HO HO HO
{insert merry christmas carols playing in the background}
I'm so excited to get my December Daily 2011 album started and I really hope some of you will be preparing one along with me.
This will be my 4th year that I've done one of these albums and I really enjoy putting it together and looking back on each year too. It's well worth all the effort.
It's always good to be well prepared so that when December 1st comes around you're ready. And believe me it'll be here before we know it.
I decided to put together a kit for myself.
I pulled out all my Christmas embellishments, doilies, envelopes and tags and got them together in one place.
This year I decided to purchase an old paper line so that the cost would be less and also because I want to start this album early and not wait for the new lines to be released.
I picked Dear Lizzy Christmas from American Crafts.
I like that it has some traditional green and red papers but also throws in some blues and vintagy papers too.
You could easily use items that you already have in your stash. And you don't necessarily need to use Christmas papers.
I also decided to buy some Hambly papers and transparencies, just cause I love them. The gold candy jar paper and the silhouette velum paper are both so gorgeous.
As for the cover I decided to go with the 7Gypsies Vintage book covers. I love these covers! I'm using one for another mini album that I'm working on this year. I also love the size.
That's one of the main things you want to consider when picking an album. For myself, I prefer a smaller size because I don't have a ton of time to do such a big layout for each day.
You also need to consider how you want to bind your album.
This year I'm going for giant binding rings. I want each page lumpy and bumpy, so the rings will help with the extra room. I also want to be able to more things around if I want to at the last minute.
So today I cut down all my papers down to the exact same size of the album. I will be doing a 1 page layout for each day.
That's the next thing you need to consider, whether you want to do 1 or 2 pages.
I also purchase some of the Dear Lizzy Christmas embellishments for a great price. I added some other items that I already had and I'll probably pick up some more goodies as the month's go by.
I now have to decide how I want to do the numbers for each day.
My biggest advice to anyone who is doing one of these albums is to not glue anything down to the page until you actually sit down to scrap the page. I've done that in the past and some days I had to pull up stuff to make the page work.
I'm also thinking of making some pretty embellishments to go into my album, maybe some altered tags.
If you're following along with me start pulling out stuff and preparing the bare bones of your album.
I'll be back next week with the progress of my album.
I can't wait to see what you all do with yours.
Here are some great links for inspiration and instruction:
