December Daily: Finished in February

One project I tried out this past year was a December Daily Album. The idea is to do a daily journal of a photo and/or story each day of December in order to capture the flow of everyday life during a magical time of the year. It's an incentive to capture the everyday and to stop and enjoy what's happening now during a time that can be buried under a flurry of busyness.

What does it say that it's finally finished on the fourth day of February?

To be fair, it has been almost finished (just lacking two days) since my scrapbooking retreat and I was just waiting on a few photos from friends, a program from my husband and a photo I forgot to print.

People do all sorts of fabulous things with this idea, some more elaborate than others. I chose a mini-book (the pages are about six inches tall), which is in some ways easier than a full size book. I could plan just a little something, no pressure. I could tuck some memorabilia into the pages with a single punch. On the other hand, when I take a bunch of pictures it's hard to narrow down to one; fitting in a few photos on a small page can be difficult. I made all the little pages plus the little journaling cards (space to write, with the date) in the fall before the holiday craziness started so that did make it easier.

I really like how it turned out. It's a fun little book that I now have sitting with another mini-book in a large pottery bowl on my sofa so that anybody can pick it up and flip through it. I did have some mixed feelings about this project, though. I realized after I got started that people usually do this by printing out single prints daily from their home printer so that they can really do it daily. I don't like the look of home prints so I was picking up a few prints at a time at the photo shop at my local Costco (well at least that was convenient - I am there ridiculously often). This meant that I could think about it daily but not actually do it daily, which seemed a little backwards. Later, it was hard to finish it when I've mentally moved on from December.

It is fun looking at it now, though so although I don't know if I'll do this again, I do like the final product.