Week of Christmas crafts: Day 3

Today's craft is a December Daily album. Now....before any of you say, "yuck....scrapbooking", let me tell you how incredibly simple this project can be. It can be as elaborate or as easy-peasy as you want it to be. This idea comes from Ali Edwards, creative extraordinaire, and it's all documented on her blog. Quite simply, a December Daily album is somewhere to record/keep everything that you or your family do in the month of December to celebrate Christmas. All the parties, traditions, family get-togethers, shopping, list making, tree trimming, singing, and all out merriment produce lots of pictures, cards, invitations, letters to Santa, etc. and this is a place for you to house all of that 'stuff''.

Here's a couple of pics from some cover designs by Ali: And some of her interior pages.

And here's what I used to make the concept my own, while simplifying the whole "putting the album together" process. I'm using ready made stuff, so basically all I had to do was punch a few numbers out and stick my pages in a little handy dandy binder.

Pictured above are some Christmas embellishments from my scrapbook stash, a tiny stapler, some scissors, the binder and pages/pockets I'm using for my album (purchased at Target), and some FREE December daily printables I found online. That's right folks. F-R-E-E.

Here's a closer look at the album and pages. It's an 8 x 6 album called KIT. (Keeping It Together) Clever, isn't it? Anyways...I bought an album (they come in several colors/patterns), pocket pages, regular pages with subject/date at the top, and some business card pages which I'm planning to use for pics that I print in wallet size. And again... it all came from Tar-jay.

Here's a closer look at some of thoses free printables. The one on top I found on Ormolou's site. Here's the link: Ormolou free December Daily printables

If clicking on the image doesn't automatically make it larger and give you the option to print, save image as a 'target', not a picture, and try that. It worked one way on my laptop and another on my desktop. Go figure.

The next free printable I found came from Creativityprompt.com

Here's a closer look at those:

I used a circle punch to cut out the numbers (you could, of course, cut them by hand) and am using them on each of my pages.

Here's a pic of a cute mitten clip I found. It's random and just really cute. Had to share. Moving along...
Here's my title page. See? Super simple-

the foundation is craft paper, again- from my stash. My goal was to really use stuff I already had on hand. Basically the only thing purchased for this was the album and pages. I actually could have used cardstock or copy paper cut down to 6 x 8 pages to have stayed even more on the cheap, but ah well....

The only things added to title page were a giant M sticker (for Mathews) from my stash,

a tiny little clear star which I stapled on,

and the December Daily ticket from one of my free printables.

Did I mention those babies were free?

After my title page, I added an envelope from one of those Christmas embellishment kits I already had. I'm going to keep Oliver's list of things he's wishing for this year because, not only will it be cool to keep forever and ever, but will also be a sample of his handwriting from this year.

Here's day one, with the date circle attached at the top with a mini staple. simple simple

I'm going to sporadically include patterned Christmas paper throughout, because it's pretty and I have tons of it in my stash.

Next page has a date circle and a Holly Jolly Christmas from, again, a free printable.

Next is one of the pocket pages and my 25th day page. The vintage santa image is from my stash and the other is from one of the printables. It was free, by the way.

I attached the date circles to 25 pages in my book, but the other elements will be placed inside as their needed. For example, I know I'll take pics of O's Christmas program at church, so I'll probably add extra picture pages/pockets on that date. Another great thing about this project is you can add to or take away anything that you need and make changes as you go. You could use a traditional scrapbook for this in any size, a 3-ring binder, you could even use planner pages. Ever whatcha want. After reading about a December Daily on Ali's blog a few years ago, I've made plans to make one each year but have never followed through. Now that it's done and literally took me about 30 minutes to put together, I have NO excuses. I'm looking forward to not only recording my family's memories this year, but having this album to look at years down the road as well. And remember, you can journal about each day as little or as much as you'd like. I didn't even talk about that part- journaling is SO important (I think) but can be as little as, "decorating the Christmas tree", next to a picture of your family doing just that, OR you can go on for pages about your decorating process, what your favorite decorations are, etc. Completely up to you. Here's the link to Ali's blog again so that you can check out all of her posts on the subject. There are LOTS.

Now, this next section is just for my kiddos grandmas. Since I know they only read this blog for pics or stories about their grandchildren, here ya go Ma'am and MawMaw...

Sweet MM in her pack n play. What ever would we do without pack n play's?

E and O last night. Not quite sure what O was doing here.

Potatohead creation last night.

And E at breakfast this morning. I moved our table and one of the chairs from the living room into the foyer so there would be less distractions and she ate her entire breakfast here. So cute. I love that her feet are so far from the floor.

A Hot Mess...

is what we've got going on in the bedroom. My closets have, ummm....exploded. This is what happens when A) you've been pregnant for 2 years in a row and have a plethora, yes a PLETHORA of sizes in your closet. There's the comfy not-really-maternity-clothes-but-almost category, the I-hope-to-be-this-skinny-again-someday category that of course I'm hanging on to because, well....I'm still holding onto the chance that I can lose more weight, and the newly-purchased-in-my-current-size clothes. They're everywhere now. Everywhere. I need to have some major clean-out this weekend, and you know what? That excites me to no end. I used to clean out and re-organize my closet for fun all the time when I was in high school. Yep. That was me. But I digress....see that ginormous Lego spaceship on the dresser? It's there because a little one-year old is really into demolition mode on anything that can come apart, so this is its new (temporary) home since it can no longer live on the hearth in the den. The shoes spilling out of the closet on the right? Remember that one-year old? She loves shoes, and really...who can blame her? We find our shoes all over the house in the most random places, and sometimes, just sometimes when we go to get dressed we can't find our shoes at all. Fun times. Here's hoping for some good clean-out and organizational time this weekend in the midst of homecoming, Kentuck, grand opening at Belk, Disney Princesses at Toys R Us, etc............. Just had to share this pic with you. Oliver came in our room as Mary Martin was just waking up this morning. So precious. The biggest grin spread across her face when she saw him.

A popular blog series that I've come across is "What I Wore Wednesday", so.... here's my version on Thursday. Dressed in some newly-purchased-in-my-current-size clothes from The Limited, belt from Target, and a rosette bib necklace from ebay.

Close-up of the necklace and my wet hair.

Remember my little shoe diva? I found this clog much later in the kitchen in front of the dryer.

Happy almost-Friday everyone!