Getting Caught Up: December Daily 2015

Happy Thursday Dearest Dreamers!

I hope this finds you well!

Now that October is finished and I have finished filming my October Daily flip though videos, it's time to move onto my next project. It was definitely an experience working on my October Daily, a good experience though. I think that it helped that Lee was so interested in what I was doing. Either way, working on this project definitely helped renew my love of pocket scrapbooking.

This is the cover of my 2015 album.
I chose a standard TN and covered it with scrapbook paper and wash tape.

For a long time ever since the end of 2014, I have been more focused on memory keeping in travelers notebooks because they offer more space for journaling then pocket scrapbooking does. I've always been more of a writer then anything else, which I think is why I struggled so much with pocket scrapbooking in the beginning. But we'll get to how I'm overcoming that one in a minute.

This happens to be my favorite page, and probably something that I will repeat this year if possible!

Last year I decided to attempt December Daily in a travelers notebook, like I did with my October Daily two months before. Since I was leaving Germany right before December started, I made sure to pack up stuff that I would need in my suitcase before I left because my boxes weren't coming until January. There was a nice lady from the December Daily group on Facebook who sent me some stuff from last year's December Daily kit. I was incredibly motivated to start the project, but didn't really have a lot of room to work on it. There was a lot of traveling from North Carolina to Florida and Georgia during the month of December which also didn't help all that much towards working on my album. I got all the way to the 14th of December before I fell off the DD wagon. I have my pictures all printed and my list of activities written in my planner, but nothing is happening in my album.

I decided to take Ali's Storytelling With December Daily class again this year and it really got me thinking. It really makes me want to go back and work on my album from last year, in hopes that I can get it done before February of next year. I'm not quite sure why I just stopped working on my album, other then I guess life just got in the way and then we moved into the house we live in currently. It's not like I don't have anything to work with, I printed the pictures and wrote all the notes in my planner, it's just sitting down to actually work on it. I actually started working on it Friday night while Lee was practicing on his drums because I had lost interest in the internet.

Pro's of a TN: 

* Not nearly as big so it's easier to carry, which then limits your supplies

* it limits you on how bulky you make your embellishments, 

* focus on journaling, 

* you can use any size picture you want because you aren't worrying about the size of your pockets as long as it fits in your TN (and you can use vertical 4X6's, which is harder to do in a 6X8 mini album)

Con's: 

* You're limited on your embellishments in some ways, 

* It limits the products that you use in some ways

* Potential bleed through of your pens or ink

* You have to worry about writing on the backs of your pages

* If you fall behind it takes forever to get caught up

* You have to work on your pages in order, you can't skip days and go back to them. 

Something that I learned from her class this year is the beauty of mixing long and short stories in my album (which I already knew), but being able to print my stories on my pictures and print them from home. Also being able to use the digital stamps as well as trying new things with my Silhouette cutting machine. It will be easier to add things into my album that make it bulky because I don't have to worry about writing on the back of the page for my stories like I did in my TN (a big issue of mine, especially when the album gets bigger and bigger).

Like I said, I am hoping to work and and maybe even finish this album soon. It's already time to start prepping my 2016 album, which I will be doing in a pocket style like Ali and so many others do. I will record a final flip through video of last years for those of you that are interested.

Here's to hoping that I can finish two albums before February of next year!