The Story of Today
Today was a little different for us. We had art in the morning and then decided to have a quick visit with grandma before coming home for Sam's sleep. I set the intention this morning that the kids and I would make a Christmas countdown together when we were at grandma's and I am so happy with how it turned out. Tilly drew the face and then I made paper chains into the shape of Santa's beard. By December 25th it will look like Santa has had a shave. ;) Grandma also gave us her tree advent calendar for a loan for the year, and I started to write in the activities that we have planned already for the season. In the afternoon we had a play with one of Tilly's friends from 'kinder' at the park.
In the evening, Sam was very reluctant to go to bed, but in the end I didn't seem to mind. He spent such a long time looking at the tree, admiring the ornaments and the lights. He named items that I didn't even know he knew- angel, bauble, light, tree, bird. Hello 2yo language leap! Milly had made herself comfortable in the gift box under the tree and looked too adorable to not photograph! It was so heartwarming to see Sam taking in all of the decorations. My favourite fragile glass ornaments are missing from our tree until I can be confident that little fingers will not damage them, but our tree is covered with sentimental ornaments, most of which are homemade by my mum, grandma (deceased) or myself. There are also gifts, items that I bought when teaching at the homemade stall and items that the kids have made in Christmas' past. It makes me smile to see it all there.
In my album, I have included my photos within the page protectors and divided my two stories or parts of the day with some white cardstock, which I punched with an old punch from my stash and journalled straight on top. I'm really enjoying adding elements out of the page protectors again this year. All embellishments are from The Stamp Spot Document December kit which is still available, and I notice that it's at an even more amazing price! If you are collecting your photos and stories of December to gather into an album in the new year, I highly recommend this lovely kit.
So that's the story of my day 3... how was yours?
This year I am a member of The Stamp Spot Documenting December 2015 design team. I am using Michelle's kit as a foundation for my album this year. This is still available at her store. I'm linking up with Ali Edwards, the brains behind December Daily too.
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This year I am a member of The Stamp Spot Documenting December 2015 design team. I am using Michelle's kit as a foundation for my album this year. This is still available at her store. I'm linking up with Ali Edwards, the brains behind December Daily too. The Story of Today Since Tilly was one we have been attending play group at our church. It's a lovely group of mums and a dad too who are from the local community. We've made some special friends there over the years. Wednesday is playgroup day and so I wanted to include it for today. We went home for Sam to have a nap, but that's been quite off lately so it was very late when he finally went down. The highlight of the day was a parcel arriving, full of my business cards, postcards and a banner for Beck Holder Photography and some gifts I'd ordered too. It made sense to include some of these in my story for today. This new little business is something that I've been dreaming of for years now and I know that I'll enjoy looking back in the years ahead and remembering these early days. I love how perfectly the gold camera matches today and that the sample postcard and business card fit into the page protectors that I already had in there. :) The 2x2 spaces in the page protector are fun to include little pictures and pretty papers. For me who loves to include LOTS of photos, they're very appealing. This year I am a member of The Stamp Spot Documenting December 2015 design team. I am using Michelle's kit as a foundation for my album this year. This is still available at her store. I'm linking up with Ali Edwards, the brains behind December Daily too. Although my December Daily album focuses on the month of December, occasionally there is a special Christmasy event in November that I don't want to skip over. This year, that happened on November 21, when a local shopping centre offered a free 'breakfast with Santa' event. I quickly secured ourselves some tickets (and some for a friend too) and pretty quickly the morning came.
Muffin Break provided the children with a snack box of muffins, an apple and a juice box and they also received a colouring in book and stickers. Santa and Mrs Claus were there, as was a larger than life (and rather scary for the kids) Rudolph. They wandered around the tables mingling with the kids who were game. Rudolph was advised to stay away but Mr and Mrs Claus were allowed over. The highlight were two 'elves' who played Christmas songs, a balloon artist and a face painter. This was a really simple and fun way to start the Christmas season. For these pages, I didn't use many page protectors. I used 6x8 cardstock from my kit and attached my 5x7 and 4x6 photos directly. I used to make my own albums with no page protectors and I'm looking forward to including more inserts in this way this year. The page protector that is included is the other side of my December 1 page. Here it is! This year I am a member of The Stamp Spot Documenting December 2015 design team. I am using Michelle's kit as a foundation for my album this year. This is still available at her store. I'm linking up with Ali Edwards, the brains behind December Daily too. The story of today
Welcome December and welcome Christmas! It is always exciting for me to get to this day, but this year it seems to have taken me a little by surprise. After the preparations made to my album in the months gone, I'm excited to get some photos in and stories told. We spent some time yesterday getting the home decorations started, but this morning the star went up on the tree, it was Tillly's turn this year. Our Little People nativity set came out too and it was played with by both kids... I have a feeling that it will be a common sight this season! We had art this morning and I was so excited that Wendy had a lesson prepared where the kids drew reindeer. Perfect for today's page! :) After art we visited grandma. We've been spending quite a lot of time at ma's house lately, keeping her company and helping a little after some surgery. As Sam napped, I set Tilly up with some paper and inkpads to make fingerprint cards for her friends... I stole some for the album... they were too cute! Tilly also helped ma to decorate her tree today. At bed time, the kids were given a new Christmas book each and they enjoyed reading them with daddy. It feels good to be started on this project again. Here's my day 1! I've had some time to play and it's time for me to share with you the beginnings of my December Daily for this year. Michelle shared in this blog post over at The Stamp Spot introducing her design team and previously, her beautiful Documenting December kit for 2015. I'm so thrilled to be part of her team once again this year. If you're new to this project, December Daily® was created by Ali Edwards. In her words. "December Daily® is a 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." This will be by 7th year participating in the project. It, along with Project Life, is my favourite! As part of the design team for The Stamp Spot, I will be using Michelle's Documenting December 2015 kit as a base for my album. I also purchased from The Stamp Spot a Project Life Red Polkadot 6x8 album and various 6x8 page protectors
So how will I approach this year? Once again I am using page protectors in my album, but I also plan to include more inserts this year, such as photographs, journalling on cardstock and other bits and pieces as stand alone elements, not in the protectors. I'll just punch holes in them. In the past I would use jump rings to bind my albums and I found last year that I missed some of the layering that this affords. The kit includes some 6x8 papers which makes this really easy. Yay! I don't have a printer at home so I will be heading to Harvey Norman as often as possible to get my photos printed. I aim to do this as close to daily as possible and to blog likewise throughout December. My workspace is whatever area of the dining table that I can make clear for the evening! ;) I don't have a fancy craft space or study to use. My kit is stored in a box with containers to divide everything, which also makes it transportable if I need to move quickly! What have I done so far? The first thing that I do each year is make a list of the events that I know will be happening on specific days throughout the month. This helps me to think about how I will place my page protectors in my album. I then put all of my page protectors in place with an idea of what I will be covering each day- based on those actual events that are in the diary and stories that I know I will want to tell. I play 'blank' days as they come, but I also have a list of ideas in the back of my head that can be used on a quiet day. I've used the silver transparency and other embellishments that were included in the kit to create my opening page. I then used some white cardstock from my stash, edged it with washi from the kit and stamped an old stamp of Ali's from my stash to prepare an introduction/reason why page for myself. I have simply handwritten my thoughts there. I choose to handwrite for several reasons. I enjoy the practice and look of handwriting and that my children and family in the years to come will recognise my hand as well as my voice through my albums. Believing this makes not having a printer easier too! :) Below you will find a youtube clip (my first time!) showing my foundation pages. As you can see, I have created some simple 3x4 journal cards using items included in my kit and distributed them throughout the page protectors. Throughout December I will move these around as needed and further embellish them and my photos. You can see below some photos of how my album looks now. Whether you're just starting out or if you're a seasoned documenter of December, I hope that this has given you some fresh inspiration and motivation to get things in place for your December Daily 2015. I certainly found last year that having my foundation pages in place really helped me to get things done and stay up to date. Throughout November and December I will be posting here about my process and what I have completed. I also share on instagram as beckanyh. It's that time of the year again! For those who have been here for a while you will know that I am a very keen participant in Ali Edwards' December Daily project. Last year I was invited to be on the design team for The Stamp Spot, using their Documenting December kit and I am honoured to be included in this group again in 2015. Today, Michelle shared her kit online and it is now ready for sale here! Below are some photos from Michelle's blog post of the kit contents. A beautiful range of cardstock, specialty papers, acetate, wood veneer, flair, washi, die cuts, doilies and MUCH more! I will be receiving mine in the next week or so and I can't wait to share what I and the other team members come up with.
TIME: 9:17am
LOCATION : study nook WEATHER : Sunny, fresh, blue skies EATING : my home made muesli with the kids left over banana cut on top! FEELING: tired, but grateful for 2 hours alone LOVING : Sam's chatting and singing READING : kid's books! DRINKING : a double shot coffee- one reg and one decaf ANTICIPATING : Toby's work winding down LISTENING TO : the lorikeet's outside in the blossom tree WATCHING : The Bachelorette (don't judge me!), A Place to Call Home (thanks to friends with Foxtel!) and sad that House Husbands has finished PLANNING : on editing my weekend photo shoots LOOKING FORWARD TO : having kids who sleep through! CREATING : edited photoshoots NEED TO FINISH : so much stuff! WITL and PL WISHING : that I could get out at night MAIN THIS WEEK GOAL : tidy the house, finish photo shoots Thanks to Kellie for the prompt to post this. The overnight wake ups, the overnight feeds and the feeding to sleep. The only resettling for mummy. The newly discovered temper tantrums. Yes, they get old. But the sleepy snuggles, deadweight snores and dreamy chuckles? Nope. No way. I always want to remember those moments. They stay fresh forever. I LOVE my baby boy, 20 months young. XXX Wednesdays are for chrio appointments, for playgroup and for relaxed 'no plans' afternoons.
This week we had Sam's 18month check up at the nurse. He's been growing! We had a special treat- food court lunch then came home to make the most of some quiet time as Sam slept for some 'girl time'. We made playdough and played a game that was mine when I was a little girl (on Tilly's request). After little mate was up and cheery, we went for a walk to do the school run and we had a play with the neighbours in the late afternoon. Cleaning up throughout the day and lots of funny anecdotes which will be included in my album. These magical grains of coloured rice keep my kids entertained for hours on end! Easy to make and a wonderful gift for friends, rainbow rice is an inexpensive item to make for sensory play. Today Sam has enjoyed some time scooping, pouring, digging, mess making (!) and imagining with his dinosaur figurines. We have sung dinosaur songs as he's played (Dino Stomp and Dinosaur Roar) and repeated words (stomp, dig, pour), all great for language development. There's a bit of a clean up afterwards but it's as simple as a sweep and pan or vacuum and you're done. Great fun for pre-schoolers. |
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September 2023
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