WE'RE DOING DECEMBER! Whether you pre-plan your December Daily or create as you go along in the Christmas month; make your own covers or decorate ready-made ones, use Project Life style with plastic sleeves and pockets or create your own pages. Maybe you havent made one before and ask 'I cant think what I'd fill a page with everyday?' We'll help with that! Whatever your style we'd love to see it! Here you will find a seasonal blog open from 1st November to 31st January each year. We hope that this will become a wonderful resource of sharing, prompts and inspiration. What is a December Daily? Its a mini-album recording your daily memories capturing the spirit of December. Bring it out with your decorations each year and remember Christmases past. Scroll down on the right side bar and you will find past December Daily albums of each Designer. Check their 'journey' link too, this will give you some great tips and scroll a little further down and you will see the albums categorised into types for easier searching :) Now - 'Let's December Daily'!

Saturday, 25 January 2014

Let's December Daily 2013 Design Team's....Completed Albums - After thoughts....




*Edited in*
This blog is 'asleep' until the 1st of November this year when it will 'wake up' again for the start, motivation and preparation of our 2014 December Daily journeys!
Bookmark us/become a follower...... and be sure to join the December Daily journey too!!
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Weeeeell, all said and done for another year of December 'Daily-ing' for
2013

Let's December Daily Badge

Our Design Team shares their thoughts.... 
what they have.........
 learned,
 un-learned,
 wise words, 
 not so wise words..... 
what we will, wont, maybe,  do again.... for 2014



http://teacupofscrapisms.blogspot.com.au/ 

What a journey my 2013 December Daily became.  I think I really managed to do quite a few things I really loved to do in this one.... like fold-out pages, the use of acetate with LOTS of see through pages,  quite a few sparkly things like sequins and glittery bits and loved the use of the 'doors' this BoBunny album afforded.

One thing I have learnt is that I need complete change every time I attempt a December Daily...and am really hankering to do a vintage book for my next one.  I'd love to do a 'blue' Christmas....BUT.... I've learnt that I absolutely fail in keeping to set colours!  I just forget to! Then merrily (pun LOL) set off creating before I realise that I have one off in a different colour direction!

Another thing I've learned also as I watch friends and relatives leaf through this Dec Daily... is that some things I've included are a bit fragile... like this doily pocket or the flip-out being refolded back in.
 
Non-scrappy people (especially children and teenagers) arent as gentle replacing things in and out... and I've held my breath as pages/photos/flipouts have been pulled, pushed, shoved, flipped and closed hard... all unintentional by all means...but it does make me wonder how these fragile bits will hold up over time... and 'maybe' I should put a little sticker on some things saying 'Be gentle with me, I'm fragile'?  It's definite food for thought to make 2014  more hardier! Another lesson learned!
  But, having said all that, ...for me... its also about the fun of creating it, and once the beginning of December is over (on holidays from work).... luckily I do get time to plan, play and create as well as preserve the memories.
Its been a total joy and will look foward 2014 with as much anticipation!  



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and December Daily Journey

This is my third December Daily and  my favorite so far.

Being able to contain my lumpy and bumpiness in the box has made the end result look more finished off than my pregnant brick from last year.

As for what I have learnt from this year. 
- I totally am not good at sticking to a colour theme. 
- Although I enjoyed scrapping all of 'Hoots' adventures and antics, it did take up more time to scrap two things for each day.  So next year I am going to rethink how I record what Hoot gets up to.

I've had fun and am already thinking of what to do for this year December Daily!





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This being my 3rd December Daily, it is probably my favourite so far now that it is completed............that is to LOOK at, not so much the creating of it if that makes sense.  I love how it has turned out but think the pastels will be a "one off" as I really did miss creating with the more "traditional" Christmas colours especially red although red is not really a colour I scrap with a lot in everyday scrapping.  There are a couple of the things I did this year that I will probably do in my next December Daily...........Handmade dated circles and some handmade embellishments.  I mainly did this to fit in with the pastels theme this year but really enjoyed pre-making these in the lead up to Dec 1.  Also the inclusion of some plastic sleeves (divided pockets) throughout the album.  I think it has added some interest to my album.

So, my thoughts for my 2014 December Daily...................

*Maybe try a different look other than the rings on the outside holding it all together.  This is what I have          done for all 3 December Dailys.

*Also my first 2 were portrait orientation and this one was landscape and I think I prefer to work with the portrait orientation.  The size was good to work with.

*Definitely no pastels (well at least not for a few years).

*Start collecting bits and pieces right now for my 2014 December Daily so that I have a real mix of things as I think I prefer the "bit of this and bit of that" rather than one particular line of papers or a particular colour scheme.

*Totally loved Mandy's use of acetate and her little peek-a-boo pages in her 2013 December Daily so will keep this in mind for my next one too.

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This December Daily was my 5th and I loved it just as much as the excitement and eagerness as the first AND this was my 1st December Daily in a Project Life style.  But with that, there have been 'what ifs' and do's and don'ts that I have come across with this album as with all my other albums.

With my life being so much busier than my previous 4 albums, this Project Life style was sooooooo much simpler and easier to keep on top of. I'll definitely be doing it again with an even busier lifestyle this year.

But the changes I would make for my next album would be:

* Pre make more title cards, decorated cards, shaker pockets, words etc. I found this was the main thing that held me up, but with having some of the cards, embellies etc already done, was a great help and very efficient with being so busy.

* Not being so hard on myself if I forgot about "Tinsel", our elf every night and not remembering to take a photo. I was regularly taking pics at the start of the month, but as it was getting closer to Christmas, I was struggling to remember with all the things I had to do to get ready for Christmas Day.

* My past albums I have loved the full page or larger photos in my album. So my next album I want to include some full page photos cut down into 4 pieces to fit inside the 4 pocket pages.

* Sticking to a colour theme. - What made it easier was having ONLY my "christmas" coloured embellies, cards, ribbons and paints in a bowl all together. I'll definitely be doing that again.

* Deciding on a "colour theme" early on was a great help. Having those colours that I had chosen, readily accessible from the start made it so much easier. I didn't have to think to hard and waste time thinking about the colours when the focus was on the photos and the important journaling and memories that I wanted to record before I forgot them.

* Not worrying so much about what everyone else is doing and how AWESOME everyone else's albums look. I did this for me and my children and they LOVE it!! So thats all that matters. Once you start worrying about everyone else's gorgeous albums, then time is being wasted stressing about how you 'wish' yours was looking. I spent too much time doing that and forgot to focus on why I was really doing it and it's main purpose. Enjoy the process and the memories. 





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And with these great last words...
Thanks so much for coming along on our 2013 journey with us here at 'Let's December Daily'.
We all had a different outlook, end result and purpose.
Its been both a joy and pleasure,

The blog is now going to 'sleep' until the beginning of November this year when it will 'wake up' again for our 2014 December Daily journeys!

In the meantime, we are sure this site will be used as a wonderful resource especially towards the end of the year along with your contributions in Mr Linky (only open for your submissions till the end of January 2014- so get in quick!) for everyone who visits to see....

Dont forget to become a follower and put us in your bloglists so you know when we will be back up and running .....November will return sooner than we think!
It seems to be in a 'blink of an eye' these days!

You can find some more information with our members and visitors sharing 
with Mr Linky below


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