Extending my December Daily 2014

I've decided to extend my December album to the full month. You must be mad I hear you cry.
Stick with me for a moment on this one - do you do project life as well as a December album? Generally? And what about in December?

This is the second year I've done a full 12x12 project life album. Last year I had some trouble sorting out December as I'd put eveything in the Daily and I didn't want to print it out again. Then it finished. I had to put Boxing day - New years eve in the Project life. It was weird.

I've pretty much ended my Project life this year at the end of November, I've realised that if I put all of Decmeber in its own album, I don't have to worry about completeing both.

Plus I did some Christmas-y things after the 25th I wanted to include and another major reason - its snowed on the 26th! yay! Christmas snow pictures. They belong in the December Daily.

I've learned some things this year doing this project.

Firstly you don't need a lot of 'stuff'. I didn't buy anything because I decided to use things I already had. I used a few scraps and a nice little paper pad to do my journalling on, but not loads of bits and pieces.

I don't like working with the small horizontal pockets and large vertical. It's all wrong. 3x4 is awesome for me and I like to add Instagrams and write under them not at the side. It's been a bit uncomfortable with this layout, but worth the challenge and I do love the end product.

When it gets near the end of the season just get it finished. Do the minimum that will finish off a page if you know you won't look at it again for another year!

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! x

10 Ways to keep up with your December album

Isn't December just flying by? Every year I forget how fast it goes once you're into the month. Case in point -  the other day I watched
Polar Express as I didn't want to watch one of my real favourite Christmas films as it's not near enough to Christmas. This is silly. I'll never have time to watch them all. I should start in November. (I always watch the full set of Harry Potter in November). Or just get on with it.

This is how I now deal with my December Daily. Just get on with it. I try not to worry too much if something better is going to happen or if there will be a better place for a certain card or embellishment.

'Keeping up' with it seems to be the main reason for people not completing their albums, not enjoying it or not doing it again. How do you 'keep up' during the madness? Here are some ideas.


Continue reading →

December Daily 2014 - Starting points

I made my binder and I've cut up some more page protectors. I've also gathered together a box of supplies that I have already. My decision to not buy anything new seems like a good one: I've got plenty. I've even got some nice festive papers left from last year as I ordered Shimelle's Christmas selection and it was huge.

I did get some fabric for the cover. I know, I know, that wasn't the deal, but at John Lewis you can buy fabric by the 10cm. I normally only need 20 - 30cm to cover something like this so it cost about £2. I'm glad I did, it inspires me to actually want to work on it. I'll finish the cover at some point. I might paint the reindeer, I wonder if gold would be too much with the title holder do-dad being brassy?

The paper on the inside is from the My Mind's Eye collection called 'Collectable'. Its a bit vintage-y for me, but I got a bunch of things from the set at TK Maxx really cheap a little while ago. (I love finding scrapbook stuff there.)

I've put a couple of cards in from last year's SNAP collection (Simple Stories). Unfortunately most of these are 3x4 shaped and most of my pockets are 4x3. The 4x6 ones work well though.

I think it's going to be fun.

December Daily 2014 - Plans

It's December Daily season again! Otherwise known as November, for many scrapbookers it's time to start thinking about documenting December, obviously depending on what festivals you celebrate, this could mean different things. I'm in the UK and once Halloween, Bonfire night and Remembrance Sunday are gone for me it's a slippery slope to Christmas. (Which I love).

This will be my third year making a December album. I call it December Daily as I was inspired by Ali Edwards' concept and I like to give her a shout out every time. Especially since my first album really got me into scrapbooking. 

I was ahead of the trend a bit - using a 6x8 folder. You can see some of it here: December Daily 2012. Last year I did something a little different and was accidentally ahead of the curve again with a little 4x4 album! It was before the WRMK ones came out so I made it myself. You can see some of that one here: December Daily 2013.

This year, as a challenge to myself I've decided to make the whole project with things I already have. I'm also going to use page protectors this time, which will hopefully make it a little faster to put together. 
Did you ever get the giant project life variety pack? Mine has lasted a year and a half so far and there are plenty left. Unfortunately they are layouts I don't really care for. Mainly the ones based on portrait 6x4 photographs. Like B and D and I'm not a big fan of the one with four 6x6 pockets either. Cue scissors. I've cut them up. Now I have a bunch of 8x6 layouts and a few 6x6s. 

For the actual book, I'm creating a ring binder using the Tim Holtz mechanisms and some thick boards. These are from the back of sketch pads. (I always keep them.) Joining it together will be similar to how I made my kindle cover (see my tutorial here). 

Fabric is going to be a bit more tricky for this one though. Hopefully there is something good in my sewing box. There is definitely white cotton. Plan B will be to make it plain and decorate it.
Wish me luck! Check back soon to see how it goes.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! Are you doing anything fun this year? I'm quite pleased that Halloween has fallen on a Friday this year. It means that we can give out sweets to Trick or Treat-ers and watch 'Halloween' like usual, and then go to a party on Saturday night. Best of both worlds!

On top of that, today is just perfect weather. The last couple of years it has absolutely chucked it down and even if kids are happy to tramp about in the rain, their parents are not!

Onwards.
Check out my pumpkin design for this year:

It's based on one in the film Trick 'r' treat.

Bonus - his and hers:

Have fun out there - whatever you are! bwhahahahhh hahha

Paris scrapbook - in progress

More about Paris today I'm afraid. I've been craving pain au chocolat like mad, but I know they can never live up to the awesomeness of Pierre Herme's! 

I've been working on a Paris mini album. It's not so mini actually. Considering that I made a tiny notebook when we went to Berlin for a similar time period... 

A funny thing happened. I got the colour scheme way wrong. I always put most of my travel journals together before I go (here is a post about the Paris one) and I choose colours and textures to go with what I feel the trip will be like. I chose some really modern colours and styles this time, but it just doesn't work. 
Everything was more beige and brown. I was trying to avoid all the papers and stickers that have the vintage letter/postcard look: turns out they had it right. Ack. 
I had to change it up a bit. 

I ended up using the 6x4 kraft cards as the base for about half the pages and some of the 3x4 cards for interactive sections. But I've not used the other colours. I decided to make this a bound book rather than use book rings so each page is attached to the spine using an accordion fold method like this one from the Graphic 45 blog (scroll down to the bottom of the post).

I've done most of the pages, however I can't finish it completely until I have the perfect fabric for the covers. Where will you find the perfect fabric? I hear you cry! Well, I'm going to work on my Paris street illustration and get it printed up specially for the job. 
When I finally get round to it.
It will be ace.
Watch this space for the finished book. In the mean time here are some more of the spreads from inside:


These pages are about the area we stayed in. I made a pull out section with photos of our lovely apartment.

This one is about the flea market we visited - I used a kind of bunting/washing line effect to hang lots of little bits of photos of things we saw. It's all jumbled up like the stalls.

Je t'aime Paris

A few snaps from le weekend

Paris! 
Do I need to say more? I freaking loved it. We drank wine in cafés and ate steak frites. We went on a boat down the Seine and I saw the Eiffel Tower in real life and we went up the Arc de Triomphe and looked down the champs élysées. 
And the flea market! Not the giant one. Just a fantastic street lined with stalls full of all things French. 
Macarons. Obviously. 

C'est incroyable! 
As I mentioned before this was also my first time using AirBnB. I'm pleased to report that it was a tremendous success. We got to stay in a real Paris apartment with a teeny tiny kitchen like Rachel Khoo has in her cooking programme. The location was spot on, in a nice part of town, close to several metro stops and walking distance to the River. 

Now I'm looking forward to printing some of my photos and getting my travel album together.

In other words - I enjoyed it. 

Paris travel journal preparation

I love planning for trips.

I enjoy doing all the research and finding little places to visit that are tucked away behind the main tourist attractions. Not that I don't like tourist attractions - seeing the sights is ace, but if there is a little stationery shop around the corner, I don't want to miss it in the rush!

One of my favourite parts though is putting a travel album together. I usually take a few bits and pieces with me, but I'll admit that I rarely have time to make the pages whilst I'm actually away. Recently I've been trying to do a bit of writing each day, it's surprising what you forget once you've been out all the next day.

I don't use a set book for my journals either - in fact I've done lots of different shapes and styles, my Japan album was 5x7 and bound with book rings, the Germany one was a little notebook, Italy was 12x6!

This time I've gone for 6x4. I'm thinking kraft with red/blue/yellow/green as accents. Since I'm only going away for a weekend I don't need loads of pages so I'm not picking many papers. I'm hoping the kraft cards below (DIY shop by American Crafts) will work as base pages.

Here are few if the things I've picked out ready to go:

Paris sketching

I'm so excited about my trip, I've been working on a bit of a Paris related project. 

Drawing buildings in is one of those things I always think would be great, I love to see architectural drawing from other people- there are loads on Flickr. They are so inspiring.

Mine never turn out anything like these, but it's only because I never practice enough to make a good job. 

Here is my sketch of a Paris street. It's all a bit blah, I drew most of it on train - hence the tray table. It's not even a real street! It's fun to dream though. I like to imagine what is inside each building, who lives there and what they do. Maybe one day I'll practice some more and do a real version.