December Daily 2012...building blocks and page beginnings..

I wasn't going to do a December Daily this year because we are moving in a few weeks and I knew it was going to be hectic.  But then I thought about how important it is to capture this time in our lives and I decided I am going to go for it.

My focus this year is going to be on journaling instead of making sure my pages look pretty (although I will do that at the end).  In the past, I have spent so much time making these great albums, but only getting half way through.

Here is my DD from 2010.  (Which was a pretty simple format...)

And my album from 2009, which I spent forever creating, and it now sits half empty.

I didn't do one last year because I was going crazy with a new little one and a 2 1/2 year old.

My first step was choosing my album, and that was pretty easy.  I have had this Fancy Pants Brag Book in my stash for a while.  It is spiral bound with a chipboard cover.

It has 50 journaling pages, 15- 6x8 photo pages, and 15 black folders pockets.  I tend to take a lot of photos, so I thought the pockets would be good for sticking in all the extra photos.   My first step was to take it all apart!  I am going to use the journaling pages and then fill in the others as I go along.  I'm not sure how I am going to approach the pocket pages yet.  I don't like that they are black, so I may completely cover them in paper, but we will see.

As I mentioned, we are moving, but I did pull out some Christmas stuff before we packed.  A few years ago,  I won the entire Dear Lizzy Christmas line, and I still love it to this day and have a lot of it.  It is perfect for the color combo I am focusing on:

Mint Green, Pink, Gold, Silver, Teal, and a hint of red.  I REALLY wanted to use a lot of metallics this year, and I love the idea of mint green.

Since a lot of my stash is still in storage, most of my embellies are fairly new things.  Here is the stash that I am going to commit to...this and nothing more!!!!!!

There are some stickers, die cuts, mistables, and wood veneers in the background, as well as some bits from Studio Calico.

 I am using Crate Paper chipboard pieces and some We R twines that go with this color combo.  There are some Studio Calico badges, Maya Road trandparencies, and some Mica Snow (which is my FAV).

Some Lily Bee journaling cards, mostly for decor, some Studio Calico mist in Tannenbaum (and Im using it just because it is called Tannenbaum).  Some die cuts from a recent Christmas project, and some CHEAP metalllic ink pads from AC Moore (.69 cents and I had a 30% off your purchase coupon!).

I pulled some Washi's in mt color combo range and got these cheap punches for $1 at AC Moore, too.  But my most favorite item this year is the gold thread!!!!  I forgot I had it and just found it in my thread box and I plan on using it a lot!  Also some gold mist (and some gold Glimmer Glam which is not pictured), too.

Since I haven't been going to any crops, my handy crop traveling bag is going to house everything so I can just pick it up and take it with me or bring it into a different room to work.

So as I mentioned, my focus was going to be on journaling, so the first thing I did was get my journaling pages ready!  This is just a base for now, and I will build on them as I go:

I stitched around the page with my gold thread, and stitched a vellum number to the box on each page.

You will notice that the even #'s are upside down.  I am thinking that I am going to glue page 1 to page 2 (and so on) so that I don't have to decorate the backs of them.  Also, since I only have 15 photo pages, this will allow me to put on photo pocket in between two days.

Then I misted and painted with some white mists and paints using some stencils, and splattered some gold mist. I may leave the gold thread dangling...what do you think?  :)   And my pages are ready!!!

I will be working on my covers the next few days, so I hope you will stop by again and see how it's going!!