December Daily 2015 Days 23 Thru 25!!!

Hello my dear friends and welcome back to Days 23 thru 25 on my blog! I am a complete mixture of joy, excitement, and slight sadness to see this project coming to an end! I finished my December Daily yesterday (December 27th) and literally carried the whole album outside where my husband was working, and cried. I cried because it was done. I cried because I was happy I was done. I cried because I finished it before January 1! I cried because I am so excited to be able to present it to you on my blog.

Ok, so no more tears, just December goodness. First up, the process video for completing these last three days. Then come back to hear how everything came together, ok?

So for Day 23 I decided to use a photo I took of myself reflected in one of our large gold ornaments. The photo really doesn’t have much to do with the story, but I didn’t have a photo that went with the story. That is totally ok. Here is Day 23 as it was created for the Foundation Pages:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Because I had used the brown envelope for the previous day, some changes were made.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

My story for the day was about a lady in the grocery store who stopped us to tell us how wonderful our children were and who asked if they could give them a dollar each because, it was after all, Christmas. This story is relevant since I spoke before in this album about our hard work we have all been putting in to get along better and to create better family dynamics. This was a lovely affirmation to all of us and deserved a place in this album!

So on the back of the envelope I created a gesso’d space for journaling and one of the red stars from the AE Main Kit.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

On the facing page I changed out the journaling cards a bit. I was trying to get the number 23 to pop a bit more, but I’m not sure. Oh well.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

On the photo itself I added the Twinkle word from the Main Kit, and that was all.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Here is the layout in the album, as a whole:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

For Days 24 and 25 I gave myself permission to use more photos in my layouts. I didn’t take endless amounts of photos, but there were several significant parts to the days, and I wanted to document them through more photos. Here is Day 24 as I created it for the Foundation Pages:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Since our evening’s activities centered around the tree, I chose photos of the kids, around the tree.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

My story for Day 24 was really the activities of the evening: we called family meeting and came clean about Santa, and then we all brought all the presents down together, and then instead of leaving cookies for Santa we all got to enjoy those cookies we baked!

I chose one vertical photo of the tree with all the presents underneath, and two photos of the kids in front of the tree.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The tree photo is layered on top of a file transparency from Heidi Swapp (it was part of a mixed media album). For the left side I created a flip-up with journaling underneath.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Here is the layout inside the album:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Day 25 is actually several layouts. I wanted photos of each of us opening presents and I also wanted to include our Christmas morning breakfast.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

I layered the photo of my daughter Natalie on top of the Love Christmas paper from the AE Main Kit because this kid really is Christmas’ biggest fan. She truly does love Christmas, and her face shows it all over!

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The December paper, the 25 numbers, and the transparency they are layered on are all from the Main Kit. On the back of those I added the red diagonal striped star with my journaling written on top.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

I adore the way Natalie’s face peeks above the star! For the right hand side I chose a photo of three of the kids together opening stockings. This year they chose their own stockings, and several of them decided to use their Easter buckets! Because that’s just how we roll in this house….

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

I added a star banner with a word strip stapled to that photo. I added a journaling card with Christmas words layered on top. The polka dot transparency card I left as it was. It is one my favorites this whole album.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

This is what this layout looked like in the original Foundation Pages:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

And here it is completed, in the album:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The back of that layout was intended to be the last page. Here is how it looked for Foundation Pages:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The brown envelope was used earlier, so I added two more pocket pages to accommodate the photos I wanted to include:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The left side is our daughter Emberlynn opening one of her presents. I added a vellum on the bottom pocket and left the top pocket the same.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

My stamping was pretty messy! When I put the image down on the label, it slid around a bit. So I stamped it again to make it look messy on purpose. No big deal.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The Magic and Joy sentiment were on the back of one of the journaling cards from the Ali Edwards Main Kit. That card is actually quite pretty, but these were cut off because I used the front earlier. It was sitting on my work area and I just thought it would be perfect right there.

On the right side I have photos of myself and our son Addison.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Remember that layout on Day 3 where I was playing in the Target? That was what I was playing with – those light-up talking Star Wars balls. Yeah, that’s Addison’s reaction when he opened his. So priceless. I added the Joy card using a label I had stamped earlier on and I cut one of the wood circles in half. 

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The little bird was stuck on the page protector and I wanted to keep him, so I just added a vellum tag embossed with the song. The photo of me was taken by my husband – don’t be too hard on him because the camera’s autofocus is still kaput. It was still important to me to include myself in this day!

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

That is the layout inside the album. I think if you were doing Project Life while creating a December Daily, these photos might be perfect for your Project Life spread for the week of December. But since I stopped my PL back in November, they fit perfectly right here.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

More photos here of my husband and our son opening presents. And then our Christmas breakfast. The journaling card next to Nick’s photo is from the AE kit – I just adore that sweater pattern. I layered a simple clear sticker from Pretty Little Studio on top.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

The pocket beside my husband is simply the back of the vellum tag. I also layered some washi tape on each photo. Iwanted to add something simple to each photo but not be too complicated about it. Those washi strips tie all the photos together!

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

On the right side, I included photos of our Clarice reindeer plates. I’ve been so excited to use them this year – last year I waited and waited to buy them after Christmas when they went on sale. The box came long after the holidays were over, so we put them away until December of this year!

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

I had set aside some of the tags we used for our gifts, and they were perfect for the 2×2 pockets (I can neither confirm nor deny whether I actually bought them specifically because they were 2×2…..). 

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

On the final page I included one last photo of the kids having their breakfast. I guess the sun had finally lit the room because the photo has a blue cast from the tungsten setting! Oh well. I layered the word strips, washi tape, and rubber word strips on top of the photo with a star on top.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Also, more tags.

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Here are these last few layouts inside the album:

December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25
December Daily 2015 Days 23 thru 25

Can you believe that is it?!?! I am amazed that it is done, that it is completed before January is even here. I plan still to create a final walk-thru video of the completed pages and I also want to include a round-up of all the various products and manufacturer’s products I have used. I hope you will come back to see that!

I am so incredibly thankful for you, my dear readers. Thank you for coming to see every day what’s been going on. Thank you for leaving me such lovely feedback. I am so very appreciative of your kindness and of your support of my art. I am looking forward to the new year and new projects, so I hope you will Subscribe down below!

See you soon,

~Theresa

**December Daily is the creative brainchild of scrapbooking genius Ali Edwards. This has been a process through the month of December for documenting one story per day, through photos and journaling, in a mini-album that was created beforehand. To learn more about this wonderful project, please visit her blog here.