DECEMBER DAILY, DAYS 9 - 14

It's time to share another batch of December Daily pages with you. Just like Project Life the best way to get things done is to do them right away. A December Daily that does not get finished before the end of January will never be finished by me.

I was going back and forth wether to share day nine on here or not, because I've had cover so much of it up. But here it is anyways, since I thought the page design could still be inspiring. I cut up some cards from the 2016 Paislee Press DD addon, and dug up some old wood veneer alphas to put this page together. The photos are taken indoors at my mom's apartment and they were dark and blurry. Shrinking them to 2x2" squares and turning them black and white was the best option. Me and my brother brought our families to my mom's to have sushi and hang out.

Day ten was the second of Advent. I took this photo as our son was lighting the second candle. The journaling talks about the importance of "being fair". The kids each get to light five candles for Advent. Nea got 1st and 4th, and Dante got 2nd and 3rd. The drama that ensues when something isn't fair is familiar to all parents I should think.

We finally put the tree up on the 11th. This day needed no journaling, so I did an all photos collage instead. I used a template from this Paislee Press December digi kit.

Yay for snow! It has been cold enough for snow during December this year, but we haven't gotten any. Today it finally snowed and snowed! The kids were delighted. Snow theme printables from the Paislee Press Merrier Elements digi kit.

On the 13th I usually document our Saint Lucia celebration but our kids didn't participate this year. They won't be part of the celebrations at school, other than being in the audience, until they're in the 5th grade. Instead I took some photos of Nea and her friend Sally walking home from school, and wrote about how much fun they have together.

I added a drawing by Nea as an insert between days 13 and 14. I love how she did the shading. She loves watching Kristina Werner do colouring on youtube, and tries to copy her work. So cute!

A friend and collegue sent me this photo on the 14th. They called from the kids' school saying my son was sick and I had to come pick him up. After I left my friend found my work shoes in the cord basket on top of the laptop cart. Talk about being tired and confused. We got a good laugh from it, but I feel like Winter Break can't come fast enough. Just four more days of work now and then we have two weeks off. I can't wait!

See you in a few days when I'll be sharing another batch of pages. We're on the home stretch now!

/Magdalena

DECEMBER DAILY DAYS 5-8

I'm back to share a few more days of my December Daily album. I've gotten stuck on day 9 where I have both photos and journaling I want to keep hidden. Still thinking about how to do that!

The story of day 5 is our everyday walk home from school, which is done a little differently in the winter. The sun sets at about 2.30 PM now and we don't want the kids walking home by themselves in the dark, so I walk with them every day. I used this fun photo of them wearing some Christmas themed hats from H&M. 

I thought lots about what to put on the back of the photo for day 4, and decided on this awesome patterned paper that came with the Paislee Press December Daily addon from last year. I then added a drawing Dante made for me at school, because it went well with the color scheme.(ETA: I remade this page later. See the new version here.)

The photo for day six was actually taken at the same time as the one for day five. Nea noticed a flight of geese flying south for the winter, and told me to hurry up and take a picture before they disappeared. She wanted to put the photo in her own December Daily album. I accidentaly shot a video instead, but managed to get an okay photo as a still from the video. You can see the geese in the top left photo if you look closely! (ETA: See the new version of day 6 here.)

On day seven I was out with work to celebrate a collegue's retirement. We went shuffleboarding ( She crushed the rest of us!)and then had dinner together. When walking to the restaurant we came across this installation which is part of a light festival in the town of Uppsala every winter. Such a perfect photo opportunity!

I wanted to keep the journaling for this event private so I made a smaller card to tuck in between the photos for days 7 and 8. I used a chipboard piece as a pull tab. I've never made this kind of hidden journaling before so it took me a long time figure things out. There were many mistakes made and on top of that I poked myself on a staple hard enough to draw blood. I was very happy when this page was finally put together!

I'm not super happy with how this page came together, but I decided to embrace "good enough". There is definately something missing, a frame I think, but I spent too much time on this page to risk messing it up again. (I reprinted it three times!) The ornaments flip up to reveal our wishlists to Santa. My hubby hasn't written one so he's not included. I printed out a funny photo from Villfarelser of a Santa riding a motorbike. If you want the sentiment translated - google it!

I printed the journaling on matte photopaper and used a 2" circle punch for the ornaments. I also punched three circles from white cardstock and sandwiched the gold glitter tape between them and the patterned paper. Then I outlined the ornaments and drew strings with a black marker. The Dear Santa digi brush is from this set by Paislee Press.

I hope I've given you some inspiration for your own album, and don't wait to get started putting it together. For me, it's now or never!

I'll be back soon to share more pages from this fun project. Happy scrapping!

/Magdalena

IT'S DECEMBER!

Finally, the month of December is here! Me and Nea has been waiting patiently since the arrival of our December Daily kits. Nea got the children's kit that is new for this year. When I ordered her kit I noticed there was a sale for older December Daily addons, so I got last year's Paislee Press kit for me. I've never ordered the December Daily kit from Ali Edwards because I think it's too expensive. All the years before I've just put my own kit together with a few new items added in from Studio Calico and Paislee Press.

I still haven't decided if I'm putting my 2017 pages into an album or if I'm going to use binder rings. I used a 6x8 album last year, and I found the spine too thick. Those 25 days of December takes up as much space on the shelf as six months of Project Life. I don't have the shelf space to keep that up!

My intro page is the same as last year. It's a digtal page from the Paislee Press December You Are My Fave No. 5 6x8 Mini Album Kit. I love how it looks printed on kraft paper! 

I'm planning to add a family photo on the back of the intro page, but I haven't taken any good photos yet. It will either be a 4x3 selfie or four individual 2x2 photos placed in a grid. We'll see!

Day one is all about going to the shopping centre and gearing up for winter. For the numbers I'll be using the Paislee Press This Day In December No. 2 digital kit throughout my album. (ETA: I've remade this page. To see the new version click here.)

On the second day of December we cleaned the house thoroughly and then I put all the decorations on the kitchen table and told the kids they got to place them around the house. The had a fun time deciding where everything should go and then me and hubby got to go on a house tour to discover them all.

Day three was First of Advent. We have a super heavy cast iron candle holder for Advent. I haven't decided what to fill the bottom with yet, but I think I'll go with nuts this year. I've tried peppermint candies (they get eaten!) and fake crushed ice (it ends up everywhere!) before. Some colorful glass ornaments may be pretty, too.

The Swedish postal service gave out these free postcards for Christmas this year. They are beautiful! I printed the day three photo to fit on the back of the postcard and did a half page insert with the journaling for the day.

On my next spread I brought in a large cork number to change things up a bit. Poinsettias make me think of my grandmother so that's what I wrote about for day four.

I'd love to see your pages too! Have you started in on your album yet?

/Magdalena

MAKING - NOVEMBER EDITION

We've had an amazing November here in Sweden. Just a couple of years ago we had a record breaking lack of sun. Only two hours of sunlight during the entire month of November! This year has seen many bright and beautiful days though, and as a scrapbooker I am thankful for that. I've made more pages this November than any other year of doing Project Life.

I love the color scheme of the November Studio Calico kits.It's so warm and has a vintage feel to it.


The kids each got to pick a book to read during Fall Break, which was week 44. Dante picked the second part of a ghost story series, and Nea picked Cinderella - in English. Dante plays lots of video games and his English is really good because of that,and she wants to catch up. We've been reading it together.

Us teachers worked an extra three days during week 44, but then we got the rest of the week off too. On the last day of work we had "After Work" outing at a super cool place called Pinchos, where you use an app to order food and drinks and then pick it up yourself from the bar. 

Below, I used the tag to journal about "Old Fashioned Week" at the kids' school. Their school celebrates a hundred years and there were dressup themes and lots of other activities. 

I loved the flannel shirt style pattern of the bottom card, but the center square felt kind of empty, so I stamped all the dates of the week inside to fill it up.

The same week Nea ended up with an ear infection that caused a burst eardrum. We had to go to the hospital to get her hearing tested. With a bit of luck she'll get tubes put in next year. She's had so many burst eardrums I've lost count. That NOPE card really came in handy!

In our Project Life album I mix in both ephemera and layouts. I like the chronology it gives, compared to keep seperate albums. I made a November favorites sort of layout for Catherine davis' Design School 2 "Working with a kit" challenge. The fall paper came from an October addon, and I found these veneer alphas in my stash. I considered painting the alphas gold, but decided against it and added some gold sequins instead.

This is my favorite page this month. I tend to like the pages with lots of journaling the most. It gives them a finished look. The d&n card is a design I totally stole from Catherine Davis!

That's all I've got so far. I have a few more photos to put in pockets before it's December.

/Magdalena

DAY IN THE LIFE

November 2nd was the last Day In The Life of 2017. I haven't observed any of the others this year, but this time we all had the day off so it was an easy day to document. When putting the pages together I used the digital kit Ali put together for this day. The cards had a fun new concept of counting during the day, which I enjoyed. The pages will go into our regular Project Life album.

Week 44 is Fall Break here in Sweden, which meant we could sleep in this morning. After breakfast Nea and I sat in the kitchen to do some crafting. She loves watching Kristina Werner's word art videos, so she tried her hand at one of her own. While I made lunch, she took a hot shower. Dante was playing Overwatch on the PS4.

I went on Ali's Craft the Story facebook page to ask if everyone counted breakfast as a meal. They did, but I decided against it. The reason is I journaled about being SO tired of cooking. I'm not a huge fan of eating cooked meals which makes me even less motivated to cook them. The kids on the other hand always want a cooked meal, which surprises me because I hated meal time as a kid. This day I decided to cook a big lunch, and then they could put the leftovers in the microwave for dinner.

The number stickers are from the October Studio Calico documenter kit, Gypsy Moon. They matched Ali's word strips nicely. For some reason my printer didn't print them all the same shade of blue, but that's ok. 

After making lunch, cleaning and doing laundry I deserved a reading break. My favorite tea mug is the size of a flower pot. I've had that brown wool blanket since I was two. It's huge and so warm and my favorite posession. It's what I'd bring to a deserted island, for sure.

The original card below had the dollar sign, but I cut the letters KR from another card and changed the colour to gray. Swedish money is called "kronor". The reason we spent so much without leaving the house is we had bills to pay. 

I propped my phone up on some books and used the self timer to take the nail polish photo. Nea has a pink night light in her room which gave the photo of her in bed a cool shade.

I didn't count the hugs during the day, but I used the eight as an infinite sign instead. We love hugs in our family!

I hope you've found some inspiration to document a Day In The Life of your own. Tomorrow I'm posting an update of how I'm doing with the 2017 Reading Challenge. See you then!

/Magdalena

TRICK OR TREAT!

I loooove Halloween! I always buy whatever addons Studio calico put out for the holiday. This year it was a mini card kit by Tina Aszmus which seems to have sold out unfortunately. You can find it digital form here, though.

I also bought the Paislee Press Fall Magic Elements pack, which really loved.

My favorite part of making a Jack o' lantern is I get to have roasted pumpkin seeds after. Some olive oil, rock salt, chili flakes and powdered cinnamon and you have the best snack ever. Yum!

Dante wanted to be "V for Vendetta" and Nea wanted to be a witch. We didn't have a wide brimmed hat, but Dante found my dad's old hat and used that. I think my dad wore in the late 60's! 

I found a pack of fun Halloween paper glasses at H&M, and did a family photo shoot. The kids picked their favorites, and us grownups took what was left. Super fun glasses! I sliced off a row of pockets to make an insert. On the pack I will document what movies we watched during Fall Break.

Also I'm mad jealous of my daughter's hair colour. Yes, it's real! 

I hope you all enjoyed Halloween, and have fun documenting it! Come back tomorrow for a look at my Day In The Life pages from November 2nd. I used Ali's kit for the day, and really like how it turned out.

/Magdalena

MY OCTOBER PAGES

I've decided to split up my October posts. Tomorrow I will post my Halloween pages, and today I'll be showing you the rest of my October pages plus a layout. I'll be making more layouts from my October photos, but I usually focus on documenting our everyday life first.

The gold and black October card is from Tina Aszmus' Halloween mini card kit. Love it! Everything else is from recent monthly Studio Calico kits. I've also used the Autumn Vibes templates from Paislee Press.

For some reason I took a ton of photos for the first week of October, but hardly any the next. The first week of October has my birthday and also the Swedish "Cinnabun Day" - a very important occasion to celebrate. The photo of my daughter has a quote. The first thing she said when waking up this morning was "Mommy, you are the world's best everything!", then she paused and added "Except the world's best turd.". Lucky me!

So I'll be honest here. I LOVE making my album pages but I HATE photographing them. Mainly because to prevent glare I need to remove every single card from the pockets and then put them back. For this blog post I couldn't be bothered (sorry, not sorry) so there is glare in these photos.

In our family you get to pick dinner on your birthday, so I picked pizza. Not because it's my favorite but because it's the only kind of restaurant nearby. I didn't want to cook, and I didn't want to have to go into the city on a school night, so pizza it was. I picked the Quattro Formaggi - four kinds of cheese including blue cheese. The kids were horrified that I picked moldy pizza for my birthday dinner, bwaha!

Also how happy are we that Supernatural, Stranger Things AND The Walking Dead are back on? 

I know you can't see it in this picture but the closeup of the kids' eyes shows off how different their eye colors are. Dante has blue eyes with lighter rays and Nea has green eyes. They asked me to take a photo so they could compare. 

Skipping week 41 because I didn't take any photos, here is week 42 on the left and week 43 on the right. I don't always record the weekly number. I know my photos are roughly in chronological order so not having a date on something doesn't bother me. 

I took an afternoon of from work and went to get a haircut. I had time for a stroll around the city before a friend met up for dinner. We ate at a super cool place called Pinchos, where you order through an app and pick up your own food and drinks from the counter. They serve delicious tapas and the decorations are circus themed. They even have entertainment through speakers in the bathrooms.

Fall is for reading! Refurnishing our bedroom meant I got to trade my nightstand for a bookshelf. Woohoo!

If you have visited my blog before you know that every year I do a birthday interview with the kids. This year I thought "Hey, why just the kids?!", so I made a birthday interview layout for myself. All products are from the Studio Calico October kit "Gypsy Moon". I hope you notice how I used both a border punch and a label maker for this layout. It's been years since they were brought out for scrapbooking. And yep, I'm 45. Imagine that!

Stay young at heart people! I hope to see you tomorrow for my Halloween pages.

/Magdalena

HELLO FALL

My favorite season is here! I love everything about fall - the temps, the food, the drinks, nature, the cozy darkness, scary movies  and books coming out. All of it! I was lucky enough to recieve Tina Aszmus' Fall journaling cards as part of my September guest DT spot goodies. Last month I ordered her Halloween kit, too. Looking forwards to using more of that in October.

Nea got a movie ticket for her August birthday and wanted to go see Despicable Me 3. On the way home we got caught in a crazy rainstorm and had a good laugh about that. We also went shopping for new tea flavors. The seasonal blends of fall are my favorite. We got Choco Chili, Earl Grey Spice (which smelled just like cinnamon buns) and Autumn Embers (a mix of black tea, cardamom and grapefruit). 

The autumn sky photo was taken by Nea on the way home from a friend. I've also documented getting carded at the liquor store. I'm 44 and the legal limit in Sweden 20. YAS! I'm sticking to my scary reads. Two books in September. Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King was a good short story but I don't know if it deserves getting published on it's own. It would've sat better in an anthology. The other book is the third and last part of a trilogy by John Ajvide Lindqvist. I suspect it'll be awhile before it comes out in English.

The next page is all new cards paired with older embellishments from my stash. Barbequing at my brother's and silly kids playing around. I have the world's cutest niece! You'll just have to take my word for it. :)

More scary stuff! I've been watching FTWD in wait of TWD premiering in mid October. I cannot wait! The other night I dreamt Daryl turned into a werewolf and had to be put down. Me and hubby went to see It and it was everything it's been hyped up to be. Loved it!

The last page for September is all photos from a day in the woods with grades 4 and 5. It looks like I was alone but I had four classes and seven collegues with me. I just made sure to keep them out of the frame so I could publish the pictures without asking for permission.

And that is all for September. Enjoy whatever season you're having where you live!

/Magdalena