December Daily

I am doing December Daily, I have tried to do it in the past - but couldn't follow through with it.  In the past, I even bought the kit.  I have no idea where it is at.  I have made excuses like - I don't have young children at home, I am too busy, my life doesn't look other people, she makes it look better than mine, I will be gone a lot. 

This year, is different - I have 8 grandbabies to share with

 I bought the kit

  I am going to make my album reflect me and what is important

  I am going to make memories with whoever is with me that day - school or home

I am going to make it simple

I bought the Studio Calico kit, signed up for Maggie Holmes' class, bought Ali Edwards' overlays.

Then, my brain froze - I had no idea what to do.  I planned the cover for 4 days, yup 4 days.  I ended up making the most simple cover, ever.  But, I love it and it is mine.

I painted the cover white, using Martha Stewarts' paint.  It took about 4 coats.  I used some red glitter Stickle paints, that I had from a few years ago.  There are a total of 12 stars on the front cover - one for each of my four boys and eight grandkids.  I added some of the gold glitter tape and the 2013 sticky thing from the kit.  I saw a lot of beautiful covers on the Studio Calico gallery page.  A lot of them had a bunch of very nice elements that were sticking up.  I knew that I wanted this album to be handled by my grandkids, so that wasn't an option for me.  It needed to be simple, I didn't want to be worried about things falling off the cover.

Then, I spent a lot of days figuring out the inside pages.  I couldn't decide if I wanted one page or two pages for each day.  This process was really hard for me.  I wanted it to be just right.  I tend to overthink things.

So, I made a rough calendar of the events that I knew would be going on this month.

I decided if I wanted those particular days to be a full page, 1/3 or half pages.  The process became easier for me.

I printed out all 3 sizes of Ali Edwards' templates.  Then, I started putting them in the protectors based on my calendar planning.  It dawned on me, that I could move the pages around - if I needed to.  I didn't have to preplan everything out.  I saved all the printed templates that I didn't use, so I could use them in my bigger Project Life album for December for journaling.

This was an important step for me.

I liked the way Ali had cut a protector in half for her title page.  I might have flinched a little, when I cut it - but it felt good that I could change something that didn't work for me.  I put some little tree confetti in the top pocket, I got it at Michaels and added the calendar 3 x 4 card from the kit.  I sealed the top and the bottom with the gold polka dot tape, found in the kit.

On the back side, I used another 3 x 4 card from the kit.  The right side of the page is Ali Edwards' template, 6 x 8.  I knew we would be at Disneyland on the first day and I wanted a picture of one of the trees to be added.

I will add the pictures and journaling this weekend.  It is too hard for me to do it during the week since December is so busy with Kinder babes.  I, already know what pictures I am using for this first week - so it should be easy - I hope - to put it together.

As long as I don't overthink it again.