Here is what December Daily is all about by the founder and creator Ali Edwards:
About December Daily®
December Daily® is a December mini-album project that documents the 25 days leading up to Christmas. The simple goal is to capture the spirit of December via one story per day.
Over the last seven years this project has become one of the highlights of my year and a beautiful community of memory keepers has come together to share their December stories with one another. It's an awesome way to document and celebrate the season.
Thinking of giving December Daily a go?
Returning for another year of documenting the silly season via December Daily?
I am a super proud, super excited every single year, participant in Ali Edwards December Daily.
I would like to share some helpful hints and tips and ideas on documenting the most magical yet silly season of the year, and will be mostly directed at those attempting their very first December Daily.
Seasoned participants may pick up a few ideas too.
1. Absolutely first and foremost decide what will hold your December Daily documentation.
Will it be an album, will that be a dedicated album or one you use all year round (as in Project Life)?
If yes, what size will it be 4x4"? 4x6"? 6x6? 6x8? 6x12? 8x8? 8.5x11? We really are spoilt for choice!
or will it be a mini book, a spiral bound album, an accordian style album that you will make from scratch or will you buy it ready to use? Perhaps a SMASH book?
Ali documents separately to any other memory keeping project she undertakes, (previous years December Daily albums are shared on her blog), however some memory keepers have found incorporating December Daily into their Project Life albums a great solution for them.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to December Daily, it simply needs to be whatever will work best for you. So many get caught up in having either the latest and greatest or perhaps what the majority of people are using, I sincerely believe it matters less what you document in and matters much more that you actually document.
Give careful thought to what will work for you, your style of documenting and your budget.
What may help determine what will hold your Daily December documenting is the size and orientation of photos you usually take/print off - 3x4 or 4x6, portrait or landscape? perhaps 4x4 or 2x2? Will you want to include larger photos ie 6x8? Will you want to include memorabilia such as gift tags, a special Christmas card or snippets of gift wrapping paper?
By far, the most common size album is a 6x8".
2a. Decide on a colour scheme.
Traditional Christmas colours, modern colours, monochromatic, maybe just 2 or 3 colours?
Begin the process of finding the perfect Christmas Collection that fits with your chosen colour scheme, there are a crazy amount to choose from each year, select, purchase and eagerly await its arrival. Is there something out there that will help you make use of what is in your stash already?
I promise you that you will need far less than you think you will! I will share what I have used in each album in a future blog post - I suspect you will be quite surprised!
Struggling with colour selection? My best piece of advice here is to consider your Christmas tree and the colour of decorations you like to hang off it... there will be many photos of the tree in your album and selecting these colours will automatically colour co ordinate!
Alternatively, stick with a fairly neutral palette whilst still be Christmassy. Colours combinations such as gold, white and kraft or silver, black and white to give just 2 examples.
or
2b. Have a look around at what is on offer this year in the way of December Daily Kits, decide and purchase as far in advance as you possibly can - many a kit has not arrived in time for December 1st or in time for you to get everything in order ready to begin.
If the kit does not include an album and the necessary page protectors get onto choosing and sourcing those asap. A lot of kits some with an album but not always the page protectors. Give some thought to how many page protectors you think you may need and crosscheck against the kit contents, if it falls short then order in what you think you will need (I would recommend adding a few more to this tally just in case, you seriously do not want to run out and then find they are sold out most places)
Thinking about, deciding upon and gathering your supplies .... equals First things First .... one thing I know for sure is that you can never be too organised for December Daily!
This concludes Part 1 of Getting December Daily Ready.
Part 2 is all about organising your supplies.
Oooh that Bella Blvd one is almost all the colours I'm using!! Affirms my colour palette cos I was worried it'd be too eclectic! I like how you mention you'll not need as much as you think and to not get carried away with getting the latest and greatest jus cos everyone else is, that's my kinda thinking x
Posted by: Stacey-Lee | September 12, 2014 at 11:01 PM