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!

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.