Audrey's Reflection: December Daily 2013

Well, I am no where near done with it, but I am so proud of myself because my goal was to JOURNAL everyday for 25 days and I did it!!! Now the fun part of just adding in the photos and decorating is all I have to do! I am sharing some photos of my album that I took around day 6 of December (yes, that long ago and I am just posting).

My favorite part about this process is creating my journaling pages. On my album I created last year (WHICH YOU CAN SEE HERE), I first started by creating journaling pages and I was able to stick to it. The photos speak for themselves...they are memories captured in that instant. But those thoughts and words that go with those specific moments are sometimes fleeting, and the details can get lost over time. That is why I feel it is so important to focus on the journaling. I want to remember those conversations and little bits of the day that really make this holiday.

OK, so to my pages:

I started by simply creating a Microsoft Word document with 2 columns and adding in some lines for journaling. I fiddled with the margins so they would be equal once I cut down the middle. I printed 13 pages, cut them each in half, which gave me 26 journaling pages. On each page, I used a decorative border punch on the top edge. I splattered some Citron (Heidi Swapp), Santa Claus Red (Ranger), and Tannenbaum (Studio Calico) mists on each page.

On the bottom edge of each journaling page, I used some Mod Podge and a dry brush and made streaks of glue with the brush and sprinkled some gold glitter on it and let it all dry.

Finally, I chose 5 colors/patterns of washi tape and added them to the right edge of the journaling pages. Then I used some vellum and paper die cuts from Pink Paislee and stitched them over the washi with some gold thread (and I left the edges of the gold thread hanging, and I love the interest it adds). Finally, I punched three holes in each page to fit into my album.

For the album:

I used this Pink Paislee "Portfolio" album, which I actually purchased about 3 or 4 years ago because Ali Edwards used it for her DD album (or maybe it was for her Week In the Life, I can't remember). But it has been sitting in my closet and I thought it was time to use it. It has some really cool shapes and types of insert pages in it.

I started by covering the outside (which is canvas) with gesso. I didn't completely cover it because I like some of the raw canvas peeking through.

Then I used a small christmas tree patterned stencil and some Citron mist and sprayed it on the bottom half of the album. Then I splattered with the Tannenbaum mist, and stamped "Dec 2013" with a date stamp here and there.

It is hard to see, but I took some irridescent punchinella and cut circles out of it. I glued the circles to random parts on the album front using mod podge.

I created a small banner cluster on the top left with some lime green washi tape.

I covered some Studio Calico wood veneer stars with some glue and loose gold glitter and glued them to the album cover. I also used some of the gold rub on stars of the same shape, but are a lot smaller, and scattered them around, too.

Finally, I added some red sequins, rhinestones from Glitz Designs, and the word "holiday" from a Basic Grey wood pack. The gold "season" alphas are Studio Calico.

PHEW! That was a lot of info! :)

Here is a peek at the inside, not embellished or decorated yet, but you can get the idea of where I am going with this....