mom, MIL, and grandma. But I did keep a fair amount just for my album.  I was going to included stamped images (I have a fair amount of Christmas stamps), but that would require hauling them all to Indiana with me and I already have two suitcases full of crap.  Ultimately I decided to stick with journaling, stickers, and other non-stamp embellishments.  I did make sure to pack my washi tape!

Deadlines

I'm not going to stress out about getting every day done every day.  Instead, my goal is to be 80% finished by the time I fly back to California.  I want to do all of the journaling, but if I don't get to the embellishments right away, that's okay. I do want to have all of the pages finished by the end of January.  I think that's doable...