December Daily 2015, part one

Hey little blog, long time no see 🙂

It’s December Daily/Journal Your Christmas/ Holiday Listing time again! I have to say, I think this is the most relaxed I’ve ever felt about Holiday scrapping. Except maybe that first year when I didn’t know anything about Holiday Projects *cue sinister music*, and I was just rolling along making pages with no rhyme or reason.

I think a couple of things have added to my sense of calm this time around.

1). I’m doing something very similar to last year, so I’m combining a few projects but only doing the parts that inspire me at that time.

2). I’m making holiday pages that will go into my regular 2015 album, as opposed to a separate project. I have realized that instead of inspiring me, separate projects like mini books actually stress me out and drive me crazy. That only took like, five years to learn. I think they are beautiful and amazing when other people do them, they just don’t work for me right now.

3). I’m using one set of supplies, the December Buffet from Gingerscraps. I am not the biggest fan of pink, unless it’s for a specific purpose like a race, or to make a big statement. But this year’s color scheme has really grown on me. I’ve also made my own set of templates, which I’ll talk about in another post if anyone’s interested.

So my first page, we’ll call it Day Zero, is a sort of intentions/ manifesto page. Neither of those words felt right for my journaling, so I just called it “This Christmas”. And now every time I see it I think of the song. Which isn’t a bad thing because I love that song. The journaling is taken from a JYC prompt.

Speaking of journaling, I have one more thing to say before I show you the darn page already. All year long I’ve been keeping a “2015 Stories to Tell” file in Evernote. I’ve kept lists of LO’s I wanted to make for years, but something shifted this year. Maybe it was just the change in wording from “Layouts to Make” to “Stories to Tell”. Maybe it was that I stopped blogging for most of the year so I needed another writing outlet. Whatever it was, something changed, and now I’m writing almost daily, in addition to taking photos. It has become a habit. So I’m not worried at all about finishing my holiday pages this month. I’m actually 100% sure that I won’t. But I’m totally okay with that. As my friend Megan always says, “Document now, make later”.

Journaling reads- Hello December This year will be a very different holiday season for us. We will have Charles on Christmas for the first time in our ten year marriage. I could not be more psyched! I have this driving urge to make everything “perfect” because lord knows if we’ll ever get this opportunity again. On top of that, Jason’s dad will be visiting, and we’ll be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary! I want to throw myself into this season wholeheartedly, and try to keep sadness and bitterness at bay as much as possible. I want to embrace it all, the sights, smells, tastes, and most of all, the feeling of having family here for the holidays. I’m sure it will be a bit of a roller coaster, and it will never be “perfect”, but it will be “ours”. And that’s what matters the most.

Credits
Most Wonderful Time ellies by Key Lime Pie Design
North Pole Candy Shoppe by Trixie Scraps
Gingerbread alpha by Aprilisa

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

December Daily, part two

Congratulations, Jen! You’re a mere 16 days behind on your holiday book! *cue wild applause*. Here are pages from December 1st through 5th.

The first page features a beautiful printable from Marie Lottermoser.

I did a couple of lists from 30 Days of Lists, one from 2013 and one from this year. I’m torn on what to do with this page. I’m tempted to split it and make it one half page, front and back. One of the big reasons I decided to do a cheapo Blurb book for DD this year was so I can play around and cut up pages. This spread might be my first victim… err experiment.

I initially wanted this to be a strictly holiday album, but changed my mind around December 2nd. I like having little bits of our daily lives in here. And Monday Night Football is seasonal, right?

Christmas wouldn’t be the same without a few “holiday fails” I love the splotches of gold glitter that give this page a messy look.

Speaking of holiday fails, I just found a typo in the next page. Good job! Anyway, yay fancy decorated palm trees! And boo overpriced Cronuts!

Because I always strive to keep things classy, I’m using a sheet as a tree skirt this year. I’m playing around with different RadLab filters this season. Not sure if I love it, but it’s fun trying new things.

Okay y’all this page is my favorite! I didn’t have a picture for the 5th, so I stole this one from NASA. I had absolutely no idea how to decorate it at first, but do you know what the awesome thing about Christmas kits is? They’re filled with stars and “countdown” words- both of which are perfect for all your nerdy holiday space related December Daily pages! I totally squealed and bounced up and down in my seat when I figured that one out.

Supplies used-
Christmas Countdown bundle by JB Studio
December 2014 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

The rest of my album can be found here-
Plan and cover page
November pages 

December Daily, part one

We’re already halfway through the month, so I guess it’s about time I shared some DD pages, huh? I’ll start with some November pages. My cover and basic plan can be found here.

I wasn’t going to do an intro page, I always feel awkward doing those because it’s hard finding words. Then I started talking about DD on the GingerScraps forum and the words just came to me. I used Ali’s free word art for the title.

The next page is from a Shimmelle JYC prompt. My holiday manifesto took the form of a to-do list this year that I made in the middle of November. And I’m super happy that I’ve already crossed a lot of those items off.

Now onto our Louisiana pages! We went up to LA to visit Jason’s dad and brother for Thanksgiving. We haven’t been there for a few years, so we were really looking forward to it! (Posts recapping that trip are here and here). I didn’t want to overwhelm my holiday book with a hundred pictures from our trip, so I limited myself to one page per day. The first page is from the trip up.

I wanted to use pictures with holiday decorations in this book, and as soon as we stepped off the trolley, I knew this would be my photo for Monday.

I took a lot of photos of the Cathedral, planning to use one of those for Tuesday. Then I found this one that Jason’s dad caught and it became one of my favorites for the whole trip.

On Wednesday we went to our very first wine tasting at the vineyard where Jason’s dad volunteers. It was a lot of fun, and Jason wasn’t nearly as pissed off as he looks here. 😛

And Thanksgiving! I’ll do a page for that in my Seasons and Holidays scrapbook, so I kept it simple here.

Another very simple page for our trip home on Friday. We stopped in Panama City Beach, and it was one of my favorite things all year.

I used a 30 Days of Lists prompt for Saturday. We didn’t do much that day except rest and do laundry, so I wrote about what little lushes we were.

 

And then, November came to a close. Poor Jason was back at work and I got my new GS praise team avi.

Supplies used- Christmas Countdown by JB Studio, Forever Joy Holiday Basics papers, Ali Edwards WA Fonts- Avenir, Chunk Five, CK Ali’s Hand

Thanks for stopping by! I’ll be sharing more pages in a few days.

My (sort of) simple plan for a not-just December not-quite Daily

We’ll just call it a holiday book. It will encompass Thanksgiving week, Christmas, travel, our anniversary, and possibly New Year’s. If I’m not sick of it by then.

I want to do something holiday related every day from November 22nd- January 1st. This does NOT mean I’m going to make a page every day. It may mean taking a photo, jotting down a list, making a page, writing a blog post, whatever. I’m not not making arbitrary restrictions or deadlines. I just want to take pictures, write stuff, and make stuff.

I would like to come out of this holiday season with a small book of digital pocket style pages and regular layouts. How this turns out will factor into how I choose to do Project Life in 2015. My plan is to put everything I make into a 5×8 trade paperback sized book from Blurb. (They don’t offer 6×8)

I have several sources of inspiration, possibly too many, but I know there will be overlap.

Simple Scrapper Holiday Focus FB group
Simelle’s Journal Your Christmas
30 Days of Lists, 2013 & 2014
My Details class, with a holiday spin
DailyDoc from December 2012 (no longer available)

I’m not worried about cohesion in my album whatsoever. After a ruthless declutter session, I still have a lot of Christmas and winter kits. I will use some of Mandy’s kits for sure. The sneak peeks for the Gingerscraps December buffet that I’ve seen so far are SWEET, so that will be a big temptation. And of course, I’ll buy whatever Just Jaimee puts out.

And that’s pretty much it. Not too much structure, just doin’ my thang.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll keep on referring to it as December Daily.

At least my cover is straightforward. Because I totally lifted Ali’s cover from last year. Who has time for originality? 🙂

Credits- Christmas Countdown kit by JB Studio

Four awesome things in three days

Each of these is deserving of it’s own post, but knowing myself… that won’t happen. One of my goals this year is to blog things as they happen and not wait for the perfect photo or perfect words.

So here are four really great things from the past few days-

1. We got my engagement ring fixed! I slammed my hand in a case cart door at work a few years ago. We kept putting off getting it fixed because we thought it would be expensive and take weeks to get fixed. But we shopped around and found a place on Thursday that fixed it within an hour! I’m still not used to wearing a sharp object on my hand, and I’ve gouged my eye more than once. But super happy to have my ring back!

2. I got 138  layouts printed! Thanks to a generous gift certificate to Persnickity from my dad, I’m now very much closer to being caught up with printing. I can’t wait to share my (almost) completed albums, probably next week.

3. Anniversary stocking! I was totally going to give Jason a pass on my stocking this year. He’s sick and it’s been a crazy busy week. But he came through and totally surprised me on Friday night. Because he’s The Best.

4. We did a 5k! We decided to celebrate our anniversary by doing something healthy for ourselves. So we signed up for a 5k. Because we’re crazy. Neither of us have done one before, and with one thing and another we didn’t train much. We ran/walked half the course a couple of weeks ago and that’s about it. I can truthfully say that I was more nervous about this race than I was the day we got married. My goals were simple 1. Don’t be last… 2. Try to do it in less than an hour… and 3. Don’t break my legs.

And I was successful at all three! Plus we beat the lady walking the tiny dog. I did a bit of trash talking to that dog, so I’m glad my short legs could outrun his.

We mostly walked, but we did jog a little. Jason was really encouraged me and kept us at a good pace. I know he could have finished much faster than me, but the point was to do it together. So we held sweaty hands and walked fast. We jogged around a few bends. And we ran across the finish line. Together. I’m so proud of us! And as soon as my blisters heal up, we’ll try it again for sure.

Eight years

You are the best.

Best friend.

Best listener.

Best encourager.

Best analogy maker.

Best IT guy.

Best sunset photographer.

Best pancake maker.

Best driver.

Best planner.

Best hugger.

Best keeper of my heart.

Just the best.

Christmas 2013

Happy Boxing Day!

We had a really great, low-key Christmas here. It was basically a repeat of Thanksgiving, food-wise. I did a lot of prep work on Christmas Eve. I made our usual pre-holiday panzanella and sausage balls, plus Wilbur cookies. When Jason got home he made the brine for the turkey and we opened some champagne to celebrate our anniversary a few days early. (I think we spent just as much time photographing the champagne as actually drinking it)

Then we settled in for some dinner and TV. Notice my super classy ziplock bag containment apparatuses.

We had decided not to give each other presents again this year, which causes much controversy among our family and friends, but takes an enormous amount of pressure off ourselves. But Jason surprised me on Christmas Eve with the sweetest most romantic letter- that rhymed! It was funny and romantic and I just cried and cried. It is seriously one of my very favorite gifts he’s ever given me and I’m still smiling like a big goober just thinking about it.

We slept in on Christmas morning.then lazed around the house a bit before starting to cook.

We had leftovers for breakfast and talked to the Little Man. He loved the presents we sent.

The cooking part took a lot longer this time for some reason (I think maybe because somebody kept opening the oven door to obsessively check the turkey). Jason played games and I looked at blogs and prepped side dishes. We watched the Mentalist and SNL Christmas special. Shweddy balls never gets old!

MK, aka “The Sniffer” was very interested in my table setup.

The turkey finally finished cooking and I started in on the sides.

And I just realized Jason was wearing his same PJ’s from Thanksgiving 😛 Clearly our holiday dress code is very casual.

Here’s our menu-
turkey
dressing (I changed this up quite a bit, so I’ll post a recipe next week)
mashed potatoes in the slow cooker (I subbed cream cheese for the sour cream again)
my infamous broccoli casserole (writing out the recipe made me war it again)
roasted squash with garlic and basil
gravy
Hawaiian rolls
cranberry sauce

It was all really tasty, and I can’t say enough good things about that turkey recipe. If you’ve never brined before, definitely give it a try!

Weekend Ten: Fake fireplace, Bloons, and Christmas at City Place

Jason had a three day weekend, yay!

We spent Friday morning by the light of a roaring (fake) fire. Because it was 85 degrees outside. In December.

Then we went downtown to check out the Christmas tree made of sand.

And walked around downtown looking at the lights.

My dad asked me last week if we decorated palm trees for Christmas. Of course we do!

After doing a little window shopping, we finished off the night at City Pizza for some tasty Stromboli and chocolate mousse cake. So delicious!

One last thing of note this weekend. Little Man got me hooked on Bloons TD5 this fall. It is not even funny how much time I’ve spent on this game. Jason and I have started playing co-op, and doing pretty well, I must say! We may or may not have stayed up until almost 4 in the morning playing one night this weekend.

Here are a few pics of the holidays at City Place from last year.

So that was our weekend. How was yours?

More December Project Life + a West Virginia LO

I’m on a roll with this monthly Project Life thing! Here are three more pages.

The first is everyday stuff, more 30 Days of Lists (I’m not going to include all of them. A couple will probably become regular LO’s). Holiday music, attempting a topknot (which amazingly lasted all day and through a run), and one of the nicest things Jason has ever said to me… there is context, but I’m not sharing 😛

The second is photos from our evening at two different parks. I love how they look edited in RadLab. That is definitely my new favorite toy.

And one more page heavily edited in RadLab showing pictures from decorating the tree. I eventually want to make pages for each of our different “special” ornaments, but for right now I’m happy to have them in my Project Life. It’s funny how I’m making more pages, but it seems so much less stressful this way. I used to spend a crazy amount of time editing out which stories and photos to go on one two page spread each week. Now I can include all the little things that I love, and I can still include pages with just one day or theme that have a ton of photos.

Credits:
Cristemasse Collection by Inspired by Dominic

I also did a page with pictures from our recent West Virginia trip. Can you tell I’m into grid layouts lately?

Credits:
Holiday Style bundle by Mandy King

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

Christmas pages using December Essentials

Here are a couple of Christmas pages I made using the December Essentials collection by Ohana Designs. I absolutely love these papers, and I’m sure I’ll be using them again.

 

As much as I adore making big cluster-y pages, it’s a nice change to do simpler pages every once in a while. I like the challenge of only using papers with no ellies.

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.