December Daily 2014.

Back in September, as I thought about Christmas, and began seeing all the pretty decorations and craft items in stores (it gets earlier each year, huh?), I was saddened thinking I wouldn't be able to make any Christmas cards.

Or worse!

Do a December Daily!

I spoke with my husband, and that prompted a few trips to our storage unit to gather some Christmas theme'd supplies, and other things like a table mat, sprays, paper trimmers, etc.  I was lucky enough to find boxes and drawer units close to the front.

Even though I decided I would do a DD, I still wasn't sure what collection I would get.  There were so many to choose from.  And all of them had wonderful stamps, paper and embellies.  But none of them really "WOW'd" me like when I first saw this Elle's Studio "Good Cheer" collection on Instagram, in mid October.

I waited for weeks, wondering if October Afternoon would announce their December Daily kits, but there was no news.  Not even sneaks of it.  I had purchased their products in the past and have loved them.  But I really wanted something in stock and ready to buy...

So I shopped online and created my own DD kit using this Elle's Studio collection as my core.

I was so glad I did because in person this line is just SO MUCH more pretty!  I fell instantly in love and knew I wanted to work with the paper immediately!

But I was far away from starting my album, so instead I altered a PL box to use as storage for all the bits that came with my "Good Cheer" collection.  You can find that post here.

After a week I began working on my album cover.

I originally grabbed a pretty red/tan chevron burlap SNAP album from Michael's, but didn't really LOVE it.  After seeing the colors of the ES line, I knew I had to change the album to something more bright.  I sold that original album and got this pretty blue/teal one, also from SNAP.

Thank goodness for COUPONS!

As I tried to figure out the details and layout of the cover, I suddenly got an "AHA!" moment.  

I first laid down some Martha Stewart texture paste over a "speckles" Tim Holtz stencil.  I had to do this part over several times, washing the stencil after each application, just to get rid of any residue, so I won't have any boo-boos.  It was a long process that I'm glad I was very careful in doing.

I kinda cheated in this part, because the instructions state to wait 24 hours for the paste to dry, but I grabbed my heat tool and blasted my cover for at least 10 minutes.  I noticed, however, when I did that, the heat made the cover a little stiff and a little straight.  So it doesn't really sit down to touch the back end of the binder, but I'm okay with that since the book will be filled with many pages anyway.

It almost seems a little sturdier.

I pulled out that pretty diamond-type pattern paper by Elle's Studio and got to cutting.  I wanted the blue binder to remain a border, and wanted to visually separate the blue from the tan, so I placed the straight edge of my pattern paper (using Tombow Mono Multi Glue), where the blue border ends and added a very thin velvet trim that luckily matched PERFECTLY with the cover and paper collection.  You can find that here.

Once I was done with the cover, something looked very off to me.  Below you will see a photo of the exact same alphas by Amy Tangerine, but in glittery red.  They were my original plan, but I'm glad I found the white foam thickers in my stash because it turned out looking much better; letting the reindeer be the focal point.  

One of the reasons I struggled a bit with the layout of the cover was because I wanted to incorporate everything you see on my cover, plus a doily and maybe some wood veneers.  lol..  But no matter what configuration I tried, it looked messy and cluttered.  And I could not and would not compromise on the wood shaped reindeer.

Which brings me to my next detail... that reindeer from Michael's had me embossing it in 3 different colors.  Thank goodness they were only 17 cents each!  hehe.

I decided I would keep it a glittery silver ("Tinsel" embossing powder by Recollections, to be exact), and add a red sequin nose.

To finish it off, I randomly added white sequins (using glossy accents) and white liquid pearls.

My favorite part about my cover is that I was able to incorporate ALL the colors of this collection, by just using that one pattern paper.  I love it! 

For the inside, I continued that VS Sweet Ideas  aqua/teal velvet trim all around and added a half-cut doily, a heart die cut from the "Good Cheer" collection and a snip-it cutable piece, also from the Elle's Studio collection.

I wasn't able to get started on the cover page for 2 reasons.
1 - I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do yet.
2 - When I finally figured out what I wanted to do (Saturday), I had to buy a 1/4" circle punch.  lol.


Next week I hope to be done with a couple of pages and be able to share an update.
Til then I will leave you with this short poem.

This was the cover page of my first December Daily in 2012.

Incidentally, you can find all of my December Daily blog posts here.

And you can always check out what crafty projects I'm working on here.

MORE INSPIRATION:

December Daily 2014 - Days 1-5 HERE

December Daily 2014 - Days 6-14 HERE

December Daily 2014 - Days 15-23 HERE

I hope you were inspired by today's post and will comment below with your December Daily blog links.  I really enjoy look at what others are doing with their albums!

CHALLENGES

1 - Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - Tic Tac Toe (stencil, glitter, pattern paper)