Documenting December. For Serious.
Ali Edwards' December Daily. It's my favorite project of the year. I LOVE setting up the album, and I love having a single place to house all of my favorite holiday moments. I traditionally finish about 2/3rds of the album in December and then get around to completing it sometime over the next year. This year my goal is to finish the album by the end of the month, but I'm not going to be disappointed in myself if it takes me a little while longer to complete the album to my satisfaction.
That being said, the 'for serious' part of the blog post means that I'm putting it at the top of my priority list this season. It's my first Christmas away from home -- away from my mom and my dad and my sister. It's my first Christmas away from the East Coast. It's my first Christmas in this new place, in this new life that we are building for ourselves here in the Midwest.
Memory-keeping in the moment means that I can bring myself closer to the emotions of the holiday season and the new...everything that we are creating. This is the time that family traditions form, and I'm choosing to be intentional with creating and fostering their growth. I look forward to waking up each day excited to celebrate and remember the holiday moments even though they may look and feel entirely new. Making time each day to seek out and document the meaningful holiday stories will guide me as I transform my favorite familial traditions from my childhood and young adult years into the special moments that we'll look forward to as a family each year here in Michigan and wherever else our lives may take us.
'But Kristin, you're a work-at-home introvert -- what type of things could you possibly document?'
True, but that's my life regardless of what month it is. My life is worth documenting because it's my life and my life, like all of our lives, has an inherent value that can't be stripped away. I'm going to be documenting the things that are important to me, the things that make it worth getting out of bed, the things that make me smile, and laugh, and even cry. The goal is not to say "hey everyone else, look at how cool my life is -- especially with all these awesome photos, pretty paper and sparkly trinkets. For me, scrapbooking is not a glitterized ego trip, it's my way of telling the story of my life -- if other people are into it, then that's cool too, but the primary intention is for me, not for anyone else.
‘Cool, that's totally awesome, but like what about the days that you actually don't do anything worth documenting?'
Every day has something worth documenting. I could stop writing this post and come up with at least 35 different things that are interesting about the who/what/where/when/why of my life. This is an opportunity for me to document who I am right now, through the lens of the holiday season. What movies am I watching? What TV shows am I watching? What music am I listening to? What books am I reading? What is my favorite late-night delivery food? All of these things matter -- and they all have a place in my December Daily album because they are a part of who I am and my right-now life.
I will be helping myself out a little bit on that front -- in addition to my holiday moments, I'll be pulling a few other projects and challenges under my umbrella. These are not meant to cause more work for me, but to help me supplement my story on the days that aren't super holiday-focused, or where nothing really happens. As I stay home a lot, a lot of my days are filled with similar tangible activities. If I can't find a story compelling enough to add to my album, I can turn to these projects to help me fill in the gaps.
Currently List
How could I work on a daily documenting project without incorporating Currently List journaling? If you're new to the Currently List Journaling Challenge -- it's an introspective journaling project designed so that I could get a little bit of my right-now life down in an easy to document format.
In 2012 I designed the Original Currently Journaling Card which is still available as a free download, and since then I've expanded the Currently Product line to include more digital journaling cards, physical journaling cards, wooden stamps, and most recently a clear stamp set and sticky notes.
I'll be keeping a stack of the sticky notes with my supplies so that I can jot down some notes each night and use them to help fill in my journaling gaps. It'll be great to just stick the note right to the page until I'm able to write more permanent journaling using the original physical Currently Journaling Card, or use the Currently Stamp set to transfer it onto patterned paper, or a holiday themed journaling card.
Getting Started: Mentally
To get myself started, I made a folder to house all of the stuff that goes along with Documenting December, but might not have its own home just yet -- memorabilia, notes for blog posts, xmas lists, recipes, etc. In years past, I've created my own December planner where I've kept my shopping lists, my notes, etc -- but with my recent foray into the planner world, I think an separate holiday planner is entirely extraneous.
Creating a Plan of Action.
In my newsletter this past Friday, I talked about how I like to create a Plan of Action in order to help me succeed with projects like this one. To set myself up on a path to succeed, I created a printable Plan of Action to give myself the space I need to write out my vision, and keep it available during the month so that I can refer back and update it as needed.
Here are the four steps I've created for my Plan of Action:
Envision the end result of your ideal project, describe it below:
Simplify. What can you leave out without sacrificing?
Outline your plan, think about structure, supplies, and how/when/where you plan on working on the project:
Live your life, enjoy your December, & document your stories according to your plan, adjusting wherever you need.
Getting Started: Physically
One of the biggest keys to successfully completing this project is putting together the base of the album before the full swing of the holiday season. Ali Edwards shared her 2014 foundation pages last week, and while I'm not totally there just yet, I have gathered all of my supplies and started putting more than a few pages together. I love the kit that Ali came up with this year -- you can still pick it up here on her website.
Photo: AliEdwards.com
Sometimes, even when you plan everything out, you still screw up. That's totally okay, everything is fixable. Case in point: I effed up while I was prepping my supplies. I received my Ali Edwards December Daily Kit (minus the album) and after going through the supplies and taking in all the pretties, I started punching holes and playing around with some of my supplies. When my album arrived about a week later, I had a teensy-weensy mental breakdown when I realized that the holes I had had previously punched didn't match up with the album I had just received.
After freaking out and convincing myself that I had definitely ruined everything, and that my favorite project of the year was going to be a complete disaster, I calmed down figured out a solution because everything is fixable.
I looked around my studio and grabbed the gold album I used for Week in the Life and deciding that would be my December Daily album -- I moved my Week in the Life pages over to another album, and felt an immediate sense of relief. I am much happier with the gold album -- it fits my style about a million times better than the awkward salmon-reddish album in the DD kit. I'll just use that album for another project in the future, one where I haven't already punched holes in all the pretties I intend to house inside.
With this album, I'm making one big change from years past. I'm not going to be pre-numbering any of my pages. While setting up the album before the rush of the holiday season is crucial, I don't want to paint myself into a corner with a specific pre-made page for each day. I don't know what story I'm going to want to tell on the eighth or the twelfth or even the twenty-fourth, so I'm not going to create a page FOR any specific day. I'm going to get started on a few pages, playing with paper and embellishments, but I'm leaving the numbers to add later on when I know which pages will go best with that day's story.I've pulled numbers from a few different sources. The Ali Edwards kit came with super cute wood veneer numbers, as well as these amazing huge gold chipboard numerals. I'm supplementing with other numbers from my stash, including letterpress coaster numbers from the December Daily kit two years ago, kraft and black tags from Ikea, my newly designed numeral stamps, and some old-school rub-ons from about ten years ago.
Getting Started: Supplies
Everything is being stored in my Ikea Raskog cart; it holds my album, my paper, my embellishments, my tools, and anything else I might need. I put all my stuff in pretty Anthro bowls and put it in the rolling cart. I'm keeping this cart filled with all DD supplies so that I can move it around and work on my album wherever suits my mood. I foresee a fair amount of scrapbooking on the couch in front of the TV watching the Harry Potter movies. This also keeps it off my desk, so that I can continue to use my desk as I normally would and not have to take out and put away my supplies each time.
Album
For this year's project, I'll be using the gold 8x6 album that came with Ali Edwards' Week in the Life kit. This is partially because I screwed up and started punching six holes in all my supplies, and partially because I'm not a huge fan of the shade of red on the cover of December Daily album and the gold is so perfect for the holidays.
I'll be using leftover page protectors from that same Week in the Life kit, as well as adding in pages made from anything I want using my 6 Hole Punch -- another reason I'm really glad that I'm using this album.
Paper
Ali Edwards December Daily kit paper is my main paper source. The kit came with two sets of 8x6 papers. I cut up some of the pages into 3x4 and 4x6 cards, because the kit came with two sheets of each paper, I didn't have any qualms about chopping them up before I know exactly what I'm doing with them.
I also pulled some specialty papers from my stash. Some vintage papers, some vellum, some transparencies, etc -- this is my favorite project of the year, so I'm gonna go all out and use the supplies that I love the most. If I'm not willing to put my supplies in this album, then what the hell am I holding them on for?
Currently Journaling Carrds and Post-It Notes. I'll be using the post-its throughout the month to help me jot down the stuff that's going on, and I'll either incorporate that journaling into my album with the original Currently Journaling Card, or use the Currently Stamp set to transfer some or all of it onto a holiday themed card.
Envelopes. I'm a sucker for envelopes. So hard. I went through my stash of envelopes and pulled out a few that coordinated with my supplies. Several of these came from the brand new happy mail kit from A Beautiful Mess; I'm especially in love with the black and white striped one.
Embellishments
I'll be sharing more on specific embellishments next week when I share my foundation pages, but this year I'm trying to keep my album a little more on the flat side, so I'll be sticking to low-profile embellishments. I've broken them down into a couple of different categories to keep them organized and easy to find.
Stickers/rubons (flat)
Numbers
Letters
Stamps
Washi/ribbon
Adhesive
Ink
Miscellaneous Tools
Sewing Machine (which I use almost exclusively for scrapbooking). I love making pockets and feeling the texture created by the needle and thread.
Small Scissors
Next week I'll be sharing some of my in-progress foundation pages, as well as some more of my favorite December memory-keeping resources. If you have a favorite resource, or you're blogging your own holiday documentation project, please leave a link below and I'll add it to the list.