December Daily Album 2008

I am so stinkin' proud of myself, I just don't know what to do! I did it, I actually did it! I managed to complete my December Daily Album for 2008! This is my first time making one, but I just know now that I will be doing this every year! Above are a few of my favorite pages (click on the photo to make it larger), but you can see the whole thing, all 25 pages, here.

So, here's the concept. The idea is that you take time now to get this album together so that you will be ready to go come December 1. Then all that you'll need to do is print a photo and journal about it each day, in the moment. Which will be so easy now that the book is done. Thank you, Ali Edwards, for this inspiration! You can read more on her blog about this project and how to put it together. Now that I'm done, I have a little advice and a few thoughts:

1. Do not worry about perfection. That is my downfall, but somewhere around page 10 I realized that I had a lot of these to do and I just needed to get 'er done!
   


2. Don't be afraid to vary the page sizes and shapes. It adds more interest and makes the whole thing a lot more fun to look at. I also used an envelope and transparencies to make unique pages.
   


3. Don't fret now about if the pages will work for your picture, etc. There is really no way to anticipate what picture you'll be working with come December 12, so don't worry about it. You can always crop the photo to make it work. Each and every day will be like your own personal challenge!
   


4. Use what you have! I am so proud of myself that I did not purchase one single thing to put this together. It was all done with last year's Christmas paper and a few pieces I bought during the summer.
   


5. Recap on #4. Think of this as another way to "go green." I didn't have many number stickers, so I ended up printing out my numbers in various fonts, colors and sizes. I then punched them out (or used my dies and Cuttlebug) to create different shapes.
   


6. Don't re-do anything. Once it was glued, it was there to stay. I told myself I just needed to get this done and not worry about perfection (see #1). Remember, you need 25 pages!

I don't have a complete supply list, as I used what I had in my stash and who knows where I bought it or who made it. But, I can tell you that I used a lot of Basic Grey Figgy Pudding patterned paper, some Stampin' Up! and some Heidi Grace. If you have a question on a particular page, please feel free to contact me and I'll try to come up with more detail for you.

So...are you going to do it? You have to, you won't regret it! For even more inspiration, visit the Flickr December Daily Album 2008 group. There are some great ideas there!