Oh December

Oh December, we love you!

Only two more sleeps until Santa is here and you can feel the excitement in our house! We are making as much merry as we can around here! Hope your days are full of fun, joy and merriment! 

xoxo

December Daily 2015 - Days 5-14

All of my previous December Daily albums have been the 6x8 inch size, so I was really excited to switch things up a little this year.  I've had this gorgeous 4x4 album from Jamaica Edgell for years, so I pulled it out of my stash and decided to give the smaller size a go this season.

While I do LOVE square photos, I was really really worried that I wouldn't be able to "fit" all of our photos in this book.  But, thankfully, there was nothing to worry about!!  This size is just SO fun and so very easy to work with!  As you'll see from my pages below, I've kept this album VERY simple - usually a large 4x4 photo paired with a 4x4 journaling card (the Studio Calico 25 Days class kit has been perfect for this album)!

Day 5

I've still managed to add in lots of fun extras, like envelopes, tags, journaling cards and more.  Like in all of my albums, the "extras" are my favorite.

Day 5

Day 6

Each day, I print out my photo for the day (or a photo collage), pick out a coordinating journaling card, type my journaling (or maybe handwrite it), punch my holes and add it into my album.

Day 7

The smaller size definitely makes this project manageable for me right now. Things are busy, and keeping up with a big 6x8 album isn't in the cards for me now.  This repetitive size takes out all of the guesswork about what size photos to print, how many to print, etc...

Day 8

I'm using a mix of old December Daily kits and new December kits (as well as the SC class kit too) throughout my book.  Pulling out my older Christmas supplies ranks right up there with Christmas morning to me!

Day 9

For this day, Anna "stole" some of the journaling cards from the DD mini kit and starting drawing and writing.  I thought they were the perfect addition to the album. There's just something so magical about seeing her little Christmas tree, her spelling and her list in the book.  THIS is what a December Daily is all about to me.  

Day 10

Another simple day here with a photo (and a really cute "deer") and a 4x4 journaling card. Simple and easy!

Day 11

I didn't have a photo for this past Friday, so I decided to write a little about our day and snuggling on the couch to watch The Polar Express together.  I perused google and found a good image of the movie poster and printed it out onto a 4x4 piece of photo paper.  Ironically, this page is actually my kiddos favorite page...go figure. 

Day 12

We spent most of the day on Saturday either out running errands and shopping, or out playing at the park (Christmas picnic and all), so I created a little stitched pocket using my 4x4 photo and a 4x4 journaling card. Inside of the pocket is a "12" tag with my journaling written on the back .

Day 13

Yep. Simple and easy here again.

A "Sunday best" photo and some notes about our day. 

Day 14

Day 14 would pretty much be called a "photo shoot gone wrong". Between a dog who was DETERMINED to stand in front of me and two kids who had the giggles, we ended up with more out-takes than actually "good" photos, but I'm totally ok with that.  Since I had so many, I decided to create two collages of four photos and then pair them side-by-side for this day.  Have I ever mentioned that I love collages??

And that's a look at my book so far (the first 5 days are a part of the Studio Calico 25 Days class, so if you are taking that class, hop in there and check out my lessons)!

Are you doing a December album this year??  How is your book coming along? I know it's a lot of work, but honestly, this project is priceless. We all love looking back at the memories and moments I've captured over the years. And my, oh my, how fast these little ones grow up.

xoxo

Making Merry

We are well into December and I'm still having a hard time believing that Christmas will be here in just a few weeks. So far December has been full of the typical school schedules, activities, birthday parties and more, but I'm determined to make the rest of this month MERRY and fun! I think I often get too caught up in the everyday and forget to slow down and appreciate the moment.  Working hard these next few weeks to do just that. To slow down. To sit and enjoy. To let the laundry and house cleaning wait. To color with my kids and make Christmas crafts. To read a book by the fire. To just be.  It sounds so simple, but really, it's so darn hard.  

Hoping your days are slow and merry-ful. 

xoxo

Making Merry: Snowball Soup

Anna is full of Christmas magic.  She loves the tree, the sounds, the sights and of course, the presents.  I've really talked with her a lot this year about the real meaning of Christmas, and am trying to instill in her the feeling of "giving".  Giving our time to others, giving money to help out those who are less fortunate, donating gifts and picking Angels from the Angel tree....  She gets it.  She gets the reason behind this amazing season and I couldn't be more proud as a mama.

So when we were talking about gifts for her teachers at school, she immediately insisted that she give out gifts to her classmates, because "it's the season of giving, right momma" (I totally asked for that, right??).   With two days until she's out for Christmas break, I really had to scramble to figure out what we could do.  I mean, who has time to make/wrap/give 25 gifts????  :)

I spent (probably way to much time) on Pinterest and found these super cute little "snowball soup" gifts.  It's nothing more than hot chocolate, candy and a poem, but it's something and it's super cute!  And Anna couldn't have been more excited to put them together.  She stuffed each bag with a big smile on her face talking about how excited her friends were going to be....just the sweetest girl ever.

I know it's last minute, but I thought I would add the poem here just in case anyone else was looking for a quick, last minute gift!  Just right click, save to your desktop and print away!  I printed four to a sheet and then trimmed them out!  Easy peasy!!  

I think they would make great neighbor gifts, class gifts or even family gifts for the little ones!  Who doesn't like hot chocolate, right??  

Happy giving, friends!

Simple Christmas Mini Album

Today, I wanted to share a simple and sweet Christmas mini album that I put together last year.  It's more like a fold out card than a mini album, but you could easily add additional pages, or use it for one special event (like Christmas).  I think it would be awesome as a card too!!  :)

I used one sheet of 12x12 paper, which I trimmed in half (and then I ended up taking about a 1/4 of an inch off the height of the second sheet so my pages would fold together nicely).  Then you score each sheet at 6 inches, fold and adhere the two inside portions of the paper to each other.  Be sure to rotate the folds of your paper so both pages fold in to the middle. 

Fold the right side onto the middle section and then fold the left side onto the top of your right side (sounds confusing, but it's totally not!!).

When you open both sides out, you have a sweet little mini album.  I added two photos from our Christmas 2012 to the outer pages and then typed my journaling onto a doily, which I placed in the middle. 

The end result is a cute little fold out book!!  So simple and so fun!!  

Christmas Magic with Kerri Bradford

The super sweet Kerri Bradford invited me over to her blog this month to help her celebrate this awesome season.  I love all of her beautiful products, but her hand drawn words are by far my favorite!!  She has the most beautiful script writing and I think it adds such a lovely touch to layouts and mini albums!  Hop on over to Kerri's blog to check out my projects, as well as download some fun freebies!!  

25 Days with ME!

I so excited to fiiiiiinally be able to announce that I am teaching the 25 Days class at Studio Calico this December!!  December is my favorite month of the year and there is nothing I love more than capturing and documenting our memories!!  The class is going to be just amazing and I so so so so hope you will join me!!  

Here's a little about the class from the Studio Calico blog:

Join us for 25 Days and record all your special holiday moments with Stephanie Bryan. Stephanie will be teaching this class to coordinate with Ali Edwards' December Daily® kit, and she’ll share plenty of prompts and videos to give you that extra bit of motivation you need to make a gorgeous album during the busiest season of the year. Stephanie will share foundation pages beginning in November, and she’ll provide daily updates through December to culminate in a complete album.

While supplies last, 25 Days students will receive an exclusive class kit containing journal cards, a 4x3in stamp set, tulle ribbon, badges and die cut stars. This kit will ship for free, no matter where you live. Quantities are limited, so enroll now to reserve yours!

BY ENROLLING IN THIS CLASS YOU'LL RECEIVE :

·         7 videos from Stephanie covering getting organized, foundation pages, finished pages, and 4 techniques you can incorporate into your own pages.

·         A PDF with a detailed look at Stephanie's foundation pages.

·         Daily PDFs starting December 5th that share Stephanie's completed pages, along with her tips and tricks for keeping up with her album in the busy holiday season.

·         A peek into the albums of our 5 contributors - they'll each be sharing 5 pages during December.

·         Access to a class message board and gallery, where you can share and learn with your teacher and fellow students.

·         Weekly challenges to inspire you to use what you've learned.

Marcy designed the printables and cut files, and like always, they are amazing!  Those circles....sigh.  I can't wait to add them to my pages!

If you are looking to stock up on some Christmas goodies, Studio Calico is offering a BOGO 1/2 off special!!  Just enroll in the class, add some goodies to your cart and use the code below!  In my opinion, you can never have too many Christmas supplies!!  :)

Be sure to check out the 25 Days shop too while you are there to pick up anything you might need for your album!!

I so hope you will join me this year!!  I've been counting down the days until December (which is really nothing new), but this year it's a whole new level of excitement!!  The class message board is open, so pop on in and say hi!  Let's get chatting about our albums!!  

xoxoxo 

merry, merry...

a very merry christmas from our family to yours.

it's been the best few days.  full of family, fun, food and lots of craziness.

xoxo