December Memories 2013...Page 1-2, Envelope,Calendar & Bucket List

So excited to be sharing the first of my completed December Memories 2013 pages with you.  Most of my pages were pre-made ahead of time using the Gossamer Blue 2013 December Memories Kit.  It was a breeze to assemble my pages today.  I just reached for a few items from the kit, added some typewriter journaling, a few embellishments, did a little stitching, added date stamps and I was done.  So happy I took the time to complete my base pages ahead of time.  Okay, I know there is a ton of inspiration out there right now for DD albums so I'll keep my ramblings short.

I've added some inserts into my album.  I just love looking at different sized inserts in an album.  That means there's lot of good stories and photos to sift though.  Here I used a 6 x 6 envelope pocket from Becky Higgins to keep in the very front of my album.  

 I added a journaling card that fits right into that slot on the front. I added a Small Manila Tag, typing, gold stitching and a big ol' rhinestone from the GB kit. I love having the space in this album to add more dimensional items. In this pocket I'll add extra photos, collected items, random receipts or anything that just doesn't quite find a spot in the album.  The holiday misfits, you might say.

 Next up I added a 5 x 7 printed December calendar that is a free download from Marie Lottermoser's blog called Stitch in Time.  You must visit Marie's blog simply for her DD album.  They are total masterpieces and just awesome eye candy.  The free calendar download link is here.  You can see how Marie used it on her Day 3 page here.  Thank you Marie for sharing the fun addition!

 I used my iPhoto editing program on my Mac to brighten up the calendar just a bit then printed it on glossy photo paper.  I used a fine Sharpie to write the dates.  I'll add in more as stuff happens. So cute, right? So sorry for the photo quality, it's so hard this time of year to get good, natural lighting.

 Here's my title page on the right that was pre-made some time ago. I added a Christmas Bucket List page on the left side (the back of the 5 x 7 calendar).

 This was a page torn from a vintage address book.  I sold a few of the holiday card pages in the shop earlier this season so this might give you some inspiration if you purchased those.  I saved a page with a "W" on it and typed the rest of our name at the top of the page.  Under Christmas I typed Bucket List Items (like a 3 year old at that).  I hand wrote our bucket list items and will check them as they/if they get completed.  I used a beautiful chipboard flower from Pink Paislee (my favorite item this year was this chipboard packet).  It creates a trio of these white flowers when you look at the two pages together.  I left the gold stitching ends uncut for some visual interest.

 On to Page 1 of my album.  I am still needing that family photo (see bucket list items).

 For the rest, I typed in my journaling, added the green sticker and a tied chipboard button.  The Grid Paper Labels are perfect for adding in typed journaling to the top of a journaling card that has square photos on them.  You'll notice that our first fire of the season was in November, not December, but I wanted to include the photo to get the bigger picture of our holiday season.

 Here I just dumped out all of the rhinestones and chipboard buttons that I cut apart.  I tied all the buttons early on so that plopping them on an insert would be easy.

Here is Page 2 which is all about setting up our tree and getting the lights on.  We typically aren't organized enough to get all the decorations on the same day so we save that for later.

 I simply added photos, typed journaling, the round tree label with staples here.

 I find that some of my photos just look more festive if I use the white vignette feature in iPhoto.

 Here I added another insert which is a page protector trimmed in half.

 It's all about a new tradition I'm starting...planting Paper Whites.  I think it will be fun to change the containers up and take photos each year.  I plan to take a photo each Friday in December to show the weekly progress.

 This is the back side of the insert.  On that last 3 x4 card I'll show the flowers in full bloom (if all goes well).

And here's a glance at what my album looks like right now.  These Studio Calico handbooks are nice and roomy.  I have plenty of space to add more inserts and some dimensional items.  Just wanted you to see what your album might look like as it fills up.

That's it for today.  Thanks for joining me and I'll be back soon with more Project Life weeks and the Holiday Planners that my friend and I plan to create tomorrow.