December Daily: Foundation Pages (sort of)

It's almost December!  I'm very excited that I'll soon be starting my third annual December Daily album, as inspired by Ali Edwards.  I have enjoyed this project very much the past two years - here is the album I made two years ago.  I guess I didn't post last year's album, though I did make it and finished it pretty promptly!  The idea is to add a photo and/or story for every day of December to document the month.  Sometimes I do two pictures.  Sometimes I don't have a picture for a day and use something representative.  It's not strict!  It also doesn't need to be all holiday related - in some way it's a chance to document every day life alongside the Christmas season.

Most people completely make their foundation pages ahead of time (here's a beautiful example) but I find that doesn't quite work for me.  The idea is to make it easy to do during the busy December month... but I need it to be easy AND have the lure of a little creative play to keep me going.  So, I make pages, numbers and a few extras and let myself choose which to use each day.  I have them in a clear, zippered pencil pouch to keep the main items together.

The first photo is an idea of what the pages may look like when I choose what to use.  But I'll also probably make some pages that are just photos printed with borders and glued back to back.  The pages themselves are 5x7".  That way, I can use an occasional trimmed portrait-direction picture in amongst mostly landscape-direction pictures. 

This set-up is the same as my traveling vacation mini-book from 2010 (and the results are here).  This has been my favorite mini-book, both in process and in final product, so I decided to follow the pattern for my December Daily this year. 

I even have it in the same traveling clipboard, along with some scraps and random Christmas supplies.

Seeing that puts me in the holiday spirit!  Now I just need to get my Christmas decorations out of the attic!