How has your first few weeks of the New Year been? I hope great, no less. Mine has been good but, I must say, it was difficult for me to let go of the holidays, simply because it’s my favorite time of year. I love the merry making, the presents, the holiday crafting, the giving and receiving, the eating, the songs! I even keep a mental list of fun little December traditions I do my best to keep. And I think I’ve added a new one to that list because this specific activity has really helped me find meaning in moments and joy in the mundane. I put together my first ever December Daily album!
December Daily was started by Ali Edwards, a designer and blogger I admire, who is passionate about documenting everyday moments and telling her simple life stories in scrapbook form. And the goal is “to capture the spirit of December via one story per day” using photographs, mementos and words. Many others around the world have joined this project since she started it back in 2007.
Though I didn’t actually work on it every single day of December and I only really finished my layouts last weekend, I really love that I was able to capture day to day moments — the fun we had, lessons we learned and blessings we received. Allow me to share with you some of my December Daily 2015 spreads and favorite snaps of last month…
For this project, I used a metallic gold 4×4 Instagram mini album by We R Memory Keepers. I used up a total of 30 pocket pages in various configurations and several inserts, most of which I made myself or are memorabilia I acquired over the season. I should mention that I did all 31 days of December instead of just the first 25 days most do. I did not use one specific journalling card pack but improvised on many different card designs I had on hand. Many of the embellishments I used — stickers, gift tags, 3D embellishments — are from Typo (I chanced upon a big sale!).
Here goes…
December first is Emma’s birthday so I captured some of what we did that day, including the visit to the cupcake store where she ordered a rainbow cake…
…(Left Page) and when we stopped by a fish pond and watched the Koi leap out of the water, (Right Page) Dec 2: we did our first Christmas themed art project this year — cotton ball snowmen!
One of my favorite spreads! (LP) Dec 3: Summer helps me pack kits for an upcoming workshop, (RP) Dec 4: The day the girls and I watched Home Alone 1 while I made four holiday brooches for a Craft Swap.
Dec 5: Craft Party PH’s Christmas stamp carving and wrapping workshop + Our little dinner get together and craft swap with friends. Super thankful for these ladies!
Dec 7: We’re all about Star Wars these days and I wanted to capture the kids playing with their first ever set of Star Wars toys.
Dec 8: My in laws sent two baskets of sweet, juicy strawberries and the girls were crazy about them. Who wouldn’t!
Dec 9: The girls and I made a decorative garland out of painted clay shapes. They really enjoyed this project. And I always want to remember moments like these, when we make things together.
Dec 14: (LP) The star tree topper we’ve been using the last few years finally broke so I decided to make a new one. (RP) All week this Christmas song has been stuck in my head and I’ve been singing it all the time. Even the kids started singing along each time. So I decided I wanted to document it as our 2015 Cheyenne Song Pick — Falala by Justin Bieber
Dec 15: The wrapping has begun!!!
Dec 16: One of the girls’ Advent activity is to collect coins to offer to Church on Christmas Eve. So this day, I painted an old tin can coin bank gold, decorated it a little and turned it into an Offering Can. Also…my early Christmas gift to myself arrived — a new phone!
Dec 17: The big day! Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out which I watched that night with Kayo.
Dec 18 – 21: Our good friends from Australia, Choy and Kina with baby Matilda, came for a visit so we drove up north with them for a beach vacation. It was our first time to see the new El Union shop and we got to bring the kids to Urbiztodo Beach Library for some reading and art making. To say that the least, this trip was a lot of fun. See the rest of the spreads…
(LP): For this layout above I use an Ali Edward digital stamp quote, which I think was very appropriate for that moment when I captured the photo.
Dec 22: Ugh because I was having an ugh-ful day. I was in quite a bit of unnecessary stress and knowing how close it was to Christmas made me feel worse. But that night, we decided to take kids to see the new Star Wars movie and that family time lifted my spirits a bit.
Dec 23: (Inserts) Cramming on Christmas shopping. Spent ALL DAY hitting the shops. To make this layout a little more interesting, I stuck cut outs of logos from shopping bags onto the page.
Dec 25: CHRISTMAS DAY!!! I highlighted the joyful riot that took place at my in laws during Christmas morning get together. If you notice on the right photo, Summer fights over a toy with his cousin Dylan in the Spiderman jammies. Classic Cosio family moment!
Insert: I cropped a 4X6 card and wrote my Christmas reflection on it, which I had on my phone. It was pretty long but I didn’t want to shorten what I had written, hence, the cramped journaling 😛 Here is a snippet:
“I’ve been feeling upset that my Christmas came a little too soon. But then I realized that, maybe aside from the wise men, nobody was really truly ready for the birth of Christ. Not the shepherds, not the inn keeper, not even Mary. I doubt it happened the way she pictured it. It was not perfect at all… So I guess IMPERFECTION is a HUGE PART OF CHRISTMAS..Christ came to the imperfect and ONLY the imperfect will truly see the value of a Saviour…”
Dec 27: I got sick right after Christmas and all I could really document was my tea which always comforts and consoles. As you see, I tried my best to keep in theme: Christmas colors!
Dec 30: Because I hadn’t been feeling well and felt so couped up, I asked Kayo to take us out that night. So we caught the light show at Ayala Triangle Park and stopped by Toby’s for coffee. That same night, Emma misplaced R2D2. It was actually the second time it happened. Summer lost him in our building lobby the day after Emma got it for her birthday (a gift from me and Kayo). But then earlier this day ( the 30th!), I found him hidden in the bushes by the pool. We were all so happy to find him. Little did we know he’ll get lost forever that same night. Oh well. I thought it was a funny story which I wanted to remember and tell the kids again in the future so I included it in an insert.
Dec 31: New Year’s Eve and final entry for my December Daily 2015 — We do our own little NY celebrations at home and this time, after having a hearty feast, we played some U2 full blast then sung and danced like fools as we counted down to the new year. It was a beautiful night to remember…
This entire month, actually, was a beautiful time to remember and I’m so happy to have captured every day of it. What a fun project!
Tomorrow is going to be another day of crafts and memory keeping as Craft Party PH joins Life Documented Manila‘s Pop Up Shop tomorrow at The Open Space, 134 Jupiter St, Makati City. Craft Party PH is holding a holiday-themed Memory Keeping Workshop in the morning, facilitated by the talented Anna Ignacio (@annings). Even if you didn’t get to register for the workshop happening in the morning, I invite you to stop by the fair to score some great scrapbooking supplies and also find inspiration from fellow memory keepers. The LDM Pop Up is open from 9am to 2pm. Hope to see you there! 🙂
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