December Daily 2012 - The beginning of the process

In the beginning there is that overwhelming sensation of will I have the time, the desire and wanting to follow through with another project during the busy holidays? I did do my first December Daily album last Christmas, and although I was happy with getting it done, it was a commitment, and did I want that commitment again this year. And as I am also working on my first Project Life album this year, would the two different albums end up just repeating the same stories. After some internal debating with myself, I decided that I would make the albums different, only focusing on one story per day as I did last year with my December Daily and leave my Project Life for the everyday life stories. That being said, I then had to choose what my album would look like, what patterned papers I would use etc...so off to the local scrapbooking store I went. And after walking round and round, I once again decided on using my favorite line of products right now and that is Simple Stories. Love that line, and this years Homemade Christmas line is no disappointment. And they also have 3 sticker sheets that coordinate with the papers this year so bonus.

After deciding on my papers, and the size of my album, I cut out my album covers using medium thickness chipboard, and running it through my Cricut. My covers ended up being about 6 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches, and my foundation pages would fit perfectly inside as they are 6 x 10 inches. After cutting my chipboard, I then cut out the pattern papers that I would used to cover both sides of the chipboard. I then attached the paper with a glue stick and used my brayer for a good adhesion.

After getting all the covers dealt with, I moved on to getting my foundation pages cut, and then hand drawing all my borders, and journaling, date squares, similar to the design I used last year, following Ali Edwards digital version. 

After getting all the foundation pages cut and drawn out, it was time to decide on what of the pattern paper cut outs I would use for which days, and then start with adding the date stickers and other things to bring each page together.

And even though I really like all the elements of the Simple Stories line, I just wanted to add a little more bling to my pages, so cut out a whole sheet of stars with my Cricut, on a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of gold heavy duty cardstock.