Friday, November 23, 2012

December Daily 2012 - Are You Ready?

Hi there! Practical Scrapper Alison here. I hope you are enjoying your Thanksgiving Long Weekend. We've already celebrated our Thanksgiving (I'm Canadian so we celebrate in October) and turned our attention to Christmas! In that vein, today I'd like to show you my foundation pages for this years December Daily album.What is a December Daily, you ask? It is a project started by Memory Keeping Guru Ali Edwards designed to help you record the daily goings on during the Holiday Season. You can check out her blog for more information here and see what she's prepared to use this year here.

2012 is my 3rd year embarking on this journey with her (and thousands of like minded memory keepers out there!) I'd love for you to check out my previous albums. You can find 2010 here and 2011 here. Both of these albums use digital templates that I purchased from Ali Edwards and this year she is offering them again but I have decided to try my hand at making my own. I've downloaded a trial version of Photoshop Elements with the assurance from Greg that I can have the full blown version whenever I want (it was actually a birthday present that I haven't cashed in yet!) We'll see how it goes. I may break down and buy hers in the end!!

So, what have I got ready for 2012? I'm sure you're all dying to see some pictures, right?
Well, here you go ...

This is what I have so far. In previous years I have had every single page ready to go - all I needed to do was add pictures, journalling and some embellishment. This year I want to leave room for a bit more creative freedom so my pages are pretty unfinished (as you will see). I'm also hooked on the Art Journal look so a lot of my pages will be more art journal and less traditional scrapbook page.

This is a close up of my cover page embellishments. I am using mostly Echo Park papers from various Christmas lines (some have been in my stash for a while so it's time to use them up!) The frame was one I found in the clearance bin at Michael's several months ago. It was originally turquoise but a couple coats of some white craft paint and some brown ink distressing and voila! 

While digging through my stash trying to figure out what to use for the cover (by the way, the cover I went with was the same as last years - Teresa Collins Christmas mini album kit cover) I found these pieces of raw chipboard. They were almost the perfect size to fit into the Teresa Collins covers! They are also what prompted the art journal idea as they lend themselves nicely to being covered with all sorts of things!

These are the art journal-esque pages that I have started so far. Some are messier than others and to be honest I'm not sure where this is going to end up but the journey should be fun! Some of the back sides are covered in patterned paper, some are covered in more paint and some are still raw ... I'm leaving myself lots of room for play this year.

Here's a close up of some of the texture I've got going. 

As for my numbers, here is what I've done. Pretty simple. I felt that the pages themselves were going to be quite busy so the numbers needed to be bold enough to stand out but simple enough to let the artwork take centre stage. As you can see I have not attached them to any of my pages. I am determined to assemble as I go this year!

A close up so you can see how I popped up each star to give dimension.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this look into what I will be working on this December. I'd love to see your December Dailies if you are working on one this year. Please leave a link in the comments or come over to my blog and leave your link there. 


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2 comments:

Rachel OCrowley said...

Great ideas!!

Michelle said...

This is really awesome. I love the textures. The cover is fabulous! I can't wait to see the rest. I have been using Photoshop Elements for about 3 years (PSE 7) I am still learning each time I use it but making templates is not hard at all. I have the book from Patty Debowski (love her) thedigitalscrapbookteacher.com That is where I learned how to make them. Good luck. You will want the program soon.