December Daily 2010 | Finding Time, Making Time, Trading Time

Great thoughts on this question.

I give up the same things the others mentioned: tv, sleeping, cleaning ( I have used a cleaning service for 6 years now. I highly recommend it as a sanity booster. I'd give up cable before I'd give up her).

Last year I made my DD on my own, but this year I took a class with all of the supplies provided and finished the base album in about 3 hours.

One thing I am doing a little different this year is that I made a calendar for December and used the Advent cards that Ali created to make "to-do's" for every day this month. For example, Saturday we are going to the local library to make Gingerbread houses. The card for Saturday will let the kids know what we are doing. If I forget to take a picture, I'll at least have that card I can stick in my December Daily. Some days are simpler (i.e. read a Christmas book or have hot chocolate) but the point is to pre-organize my month.

I have been so ridiculously busy this last year (full time job, school, chairing two time consuming committees) that scheduling my time has been very important. I always make time to scrap (even if it is once a month).

If only I showed that same time commitment when it came to exercising.

I don't shave my legs (very often) in December. Free's up the 10-15 minutes I need to do a page or too. Also I keep premade journaling cards with me at work and will jot a few things down if I have a few slow minutes.

i make time for it in odd times of the day. i have done some of my most favorite creative things while waiting for water to boil for pasta! i am lucky to have an area that i can leave things out and go back and forth and that helps a lot. i usually have a little free time during the day or while my kids are doing their homework and i choose to work on a project over reading a book or watching a tv program.

for me, it wasn't about finding the time, i've always had to fit in scrapbooking whenever i could ... usually when the little ones are asleep for their nap or down for the night.

this will be my first year participating in the "december daily" project. i first struggled the most with creating the foundation pages. i'm one of those that scrap based on the photo. so i'll definitely be cheating and waiting off to put the number of the day until after i get my photos.

then again, i also broke my camera a few weeks ago and i don't think i'll be able to get one in time so maybe my biggest sacrifice is foregoing photos and concentrating on journaling ... which is also one of my biggest weaknesses. as much as i know how much more personalized handwritten journaling is ... i just don't like my handwriting enough to do so. but maybe this'll force me to.

FACEBOOK PIC QUESTION: Has anyone discovered a way to print quality 4x6 pics from facebook's albums? I have cookie parties and work parties that come up and i still have blanks from last year because of those! thanks
ck

I love this question! How about a spin on it. I am in a little bit of funk with my situation. I am home all day but I am disabled due to over 17 operations on my shoulder/arm/back. It's a matter of me having a "good" day with a little less pain to even try to put the December Daily together. This is so important to me to accomplish and journal all my memories. Thanks so much Ali! :-)

Last year was my first year 'attempting' the idea of a Daily December. It didn't actually end up being daily, but it was a good 8 or 9 12 x 12 pages of short stories and scraps of what our holiday season looked like. I did all of mine post-holidays.

This year I am trying something different. Rather than making a page a day... I am attempting to make a baseball card sized picture with notes or journal entry per day. I took a date stamper to a set of white circle stickers to include in each little card. then each fit in their own little pockets. I am hoping to do this one as I go along - and just carry it with me in my planner so I can collect and jot down notes as I please. I started with Thanksgiving rather than Dec 1, since we had some fun activities this weekend already.

I know I will be giving up some TV time and some FB time, but it is SO worth it. :) I'm inching towards the full blown page-per-day, hopefully next year. I just love this idea though! Thanks, Ali. :)

I don't really give anything up for the December Daily. I work full time and have 3 kids (17, 15, and 12). I still go to band concerts and basketball games and watch football on Sundays. But I make creating a priority in my everyday life. During the holidays, I use that creating time for December Daily. I don't do Facebook and I don't watch much tv (we DO have Christmas faves on DVD that we watch). I DO sometimes spend time looking at the awesome ideas that everyone else has on the Flickr Group when I am stuck for ideas! But I want to remember these times when we are a family. When the kids are still full of love for the holidays, although they don't have the same sense of wonder that they did when they were little, they still enjoy the traditions that we started and I love taking the time to capture the things that we do everyday during the holidays because those things change every year. I also find that when I am open to ideas for a story for the day, a story usually appears. Some days are busier than others and often I will snap a couple of photos and go back to the story on the weekend. Also-letting go of imperfection is huge. Finally, Good luck-December Daily is soooo worth the effort no matter how small or large you make it!!

i'm letting go of documenting EVERY day, and making a list of what i want to be sure to catch. i'm letting go of the idea of perfect photos - instead i'll work w/ instax pics, phone snaps and whatever photo tells the story. i'm letting go of the idea of building a perfect base, and instead throwing everything i want to use in the box and building pages as i find time. and i'm giving myself permission to write it down and scrap it later, if need be.

This is the 1st year I am going to be doing a DD. Last year I saw your amazing album and was in awe and thought no way I could do that. Although I was an avid scrapbooker slowly it has turned into I'm now mostly a card maker. For me this is a re-entering into how I started getting crafty and also a gift for my babies. This year as your sweet little girl my Little Sassy is in awe of Christmas and is so excited as I am. I love to see her asking about what we are doing today ( for Advent) as well as when is Santa coming. So its not that I am giving up anything its something that I am gaining and will cherish. Thank you So much. (((HUGS))

I keep my album and supplies in a portable basket. If I can leave it out on a surface, I do, so then if I have five minutes, I can jot something down. I can make progress in between stirring my dinner on the stove. If I have to pack it up to move it, the basket can go anywhere. I will just pile laundry in the clean basket instead of folding it, I will work on that next to my kids as they do homework, or while they read to me, as I get into bed instead of reading...I focus on that project instead of others. The best help is to leave it out and accessible.

I don't want my kids to forget. They already look back at our DD 2008 album and say things like "oh yeah, NOW I remember when we went to see that Christmas show" or I loved that toy that Santa brought" The toys and excitement of Christmas pasts fade quickly. I want to help them (and myself) remember for a long, long time. It's worth every bit of the effort. (and sacrifice/trading) So I have found.

I try not to over analyze the process. It really is a very simple projectonce you have the base of your album done! I carry my camera with me everywhere (even when it isn't the holiday time!) and a small notebook to jot down a not or about something that happens.

I just recently went without t.v. for awhile and I realized just how much time I wasted sitting in front of it! Sacrifice and hour of mindless time sitting in front of the t.v. and focus on your December Daily album.

This is my 2nd DD. Last year I wanted flexibilty in moving my album pages around depending on what we were doing, so they were not quite "finished"when Dec rolled around. This year, I have finished them with spots left just for pics and journalling. I found the biggest timewasters for me is trying to figure out how to make the page. So this year, I have done all that in advance and decided to keep very simple. The album is pre-done and kept in a bag with a few embellies, tags & stickers and I'm doing the pages daily, with pics printed and journalling done. Hoping to keep that part down to 10 min or so daily.

making my album i did back in octber lol, i love this project and couldnt' wait till november to start the foundation pages lol and cause i did it so early it wasnt' so busy and i had time....and when it come sto photos etc going into the album, as i don't print mine at home so i tend to get photos printed once to twice a week and then sit down in the evening once the kids are in bed and do the couple of pages at a time then, i keep it simple so it doens't really take me that long, i always try to scrapbook a little bit each day so i just make sure i fit the daily decmeber into my day, i love doing this album, and i don't put mine away after xmas i keep it out all year hehe and i love looking through it as do the kids.....

I did a "Novemeber Daily" album this year (two more days to go!) And I made sure that all the pages had similar concepts -- they are large tags (so they were all the same size & pre-hole-punched) and I used a journal block stamp set. This hleped tremendously. Although some days I wanted more room -- so I had to be very specific. I also made sure that if the page was taking too long, I just put SOMETHING on the page. Now that I'm looking back, I don't even remember which days I "fudged" on! :)

This is my third year of DD. Every year is different and my process is simpler this year than last. We are using Ali's digital downloads and paperclipping them onto an Advent tree. We'll take one off every day, write a brief xmas activity and I'll take a pic. I open up a word doc on my computer and leave it open- saving often of course. I tell the stories that go along with our activities there. Then as I have time, I print the pic, print the journaling and attach the DD card. The important part isn't that you get the album itself done immediately, the important part is documenting what is happening in some way.

When my husband and I looked at my DD from last year, we both laughed, cried, and couldn't believe we didn't remember all those little things. For goodness sakes! I scrapped it and I didn't remember! :)

I also made DD's last year for my BF, Mom and godmother. Each one is truly a priceless snapshot of our lives. It is my favorite holiday of the year, so whatever I have to do to document, I will.

This is my first time doing December Daily. I'm sure it work like many of my other projects, everything is done during nap time or after the kids go to bed. My husband is currently on a midnight shift so when they go to bed it is my time to unwind. I usually lose some sleep because of it, but it's worth it.

I Love this project and I find the best time for me is early morning before anyone else is up - up at 5:30 - workout, shower, coffee - then work on this until getting the boy up at 6:50 to get ready for the bus. If I don't get it all finished in the morning work on it when I am home at night - after supper is done.
If I am waiting for pictures (this year I have a photo printer which will help - I would prepare my journalling and order my pictures in the am) - work around your schedule and make it work - doesn't have to take a lot of time!!
I also found on the weekends I would review what I have done and add any other items that I may think would work.
Love this project and very excited to do it again!!

Wow, this is such a good question.

This will be my fourth year with December Daily and every year I say that I am not going to do it again. That only lasts until I pull out the completed albums and see how many awesome stories I have captured that would have been lost otherwise. Then I'm hooked all over again.
In the past, I've always made my album in advance and tried to keep up with the layouts day by day like Ali does. However, I work full-time outside of the home so I only have evenings/weekends to work on the album and so many of our evenings/weekends are accounted for during the month of December. Getting behind stressed me out a bit so I'd end up staying up till the wee hours just to get it done.
So this time I'm going to try something new. I am going to commit to taking photos and journaling daily throughout the month (daily journaling is so important to capture the spirit). If I have the time, I will download my photos and edit them for printing in the evening. That is it. In the week between Christmas and New Years when the pace slows a little, I will compile the rest of the album. I have the foundation album ready and I've kept it super simple.

I tried this approach last spring while on a family trip and it worked wonderfully. The key was the daily journaling. All else will fall into place if the story is captured.

I'll let you know how I make out with this approach. Good luck everyone!