Finished December Daily Album

I did it!

This is indeed a labour intensive project. 

Once I'm finally finished it, I can then look at it lovingly. This is one of my most favourite DD's to date. 

This year I ordered product from Ali Edwards. I ordered the main album kit once before, DD2013. [I loved that album too] But if I'm totally honest with myself, I find it hard to incorporate physical product into my albums. I've been a digital scrapbooker for the past 5 years. I love the everything about digital. I do miss 'using' product. However, once I have it, I question everything, and all my pages and layouts seem to take me longer to do. 

I ordered this years album from Ali, because the 6x8 sized albums and page protectors are hard to come by. The supply seems to dwindle a little bit more each year. This year I had an album ordering fiasco. Once December Daily was live, I went onto the website and selected all the things I wanted to purchase for this years album.

Sadly, there is a little bit of 'get-it-before-it's-sold-out' mentality. That is my only complaint about December Daily. Things sell out ridiculously fast. It's easy not to be in the mindset to order Christmas product in September/October. To make a long story short, when my order arrived weeks later, there was no album in my shipment. 

2017 Paislee Press Mini kit - check.

2016 Paislee Press Mini kit - check.

2017 Ali Edwards chipboard letters - check.

3x8 page protectors - check. 

Extra Package of 6x8 Page protectors - check. 

But no album. I checked my invoice, no album. Colossal mistake.  

Talk about the wind rushing out of your sail... 

Obviously in my haste/mad rush to 'get-it-before-it's-sold-out' I must have unintentionally de-selected the album, not noticing upon check out. 

I know for a fact the album was the first thing I put in my cart. I knew there was a limited amount. 

Of course, by the time product was shipped, albums had long been sold out. So no chance getting one of Ali's albums. [The thing I like most about these is they are 6 ringed albums] Gives lots of flexibility for adding smaller size product to the album.

Once I realized I had no album, and got over being bummed out, I was able to order another 6x8 sized album from Scrapbook.com. It came within a few weeks, and I was good to go. 

I put together foundation pages and then just waited for December to roll around. 

There are a few things I wanted to do with this album. Firstly, I wanted to do my best to use physical product for this album. There are a few exceptions, but the majority of this album is created using the product I received or already had from past years. 

Secondly, I wanted to use a typewriter for my journaling. [thanks Mum!] There were a few challenges with this. Journal cards were thick. Hard to use with the typewriter. But for the most part, got the cards in and typed on them. How dependant I am on spell check and the backspace key became apparent almost instantly. There are typos on these pages. And that is something I have to be okay with. Once I used a journal card, it was used. Couldn't print another one.  The spaces between the lines of journalling aren't all the same. I really struggled with getting the paper to move. There are a few mistakes [which my eye goes to immediately] but even with the mistakes, I love how this album turned out. 

As far as DD2017 goes, that's a wrap!!

I'm missing a page 13. I received both kids hockey/ringette photos, and planned to add them on the 13th. But as of yet, I haven't done it. I'm not stressed out about it. If the page gets done, fine. If it doesn't, well, I'm fine with that too. 

I'd also like to add something on the flip open page of Day 24, but I'm still not sure what. Journal a story of the skating day? Maybe. Again, I'm okay with walking away from it right now. So it may or may not get finished. 

This is something that has to be fun. If I start to stress about the things that don't get done, it sucks the fun away. 

I'm perfectly happy with my imperfect album.