December Daily 2013 Foundation Pages with Reverse Confetti

 

I'm so excited to be joining the Reverse Confetti Design Team again for this month's New Release Blog Hop! I've used a few of the new Reverse Confetti stamps to help get started on a few of the foundation pages for my December Daily album this year. The rest of the Confetti Crew and special guests are using this month's release to inspire you in all sorts of amazing holiday cards and projects. Come and hop along as we share some creative ideas using all the new products from REVERSE CONFETTI, including five new trendy stamp sets and introducing CONFETTI CUTS. That’s right, Reverse Confetti now carries steel dies, and there are 2 sets to choose from this month. So exciting!

The hop started over on the Reverse Confetti blog, and you should have made it here from Stacey Schafer’s blog. It would be worth your while to start at the beginning of the hop, so you don’t miss a thing. We have tons of inspiration for you to see using all the new Reverse Confetti stamp sets! 

If you're not familiar with December Daily, it's an album project - conceptualized by Ali Edwards - that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas (some people start their documentation earlier and many people go longer). This will be my 3rd year creating a December Daily Album and I absolutely love both the process and the final outcome. I'm excited to add these new Reverse Confetti stamps to my large stash of products that I'll be using throughout my album this year. I've found that it's helpful for me to create a few basic foundation pages that I tend to use each year before December begins to help get me both in the holiday spirit and get my mojo flowing. Below is what I've done so far. A few of these items were heavily influenced by Ali Edward's own foundation pages this year, but with my own twist using Reverse Confetti stamps.

For the "Title Page" of my album this year, I added gold glitter to a wood veneer "25", then stamped the adorable "Ho.Ho.Ho." sentiment from Tinsel 'N Trim to a strip of red cardstock to add underneath. I attached both of these to a piece of clear acetate and slipped it into the page protector. You'll notice I'm a fan of keeping some pockets of my album semi-open so you can see the fun elements in / on the next page peeking through.

The next page is just fun. It has a little Christmas Countdown card that I plan to let Dean check off each day as I work on my album (he's a fan of checking things off), then a few individual letters sewn into a pocket for each of our initials (Jennifer, Joel & Dean), and another filler card in the bottom right pocket. But the top right pocket is definitely my fave. I filled it with some sequins and sewed the top closed, then simply stapled what seemed like the perfect sentiment right to the outside of the page protector - "peace, love and sparkly stuff" from Tinsel 'N Trim.

My very first December Daily kit came with several of these fabulous Kraft blank calendar grids and I've used one at the beginning of each of my DD albums for a quick overview of our monthly activities - both Holiday and "normal". I cut down a 6x8 page protector and slipped the calendar in, then sewed up the bottom and side, leaving the top open to easily get it in and out for documenting throughout the month. I stamped the fun "dec. 25" circle from the Tinsel 'N Trim set in Versamark ink and heat embossed in red embossing powder on the 25th to highlight Christmas Day. 

Another DD tradition for me has been to include a "Bucket List" of Holiday-ish activities we plan to do throughout the month. Sometime before December 1, we'll sit down as a family and fill this page with a list of all the fun things we want to do leading up to Christmas this year. Yes, each year the list looks very similar to the previous year's list, but that's OK. We usually end up deleting a few things and adding a few new things. Having a list like this helps us stay focused and reminds us that for our family, the holidays are all about spending time together and spreading joy. I used several goodies from my stash and my Studio Calico December Daily kit along with the Bring on the Merry stamp set to create this blank page that's all ready to be filled in very soon. 

I also took some time to embellish a few blank journaling cards to have on hand to make putting together each day's documentation pages a bit easier during the month. I used different stamps from both the Tinsel 'N Trim and Bring on the Merry to create the cards above and will be making several more in the coming weeks. 

As I'm typing up this post, I'm realizing that I never got around to sharing my completed 2011 or 2012 albums on my blog. If you interested, you can see the cover of my 2012 album HERE and the cover and a few foundation pages of my 2011 album HERE. If there's any interested in seeing some photos of the completed album pages of these albums, please let me know and I'll try to do a blog post sometime in the next few weeks. I do definitely plan to share my 2013 album progress throughout the month of December here on my blog (I find that I usually put the finishing touches on my DD album sometime in mid-January).

So that's it for my project today. I hope you’ve enjoyed hopping with us today. Be sure and hop with the Confetti Crew on the 8th of EVERY MONTH for more REVERSE CONFETTI inspiration! Now it’s time to hop on over to Laurie Schmidlin’s blog. If you get lost along the way, you can find the hop order and list of all the participating designers over on the Reverse Confetti blog.