Hello, it’s Riikka here! December is soon here and it’s time to start documenting that holiday month. The preparations, the atmosphere and the celebration itself.
I’ve been doing a “December Daily” style album for several years now. The style and amount of text varies, but still every year I do one. Project Life style documenting isn’t for me, I simply can’t keep up with that as I want to customize everything. But documenting the month of December, just one month, is something I can do and enjoy doing. It could be any month, but somehow December seems so appropriate.
This year I knew the covers of my album early on as I saw the 7Gypsies covers on the Canvas Corp online store. And the album started to take shape when I received several packages of paper bags in my kit. They provide a perfect way to add a lot of ephemera without making the album too cluttered. Just tuck all the receipts, notes and mishmash inside. You are adding bulk but not a mixture of colors and patterns and still can store everything!
With the old book style covers and the brown paper bag pages inside the album the whole thing had a great homey feel. So I carried that one on to the embellishing the cover. I used a piece of burlap as the bottom layer as it has a lovely Christmas feel to it. On top I layered a tag from 7Gypsies and also a few other embellishments like the deer head cut out from a tag. To further have the homey, a bit Scandinavian feel, I made tassels and pom poms. The tassels are made of red hemp rope but for the pom poms I used red yarn as it’s softer and gives a fluffier effect.
Canvas Corp Brands has two Christmas collections available – the new Canvas Corp’s Farmhouse Christmas and 7Gypsies’s Santas Journey. I used elements from the new collection in this album. The inside pages are made mainly from the File Folders but I also mixed one of the 12×12″ sheet in there. The black and white together with the craft give a lovely neutral background to all the photos and text that it’s going to fill the album.
If you wish to see what the album looks like at this point, before the documenting itself has started, please watch the video below.
I can’t wait to start using this album and adding those daily notes there! If you wish to make an album for yourself, it’s not too late! Just choose some patterned papers, create a great, inspiring cover and start documenting your December! My tips for making an album of this kind is to prepare yourself a kit for it. Thus you will have a continuous color scheme and style throughout the album. Choose some patterned papers, some embellishments, a set of alphas and for example a few stamps too and then carry on using them throughout the album. Like I have used that scrip stamp through the pages and also the white mist. Every spread is unique but still they all have something in common.
Thank you for your visit today! Wishing you pleasant start to December and Christmas time!
Materials from Canvas Corp Brands:
Farmhouse Christmas File Folders
Farmhouse Christmas Reindeer Tag
Farmhouse Christmas Stockings Tag
Farmhouse Christmas Holiday Door Tag
Farmhouse Kitchen Assorted Tags
Numero stamp set
Par Avion stamp set
Tattered Angels Chalkboard Chalk
'DIY Christmas Album' have 2 comments
November 18, 2014 @ 12:59 pm Gina
Love the look of this album. My own personal style is so similar-not the traditional red & green cutesy usually done for this time of year. Lovely!
November 18, 2014 @ 5:22 pm Ava Gavloski
I want to squeeze this album…. love the rustic look and all the texture. Thanks for sharing your inspiration vision with all of us within this industry. appreciated.