I hope the first week of your 2018 has been good and full of promise! While I spend the last few days dreaming, setting goals and creating game plans for this year, I also took a good look on how last year panned out and what amazing things I experienced and learned. I also made it a point to complete documenting my 2017 December Daily.
In case you didn’t know, this is a Christmas and year-end activity I’ve been doing the last three years, which I picked up from designer and scrapbook extraordinaire, Ali Edwards. It helps me reflect more intentionally on what Christmas is all about and makes celebrating it more meaningful. It’s also a good way to say goodbye to the year that was.
This time, I took a completely different approach to documenting the season. Instead of using the pocket page system, I went for a much simpler route — art journaling. I guess it’s because I have really been enjoying my weekly journaling and also because it’s quick, more portable and very inexpensive.
I used an unlined travel-sized kraft-covered notebook which I picked up at Salt x Paper stationery store in Malaysia. I brush-lettered the title on the cover and, using number stickers I found in National Bookstore scrapbooking section, put date headers on every spread. I limited myself to one spread per day. DDs usually end on Christmas day but I like to extend until New Year’s Eve.
Of course, my spreads look livelier because of the Instax prints I added. Using my SP-2 printer, I printed out at least one shot from each day to highlight what we did, saw, ate or drank.
This was such a breeze to put together! Much easier than my previous DD albums. However, I feel like this is a whole lot more personal because I really made it a point to write from my heart and not just caption pictures. I wrote about joys and disappointments, about things I accomplished and things that didn’t work out, about my family, my mistakes and my prayers in preparation for Christ’s coming.
I’m glad I did it this way this time. It’s refreshing and also really special. I’m sure it will be a treat and also insightful to look back and read through its pages again a year or so from now.
If you’d like to get into the habit of journaling and keep record of the events, details, highs and lows of this new year, join me on January 21st as I conduct a Creative Journaling Workshop with Maartsy in Makati. You don’t need to have drawing, lettering or painting skills to get in on this but I will share with you ways on how to be more creative in documenting your life. If you’re interested, do visit this LINK.
I hope to meet you there! Happy New Year!
Leave a Reply