December Daily Day 16

This time of year my WH (wonderful husband) is away at night alot, between work commitments and also preparing for Christmas Eve service. When I am at home by myself I craft. This year I am making fabric flowers to decorate the Christmas gifts and this too cute Christmas card holder.

I love getting Christmas cards, some years we get loads some years we don't get that many at all. This year we haven't received all that many so I have filled this card holder with previous years cards that I just loved & didn't want to throw away.

December Daily Day 15

Christmas time is the time that we celebrate and remember the birth of our Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ, every year a church on the coast does this huge light display, a show & a display about the true meaning of Christmas.

We try & go every year (missed last year), we don't see the show but love to see the lights, the petting zoo (I am such a sucker for a baby animal), and see the true Christmas story display. Every year the display is different but still telling the same story.

December Daily Day 14

Santa.

This festive happy bearded man is our Santa, he was given to us from my parents the first Christmas we spent together after we got married. Being an adult Santa doesn't bring gifts I love having him sitting in our house at Christmas time.

I love traditions, whether activities, decorations or food. Makes the Christmas season feel special & fun.

December Daily Day 13

Twinkle, twinkle Christmas lights. This year my WH (wonderful husband) didn't want to put as many lights as we normally would, but I just figured he was thinking that cause he was sick at the beginning of December and didn't have the energy to think about lights. So I put them up! Not everything, because I couldn't find a second powerboard (once I find one then the rest of the lights are so going up.

This is a picture of the lights that we have in our bedroom window, we have had the Christmas tree since before we were married & we bought the starts the first Christmas we had in this house.

December Daily Day 12

An end of year tradition is watching the School Spectacular, schools from all over NSW preform this huge song & dance performance. I have been watching it for years, it is always amazing to see the talents that is in the coming generation. Our bird Curios has also taken to sitting on our legs as we stretch out watching TV at night, normally he prefers sitting on our shoulders or as close to our faces as possible. We think he is sitting in the breeze that flows from our front door to our back door.

December Daily Day 11

Weather. Pretty much all of the Christmas Season up to now has been wet. We have experience 10 years of drought in this country, we are now moving into a new weather cycle which has brought nothing but rain with it. But this day the sun broke through and the blue sky could be seen from between the clouds. I took this picture of the garlic chives flowering on our back veranda, think that it represents the feeling of seeing the sun after so many weeks of wet cool weather.

December Daily Day 10

Wrapping!!! Almost a month long process for me, maybe I put too much effort in. But I do just love wrapping gifts. This is a photo of what I guess you would call 'stage one'. I am going to finish the gifts with some red ribbon and a cute 'Noel' tag that I found on the internet. Not sure if that will be the finished look for our Christmas gifts. I love wrapping presents, love it, love it, love it.

December Daily Day 9

Another Christmas party! This is the only shot that I remembered to actually take, this is our bible study party. We have wrapped up bible study for the year, we came to the end of our current study so thought that we might as well come together in the new year with a whole new study.

Love the decorations hung from the chandelier, would soooo do the same thing if we had a chandelier. Maybe when we get our own place.

December Daily Day 8

What else to talk about today but the U2 concert! Not necessary a Christmas activity, but here is Aus alot of big bands come out in Summer which is Christmas time.

Had so much fun, it is such a great part of Christmas time with the longer days meaning that your not wondering around in the dark going to concerts.

December Daily Day 5

Yummy yummy yummy! My favourite thing about Christmas is the food, most of my favourite foods are only available during summer and especially around Christmas. Specific Christmas foods like, fruit mince pies & spice cookies can be eaten all year round but for me that would take the fun & magic out of eating them at Christmas time. All of my favourite fruits are available only during the spring/summer months (seasonal availability), cherries, apricots & lychee's.

This year for some people of our Christmas list we are giving food, treats to be exact. So I have begun my Christmas baking. We are also having Christmas at our place this year so I am practising a few new recipes. With new recipes comes taste testing......yummy!

December Daily Day 4

Decorating the Christmas tree!!! Usually done day 1, because of work and sickness (resulting in exhaustion) we waited till the first Saturday in December. My WH (wonderful husband) finishes work at 3pm so despite his flu still had energy too decorate the Christmas Tree & our house.

This is a picture of last years Christmas decoration, every year I buy one special decoration to represent that year. Usually don't buy them till the post Christmas sales (cheaper!!!), so they don't go on the tree till the following year. I found this glittery 'Noel' and feel in love, not sure what I will buy for this years representative another word maybe I don't know. When I see it I will know.

December Daily Day 3

Writing Christmas letters was my Day 3. I'm not talking those annual letters that people send out, recanting the activities of the family for the last 12 months to people that you never see or hear from except for at Christmas. My Christmas letter is going to someone who I have never met & probably will not hear back from, the radio station that I listen to is organising for Christmas letters to be sent to every serving member of the Australian Defence force that will be overseas this Christmas, that's about 3,500 men & women who will not be spending Christmas with their own families.

I come from a serving family, my Grandfather(s) & Great Grandfather (s) were in the army, my Dad was in the Navy for 20 years & currently my brother is a AV tech (aviation technician) in the Airforce. The thought of spending Christmas without my Dad or my brother is something that I find hard to think of so I can imagine how hard it must be for those serving men & women who are facing Christmas away from home.

Letters all had to be hand written & I have to send mine to the radio station on Monday. On the 10th December all the letters they have been collecting will be sent off and delivered on Christmas.

December Daily Day 2

Let the parties begin! First for this year is my WH's (wonderful husband) work party, they got in real early this year as a couple of staff are going away very soon & one member of staff got a promotion and will be running their own store on Monday.

It was also wife of store manager (that would be me!) make good impression and be a good representative of my husband in front of two of his bosses. Think I did a great job if I do say so myself, made small talk, laughed at jokes & tried to look as interested as possible when they were talking about sports (that was hard!!!!).

We ate at an Italian restaurant down on the coast, loved the desserts!!! Yummy. Chocolate tiramatsu, panatone and rum & raisin gellato. I do enjoy a good christmas party.

December Daily Day1

Today was almost a forgotten day, I worked today and after work my WH (wonderful husband) had his piano lesson that I had to drive him to. Needless to say that I totally forgot that December 1st was even December 1st.

BUT.......I finished work early and went to the shopping centre near work to get a hot chocolate (it has been raining since pretty much the beginning of spring) and I came across one of my fav new stores! And I bought Christmas wrapping paper.....my December daily activity for today. Woohoo!

The paper I bought is brown paper (fav colour of wrapping paper) with gnomes and little signs that say 'naughty & nice'. Sooo cute.

December Daily going digital

A couple of posts ago I mentioned on of my fav bloggers Ali Edwards and her annual December Daily project (click here to learn more). I have been umming & arring over whether I wanted to do a December Daily project for myself this year (mostly because of my lack of success in doing Christmas albums).

But I then thought to myself unlike Ali who does a traditional scrapbooking type album I could go totally digital, which would make things alot easier (wouldn't have to remember to print photos everyday or sit down & glue things together).

Last night my WH (wonderful husband) had a boys night with a friend of his, so I was home by myself so I sat down & designed a digital December Daily layout.

With projects like this I have found in the past making them totally digital works best for me, this year I participated in Ali's Week in the Life project. Similar to December Daily & other projects like Becky Higgins Project Life, you take a pictures everyday documenting one week in your daily life. Still havn't finished printed all my finished layouts, but all the layouts are done (click here to see some of my Week in the Life project & pictures).

Here are a couple of my finished templates for my December Daily project.

I put some random pictures that I had on my computer desk top into the sections for photos to see how the over all design was going to look. The templates are in 6x6 format so when I am finished I can either upload them to a printing service that does photobooks (I use Snapfish) or print at home slip the pages into a 6x6 album or adhere them to a chipboard album.

I like using 8x8 or 6x6 for project albums and albums that are about one event (holiday, birthday, etc....). They take up less room in our house & I can store them in a basket on our dinning table as a decorative feature.

December Daily cont cont cont

Here are my last 5 pages! I am so happy with how this album has come together in the end. It has developed into a bit of a trash into treasure project, as I have tried very hard to to buy anything for this album and just work with what I already had in my stash. I think that this strategy has given my album a very fun and funky feel.


Page 21 Here is the other part of the plastic make-up type bag that I cut up, with this page I sewed on four pieces of ribbon with purple thread and added four purple buttons.


Page 22 This is one of my favourites, I found this page in the back of a Kikki-K catalogue, it was a Christmas wish list. But I used Photoshop to create a block with the words twenty two to cover the original title. Great bit of recycling if I do say so myself!


Page 23 Again left over paper from a Christmas page a couple of years ago, I just put it into another 6 x 12 inch page protector with painted chipboard numbers.


Page 24 This strip of paper for some reason I have kept for ages just floating around my desk. I do love it's colour and finish. The numbers are simple letter stickers.

Page 25 Last and most simple, just a 6 x 12 inch page protector that will hold a full picture, with 'Dec 25th' on the top.

Next week the 25 days of Christmas begin, getting exciting! My husband loves this time of year, so much so that love is a big understatement. Hope your December Daily Albums are ready to go, love to see what you have done.

December Daily cont cont

Here are my next 5 pages!



Page 11 Lovely die cut cardstock with a cute envelope with a clear envelope where I have put the number 11, particularly love the little green flower.


Page 12 This is such cute Christmas tree paper, the number 12 I made on the computer using photoshop and a font called 'Jane Austin' (download able for free from Dafont)


Page 13 This is what was left over from some chipboard tags, I painted it and added the number 13. I think this page is going to look great when I fill the other windows with photo's.


Page 14 I made a pocket out of some paper I had left over from making a friends baby shower thank you cards, the tag is something I have had for ages.


Page 16 More leftovers! The red circles are from some funky bookmarks I picked up from a book store. It is made out of metal and I just loved the feel and colour so just couldn't throw it away (glad I didn't). The background is a left over Christmas card from a copy of years ago.


Page 17 This is funky paper, I am planning to have the number 17 on one of photos or in the journaling not sure yet.


Page 18 More Christmas themed paper, I have used this page a few times already in the album, as spines on some of the pages. It has been really versatile.


Page 19 Kind of a strange colour I know but it will make sense when the 19th comes around, I made the file folder out of a combination of others templates, making it just how I want it.

Page 20 This is half of a circle piece of paper, I came across it by chance when I was wondering around on of my fav scrapbooking stores. This is another number that I made on the computer.

December Daily cont.

Here are the next 5 pages of my December Daily album

Page 6 Loved this journaling block!

Page 7 Again another one of the 6 x 12 inch page protectors, I cut this one down and added this large journalling block. I am planning on putting the number 7 on the photo's.

Page 8 Slightly hard to disticugish in this picture but I cut up and clear plastic make-up type bag and used stitching to outline the page and to attach the number 8 which is made of painted chipboard

Page 9 Here is another 6 x 12 inch page protector I stitched in a number 9 that I covered with pattered paper, really like how it turned out.



Page 10 This is such fun paper!

December Daily

This is such a great idea for people like me who want to make an album about the Christmas Season, every year it takes me 6 months to actually finish. This year I found this great idea December Daily it is an album idea from Ali Edwards. Basically it is an album that is prepared in advanced and it is filled with pictures from the 25 days of Christmas, with alittle planning and preparation all you'll have to do during the 25 days of Christmas is take photo's, print them and write alittle journaling.

Here are my first 5 pages of my December Daily album

Page 1 Left over Christmas cardstock from last year, with a cute fabric tab.

Page 2 More of the cardstock from the previous page and some die cut cardstock that I bought to use on a layout I never ended up doing.

Page 3 This will be a whole photo with these green flower brads

Page 4 I had a whole pack of 6 x 12 inch page protectors, I cut one in half and used some hand stitching to hold a star tag and a card with '004' on it that I got for free when I purchased some journaling and calander cards from a Esty store called Elle's Studio.

Page 5 This is some card that I had left over from making baby shower invites I made last year for a friend of mine, I made it into an envelope, the quote block I love so much that I have scanned it so I can use it again.

I'll post more pages as I finish them, I am so looking forward to starting to take photo's for the album.