December Daily - Days 25-31 and a Happy New Year!

Hi!  I finished my December Daily today!  So proud of myself for not getting too far behind.  So happy I was able to finish today and get a good jump start on my project for next year, two of which start tomorrow!  Here are the last days of our December:

As you can see, it's a biggun!  I love it though.  It feels good to be done and put it away.  I'm putting all of my December Daily's in storage with our Christmas goodies and I'll bring them out each year to display during the holidays.

Now, I'm gearing up for two big projects in 2012 - Project Life and One Little Word.  More on those in the coming week....so excited for them!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year's celebration tonight.  So long 2011...

December Daily - Days 15-24

Yay, I caught up on my album this week!  Here are days 15-24:

Caylan loves her first Advent calendar.

Painting mugs for her grandmother's gifts.

My husband's squadron Christmas party.  So much fun!

Our favorite holiday movies.  Actually sat down to watch them this year!

Just normal, everyday stuff.

Lights on the house!

Our holiday scent: North Pole.

Baking cookies for friends.

Stockings

Our wish list.  Thought it would be cool to look back on what we wanted.

My next update will be at the end of December, when my album is complete.  So far I've always done all 31 days in December, but I think I'm doing it differently next year.  I'm already thinking about doing an Elf on the Shelf album for next December.  We'll be doing the Elf for the first time next year and I thought it would be cool to document what he does each night and how my daughter reacts to him.  Then the last day will be Christmas to see if the Elf told Santa the right gifts to get!  Anyone doing Elf on the Shelf and have some suggestions on what you've done?  I'm already taking notes!

I did find this post on Pinterest of Elf on the Shelf ideas.  So cute!

Merry Christmas to you all and thank you so much for stopping by to read my ramblings.  I have big plans for my bliggety-blog next year including a redesign, some series and some links to some ETSY goodies.  Again, Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a wonderful last week of 2011!

Right Now

So, today is my day to post my past week of my December Daily....well, that's not happening today unfortunately.  Not only am I a few days behind, but our printer ran out of ink!  Therefore I can't print pictures or anything else for that matter.  We took this opportunity to get a new printer.  We need one anyway and now we don't have to get replacement ink.  So we hit Best Buy last night and got a great all-in-one printer.  It's still in the process of being set up, but should be go to go later tonight when my hubby comes home and plays with it.  Once that's done, I'll be catching up.  I'll try my hardest to get caught up tonight and get a post done tomorrow or Saturday at the latest!

While my scrapping is on hold, I'm using this time to get organized for some upcoming projects.  I'm taking Ali Edward's One Little Word class.  I have my color scheme chosen so I pulled a bunch of supplies to use in the album.

I also got my Project Life station set up.  I've seen on a few blogs that people have stations which help them to keep up on the project and use up lots of bits from their supply stash.  I need this!  I got my station set up with my album and I can't wait to start!

From the back left: white Becky Higgins core kit box with my Turqouise Core Kit.  Blue tin is from Target (from a while ago) and holds a bunch of stickers, letters, and little bits that will work in my album.  The red box is from our Christmas cards that I'll use to collect our everyday stuff I want to slip into the album.  It already has two invitations for January in it!  I may need to upgrade to something bigger for this, but I'm trying this one out to see how it goes.  If it overflows too much, I'll get something bigger.  And in front is my album.  As you can see, I've already started putting together my cover page.  I can't wait to start putting this album together!  I'll be doing a Project Life "series," if you will, right here on my blog.  I'll be posting my pages, hopefully weekly.  Keeping my fingers crossed I can keep up with it!

If you want to see some more Project Life stations, check these out:
Marcy Penner
Lisa Truesdell

If you've seen others, please let me know!  I tried searching Pinterest, but it doesn't seem to want to let me search today....hmmm....

December Sketch at the Sampler

Hi!  It's sketch time over at The Sampler for the month of December.  The December kit, All That Glitters, is so Christmas-yummy!  Here's the sketch:

And here's what I did:

I kept the same basic plan, but moved the swirls on the side to the bottom of the page to anchor it more.  I used the "MERRY" tag in the kit, although the silver stamping didn't show up well on camera.  I used the gold paint dabber to outline the edges of the paper squares I used.  I just love how everything works together from this kit.  Everything on this page is from the kit (except the date stamp and the sewing thread).

Please play along with us for your chance to win a great prize from Scrapbookingsuppliesrus.com!  Create your own layout or card from this sketch and upload it to The Sampler's Flickr gallery to be entered.  This is my last sketch challenge as a design team member.... :(  To check out the new design team for 2012, check out this blog post introducing these awesome ladies!

Lastly, be sure to check out the sketch by the other current design team members:

Rochelle Spears

Diana Gonzolas

Amber Goble

Holly King

Jules Dix

Monique Liedtke

December Daily 2011 - Days 8-14

Welcome to the second week of my December Daily.  This week, my husband returned from a TDY, therefore, I got a little behind.  But I went to a friend's house to scrap and took my album with me to catch up.  And I did!  Here are days 8-14:

My husband returning from his trip.

Finally got our decorations up.  Snapped some pics of my favorites.

DATE NIGHT!

The squadron children's Christmas party.  Santa came in on a C-130 and gave out presents.

Our tree.

Favorite holiday tunes right now.

Thought it would be cool to include the book I'm currently reading.  Fitting, since it has a heavy religious storyline.

I'm going to try my best to keep caught up this week, although we're looking at another busy week.  Including an adult squadron party, doctor's appointments, making cookies, post office visits....etc....etc....etc....

December Daily 2011 - Days 1-7

Hi there!  I've actually been making time each night to work on my December Daily.  What's really helping is that I pulled lots of things from my stash and put it with the Studio Calico kit that I got for it and I keep it all together. That's all I'm allowed to use!  Since the pages are small, it's easy for me to bust out the days' page quickly.  Here's my progress so far:

Our Santa visit - we did this on Black Friday.  We were visiting family, so the two girls on the outsides are mine.  The boy is my nephew and the girl holding Layla is my sister-in-law.  Layla's smile just warms my heart and makes me laugh.  Not to mention Caylan's cheesiest of the cheese smile!

Starbucks - no explanation needed.  The kraft image is from a giftcard that someone gave me.

Georgia Bulldogs - we lost, but whatever.

Used an entire package of snowflakes that I've had for YEARS!

Saw this idea on Pinterest and loved it!  I used a few grid journal spots from Project Life and I'll put the return address from our Christmas cards we receive this year.  I may also collect the different stamps people use on one of them.

This is the front of the Christmas card we're sending this year.  I may also include our newsletter we do every year.  If I have room.

Cookies!  And I finally used the awesome Mister Huey's that came exclusively in the kit.  It's called Holly Berry.  Love!

I have a slight obsession with peppermint this time of year.  Used the packaging from my favorite treats on this page.

And that's my first week.  I'm hoping I can keep caught up with this project, but so far, so good!  It's actually relaxing to work on it after the day is done and I can reflect on what I want to document.  Are you working on a December Daily?  Link me up, I'd love to see it!

Here are a few of my favorite December Daily's that are going on right now:
Geralyn Sy
Ali Edwards
Nicole Reaves
Ursula Schneider

December Daily - The Foundation

Hope you're sitting down, this will be a long one!  I didn't realize how many pictures I had until I got them on the computer and renamed them...oh man!  Ok, so this is the foundation of my December Daily.  I purchased the kit from Studio Calico (sold out).  I also purchased the daily overlays from Designer Digitals.  The layout goes like this:
Left side (back of previous page): patterned paper and embellishment
Center: decorative transparency with day number
Right: overlay with details of the day, pictures, journaling, etc.
My concern right now is how full it is, and I haven't even added any pictures or anything like that.  I mean, check this out:

Scary huh?  I'm thinking I might go back and change out some of the thick brads and anything else I can do to make not so bulky to start off with.  And here are my foundation pages:

Inside the cover is a calendar page that came with the kit.  I stamped the dates and added in things that are already on our calendar for the month.  I'll add to it as things pop up as well.  I may add in some small pictures along the bottom, haven't quite decided yet.

This will be the cover page.  It's not done yet, obviously.  Hint: that painted red "S" up in the corner is going on there.

I've added little post-its to pages to remind me of what I want to share that day.  Most pages already have these!

This envelope will hold small journal cards and I'll paste return address labels from Christmas cards we get from friends on it.  Saw this on this Pinterest post.

So there you have it, my December Daily foundation!  I really love it!  I'm excited to get started on it today.  I'll be updating weekly with my pages, so you'll see one week at a time.  Time to power up my Pandora Christmas station and get to working on Dec 1!  If you're doing a December Daily, please let me know where I can see it!  Happy Scrapping!