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Playing with paper that feels like summer. Studio Calico Carolina Moon and Galileo. 

December Daily 2014, Days 21 - 25

Welcome to the last installment of my December Daily, 2014. Today I'm sharing pages 21 - 25, and wrapping up with some overall thoughts on the project. 

Catch up on December Daily Part I, Part II, and Part III. 

I knew that I wanted to include some "around the house" pictures in my project, which turned out to be perfect for days 21 and 22 when I didn't have much going on. Whenever I felt stuck on a spread, I looked back through my completed pages and tried to repeat designs that I liked -- here, I borrowed a lot from day 5. (Another example: days 7 & 8 with days 18 & 19).

You might have noticed that I cut up the 6 x 8 "There Ought to be More Merry Making" paper into 3 x 4 cards and used them throughout the album. I like clean, pink-on-white design, and it definitely doesn't bother me that you can't read the whole phrase. I think it adds a cool, graphic element that doesn't distract from the overall spread.

Here, I combined days 23 and 24. By this point, I was running low on paper from the Ali Edwards kit, so this spread is mostly made up of papers that I had loved and saved from other projects. To keep these pages from looking disconnected from the rest of the book, I repeated some techniques that I'd been using throughout the project: white borders on photos, gold embossed wood veneer numbers, and those red sequin stars. 

I love a bold yellow stripe.

On one of the photos for December 23rd, I printed a list of all of the clothing that I brought home for winter break - my own mini capsule wardrobe. I'm sure this is something that I'll enjoying looking back on from year to year, and it tells a story about my life right now, even though the pictures don't necessarily correspond to the words.

We made it to December 25th: a super easy spread to finish out the project. I wanted to add a little something extra because it was Christmas, so I added a handful of gold sequins to an extra 6 x 8 page protector and sewed the top shut so that they wouldn't fall out. I ended up making the width of the page protecter about one half inch thinner -- the final dimensions are around 5.5 x 8 -- and added another one of the tab stickers on the side. This sequin page was originally made to go between days 16 and 17, but I think it fits this spread better, and I love the final look.

  thoughts on this project & lessons learned  

I can't say it enough: I loved working on this little book. Many thanks to Ali Edwards for creating the concept of December Daily and for producing a kit that was both fun and easy to work with. I completed one other December Daily album on my own in 2011, and though I'm happy with the final product, I ended up skipping several days and rushing to complete others more after December was past. I was over it by the time I actually put it on the shelf. This year, I'm so excited that my December Daily 2014 is something I enjoy looking through and, most importantly, that it is done before April. 

Working on this project solidified a lot of things for me: I love the look of hand and machine stitching on paper. I need my pages to have a healthy amount of white space. I prefer typed journaling on both patterned paper and on photos. I think white photo borders and square corners are the bomb.

I also learned some new things: Embossing is super fun. So are plastic shapes. You shouldn't use your heat gun near plastic shapes though, because they will curl up, melt, and make you feel very dumb. This was my first time working with a pre-made kit, and while I didn't use or love every single piece, it worked really well for me overall. I loved (and used) 80% of the papers, especially the neutral grays. I exhausted every gold foil label, rubber banner, and chipboard sticker, and I couldn't get enough of the red sequins. 

There are a few things that I'd like to do better next December. Photos were definitely the limiting factor in this project for me; by mid month, I was struggling to remember to take pictures, and ended up having to combine multiple days into a single spread. I don't mind the look, but I'm sure that there are aspects of the month that I missed out on documenting because of it. Next time that I complete this project - or any project - I hope to be more mindful with my photography. 

As excited as I am to have December 2014 "in the books", I know that I'll miss working on it a little bit each day, and I'm excited to find my next excuse to play with photos and paper soon. Stay tuned. 

December Daily 2014, Days 12 - 20

Welcome to December Daily, Part III. Catch up on Part I here and Part II here. 

Today I'm sharing days 12 - 20, and a free download at the bottom of this post for the cross-stich "sweater" pattern from day 7. 

This spread covers days 12 & 13. On December 12th, I went to a Christmas party. I didn't take a lot of pictures, so I used a (scary, I know) selfie that I sent to a friend, and a picture of the block where the house is located to tell the story. I also wanted to include a lengthy text message conversation, so I printed it 3 x 8 and cut it to fill two 3 x 4 pockets -- these were originally from a 4-pocket page protector that I cut in half to form an insert like I did for my intro page. 

The "be jolly" chipboard speech bubble is one of my favorites from the kit and I was excited to use it here. In the bottom right pocket, I used one of the plastic bokeh shapes and a red puffy heart to tie the colors from the pictures and other embellishments together.

I didn't have a photo for the story that I wanted to tell on the 13th, so I printed my words on a piece of the patterned paper and added it to the back of the insert. For the bottom pocket, I created a decorative number card using the wood veneer number, another plastic bokeh shape, and a chipboard banner. I wanted the spread to look cohesive, so I continued to use the color scheme from day 12: gray, aqua, and red.

I knew that day 14 was going to be very text-heavy, and I didn't want this spread to look too busy, so I made a filler page for the 6 x 8 page protector instead. I printed a photo of our library and gave the picture some context by adding a tweet that I wrote around this time.

This spread covers days 14 and 15. 

For December 14th, on the left I printed a blog post that I wrote for Alpha Phi International on a sheet of graph paper from the kit. I tried to keep it simple, embossing "Tis the Season" on top and adding a strip of patterned paper and white number stickers from my stash along the bottom. 

For December 15th, on the right, I printed two pictures of a friend in the library; I finished my finals early, so I spent a lot of time keeping my studious friends company. The lighting in the library gave the pictures a greenish / blueish tint, so I decided to play around with those colors in the bottom pockets. I cut out a word from the gold handwriting transparency and added it below my journaling on the left, and backed an aqua chipboard sticker with a gold circle tag on the right. I seriously loved those tags. 

Day 16 covers a story about me and my boyfriend. I didn't have any new photos of us together, so I used a few from early December -- the actual date of the photo isn't super important to me as long as it tells the story. This page was especially simple: I just added a punched star, another word from the gold handwriting transparency, and an embossed stamp on the tree card.

I had a harder time with day 17 than any other page in this album. I printed pictures, re-edited pictures, printed different pictures, wasted too much paper, and eventually settled on this design. The papers are all old ones from my stash, and the gold label is from Michael's; I loved the look of the ones from the kit so much that I went out and bought my own after I ran out. I originally filled a 6 x 8 page protector with sequins and put it between days 16 and 17, but I think I prefer the more simple version, and the sequins were moved to another day. 

The left side of this spread covers two travel days. I didn't take a lot of pictures, so I lifted my design from days 7 and 8: one picture and one journaling card per day. I actually didn't have any photos from December 18th, so I grabbed one from the website of the restaurant we went to and processed it with an Afterlight filter that I used throughout the album so that it wouldn't look out of place.

December 20th is two parts: (1) the black and white post card and . . .

. . . (2) a four pocket photo page. I printed my journaling on the back of the post card (which seemed like a super appropriate use for a post card) and added the embossed wood veneer 20 where you would write the address. I wanted the 4 x 6 post card to be vertically centered, so I cut a 6 x 8 page protector in half and punched new holes for the binder rings.  

There was already a lot going on in this spread between the inserts and the photos, so I kept embellishments on the four pocket page to a minimum. I taped the top right photo to the front side of a piece of patterned paper, and folded a photo corner down so that it could be seen.

  Free Download:   

I've made the cross stitch sweater pattern that I used in a previous December Daily spread available through Google Drive. Thanks for your interest! 

Check back tomorrow, when I'll be sharing the last days of my December Daily 2014.

December Daily 2014, Days 6 - 11

(Check out my December Daily Days 1 - 5 here)

Welcome to my December Daily 2014, Part II. Today I'm sharing days 6 - 11.

On December 6th, I went with my boyfriend to his fraternity formal. The lighting throughout the night wasn't great for pictures, so I didn't end up with many photos to work with and tried to focus on the words instead. The picture of Mike and I was grainy and dark, so I converted it to black and white using the Afterlight app on my phone, and printed it 2.5 x 2.5. To fill up the 3 x 4 pockets on the left, I used a photo of my shoes and clutch, and a picture from our dinner. 

I wanted to use the fun "clink clink" card, but I needed another blue embellishment somewhere else in the spread to tie it together. I decided on one of the chipboard stickers; the circle shape worked well with the plates in our dinner photo. To finish, I stamped "06" on top and added a tiny gold sequin.

Embossing the woodgrain numbers with gold glitter zing and using the stamps from the kit continue to be two of my favorite techniques for this album.

This page was so much fun to put together. 

When I started thinking about this project in September and October, I knew right away that I wanted to include a "Christmas sweater" pattern using cross stitch, and when I saw this paper in the Ali Edwards kit, I knew that graph paper pattern was the perfect way to make it happen. I made the pattern in MicrosoftExcel and then marked the stitches on my paper before I brought out the embroidery floss. I think the key to making this page work out for me was piercing all of the holes before I started stitching - lots of people use a paper piercer but a regular needle worked fine for me. All in all, it took about 45 minutes, and I love the look. If anyone would be interested in a free template for this page, leave a comment & I'd be happy to share. 

Above the stitching I embossed "December Stories" and below I printed a few lines about December 8th. 

The right side of the spread covers December 7th and December 8th. I didn't have many pictures from either one -- the 7th was a lazy Sunday and the 8th was a travel day -- so it made sense to combine them. I embellished my journaling cards with a date stamp and sewed a red and white strip of paper along the bottom. Each photo just got a red star sequin - simple and done. 

Of course I had to use the graphic number paper for Day 9. I already knew that I wanted Day 10 to be a 4 pocket page, so I cut the 6 x 8 paper into 3 x 4's and used some leftover embroidery floss from the previous page to emphasize the 9. The printed journaling along the side focuses on "9 Things I'm Loving Right Now," and includes Taylor Swift, fleece-lined tights, and being done with finals. 

Since the number page is visually heavy with a lot of black, I tried to balance the spread by keeping the left side visually light by using photos and journaling cards with a lot of white space. On each card, I stuck with simple, centrally-placed pink and gold embellishments. 

I'm not a huge fan of pastel colors, so I had a harder time putting days 10 and 11 together. Day 10, on the left, is made up of two photos, a number card (repeating the gold circle tag + gold embossed number look that I talked about in my first post) and a journaling card that I embellished with a strip of red and white paper. With day 11, on the right, I cut a 4 x 6 photo in half to fit into the top two pockets, and printed my journaling directly onto the photo. This left me with room for two decorative filler cards, which I used to tie the right half of the spread to the left with gold, pink, and grey accents. I hand stitched the plastic star in the rightmost pocket using more pink embroidery floss for a little extra texture. 

Check back soon for days 12 - 17!

December Daily 2014, Days 1 - 5

December Daily 2014: Let's go.

This was my second year trying December Daily, and my first actually documenting every day. I used the Ali Edwards kit and an iPhone camera and had a great time - forcing myself to (mostly) stick to the kit both streamlined the process and taught me a lot about the types of patterns, colors, and embellishments that are most my style. Here are days 1 - 5:

I cut one of the four pocket page protectors in half to make an intro page. In the top pocket, I used one of the big gold letters and one of my favorite chipboard stickers, and in the bottom I wrote about my excitement for December and this project. 

I love the look of handwriting in other people's projects, but I know that I would stress about the neatness and size too much in mine, so for me, typing and printing my journaling actually ends up being faster. I embellished with one of the rad rubber banners and embossed one of the stamps from the kit. I stapled one of the tab stickers to the edge of the page - I like how Ali always does this to emphasize that there's an insert, and I like that it gives you an easy way to turn the page. 

Day one is the back of the half page protector and a 6 x 8 photo. I like the look of see-through elements, but I usually struggle to make sure that they look good from both sides; here, the large gold photo coordinates with the red+gold+black+white intro page and with the grey+black+green day one page.

I embossed the back of the a with gold glitter zing (this project was the first time I tried embossing and now I want to emboss EVERYTHING) and backed the "joy" sticker with another chipboard element. In the bottom pocket, I wrote about decorating my tree and embellished with a chipboard banner and a strip of green paper to bring out the green in the tree sticker. I usually leave 6 x 8 photos alone, but I here I added a gold circle label over one of the gold ornaments and stamped "01" with the small number stamps from the kit.

Day 2 fell at the start of my finals Hell week, so I made this page ahead of time about a topic that could fit anywhere in the month: my current make up routine. I took a picture of my go-to products and printed it 6 x 8 on the left, and on the right I printed a 3 x 4 of me wearing my new favorite lipstick. 

I embossed the wood veneer 2 from the kit, and added a puffy heart to match some of the red elements across the spread. I also stamped and embossed a star over December 2nd on the calendar card. I backed a chipboard sticker with a plastic starburst and stamped "the story of today" over my journaling.

Day 3 is a simple page to document a day that was a good mixture of work and play. In the morning, I took a final, and at night a lot of the student body came together to celebrate the lighting of the quad. I added pictures of the library, the building my class is in, and the fireworks. 

I stamped "12" and "03" on the top left card using the stamps from the kit, and printed my journaling on the green stripe. I stitched along the bottom of the journaling card and added another rubber banner to the 6 x 8 photo to add a little more interest. 

December 4th was Alpha Phi winter formal, so I had a few more words to include today. I printed them on a 6 x 8 paper (one of my favorites from the kit - I love all of the greys that Ali included). Layering a gold embossed wood veneer number over a gold circle label became one of my favorite techniques to repeat throughout the album; here I also added a red star sequin and puffy sticker to match the red in Vini's dress on the opposite page. 

I cut down some of the multicolored light pattern paper to fit the 4 x 6 pocket, and sewed a strip of pink and white stripe paper (a border from another 4 x 6 card) along the bottom.

My friends and I took a few instax photos that I wanted to include, but they were a little too dark for the rest of the spread. I taped 4 photos back to back on a small index card and inserted it behind the pattern paper. I added another one of the tab stickers on top so that you know there's something extra to pull out when you're flipping through the album. 

Day 5 documents some of the decorating that I did to my apartment. Again, I layered a gold embossed wood veneer number over a gold circle label, and printed my journaling on two 3 x 4 cards. 

I liked the "letter to santa card" (top row, second from the left), but the original had a red and aqua stripe across the top. To make it match better, I just cut this part off and replaced it with another grey pattern. I loved working with a green+grey+gold color scheme, which made this spread come together really easily. Journaling is all from this blog that I wrote for HopkinsInteractive.

My album is finally (finally!) completed, but I'll be breaking it up into a few sections in order to get it blogged. Check back in tomorrow for days 6 - 11!

Hi.

I'm Alexa. I live in Baltimore, Maryland where I'm learning about the brain and also how to be an adult. I love making things out of paper and photos.

I think that frogs are the best animals, and that Monica is the best F.R.I.E.N.D. I am staunchly pro-Oxford Comma.

Welcome to my blog.