As the year draws to a close, we are grateful for a year filled with new additions, a new look, and new features. We hope that you have loved everything we have created for you! As a finale for the year, we brought back a few fan favorites!
What a terrific year it has been. We can only imagine what next year will bring... Thank you, dear readers, for being here every step of the way!
Hello dear Friends! Alexandra here to share with you a look at the three December Dailies I undertook this month of December.
With a daughter studying abroad, I really got to feel the warmth and magic the Holidays can bring. Nothing felt sweeter than having her home again and celebrating the Advent and Christmas with our three children.
Two years ago I kept one DD, last year I had two and this year three and eventhough I'm nuts about the concept of the December Daily, no I will not have four DDs in 2012!
DD#1 is a fabric covered 6inch post album. Its concept is very simple: one page is devoted to the journaling while the opposite page is composed of a 6" photo collage made under Picasa.
I made exactly the same album last December and found it both easy to keep and fun to go back to. As of today, I'm almost finished with this DD. All my mosaics are printed, I just have to type 5 journalings and it'll be finished.
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DD#2 is a binder I made using a very soft red fabric and Tim Holtz fancy metal corners:
For this December Daily, I have used Hipstamatic pictures taken with my iPhone. I had prepared the pages ahead of time and used the beautiful Lost&Found collection.
This DD was by far the easiest and fastest album to finish. I also enjoyed the "creative" aspect of that one!
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DD#3 is a series of folded card tucked into an empty cigar box.
I used "old" papers and Avital marvelous journaling cards for this December Daily. I have enjoyed keeping it but must admit it was too time consuming.
Here is a look at all 25 cards:
and what a card looks like when opened:
I still have to finish arranging quite a few instant pictures and journalings inside these cards.
How about you? Have you been journaling your December? Have you finished your album(s)? Do share!
I hope you had a lovely Christmas, are enjoying Hanukkah, or beginning your Kwanzaa festivities. And if none of those holidays fit, I wish you a happy Winter! Now that Christmas has passed with joyous celebration in my house and we're enjoying the last few days of 2011, I've got a quick project for you to get ready for the new year. This will help you document YOU in 2012, one month at a time. I put this tutorial together for Scrapbook and Cards Today a while back, but thought I'd share it here as well.
The idea comes from my friend, Tina Aszmus, who does something on her blog called, "Currents." She blogs the following things (with a bit of creative license and variation) every week or so:
•enjoying
•thinking
•eating
•drinking
•wearing
•listening to
•wanting
•weather
•feeling
•wondering
I've taken her idea and made a few layouts with these lists over the past couple of years and thought it would be fun to make a mini and capture the year this way. I put together this mini to do just that.
First off, you'll want to score a 12x12 piece of cardstock into thirds (at 4 inches and 8 inches), then you'll cut that 12x12 in half, so you have two 6 inch pieces. Fold them accordion style and glue together by overlapping two of the flaps. A 12-pocket album will use six–6 inch strips glued together.
Once your accordion is glued together, cut twelve 3 " x 4" rectangles and punch a half hole on one of the 4 inch sides. Then glue a rectangle to the right side of each two page spread. To get all twelve, you'll also be using the back of the accordion to house your pockets and photos.
I then printed off the questions and cut them into 3" x 4" rectangles. I also cut up a sheet of calender bingo cards from the Year•o•graphy collection from Simple Stories (all patterned papers and stickers are from this line). I slipped the questions and the calendar in the pocket.
The final step is adding the cover. I cut a 6" x 12" piece of paper, scored it at 4.5" and 8.5" then glued the back page of the album to that scored part. Then I scored at 3.5" and 9.5" so the cover would fold up and around the accordion.
Decorate as desired, you can add a ribbon to hold it all together if you'd like. And there you have it, an accordion mini album, waiting to be filled. So every month in 2012, I'll take a picture of myself, attach it opposite the month pocket, fill out the card, and circle the date on the calendar. By the end of the year, I'll have a snap shot of me!
I hope this has inspired you to create your own snapshot. I promise this mini is fast and easy, I've already made a couple and know I'll be coming back to this style a lot in the next year, it's such a flexible project!
Enjoy the last week of 2011!
'Tis the Season for December Daily albums. They're everywhere right now and I love it. I really enjoy seeing everyone's take on the project. I did my first, and last, December Daily album in 2008. I'm not sure what happened to my plans for a 2009 album. In 2010, I printed my photos, got my album and supplies together and then never got past day three.
The problem for me last year was I tried to change it up from the 2008 album. I switched sizes, design style and photo sizes and tried to make a more uniform album. It didn't work for me. This year I'm back to what I know. Which is my make-it-up-as-you-go style.
I'm back on track for 2011 though. This year my album is 6x8, with pages made of patterned paper and kraft cardstock. I'm using two lines which go well together to keep it easy, I don't have to think about what matches what. Same with embellishments. This works for me as I don't mind when things are matchy-matchy.
I take bit of a different approach to creating my December Daily than many others. I don't put it all together beforehand. For me that just doesn't work. I've tried it that way, but I then end up moving things around, taking it apart and completely changing it. Instead, I cut out a bunch of pieces of 6x8 patterned paper and kraft cardstock to use as my base and go from there. When I have time, I'll work on a few pages, but I don't worry about trying to complete a page every day. More than likely, I'll finish the bulk of the project in January.
So far, I've finished my cover and days 2, 3, 4 and 12.
Cover
The flower is popped up with foam dots, so it scanned a bit funny.
December 2nd
December 3rd
December 4th
December 12th
My December Daily album covers the entire month, ending on January 1st. Obviously, I've got a way to go. But I've found that as long as I keep up with the journaling (I keep a Word document going with each day's activities), it's easy to complete after December has ended. And not pressuring myself to get a page done each day makes the holiday a bit less stressful.
We've seen some great December Daily projects so far this month. Are you making one this year? Share it with us on Flickr, we'd love to see!
I have the pleasure of loading the gallery each month, which means I get sneak peeks of all the layouts as they come in. And then I get to spend some time with each project as I post it and edit the materials' lists. But even still, when I pull open the gallery as a whole, my knees swoon, just a bit.
Like every month, there is something in each project that catches my eye. Let's go in order of appearance.
Lisa's canvas: First, I love red polkadots. And tiny ones remind me of my favorite swiss dot dress when I was little. But my favorite part is Lisa's ingenuity in decorating a stamped doily. I would have been tempted to buy an actual doily, which would not have had the same simple glory that Lisa's stamped doily attains.
Aly's layout: Such a brilliant use of cards. I love how some of the circles are names, others photos, other designs. I think the mixture provides such good balance. And helps us to see how eclectic gatherings help tell stories.
Christa's layout: My favorite part of Christa's layout is how she used border punched paper to create shelves for her pictures. This subtle tie in to her subject unifies her story and photos and design. So clever.
Aly's layout: First, the pictures are perfect. I have had three small children and this very same situation, but never thought to bend down and snap a picture of the ornaments on the floor, or the giant grin of the culprit. Times like this I remember how important it is to visit our site often for reminders of all those photos we don't want to miss!! (Such a shameless plug!! teehee!!) Second, did you notice Aly's use of the photo corners? A quiet means of defining the photos as a whole.
Celeste's layout: One of Celeste's greatest strengths is her design strength. She flexed her muscles for us again this month. Notice how everything about her layout is linear: the squares, the even spaces, the white space. And then, there's the photo. Tilted just so. Thereby drawing our eye in. And with tilt, the ninja's eyes become horizontally even with the squares, thereby providing one more bit of balance and symmetry.
Aly's layout: Did you read the journaling? It talks about a moment of quiet. I find most of my quiet holiday moments are spent staring at the lights on my tree. I feel a layout coming on!
Lisa's layout: Aside from the scrapbooking side of things, I might need some of those cookies!! hee hee. Lisa has such a way with her photos. (My favorite might be the kitty next to the elf!!) It's not just the photos she takes, but her angles, her lighting, and the details. Oh, the details.
Christa's layout: First, do you see how unseasonal the colors in this layout are? Not very Christmas-y,but really lovely all the same. And can you spot the triangle? The bottom of visual triangle is the left hand side of the layout (top to bottom). The apex of the triangle is the photo of Jed. This triangle wouldn't work without the tape at the bottom of the page in the lower left hand corner. Cover it up, for just a moment, and evaluate the difference. See? I told you Christa was clever!!
Kelly's book: I love the idea of a page or two representing each year of celebrations. I have made similar birthday books, but never thought to do it for Christmas. This is so very smart. And how fun to look at each year as it grows. Thank you, Kelly, for such a terrific idea!
Keshet's layout: Oh, food shots! What's not to love? I have taken photos of the neighbors' and teachers' treats in the past, but rarely seem to get them on a layout. I love how Keshet's layout show a close-up photo and then one in full packaging. Perfect.
Paula's layout: Paula's photo grouping is just perfect. And did you know that you can have this too? She used a digital photo cluster to put it together. These can be used for paper layouts, too by adding your photos, printing it out, and then trimming the edges. Adding the notation on the bottom of the photos makes it even more purposeful. And the layers on the title? Lovely.
Cheryl's ornament: Only Cheryl could transform a dollar store ugly plaque into this darling little creation.
Cheryl's plate: Or a plate into this? And if you try this at home, be sure to add shadows to the layers so that you can tell who is in front. It's the same as if you were using stickers. One on top, one below.
Francine's layout: The title is terrific and tell so much of the story. Good titles are so effective. I have been keeping track of the books we have checked out of the library on Pinterest and I know that a layout like this will be a perfect capture of our visual list! Something I love about Francine's layout is how the title is big and bold, and the flourish is big and bold, and the photos are just so tiny.
Lisa's layout: I love this one for its content. Have you a similar book? A place where you keep all your ideas together? Have you thought to photograph it and add it to your scrapbook? These items that make up our world are so fleeting. And yet, so basic for us. Perhaps you could look around your life and see if there's something you do often that hasn't yet made your scrapbooks!
Lisa's layout: Did you notice the texture of the blue ribbon beneath the photo? and how the ribbon isn't completely adhered, thus providing even more texture? The velvety softness adds to the warm glow of the lights. And again, Lisa's photos are well-composed so that the twinkle lights glow softly.
Marie's layout: The visual triangle on this layout is more like a pyramid, coming up and out of the paper. The stacked layers make the photo rise up and out of the page, catching your eye before anything else. And Marie was right on target in getting down level with the baby to shoot the photo at the appropriate perspective.
Monika's layout: Monika's design is one of my go-to designs. It works seamlessly for horizontal 4x6 photos. I probably have more than 20 layouts with nearly the same design. And, no, that's not lazy, just practical!! Further, did you notice the woodgrain tape? So hip!
Emily's layout: For a layout about a santa collection, Emily's layout is remarkably and delightfully void of santas. Rather, the title is the story and the photo is the evidence. The trees prove the season and the colors lend a cheer. Especially helpful with a black and white photo. And have I mentioned how real Emily's pages seem? And always have a twist of wry humor.
Donna's layout: Donna chose to use two patterned papers as her backdrop, though not in equal proportion. When she added her photographs, she put the narrow photo on the wider pattern, and the wider photo on the narrower strip. This slight adjustment creates flow from the vertical base of the visual triangle (the left hand side of the layout) up and through the triangle to the middle of the page on the right side. With the edge of the landscape photo crossing over onto the patterned paper on the left, the layout becomes cohesive and level.
Amy's layout: This is a wonderful reminder to get our memories on paper even if it means we must wait for the photo. And if you know what size it will be, you can create an whole layout and even place it in the proper album. Who said layouts need photos?
Amy's layout: Being a fontophile and a stickerphile, I have always wanted to create a layout like this, but have never been able to determine how to do it. Now I know who I can ask! I love the boxes and how she hand drew them. And I wish we lived close enough to visit my mom and help her decorate!!
Alexandra's tags: Such a clever way of documenting our homes. Tags relieve the pressure of having a particular number of items and are fun little canvases to decorate. And once we get some snow or put up some lights, I am totally taking Alex's suggestion to document our outside homes.
Thank you for going gallery walking with me. I hope it was helpful to evaluate the little things that make the layouts work so well.
This week you have a chance to recreate Donna's layout. She put together a sketch for you that is also downloadable as a layered template. Enjoy!
Thank you, Donna! From all of us!
School ended for us yesterday. Which means Thursday was spent elbow deep in white chocolate popcorn. Having 16 teacher gifts to put together, I thought it might be easiest to print tags. So I made tags.
In case you need them ...
... you may download them here.
Thank you for stopping by and spending some time with us! We appreciate you and hope you are doing well on your holiday preparations. Next week will be filled with more December Dailies. Can't wait to see you here!
Ever wonder what to do with those Santa photos? Ever since the first year Audrey sat on Santa's knee, I knew I wanted to do a mini book with 5 years worth of Santa photos. (Why five? I have no idea. It seemed a good odd number.) This past weekend we went to a local rep cinema where Santa had come to visit for the afternoon. Once the photo was taken and in my hot little hands, I was already dreaming of scanning it and putting it into a mini. (Forget sugar plums, scrapbookers dream of perfect photos and minibooks!)
Here is my super mini that could easily be added to a Christmas card:
A 4X6 Doodlebug journaling card folded in half provided the covers for my mini, and a metal snowflake paper clip left over from last Christmas provided the closure.
When you open it up, you find an accordion of the five photos on the right, and a few lines about each year on the left:
To make the accordion, I created a 3"x11" document in PSE7. I added scanned photos from each year, having cropped them to 2X3. I left a little space between for the folds, and used the text tool to add the date. After printing, I cropped down the photo strip, folded it accordion-style, then glued it into place on the right side of the mini:
For the journaling, I created another 2X3 file, used the eyedropper to sample a red from one of the Santa photos, and then used the fill tool (the paint bucket) to fill my whole document. Then I typed in white, emphasizing each year by putting the number in bold and making the font one size larger:
By having both the journaling and photo strip completely computer generated, I can easily print off mulitple copies and quickly put these together for all the grandparents and great-grandparents. I can also print one off for another someone who might just like a copy all her own:
Happy holidays! Thanks for stopping by!
♥ Lisa
We all hope that you're enjoying these December Dailies features as much as we are...it's so exciting to see who's up for the day and what project they're sharing! Speaking of Dailies...I have been around the block on whether or not to do a December Daily album this year and yesterday, when I was thinking about today's topic, I hit upon an idea that I think will bring me much happiness over the years.
Hi, I'm Monika Wright and I scrapbook.
Today I'll be sharing with you a few ideas that might help you to capture your family's memories that don't involve an intense month long commitment. Now, as much as I adore my 2009 December Daily, I will admit that it involved some time...preparing my pages ahead and then embellishing them further as I added my photos each day...and I didn't feel that I could dedicate those precious minutes this year but also didn't want to miss out on capturing some of our holiday traditions. And that's when I thought of using an 8x8 album in my stash as the home to Holiday Traditions. At least that's my working title, as I've not yet embellished the front cover...remember this was literally a last minute brainstorm.
Here are two pages that came together rather quickly for me because I used a template {which you can find in the Download section of my blog sidebar} and only had to add the photo and a strip of patterned paper. You could also add some letter stickers in that space instead, but I opted to add the title to my photo before printing.
Wondering why the years begin with 1991? That's the year I became a Mommy!
The plan is to include Holiday Traditions in this album from all my Mommy years and from each and every holiday we celebrate. I look forward to browsing our photo archives, printing photos and journaling memories. So, no December Daily for me this year, but instead I've come up with a project that I'm really excited about. I hope it's so successful that I have to move on to a second and third album. If you happen to use the page template to begin your own Holiday Traditions album, upload them to the Write.Click.Scrapbook. Flickr group so we can all take a look!
Here are a few more ideas that might help you to document your traditions:
May your holidays be blessed with joyful memories,
Welcome to Flickr Saturday, where we'll be highlighting reader & team layouts and other projects from our WCS Flickr gallery that correspond to the blog themes each month.
Be sure to load your layout when you create something inspired by one of our team members. One of these months you might just find yourself featured on the fourth Saturday!
Lisa O took her own photography challenge and uploaded these beauties to Flickr.
Monika inspired Monica to create this mini album from a children's board book purchased from the Target Dollar Spot.
Donna's sketch was the basis of Tara's digital layout of her family all dressed up for Halloween.
Marnie also created two layouts with Donna's sketch. One sticks to the sketch pretty closely, one, well, she started there!
Thank you for sharing your creations with us, ladies! We hope you will please join in again next month!
Hello Dear Friends! This is alexandra and today we're looking at cards and a mini book all showcasing Hipstamatic shots.
Here is a first card I made using two Hipstamatic pictures:
and this one with an off-centered glittered frame...
and to finish off this week of posts on the magic of Hipstamatic shots, here is a crazy mini. The idea behind it is a portrait of each member of the family (minus DD#1 who is away at University) coupled with a manuscript journaling of their favorite things in life! I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Avital for providing the journaling cards used in this mini-album.
Thank you for your visits and comments! I've enjoyed being your host this week. Happy Scrapping everyone!
Hello Friends! This is alexandra sirugue-macleod and I'm honored to be your host this week. I love my iPhone and it has nothing to do with the phone itself. No, what I'm crazy about is the Hipstamatic application, you know, the app. that allows you to make tiny square pictures with all kinds of cool effects. These pictures are so easy and fun to scrap, I thought we could explore a few different ways to do just that this week...
And how about starting the week with a mini-book I made with hipstamatic pictures taken during the course of January.
With this mini, I wanted to highlight things that our family enjoyed doing during that cold month. All pictures were taken with my iPhone and measure 2 x 2 inches. The cover of this mini is a kraft envelope folded in two and the collection of patterned papers is mostly Webster's Pages.
This inside page showcases things I enjoyed creating in January.
Can you see now why I love these photos? They are a perfect size. I hope you enjoy this album. Tomorrow we will build one together!
