December Daily 2013 Beginnings - with Reverse Confetti

It's the 8th of the month and I'm so excited to be playing along in another Blog Hop with the Reverse Confetti team! Last month's release was full of holiday magic, as well as some gorgeous everyday sentiments - the perfect combination to help me get started on my 2013 December Daily Album! Today I'll be sharing the first few documentation pages of my album, and I shared the "opening pages" (like the one pictured above) last month using more Reverse Confetti stamps - if you missed that post, you can see it HERE. While I'll be showing ways to incorporate these fun stamps into your December Daily album or other holiday memory keeping projects, the rest of the Confetti Crew and special guests will help you start thinking of those small gifts, tags, treats, or just sweet notes to spread the "Merry" this season!

The hop started over on the Reverse Confetti Blog, and you should have made it here from the fabulous Amy Sheffer's Blog. It would be worth your while to start at the beginning, so you don't miss a thing! And don't forget to leave a little love along the way for a chance to win some Reverse Confetti goodies of your own!

Now, on to my December Daily Album. 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. However, this year I decided to do something a little different. Instead of documenting my month on a true DAILY basis (photo-a-day style), I decided to be more laid back and just create more of a Holiday themed mini-album. I won't do a page per day, but will rather just capture an overview of our holiday memories for the month. So some days may have several pages of documentation and then there will be several days without any documentation. We'll see how this goes this year and then I'll decide which format I prefer going forward. 

The first page of documentation this year highlights the arrival of our family's Elf on the Shelf, Scout. (For all of the following photos, you should be able to click on them to pull up an enlargement to see them a little closer if you want to see any of the detail).

Scout usually brings Dean a special gift (a Lego Advent Calendar) along with a letter basically telling him to be good, or else. I used some fun digital goodies by Emily Merritt on this page, which paired perfectly with that "Special Delivery from the North Pole" stamp from the Reverse Confetti Tinsel 'n Trim set. I stamped that sentiment in Versamark ink and embossed it with silver glittery Zing embossing powder. It looks so fun! I added a few other embellishments and it was done!

The next page features an enlarged photo of Dean at the end of a long day of decorating, when I made him put on those elf ears and take a picture in front of the tree. He refused to smile. The "Don't get your tinsel in a tangle" sentiment from Tinsel 'n Trim seemed fitting! The facing page has four 3x4 pockets. I stamped the "Joy" sentiment inside the red star of an Emily Merritt printable and added the "Ho. Ho. Ho." sentiment to the top of a printable journal card and journaled about the photo of Dean in the elf ears. Both the "Joy" and "Ho. Ho. Ho." sentiments are from Tinsel 'n Trim as well. I added a few wood veneer speech bubble words to the top right pocket and sewed it closed, then added an instagram photo of Dean decorating the tree to a journal card and created the hashtag awesome sentiment with the Arrows 'n Elements set.

And the last layout I'm sharing today continues with our Tree Trimming. I created a simple and fun 3x4 journal card by adding the red diagonal stripes from the So Stripey set to the top of a preprinted "Who, What, When, Where, Why" card by Becky Higgins (it's hard to see in the photo, but those words are along the left side of the card), then filled it in. I also stamped the Picture Perfect sentiment from Tinsel 'n Trim onto another Emily Merritt printable to create a quick & easy filler card. And finally, I enlarged a photo of Dean and I putting some finishing touches on the tree (with a photo bomb from one of our cats - do you see her? LOL) and added a few simple embellishments along with the "bring on the Merry" sentiment I created using the Bring on the Merry set.

And that's it from me today. Now head on over to Sarah Gough's blog. And remember, leave a comment on each stop for a chance to win a $15 gift certificate to Reverse Confetti. Comments are open until Tuesday, December 10th at 2pm CST, and the winner will be announced on the "Wednesday in the Works" post over on the Reverse Confetti blog!

Thanks for hopping along!