Today is the final Saturday before December, which means this is our third and final volume of Document December preparation posts here on the blog! If you’re getting your album or project read for the upcoming week, we have four more designers here to share their tips and ideas with you! Let’s get ready to record our merriest memories, starting next week!
Meghann Andrew
This year will be different than years past, and with a newborn at home, I feel the need to simplify my Document December album to be sure that I get it finished after the holiday season. This means that I am doing a few things to be sure that I am successful: 1) organizing; 2) looking to inspiration to help me create; and 3) doing what worked before over again.
First, I organized all of my Document December 2020 supplies on the top shelf of my project cart. Everything that I will work with is neatly organized here, including the inks I will use to coordinate with the Document December products! To make it more fun, I added some twinkle lights to the cart. I can roll this over to my standing desk whenever I have a few minutes to create.
This year, I am looking through my Instagram feed and on Pinterest for ideas to help me create, and since I have had this pin saved for years, I figured it was time I use it to inspire me! I used the Large Jane numbers in solid and outline, stripes and polka dots to create a border along this large envelope that I created to fit inside my album. This will hold ephemera and Christmas cards perfectly. Get inspired by what you see online and re-create it in your own style, using what you have on hand!
I finished my 2019 album just after the holiday, and I loved the project. If it works, don’t fix it, right? So, I turned to my 2019 album to see what I could re-create in my 2020 album. This list page, showing all that I hoped to document through the month, created on the flap of the calendar page was something I wanted to carry on to this album. To make it, I simply used the list December 3 x 8 Inch Journaling Tag and the Christmas Tabs Stamp to add twelve things that I wanted to be sure that I recorded. I followed up with my own handwriting to add to the list, and I love the way it turned out.
I hope this is your most successful Document December year yet, friends!
Jess Forster
Hands up if you are EXCITED for this festive season? I know I am! This year I am focusing on creating a long term project: a 6″ x 8″ Christmas album dedicated to recording my favourite Christmas recipes. Some of my favourite memories growing up were made in the kitchen, baking with my mom. Since we are having a quarantine Christmas, my mom and I plan to Facetime every Saturday to bake Christmas cookies together. I was so inspired by the Christmas Cookie Cardstock Stickers, I wanted to use them in a fun and meaningful way.
Like the last two years, I am organizing my supplies in a Ikea Fjalla desk organizer, which will sit on my scrap table close to my 6″ x 8″ album. I have sorted the journaling tags by colour and grouped stamps, paper, stickers, and similar items together. Since this will be an ongoing project that I work on a weekly basis, I plan to keep it all within reach. Although I may not finish the album this year, my hope is to keep recording family recipes in this album in the years to come. Sometimes documenting your December can mean doing a deep dive into a holiday activity that you love. I hope this inspires you to document your own adventures in the kitchen. Happy Holidays, crafty friends!
Tracey Fox
December is right around the corner, and even though real-time documenting of the holiday season isn’t something I do every year, this year will be so different spending more time at home and not having nearly as much on my holiday to-do list due to cancelled events. I’m looking forward to filling some of that time documenting the memories we are making at home, and the Elle’s Studio Document December kit and extras make that so much more fun!
I don’t make prep pages for my annual 8″ x 8″ album of holiday-themed layouts, but I do like to get my supplies out where I can see them and reach for them as I craft. I’m trying out a new organization system and storage tool this year – puzzle trays! I bought a set of these super shallow, white plastic trays that are meant for sorting and storing puzzle pieces for an in-progress jigsaw puzzle, and I immediately thought about how great they would be for laying out unpackaged embellishments and papers in a shallow layer so I can see and dig through them as I am putting together scrapbook pages. When I am done with a crafting session, the trays stack onto each other in a neat little cube that I can pull out whenever I sit down to scrap!
Kristina Proffitt
If you know me, you know that I am a bit of an organizer freak. I wear that badge with pride and I’m going to share with you all how I’m organizing my Document December goodies for this holiday season!
In my office I have a scrapbook table that I stand up at to scrapbook and one thing that I love to utilize are rolling carts. I love them because you can put quite a bit on them and you can roll them all around where you need them. Right now, I have two of these carts: one that I keep underneath my table and one next to it. I decided to put my Document December goodies in this plastic desk organizer from Target on the top of one of my rolling carts. I love being able to see everything that I have and it’s super easy to just roll the cart out and start grabbing all of the super cute goodies to create with.
I also love to use little bowls and organizers to hold all of the bits and pieces from the Document December kit and extras. Everything has a home and it makes it easier to use and to see what all I have. Even if you’re not crazy about organizing like me, I promise ya, if you put your goodies where you can get to them easily and you can see them, you’ll be inspired to use them and document all of those fun December stories you’ll have this month! Happy documenting, friends!
We hope these past weeks of preparation posts have helped you get a handle on organizing, preparing your pages and getting inspired for the month of documenting to come using your Document December 2020 collection! Get ready to see our team’s finished Document December pages starting next week, which we will share with you here each Saturday in December! Happy creating this month, friends!