December Daily 2012

It took me less than a year, folks! I don't think there's a single crafter out there who would consider themselves "caught up". So I'm not ashamed to say I just finished last year's December Daily album. I'm actually pretty proud I finished it before starting on this year's album. I've been trying to make a conscience effort to finish what I start or to stay more on top of things. Planning for this year's December album has already started. I know what book cover I'm using, the paper line has been chosen, and I've started a Pinterest board of some of the activities I want to do. It's actually a good resource since it links up to the original websites so it'll make it easier to check times and schedules for different events. I realize it's only September, but I'm a fan of making lists and I love the joy of the holidays. (If life was a cartoon, this is where I'd be holding hands with family and friends while circling a Christmas tree and swaying back and forth.)

Anyhow, here's a few pictures of my album as proof that I actually finished something. The papers and embellishments are pretty much all October Afternoon. They came out with a December Daily kit last year and it was awesome! It included a 8x8 paper pad, the mini book with pages and covers, TONS of embellishments, and a stamp set. Definitely worth the money.

The cover was just chipboard so I used a brown paint dauber and gave it a wood look.

 

The album came with dividers which I used to separate the weeks.



This day was 12/12/12 so I decided to go big and do twelve Christmas-y things in one day. I had to hustle to fit it all in, but it was fun to do.

A few times I was able to copy and shrink the program from that day's activity for the book (like this one for Christmas at the Zoo). I like adding the interactive element and being able show more detail about what we did.

The "cookies" page was a flashcard from October Afternoon. It was great for adding more journaling on the backside. Plus, it's cute.

This "mini" album ended up being pretty full. I had to replace the rings that came with the book with shower curtain rings. It just goes to show we had a lot of fun during the holidays.

I've Got the Blues

Happy CHA! It's exciting to see all the new paper lines that'll be coming out... it's also going to be a lesson in self control. Seriously, who needs to purchase three different Christmas lines in one year? Been there, done that. So this year I'm going to do better. *crosses fingers* I already didn't buy any 4th of July papers, I went last year without buying Halloween paper, and the goal is the same for this year. Anyhow, circling back around to CHA; Two Peas in a Bucket has challenges up now to go along with CHA. I saw the posting Wednesday night and I'm proud to say I finished a page last night for the first challenge of "use one color". I'm a sucker for water paper and most things blue so it seemed like a good jumping off point. Plus, we took a trip to the Dunes over 4th of July so I had some nice beach pictures.

The paper is Echo Park's "A Perfect Summer" and a piece from October Afternoon's "Midway". For the challenge you could use neutrals too so I mixed in kraft stickers from Crate's "Pier" line and the little wooden sailboat from Studio Calico.

Usually everything gets inked with my Chestnut Roan chalk ink, but this time I brushed a white paint dauber along all the edges. The paint reminds me of white caps and then the splatters make me think of ocean spray. Isn't it amazing sometimes how much thought goes into our pages?

 

 

Twelve pages down... one million to go. (Maybe not a MILLION, but you know what I mean)

 

 

This is what 12 finished pages after a scrapbook retreat looks like. The weekend at Quaker Haven was probably the best birthday I've had in awhile. I was with one of my best friends, her mom, and my mom. Plus on my birthday I received text messages and phone calls from some of my favorite people. The weekend was cold and rainy most of the time, but the lake really needed the rain so I didn't mind at all. Truthfully, it was like an extra birthday present. Nothings better than being at the lake scrapbooking so I'm already looking forward to the fall retreat.

Here's a quick rundown of the pages I finished over that weekend. Figured I'd show them in one big swoop, otherwise I might never get them all posted.



1990's Spring Break page using Echo Park's "Paradise Beach" line.

 

Page using My Mind's Eye.

Disney page using My Mind's Eye "Boy Crazy" line.

Universal Studios page using Basic Grey's "Bowties".

Another Universal Studios page with "Bowties".

 

Page about my mom when she was little using Echo Park's "Sweet Girl" line.

Simple Stories line from last summer.

October Afternoon's "Cakewalk" line.

October Afternoon's "Midway" line. LOVE these papers!

October Afternoon's "9 to 5" line.

Crate Paper's "Pretty Party" line.

I'm really proud of how this page turned out. It's a mixture of paper lines because I knew I wanted it to be yellow and blue, so I went "shopping" thru my papers. It uses some Crate Paper "Random", Fancy Pants, My Mind's Eye, and vellum from a Dear Lizzy Line. The splatters are from Heidi Swapp (her gold spray) and then more gold embellishments from Dear Lizzy and American crafts were added. It just plain makes me happy. :)

Project 12: April

It seems like each month, the due date for Project 12 keeps coming sooner and sooner. I finally managed to get April finished (except for an insert I have planned about my birthday). It's funny this month how many pictures ended up having to do with my yard. It's the first spring in my house so I guess it makes sense.

 

The left hand side is basically all about my yard. The title spot is from a crazy storm we had with wind, rain, hail, and then a rainbow across my backyard. Then my dad and I made a trip to Home Depot to get supplies for some outside projects. The highlight of the yard topics though is my new riding mower, Maybelle. I may have screeched the first time Dad gave me a driving lesson on it, but now it's a lot of fun. The paper I used is October Afternoon's "Sidewalks" collection.

October Afternoon stickers for the title and journaling spot.

 

A mixture of Jillibean Soup and October Afternoon stickers.

 

The right hand page is all about a weekend scrapbooking retreat I went to. It was held at the same place where our lake cottage is so that's why I used the outdoors-y paper. The paper is October Afternoon's "Campfire" line. I still have my insert to do, but I have a good plan for it so hopefully won't take too long to put together. It's going to use another October Afternoon line.

Project 12: February

I was so excited to do February's layout, I may have started working on it before February was even over. There was only one photo that needed to be added in from the last week, so my plan pretty much stayed the same from how I wanted it. The papers for this month are from Crate Paper's Valentine line from last year. I don't normally use a lot of pink, so I took the opportunity to make a very frilly layout and talk about all the things I love right now. That's exactly what the 6x12 panel is on the left. Sometimes in 12x12 layouts I don't leave space to say everything I want to, so I'm trying to do more storytelling throughout my Project 12 layouts. 

 

 

 

Here's a detail of the left hand page. I mixed in lots of October Afternoon mini market stickers (my favorite!) for captions and titles.

 

 

Title card: detail picture of candy hearts with a Crate border sticker and October Afternoon letter stickers from their "Midway" line. Plus stitching, or course.

 

 

I made these little numbers with my Cameo. Wanted to use something other than stickers or just writing them.

 

 

Here's the right hand page. The "love this" frame was made on my Cameo too. It was a very scrappy month so I wanted to highlight that on this page. Two trips to scrap mania with my mom, an afternoon scrapping with friends, plus an employee crop. Not to mention all the new papers coming in from CHA. It's like a paper heaven right now and I love it!

 

 

Two fun family events happened this month too and I was worried I'd either have to cram too much in or have too much empty space so I used a 6X12 insert that holds 4x6 photos. The convenient part about 3 ring binder albums is the hole placement is standard on the page protectors so you can mix and match. I use We R Memory Keepers pages for the 12x12 divided sections, but this 6x12 insert is American Crafts and it still fits in my album. If I ever need to do an 8 1/2X11 page, it'll still fit too. So one side of the insert is for the hockey game we went to and the other side is for when my dad and I went to the PBR event. 

 

We've been going to hockey games for a long time, but I've never really scrapbooked them before so I used this insert to talk about my favorite parts of hockey games. This means three 4x6 sections wasn't going to be quite enough room, so I cut a panel from another divider and stitched it on top of this one for extra space. This gave me five sections to work with for this event without having to add a whole other page.
 

I'm really excited with how it turned out. It gave me the perfect amount of space to include everything I wanted to. Might have to think of more ways to do this in the future.

 

One paper line, Four pages

My goal recently was to finish up some 'in progress' pages that just needed the finishing details. I'm happy to report I was able to put three pages into my album last night. The funny thing is I realized two of them used October Afternoon's "Sidewalks" line. Then I flipped through my book a little further back and noticed a total of four in the past ten or so pages were from that line. I think I'm a fan. Even after making these four pages, I still have quite a few papers left from the line. It'll be fun to see how many more pages I can come up with.

This first one I posted just recently, but I wanted to show it with the others. I love how they all have the same pretty colors, but each one also has it's own feel because of the different patterns used. The first is very sweet and girlie.

The next one I did about my Grandma. Every summer at Quaker Haven Camp, they'd have "Keen Age Camp" and Grandma always looked forward to it. I'm pretty sure she went every year. We have a stack of group photos of the campers and it's always fun going through and playing the game of "Where's Grandma?". I love how fun and cheerful this page turned out. It helps show how much fun Grandma had up at the lake with her friends. It makes me smile thinking about it.

The third page is about my Grandpa. I like how this one has a fun, vintage feel without being super girlie. So it suits being used for a page about my Grandpa being silly.

This last one is about my mom and Uncle Ed playing at their Aunt Lulu's house. It's another sweet, happy page. It was fun using the floral paper since it's a pattern I don't usually know how to use. It fits well with them being outside in the photos. I was also excited for a reason to use the geese stickers. They were a perfect fit. I also got to use my Silhouette Cameo for the title. I have to admit though, I picked out the font partially because of the font's name (just like paint colors). It's called lobster so I couldn't resist. I did really like that it was a cursive font. I just had to 'weld' it and it cut out in one long piece, minus the "P".

Isn't She Cute

As promised to my Mom, a page about her. Trying to even up the scrapbook ratio between Mom pages and Dad pages. It also gave me the opportunity to use some of my cute girlie paper. This time it's October Afternoon's "Sidewalks" line. I even used a combination of 12x12 and 8x8 paper. The floral pattern and the strip below the photo is from the 8x8 pack. It's perfect because the patterns are scaled down so it's easier for me to use.



I love pictures of my mom when she was little. Her hair is usually in curls and she's always in cute little dresses.



Lately I've added vellum to a few pages. I matted the photo with it and then pop dotted the whole thing to the page to add an extra layer. I like how it adds more texture without adding more color. The edge is roughed up too to help make it more noticeable.



Here's a close up of the cute chipboard banner. I also added little bows from pink and yellow bakers twine for more detail and texture. Everything's inked too, of course.