I am back again today with the rest of my 2014 December Daily album. If you are looking for the first part it is here. So lets pick back up from where we left off.... Oh, and there is only 2 months left to Christmas :-)
I love buying new decorations each year, and I have been looking high and low for the perfect nutcrackers to add to my decoration collection. I found the perfect 2 at Macy's online, so I ordered them from America. While they were on their way to me, a gift for a scrappy friend was on its way from back in the opposite direction.... all documented here to remember.
Some days its best to let the photos speak for themselves with little journaling.
It is always good to hide the little things that you still want to document, but not be the focus of the layout either. Such as how I am a control freak and have list upon list to be over organised at this time of year!
This next part was a bit of fun to work out the best way to document. Barry, our elf on the shelf went a little selfie crazy on my iPhone so I knew I needed to keep these somehow, but I also had other things I needed to document for the same day. So I went about adding the flip sleeves to the layout.
The first flip is a 3x2 sleeve part sewn down the left hand side of the page. This covered a kind of freaky looking elf, and the mess that was the last of the present wrapping.
Layered between the 3x2 and the base page was another 6x4 sleeve, with more of the story. The thickness of the 3 sleeves together was no challenge for the trusty sewing machine to get through, so it gives even more of a hidden story... And so much space.
Christmas eve was when I finally checked the online listing for the house that we had just bought, to find that it was listed as sold. I knew I needed a screen shot of this to record for the day... A little bit of an early Christmas present to us. Christmas eve is always a big day/night for us, so I have used a whole double spread to document everything that I needed to.
Christmas day is a big day for us to, being split between lunch with one family and dinner with another, so again it was a lot to document. Another double spread was used to make sure there was enough room... especially to document all of that food!
Now, Boxing day is where all of the fun is with the nieces and nephews. Hearing all of the laughter and joy makes it so wonderful, but this is a HUGE day with heaps to want to remember. Things such as the table decorations and the annual kids photo (as much as there is at least one that isn't interested, I still manage to get it out of them) are important to the day. But there was always going to be more than a double spread to cover it, so I found another way!
I got a 8.5x11 pocket page sleeve and it fitted just nicely. It was enough extra space that I needed, but didn't cover the whole of the next page so that it didn't look like it joined together as one.
By doing it this way, I gave me 6 more spaces for photos, and nothing needed to be covered by flipping sleeves.
After going from not being sure how I would have filled the album space, to having to find ways to add more, I love this album and what it documents. It was so much fun messing around with it, and even though it wasn't finished until mid this year, I am so glad I stuck with it. I will be going again this year, and I really want to add even more of the everyday.
Just on another note, I do purchase a ready done kit each year, but this is not my limitation (I chose not to purchase the album last year and I had already decided this was the one that I wanted to use). If I find anything Christmas related that I think will work, I grab it and add it to my stash. Both years so far I have mixed and matched between the stash and the kit, to find what has worked for the photo in each sleeve. Its paid off so far. Because of this tactic I will do another post close to December to show the kit I am using, but also the additional pieces that I pick up to go with it.
Thanks for checking our my December Daily from 2014. I hope you can join me in doing it all again in 2015.
