Why I Can't Keep Up With My December Art Journal

 

Every year I endeavor to do the December art journal a page a day. And TWO years I actually managed it!

 

 

This year we are doing PLENTY of December activities!  Like weekly Happy Hours at my house!  Elf wine....cute, right?

 

 

Photo Shoots......

 

 

North Pole Breakfast with the elves....

 

 

 

Tired Elf

 

 

Gratitude Friendship Brunch

 

 

Christmas puzzles, game day, crafts, and Christmas movies to watch!

 

 

Lego Advent calendar

 

 

 

Feliz Navidad dinner

 

 

Church Christmas program.

 

 

Painting for a Cause

 

 Concerts.

 

 

Visits from people spreading Christmas Cheer

 

 

Elf gifts

 

And there's still MORE before December 25th

 

Today we are off to historic St Charles Christmas Traditions to enjoy a day out with friends.

Tomorrow we are off to the Fox to see a Christmas Story and have dinner for Kelsey's birthday!

Monday and Tuesday...finish a creative gift with Evan for his mom, finish preparing for the Christmas Eve game,  wrap gifts, sort stocking stuffers, bake cookies, shop for Christmas Eve dinner etc. I got a bit behind schedule as I've been at the hospital every day for a week with my critically ill sister.

 

Last night I started feeling some anxiety over neglecting my December journal and then I thought....you can make time to journal or you can live life fully. Guess which one I chose? So yeah...that December journal is going to get finished in January!

 

Christmas Journal Day 1-3

Today I'll start posting the pages from my Christmas journal 2104. I'll probably post from 1-5 days each week. It will most likely run past Christmas even though I end my journal on December 25th. That will give me a few days to get the rest posted after Christmas when things are less hectic.

December 1st.

Three new elves arrived on December 1st and they brought a game with them. I decided to use this snapshot of Evan as the focus for the page. He was so excited to see them!

December 2nd:

This was a VERY busy day so I decided to keep it simple with this patterned page and just a tiny bit of journaling. Hey when the days are hectic I figure a little is better than nothing. Journaling is not about writing tons, it's about capturing the essence of the day!

December 3rd:

 

I decided to highlight our tree on December 3rd. You can also see that I took an old card from and inserted it in (the red card with the ornaments. Then I journaled on the back of it. I love to use old card fronts in this manner...tucked into the journal they are so pretty and add a special touch as well as providing room for writing too!

 

 

How Do You Document December?

This is my artsy (sort of) December journal from 2011. I've always loved the idea of documenting my favorite time of the year but alas some years seem more successful in doing that than others. I was happy with December 11th because I actually managed to keep up with the daily entries AND it was cutesy. Notice I don't say a masterpiece or beautiful....but when we get away from perfection we are better able to actually journal. This one I made by covering index card dividers the 5 x 8 sized ones.

This is the 2012 version. I used a board book that I took apart and painted or covered with paper. It was a little bit bigger canvas but I still managed it!

This is the cover of the 2013 one which I am also planning to use this year. I will just insert a chipboard divider between the two years and add "and 2014" to the front of it.

I love these little SNAP journal binders. They also have a new planner coming out for 2015 which I can't wait to get my hands on. It's called a Life Documented planner. I created one in 2014 from a hodge podge of materials but I REALLY want to give this set up a try.

Now here's a picture of my elf journal that I add to each year to document our elf adventures. It doesn't include everything we do...I mean let's get honest...I could never keep up with all of that but it does include a cute variety of things to celebrate our memories!

These two pages are from 2007 (the year where I forgot where I put the elves and had to send a new one (Professor Sugar Plum) to make do until I could "uncover" them!

 

It doesn't really matter how you document December but these sure are fun to look at each year!

Halloween and Christmas Art Journals 2013

Soooo......I said I wasn't going to do a 31 page Halloween art journal....but now I am!!  Here's the cover of the 6 x 8 Your Life in a SNAP Journal I bought for Halloween. Originally they were 14.99 but Michael's had them on clearance for 5.99.  Love it!!

 

This is the first year I've tried the binder style so we will see how it goes. I doubt it will be as messy-artsy as last years was but I think it can still turn out super cute and document my favorite month of the year!

 

 

Here's what I did with the one for Christmas. I was going to leave the covers for last but you know me...I can never wait patiently!!  I'm hoping to keep the artsy quality by doing all types of pages...some page protector ones with photos....painted pages, and other manner of embellishments. And this year I swear I'll journal more....about what I am doing each of the days!

 

Your Life in a Snap

So I've been trying to decide what type of art journal to use this year for Christmas. The last two years I have used (first index card dividers then board book pages) an artsy loose pages bound with rings approach. This year I wanted to try something different. I still want it to be artsy....not scrap book-y (if that make sense) but I also wanted to "pull it together" a bit.

I dropped by Michaels today just to see what they had. First off I was looking for chipboard books (found some cute ones too and even bought a couple) but then I happened upon these Your Life in a Snap binders. I think they are 6 x 8. Not too bog and not too small.  They have two rings inside and also come with some pages (card stock thickness) and some page protectors with different sized slots. Also three heavy chip board dividers are included. They immediately drew my attention. I thought the shelf sign said 14.99 but at the check out they rang up as 5.99. If I knew they were so cheap I may have been tempted to buy more!  As it is....I bought an orange one for Halloween and the red one for Christmas. Now I can't wait to start some base pages!!  So excited!!

Base pages with lined paper, graph paper and sort of like a page out of a ledger. You can also see the heavy dividers...they will be cute for decorating!

This photo shows the little page protectors that can house cards, photos and other items.

I figured these were a take off of Project Life.  Like a more generic copy cat product....but not sure. It sort of reminds me of a cross between a Smash Book and Project Life.  There was a huge section of Project Life stuff but I tried to stay away from it. I want to do "smaller" projects right now because even though I love the Project Live idea...I know myself....I suck at long term projects.

Embossed on the back cover toward the bottom...it says....Simple Stories....I like that so  much that when I decorate the binder I am going to make sure I leave that showing!

December Art Journal Cover

Here it is....the newly created cover for the Christmas Art Journal. I had so much fun with the art journal last year and I hope to this year also!  I'm not very good at all about pre-prepping pages like is always suggested. 

This cover is made from an old board book that I stripped off the original printed materials and then covered with some green card stock.  The Ho Ho Ho part is actually holiday packing tape!  The December is cut from a magazine, the 2012 are stickers, the snowmen cut from scrapbook paper, and the Santa is a recyled card front! I plan of doing the inside of the front cover next as a dedication page!  More details to follow soon.

Once again I am trying to create the art journal without buying materials. I do admit I bought some materials last year on clerance after Christmas so I will use those, combined with recycled cards and other materials to create! I am also "allowed" to use anything from my stockpile of materials. My goal is to eventually not have such a BIG stockpile!

Paper Trees

It's Christmas in July at Magical Holiday Home and I'll be making TREES all month long and perhaps a few ornaments also because our theme this year is...."Oh Christmas Tree!"
This week my feature is paper trees. I found this idea on a couple different blogs so I thought I'd try my hand at it too!

First I went in search of some oldish looking paper because I wanted to make some vintage looking ones. Behold an old church hymnal....perfect. The trees were easy to cut out but fanning out the branches wasn't as easy as it looked! I still need to fluff these a bit. They actually look better in person than they do in the pic.
I am thinking about making several more of the smallest one to go with my vintage Christmas houses.

More Wooden Letters

Here's another set of wooden letters I decided to finally do something with! These JOY letters were bought on clearance at Walmart. They are actually white letters meant for a child's room, so you can spell out their name. I wanted to decoupage them and meant to use either different kinds of wrapping papers or scrapbook paper. Then when cleaning out a shelf in the craft area, I found this vintage looking scrapbook paper and decided to use it! I really do like how they turned out. They will look cute hanging above the vintage Christmas village!

Do you have a craft lingering in your "to do" pile. If so NOW is a great time to create it!