Documenting in December: My 2017 December Daily Plan of Action
December Daily 2017: Plan of Action
Let's document December! I've been playing along with Ali Edwards' annual December Daily documenting project for almost a decade. If you have a few hours, you can go through dozens and dozens of posts I (and guests) have written over the years on this awesome project.
Last year's December sucked (for both global and personal reasons) and while I had noble intentions of completing an album as I do every year, it just didn't happen. Around October, when new products started to come out, I was feeling a little guilty about not doing any work on December Daily 2016 --
I said fuck it, this isn't making me happy. I don't have any photos, I don't have any stories. Nothing good happened. I put the few photos and memorabilia bits I had in a small box, put a pretty xmas label with '2016' on it and let it be done. Ever since I made that decision, I've been so excited to document this December.
2017 December Daily Album
I've put together a short video on how I assembled my December Daily album for this year, along with the supplies and tools that I'll be using throughout the project. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsunFoK4Ng]
What are my goals for this project?
Create something every day. This year, instead of focusing on a single story, I'm using the creation of the page itself to tell my day's story. I want this to be a book that tells the story of my December through mixed media; not necessarily through photographs and prose-journaled stories.
Try new techniques. One of the things that I want to use this project for is to create every day. To push myself outside of my own creative comfort zone. I feel like Christmas and December are festive and happy times in my life (especially this year) and that makes for a good time to try new creative techniques that might otherwise make me anxious.
Share with the community. The best part about scrapbooking is always the community. The December Daily community that Ali Edwards has fostered is incredible. It's a testament to who she is as a person and it makes me so happy to keep coming back to her projects, year in and year out.
How am I tackling this project?
I created the album with blank inside pages ahead of time. My favorite part of this project was always putting together the foundation pages and sharing them with the community. This year, instead of getting all of the excitement of sharing my foundation pages over at the beginning, I'll get excited about making and sharing it each day.
Have supplies and tools ready. I'm keeping my December Daily project and supplies out on my video desk throughout the month of December. It'll be easier to wake up each morning, come over to the table, and get started right away. I also work a lot better when everything is out in front of my face.
Have additional sources of content. On most days, I'm not planning to be pulling direct stories and photos. So I've got a couple of different sets of prompts to make sure that I've always got something to keep me inspired. 30 Days of Lists is going to be my main source for prompts if I'm feeling the need to add words to my book.
