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!