I've spent the last few days finishing up my Holiday Project 2012. The initial intention was to print the pages as individual layouts and store them in my Christmas Album, but if you have been following this series of posts, you will know that my project evolved as it was in progress.
I originally had planned on creating sporadic pages throughout the month of December as and when I felt inspired and/or had the time. Weekdays are busy for me and so I knew any pages created would happen on the weekends. The first weekend, without any expectation, I knocked out a page for each day of the week and thoroughly enjoyed the proces. Even going into the following week I did not commit to the same standard, but going into the weekend it just happened again, even in a week when photos were sparse.
My Holiday Project 2012 quickly turned into a December Daily and I now intend to have it printed as a photobook rather than loose pages. Here are the opening/closing pages, as well as the photo book cover, the templates for whic are all included in Holiday Template Pack No. 1G.
Opening Layout | Digital Supply List + Journaling
Closing Page | Digital Supply List + Journaling
- The opening and closing layouts fill the first and last page spots in the photo book. The opening page introduces the content of the photo book and provides a summary of what lies within. The closing page showcases some favorite memories not already included in the book.
- I used photos of Ella and Luke as they symbolize Christmas for me, especially the ones of them together.
- No new techniques were used. These pages are simply fillers that allow me to add additional photos and details not already included on previous pages.
- The front and back covers were created using the BONUS cover pack included in Holiday Template Pack No. 1G with slight modification.
- On the front cover, I replaced the frame with the MultiMedia Wreath and created an alternate title using 3rd Man (Christmas) and Trashed (2012) fonts.
- On the back cover, I added a transfer behind the elements also existing in the template and clipped a paper from ArtPlay Palette Santa's Elf to the framed mask.
- I have learned through experience that I like understated covers to photo book and prefer the majority of the cover to be white.
You can view my complete Holiday Project 2012 here.
This album is one of the most meaningful albums I have created in a long time and the big irony lies in the fact that I was just telling a friend a few months ago, when we were together doing the Seattle Danskin Triathlon, that December Daily wasn't something that added value to my scrapbooking. I pretty much proved myself wrong on that one.
I did December Daily one time back in year 2006 and have never attempted it since until now. This year I enjoyed the project immensely and created something I really love. So what changed? I attribute the following to my December Daily success in 2012:
- I'm a more experienced scrapbooker. I know what I like and I have a distinct style that takes much of the guess work out of creating pages.
- I used templates to create the pages and supplies that I already had on hand.
- I found a level of balance in limiting the number of supplies and using the same techniques on multiple pages while still being open to change as the project evolved. This aided in the prevention of boredom and kept the momentum going.
- I scheduled a time that I would created my pages, in my case on the weekends, when I knew I would have a little more time. This prevented me from experiencing the time crunch and stress of trying to create pages on a daily basis. I simply jotted my word down for the day and gathered photos together as I was creating the pages.
- If the theme for my page came to me early in the day, I would try to take photos that would support that word, but for the most part the photos and words happened quite organically. There was always a common theme that stood out and I could always find at leat one photo to support it. ArtsyKardz came in really handy for filling in excess framed masks.
- I increased the scope of my project to include photos and stories from the past and present, and finding some sort of connection in the current time period. I also used this album as an oportunity to tell big stories that happened this year that haven't yet made their way into layouts. This helped to fill my days with meaningful layouts.
The biggest lesson learned during the process is that these types of projects can be anything you want them to be. You make them work for you, and just because you start with a plan, doesn't mean you can't tweak it along the way. This *on-th-fly* approach keeps the process fresh, interesting and perpetuates momentum. I like it.
I'm looking forward to doing more projects in 2013, the first one on my list being the tandem scrapbooking project in which I create 2 albums at the same time using the FotoWallet Template series. I took a slight detour with the Holiday Project but will be back on track in the new year.
If you'd like to try a daily scrapbooking project with a helping hand, check out Lain Ehmann's most popular class, LOAD (LayOut A Day), in which you'll create a layout a day for the month of February. She will guide you through the entire process with 28 daily videos, 28 daily prompts, and 28 sample layouts. The class begins on February 1, 2013 and you get $10 off with coupon code FUN, just because she think's you're awesome! This discount expires Monday, January 7, 2013 at Midnight EST so jump on registration right now.
