Advent with ATDML - Day 13 - December Daily journal

Unlucky for some the 13th, but not for you as we continue with our seasonal craft inspiration and today I am sharing some pages from my December Daily journal. I try and do this journal each year and usually make it about half way through the month and run our of time/steam but this year I am determined to finish!

I have prepared some of my pages in advance so just need to print off the photo for the day, add my journaling and embellishments. I have kept things much more fluid in my album this year by combining 6x8 pages, some which came in a pack from Simple Stories with decorative edges and some I cut myself from kraft paper, with smaller 4x6 pages and also page protectors. I have also added in a couple of postbox cards that I purchased to send but loved them so much I wanted a couple in my album too!

I have also focused more on telling stories this time. Including the leaving up of last years Christmas wreath in the porch all year as I had not taken it down by 12th night and the tale of my husband having to crawl under the paperchains the elf had strung across my sons door for he would not let his dad take them down in case it upset the elf!!

I have combined several collections in my album from Kaisercraft Silent Night to Bo Bunny Merry & Bright and Simple Stories Classic Christmas to Stamping up and then added in just a few embellishments including sequin stars, a pack of star enamel dots, gems and seasonal washi tape. Learning from the last few years I have restricting myself to flatter embellishments in the hope my album will shut at the end of the holidays! 

  

Are you doing a December Daily journal? If you are be sure to share some pages on our Facebook page, we'd love to see them!

Pop back here tomorrow for more inspiration from Karen who has an exploding box with a surprise for us.

Documenting December with the first 7 days....

Here are some of my pages, I have to say having a selphy (or any photo printer for that matter) has revolutionised my ability to keep up with this and helped me not become too overwhelmed by piles of photos and journaled bits and tying them all up to make an album, this way it is just a little bit every few days.  The first page is a 6 by 8" and I treated it a bit like a normal scrapbook page with a photo in one corner (the other side of it will have an introduction page to the album, but I haven't worked out what I want for that part yet.

So our Elf bunji'd in this year and I documented our Advent calendars

For the 2nd, Elfbob was munching biscuits and it was just a regular day for us, so I took everyday photos - I use the album more as a journal for what we do each day in December and who we do it with, as it's fun to look back on, and it's often those small moments you take for granted that you forget about, and are equally nice to be reminded of.

As I wanted some extra journalling I added a half sheet of white cardstock and just decorated it a little bit - I didn't want to cover the 'hello December' card.

Friday and a non-school uniform day as well as Santa visiting our street and the journalling speaks of a Christmas memory when Santa visited before!  I've been trying to use the same red and green washy-tapes on each of the pages to tie it all in.  I use lots of little embellishment clusters using the stickers from Claus and Co to tie it all in, as well as having a little dig in my pile of Christmas stash from past years.

A shopping day, more stickers...and then also a little pocket for some cinema tickets.  Again repeats of the washi tape.

Onto the 6th and another sparkly card that I couldn't cover up!  Lots of journalling and little clusters of embellishments.

So you get day 8 too as I didn't take very many pictures on the 7th....just Elfbob as again it was a routine day!  On the 8th Elfbob made these amazing snowflakes....if you want to have a go at them check out this link there are frozen ones, marvel ones....all sorts and you just print off the template and cut them out - great if you have kids (you will need to it as there is a little craft knife work involved to cut the middle bits)

This is how the rest of my album looks at the moment - just bits of Claus and Co papers (by Simple Stories), as well as some of last years DIY Christmas as they have lots of good base colours.

If you have started your album do come and share it on Facebook or link it here as we'd love to see them.