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Tackling Your December Daily Project

Published by Sula H.

 

December 1st is at hand, and for many of us this means embarking on a new journey with the December Daily project. I started a huge hybrid album last year which isn’t anywhere near finished (and I don’t see myself finishing it this year as I’m far too busy with real life at the moment), so for this season, I decided to take a simpler approach. I’m creating a digital album.

 

Simplicity Is Key

The goal for most of us is to keep things simple, and yet to create albums that we’ll enjoy looking at even years from now. I already started my 2011 project last week, and I’m quite pleased with the outcome. But before I started, I sat down and thought through a couple of things that now prove to be very helpful as I’m further into the project, and I thought I’d share some of these considerations with you …

TIP NO. 1 | Choosing the Right Format
Choosing a format for your project is one key to avoid having to spend hours on each December Daily page. If you use the same format all throughout your album, you can create a basic foundation page that serves as a template, and which helps you jump start each individual page.

In my case …
… I chose to go with the paper size A4 – as I can easily print it, and assemble it into an album afterward. I decided to divide the page into two parts – photos on the left, journaling on the right. I’m doing the same format all throughout the album, and with the help of the foundation page I use as a template, each page takes me less than an hour to create.

TIP NO. 2 | Repetition
Repetition to some seems boring, but in design, it’s actually a major principle. It’s the stabilizing component of a project that otherwise still allows a lot of room for creativity. With repetition I mean that you either choose the same format for each page (and embellishing it will give you enough variety to not get bored with the overall album), or maybe reduce the number of scrapbook kits you use for your project (lots of kits come with such a great variety of papers and elements that using them in different ways throughout the album will never get boring). Repetition also will help you save time as you don’t have to come up with new ideas each day.

In my case …
… I decided to go with the same format. I use the same few fonts for title, subtitle and journaling all throughout my project, and as mentioned above already, always put my photos on one, and my journaling on the other side of my double page spread.

TIP NO. 3 | Less Is More
Another principle that many of you probably have heard of is the “less is more” principle. Applying it to your DD-project will also help you save lots of time, and you can still create beautiful pages.

In my case …
I decided to go with just a few papers and element clusters. That is, at the most I’m using 3-4 papers (normal is about 2 – one patterned, one solid), and two clusters of embellishments on my journaling side of the double page spread. For the papers, I decided to go with the principle of repetition: I’ll use the same paper as background for my photo page and for the little paper block below my journaling.

TIP NO. 4 | Focus On One Story
One more advice by Ali Edwards I found very useful is her focus on just one story per day. Instead of making your pages a report about every activity you did each day – which could end up a quite elaborate and time consuming task – pick just one story you want to tell. Something about that day that stood out for you. It will help you in choosing your photos, and will help you make your story telling a little more interesting.

TIP NO. 5 | Prepare Ahead
In my case, I created the foundation page template that speeds up my process a lot. Other people use templates by some designers that they choose ahead of time so they don’t have to spend much time each day to search for what templates or other supplies to use. Personally, however, I prefer to choose my supplies based on the photos for each day. This is why I kept my foundation page template so generic. It allows me to coordinate everything more easily (based on the number of photos I want to include, or the color palette that will match my photos; I find that choosing templates by the designers ahead of time, makes things more complicated for me – as I might have more/less photos I want to use that day).

A Note About Templates
Working with full-blown templates doesn’t necessarily speed up your process of creating a page.

Don’t get me wrong. I love templates. I create pages for template designers, and still get excited about each new release I get to work on. But even with all the experience I have, working with page templates usually takes me twice as much time as creating my own page. That’s esp. true with elaborate page templates. So, before choosing to work with templates, take a moment to think about it: Does using templates really help you speed up your process of creating a page? If yes, then go for it. If you’re not really sure, why don’t you create your own go-to foundation page template for this year’s project? (See mine below.) It might be just what you need, and it might simplify your life a lot!

TIP NO. 6 | Stay Organized
Along the same lines, I recommend you to organize your Christmas digi-supplies so that you have everything together in one place, and don’t have to spend much time searching through your digi-stash. For last year’s project already, I created my December Daily folder on my computer, in which I have the previews of all my Christmas supplies, save my pages/templates, and other things that might be needed in the process.

TIP NO. 7 | Don’t Stress
 The December Daily project is supposed to be fun, not a huge extra task that you load on yourself in the already really busy holiday season. If you can’t get a page for every single day, don’t fret about it. You’ll still enjoy the pages you do get done. And I know tons of people who didn’t finish their project last year (I myself for one), and that’s ok, too.


The Foundation Page Template

You can see, this template doesn’t have much on it at all, but it helps me a lot to jump start each page. I use this template for every page of this year’s album. It saves me a ton of time, and the pages I’ve been creating so far, are lots of fun.

 

Adding a Few Extras

Photo Pockets

For the photo page, I’m using Traci Reed’s 8.5×11 Slip Ins. They only need minor resizing for my A4/A5 paper size, and work perfectly to give my pages a fun twist.

 

Adding & Modifying Dates

Admitted, I “stole” this idea from Ali Edwards – the “mother” of the December Daily project, if I may say so. She has a set of overlays for each day of December in her store.

 

Working with A4/A5 size paper, however, I couldn’t use her pre-made ones, I had to make my own. Here’s a look at my photoshop canvas:

In the layers panel (right), you can see how I already added all the week days, and since I started in November, also the names for the month. Now, all I need to do is, choose the correct day/month, add the outlined date number, delete the rest, and I’m good to go. (For a tutorial on how to create an outline of overlapping text, see yesterday’s tutorial.) If I want to change the color of my overlay, I just merge the four layers of grid, month, weekday, and date, and add a color overlay. Modifying all of this, takes me about a minute, and with this basic page format, I can finish my entire double page spread in less than an hour.

 

I’ve thought of offering my foundation page as a template for you, but since my page format is A4, I’m afraid it won’t work for a lot of you. (If you’d still be interested in having the foundation page template, just leave a comment, and if I can get enough people to show an interest, I’ll put it up, but without the text layers.)

 

Getting Inspired

I’ll be posting my first week of the December Daily pages on Saturday (I hope), but here’s a peek of the first page of  this year’s album:

Note the same  patterned paper for left-side background, and right-side paper block. I added two clusters of elements in the opposing corners of my journaling page, and a few minor embellishments on the photo page.

 

More Inspiration

And now, all I’m left to do is hook you up with some additional inspiration.

  1. Ali Edwards, of course, is the first resource to go to.
  2. Next, you might want to do a search on pinterest (December Daily, or December Daily Inspiration will bring up a ton of results).
  3. The Flickr December Daily group, of course, is another great source of inspiration.

Having said all this, I wish you all a fun journey with your project – and don’t forget: With all the focus on trying to keep your memories, don’t forget to take the time and make some new ones, too!

Food Corner: Chocolate Cake

Published by Sula H.

Yes, you can find them in China. Those rare occasions of having real good chocolate cake. This one was actually made by my Chinese friend (note: Chinese people don’t normally bake; ever), but my friend is a full-blown exception. This cake had a very soft and moist consistence, with a rich layer of chocolate all around. It might look a little homemade, but it definitely was worth the treat!

A Small Beginning

Published by Sula H.

I’ve been so wishing and hoping for this. Not the traffic, I mean. The snow, of course. Well, I wanted it a little whiter, and a little colder. So that the snow would stick around for a bit. But it’s at least a start, and some wise person once said that you should never despise the small beginnings. He knew a thing or two! And that’s why I’m thankful still. And why, of course, I had to take my camera out and capture this tiny beginning – even though there’s not really much to look at!

Let’s hope for more snow tomorrow!

Behind the Scenes: Turning Text Into An Outline

Published by Sula H.

Did you ever wonder how to turn text into an outline? Well, I have the answer for you, in this new quick and easy tutorial.

The Background Story

(you can skip this part, if you’re only interested in the tutorial)

I’ve started working on my December Daily project for this year, and I decided to go with the inspiration by Ali Edwards. She created a set of 6×8 overlays to use as foundation pages.

I really like that style for my own album this year. The only problem: The size. Living outside the US, we just don’t have letter sized paper, and for printing purposes it would be really impractical for me to use her set of overlays. So I decided to create my own overlays – quite similar to hers (I only added a month field to the date corner, because my project already starts in November).

Looking at Ali’s set, I really love how the letters overlap, and simply rasterizing the type doesn’t do the trick to retain that overlapping. So I had to use a different approach – and I found a very simple way …

Here’s How It Works …

In this tutorial you will learn how to …

– create a work path from your text, and
– stroke that path with a brush.

 

STEP 1 | Create Your Text Layer
Assuming you know how to open a new canvas and use your text tool, simply write your desired text that you wish to outline. If you want your text to overlap, you need to make sure to reduce the tracking by choosing a value below zero.

Change Tracking

 

STEP 2 | Create a Work Path From Your Text
In the layers panel, right click on the text layer to open the pop-up menu. From the options choose “Create Work Path.”

Create Work Path

 

STEP 3 | Choose Brush Settings
Before stroking your new work path, you need to make sure you have the right brush settings. Determining your brush settings will depend on your preferences, and the layout you are working with. I chose I simple round brush, with the size of 6.

Brush Settings

TIP
Picking the right color before applying the brush will save you time later on.

 

STEP 4 | Add New Layer
Now, before you stroke your work path, make sure to add a new layer to the layers panel, by simply using the shortcut Windows Key + Shift + N.

New Layer

 

STEP 5 | Stroke Path
You’ve completed your preparations. Now all you need to do is stroke the path you created: With the new layer selected, press P to select the pen tool. Anywhere within the parameters of the work path, right click to bring up the pop-up menu. Choose “Stroke Path.” This will create a line all along the guidelines of the work path.

Stroke Path

 

STEP 6 | Delete Work Path
The last thing left to do is to delete the work path after you added the stroke. Simply click on the “Path” tab (on the right to the “Layers” tab), it will show the layer of your work path. Select that layer by clicking on it, and then simply hit delete on your keyboard. That will remove the path.

Remove Work Path

There you have it. Now you’ve just created the outline of your text. Simply delete the text layer in the layers panel, and now you can fully admire your newly created outline!

Outlined Text

TIP
This technique also works with shapes and whatever else you can create a work path from.

Journaling Café: Thanksgiving Part II.

Published by Sula H.

It’s official now: Christmas season has started. At least in Germany, yesterday was the first of the four advent Sundays. That does make things official.

I, on the other hand, decided to stick with the Thanksgiving theme a little longer for today’s journaling post. There’s just too much to be thankful for, or to journal about – when it comes to the Thanksgiving holiday. So take a look at today’s journaling prompts:

I hope you’ll find something in these prompts to inspire your journaling this week, and enjoy telling your story!

The font used here is my own handwriting font DJB Squirrels In My Pants by Darcy Baldwin (available at the Sweetshoppe).

 

Getting Ready: Christmas Greetings

Published by Sula H.

 

Ok, so let’s get one thing straight. When it comes to birthdays, holidays, etc. I’m usually not the most organized person. As a matter of fact, it’s rather likely for me to get my act together after the event, and I’ve been known to present birthday gifts, Christmas presents, etc. even months later. I even have one birthday gift sitting on my shelf that I meant to give to a friend almost three years ago. It’s still sitting there, all packed up and what not, just waiting to be handed over to its true owner. So, you get the point: I’m not an early bird when it comes to gift giving or even card sending, for that matter (and it’s not something I’m proud of, really!)

This year, however, is special. As a matter of fact, I managed to mail out my Christmas cards a week before Thanksgiving (though psst! – I’m not telling you here that I meant to mail those cards last year, and the year before; just never got to it). But hey, for one – I’m staying true to myself. And on the other hand, if no one knows these cards are belated a full year, then there’s nothing wrong, right? Anyways, the good news is: Holidays and birthdays return every year, and that means I get another chance each time. And this year I seized that opportunity, and I might have just turned into that early bird I was never meant to be!

Season’s greetings to all of you, too!

 

PS. I should add that the first time I sent Christmas cards to Germany, it took more than 4 weeks, which highly discomforted me at the time as I’d sent them early in December and they still didn’t arrive until the new year had started. And who thinks of sending Christmas greetings in early November, to make sure they arrive on time for the holidays, right?

 

PPS. Saying Thanks

I also want to say thanks for having baked my first Christmas cookies of the seasons today, and that my students really enjoyed that (except the part where I burnt the first batch).

Treasure Sunday: November 27th

Published by Sula H.

I went treasure hunting again, and look what I found …

Out of Time by Celinoa
What do you think of this page? I love the vintage feel to it, the clustering, and how everything looks so realistic. On top of that I love the special lighting in this image, and the overall color scheme.

 

Dream Come True by Ella_75
This page immediately stood out to me in the gallery. I think it looks fantastic with all the white space, and of course, I love splats, and brushes, so the little mess behind the photo cluster looks just perfect. I also love the pops of yellow, and the black and white photos are perfect for this layout.

 

Merry Christmas by Mama_Maike
Now things will become more seasonal. The first Christmas page I want to point you to is “December Dreams” or “Merry Christmas” as she herself entitled the page. With all the clusters, this page has so much to look at, and the photos are adorable.

 

Christmas by TiernaerrinsDesign
Here’s another page with gorgeous clustering and composition, and on top of that I love the blending and the photos in the star frames.

 

Merry Christmas by amandac
Another page to fall in love with. The cluster on the dark background makes it look so pretty, and of course  I don’t even need to mention that the photo is what makes this page really stand out!

 

Sweet Christmas by Sucali
On to another page that caught my eye: This one talks all about Christmas cookie baking. I love the composition, the title, and the messy feel of this page. I can totally relate, because my cookie baking usually ends up looking just as messy, and she did a perfect job capturing that!

 

Christmas by zachandavasmom
My last pick of the day. With this page, the cluster caught my eye, together with the fun photo of the kids.

 

Well, this are my picks for this week, and I hope they’re just as much inspiration to you as they are to me. The Holiday season has started already, so I wish y’all a wonderful Christmas season of 2011.