The month of December is close at hand, and that means our Document December project is getting near! We’ve been asking our team members to share their prep and organizational tips with you, to help us all have a positive and stress-free month of magical documenting, and we know you’ll love what Wendy Antenucci, Heather Leopard and Jess Forster are sharing with you today! Let’s take a look:
Wendy | Can you believe it is that time of year again to be documenting our holiday fun? I participated in my first December project in 2017 and I’m gearing up for another daily documenting project now. Some of the things I learned from my first year were to have all my supplies organized and in view where I could easily grab my container and create when I had the chance. This year I am using this plastic divider I found at IKEA with these handy little baskets from Target.
I really love using sparkly items in my December album, but they take a long time to dry depending on the media you choose. To take care of my need for sparkly embellishments and not make a mess of my album, I chose Stickles in red, green, and gold to decorate my wood veneer so there was plenty of time to dry before I needed them to assemble!
Once I had my items situated and my wood veneers were dry, I couldn’t resist putting together a title page for this year’s December album. I love how tags provide an instant home to your clusters and provide layers of interest in one simple product.
One last tip that I have found to be essential to my December album is that I document the fun events, pretty sights, and lovely smells, but I don’t worry about having a picture for every day. This approach for me allows me to capture everything that is important to our family but it takes the stress off of the project and leaves me with such good feelings as I look back at my finished albums. Merry Christmas!
Supplies | Document December Kit + extras
Heather | Hi everyone. I’m excited to share how I’m organizing my Document December supplies with you. I plan to do a page each day during the holiday season and I wanted the ability to have a portable station that can move around the house with me.
Having everything together in a crate will help make the process a bit less daunting as I can just grab and create in my pockets of spare time. Similar items are stored together in different compartments. The 3″ x 4″ and 4″ x 6″ tags are together in a smaller crate and the stamps and adhesives are together in another bin. Inks, journaling pens and other embellishments, such as twine, sequins and more also have their own place, too.
I’m using a traveler’s notebook as my album, which is stored in this snowman box along with larger items like the papers, and stickers, including puffy embellishments and alphas.
My dad made this wooden divided box for me and I like to use it regularly since it’s so easy to flip through. I’m constantly switching things out depending on what I’m working on. It’s perfect all the Document December embellishments, such as acrylic words, acrylic shapes, wood veneer and all the stickers, die cuts, labels, etc.
I have a feeling I’ll be working on this a little bit every day so I love that it’s super portable and I can take it to any part of the house to work on. I know this will make the process less stressful and lots of fun for the entire family this season!
Supplies | Document December Kit + extras
Jess | It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Although, I have been listening to Christmas music since the first week of November, I must confess, I don’t prep foundation pages in my December Album before the month begins. Given that I work full-time outside the home, I try to set realistic expectations when it comes to starting or finishing my album. Full disclosure, I will often make a few layouts during the holidays, but leave the bulk of the work until January. With that said, I do organize my supplies and write down my holiday photo ideas before December begins. As I have done in the past, this year, I am organizing my Document December kit in a Fallujah Ikea organizer, which sits in my kitchen island.
One of the main strategies for organizing my holidays supplies, is grouping like products together and sorting by colour. For example, my red journaling tags go in one pile, while my green tags go in another. I love documenting the holidays with traditional colours having my supplies organized does help when I choose to work on my pages. My album may not be completed by the end of December, but by having my supplies close at hand I can break tasks down into manageable chunks of time, so when I do have time to devote to printing out pictures, I will be ready to go. For those wondering, I am documenting December using a 6″ x 8″ album this year and it will also include a traveler’s notebook insert when my family travels to Disney during the first part of the month. Thanks for looking!
Supplies | Document December Kit + extras
We’d love to see how you’re preparing for this merry project! Share YOUR tips in our Elle’s Studio Facebook Group or on Instagram using the hashtag #EllesStudio!
Prepping Your Document December Project: Week Four