December Daily 2013 | The Cover

December Daily is an idea Ali Edwards began oh so many years ago. Essentially each day is documented in some way leading up to Christmas (and this year, I may go past it... we'll see how full the album gets). Last year, we did an activity each day in conjunction with our advent calendar, and I used my December Daily album to document what each activity was.  This year, we're doing the same thing, and many of the activities will be the same.  In order to have a  bit of a different feel to the album, though, I'm going to try and focus on a story surrounding the event- focusing on something small and telling its story, instead of the basic, "Here's what we did to celebrate advent today."

Normally by Dec. 1st,  I'd like to have all my foundation pages in the album, so as I print pictures, I can easily scrap them. But the month of November got away from me, and I'm just now finishing my cover. When planning my cover, I basically have one requirement- it can't be too dimensional. I don't want the cover so bulky that the items on it could get caught on something and ripped off, so I kept that in mind while brainstorming ideas.

Confession time: This cover went a completely different direction than I originally thought. I was going to use my new silhouette (early birthday present!) to create a mask and do a very word-centered title.  Once I got the snowflakes down, though, and showed Darrin what I was thinking for the next step, he said, "But you'll cover up a lot of the snowflakes.  So, on to Plan B... which I love :)  

I'm again using the Simple Stories Sn@p binder (6x8).  I taped off the red part and painted with some lovely blue acrylic paint. While it was drying, I cut out the snowflakes on my silhouette cameo (the inaugural cuts on my machine) using the double-sided adhesive.Once dry, I put the snowflakes down, tore off the top layer, and added the glitter. For the finishing touches, I added a ribbon from my stash, wood veneer from Elle's Studio, and a banner from Heidi Swapp.

December Daily/Advent 8

Our Advent Activity for Dec. 8 was a visit to Santa Claus.

This year we saw Santa at our local library, which is also attached to a community center. This was the perfect location to see Santa because we didn't have to wait in line forever.  Instead of standing in line, we ate bagels and bananas, checked out library books, colored pictures, and had fun climbing and bouncing in the gym.  We also didn't have to pay for pictures, which is always good thing in my book.  Annaliese sat on Santa's lap for 5 seconds before rushing to Darrin, but at least I got a picture. And then we got a picture of all of us with Santa.  Maybe next year she'll be up for sitting on his lap and telling him what she wants like Ian did this year (a castle, of  course).  

December daily for today is again mostly Simple Stories. The title letters are Thickers and the camera is from Studio Calico. I feel a bit like I'm cheating because the pages are coming together quickly compared to my normal pages.  I've been doing some regular scrapbook pages, too. My guess was that if I had focused only on this album, I probably could've stayed caught up, or at least closer than 15 days... 

 

December Daily/Advent 7

On December 7th, our advent activity was camping out by the Christmas tree. 

The night actually entails a lot more than simply sleeping by the tree. We had brinner that night; Christmas tree French toast. Simply cut the toast with an X to make the four triangles, then stacked them.  There were strawberries and bananas for "ornaments". Best thing was, the kids got so caught up in decorating them they forgot to ask for syrup. 

After dinner and baths, Darrin hauled our mattress down to the living room and I popped some popcorn (and threw in some M&Ms once popped).  We all got cozy on the mattress and watched Home Alone. Neither kid had seen it before.  In the beginning, Ian would turn around frequently and say to me, "I'm scared." No matter how many times I promised him I wouldn't pick a scary movie, or I promised him that Kevin would be okay and the bad guys would get it in the end, he just wouldn't believe me, so he ended up sitting in my lap for the beginning of it. 

When the booby trap part started, Ian just laughed and laughed. He mentioned quiet often how smart of a kid Kevin was.  Annaliese, meanwhile, watched parts, but other times would play on the mattress or run from the deck door and crash onto the mattress. 

When the movie was over, it was time for bed (about 9:30). Ian fell asleep within about 15 minutes, but Annaliese was still awake and talking to Baby Belle at 11:30. I didn't want to be kept awake any longer, so we walked up to her room, snuggled in her big girl bed for a few minutes, and then I went back downstairs. I think we both slept better after that.  This activity is probably one of my favorite ones we do. I'm sure it will be an annual occurrence for a long time.

December Daily layout for today. Darrin pointed out to me my journaling doesn't include the story of the French toast, so I'm going to have to rewrite that. One thing that drives me nuts about the page protectors- they're not a true 4x6 or 4x3 size, hence why you see the carpet under the picture of us on the mattress.  Love  how easy the pre-embellished pages go together, though. Just a picture, couple banners, a few stickers, and some Thickers. Lickety split.

December Daily/Advent 6

On December 6th (yep, I'm two weeks behind), our activity was eat dessert first.

As luck would have it, on Monday I served dinner at Rainbow House (housing for families with patients at Children's Hospital).  While I was there, someone delivered a sheet cake that would feed 100 people (I'm told to figure 30 people for my meals). Needless to say, the cake was huge and they sent some home with me, which was perfect, because I knew this day was looming for an advent activity.  The fact that it had red frosting was just a bonus. The kids are getting really used to posing for shots, too.  It was the perfect activity for a Thursday night in which I have to run to bells practice shortly after 6.

For the December Daily scrapbook album, used some large pictures in the page protector, then did a collage of the four of us posing with our pieces of cake.  Again, everything is Simple Stories except the ribbon (Recollections) and the "Make it Merry" tag (Little Yellow Bicycle). This go together fairly quickly, but I'm also doing some regular scrapbook pages at night, which is eating up my time.

December Daily/Advent 5

Today's advent activity was visit the reindeer at Mulhall's. 

Mulhall's is a local greenhouse/nursery whose slogan is, "Mulhall's has it all!" and at Christmas time, they really do seem to have it all.  Last year we went to see the two reindeer they always have and were surprised to find out all the other stuff they have. This year we knew to allow for more time than we did last year.  Along with the reindeer, they had MANY characters sans faces for photo ops, other staged photo ops, beanbag toss, ornament bowling, reindeer ring toss, and the highlight, the ball pit.  Lots of fun!

 For the December Daily today, I knew I wanted to write a lot and use their slogan, so a page with few embellishments, but lots of story.  I knew there would be lots of pictures, so another 6x8 collage for the page protector. 

 

December Daily/Advent 4

Today was supposed to be "eat dessert first" day, but as Ian spent the day home sick, and I wasn't feeling 100%, we opted for a low-key supper of oatmeal with applesauce mixed in so as not to upset stomachs more and ended up switching the activity to making snowflakes. 

 I wasn't sure how well this would go over with the kids. As a matter of fact, I didn't think they'd like it at all. I didn't think Annaliese would be interested in doing it, and that Ian would get frustrated and give up.  Neither of those happened. Annaliese was adamant about doing it herself, which made both Darrin and I nervous. She was swinging those scissors like crazy so Darrin would get away, because he was trying to step in and help.  It was funny watching her use the scissors, too. Every time she'd open them, her mouth would open, and it would open and close as she opened and closed the scissors. She couldn't get them open far enough, though, and eventually she asked Darrin for help.

Ian really got into it, once he figured out he had to use the very back of the scissors, not the tip.  He kept cutting one, and then another and another. He always cut off the point, making a large star in the center, but had trouble when it came to the edge of the flake.  I think he had it figured out by the end, and fun cutting them out no matter what.  We took the snowflakes we made and taped them to our door, since I doubt we'll be seeing any actual snow fall through the window this month.

And now my page for my December Daily. I'm loving using the Simple Stories paper. It really doesn't take to long to get the photos on the paper, add my journalling, and a few little emellishments.  Just wish I had more time at night to do it so I wasn't so far behind.  For today's, I added some sparkle to the snowflakes that were already on the page, and added some pearls to the centers of them. The journaling is hidden behind the top picture.  The page protector contains the cards to Santa from the previous day, so on the back of them I folded up one snowflake each of them cut out and added another picture.

December Daily/Advent 3

December 3rd's activity for advent was write your letter to Santa Claus. 

Annaliese drew her letter (the marker on her hands is a star for being a super cleaner at preschool), and Ian wrote his with a pen. It was so different than last year- didn't have to give a visual of how to spell with the magnets, just tell him the letters. In a few instances, the teacher in me came out and I had him spell the word, hence castle is spelled casl, but my heart sang with all the writing his was doing.  So on their list was: 

Annaliese- big girl bike and princess backpack (good thing Santa has those already)
Ian- castle, dingy, long Lincoln logs, and the Millennium Falcon (Santa's got the first two covered). 

 For the December Daily for today, I created some envelopes and put the kids' letters inside, then wrote my own little note to Santa as the journaling on my page. 

 

December Daily/Advent 1

Last year for Advent we did an activity a day. I loved doing that with the kids, so we continued it this year as well.  In the scrapbooking world, there is something called a December Daily. It is a scrapbook just for the month of December.  I'd never done one before, but after all the pictures I took last year of our activities, I thought this year would be the perfect year to start. So, photos of advent may not be as timely as they were last year, as I'm trying to post both photos and the layout.

Advent Activity for December First: Decorate for Christmas
As always, Ian was super excited to dig through the ornaments. He always goes for his favorite one, the ice cream truck that plays Jingle Bells.  Ian and Annaliese pretty much decorated the entire tree themselves, and you could totally tell as all the ornaments were grouped together and all at their eye level. Darrin and I had to go back through and disperse some of them to the top and bottom of the tree, as well as the back.

Once the tree was done, Ian was done decorating; he wanted to focus on Angry Birds Star Wars instead.  Annaliese was still all about helping, though.  I finally finished the tree skirt this year that I had fabric for since 2004ish.  With the new skirt, we needed a new tree topper, so she was the lucky one to put it up.

She was super excited for the stockings, too.  I think what excited her the most was the snowman holder; she'd cradle it in her arms like a baby. It was too cute!

And here's my December Daily. I'm using a Sn@p album from Simple Stories, combining the red papers and page protectors included with some of the Handmade Holiday Sn@p journaling pages.  Pretty simple two-tone cover, which I love. The snowflake is from Michaels, which I painted and then spayed with glitter spray paint.  The title letters are, of course, Thickers by American Crafts.  Snowflake on the spine is Maya Road.

And here's the spread for today. Everything is Simple Stories but the wood veneer tree, which is from Studio Calico.

One day down... lots more to go. I wonder how far behind I'll get :)