Paperclipping: The Video Podcast | Design Your Story

(note: I got the idea for this vintage aluminum tile background from Dedra Long in our Altered Books Tutorial. Imaginisce gave the poinsettia (minus the button) to me from their new Christmas line.).

Ali Edwards conceived the December Daily project three years ago. The idea is to create a minibook ahead of time with a page for each day. Then everyday in December you find a way to add your picture(s), journaling, and/or memorabilia to the pre-assembled book. These pictures are my 2009 book:

You can see my entire album (before I add the events of each day) in the December Daily set on my Flickr page. This post only showcases a handful of my pages.

5 Tips For Super-Fast Assembly

Are you worried about finding the time to make your own? I flew through the assembly of mine and when I reached the last page I was sad because I wanted to do more. Here are some tips that made this one of my fastest minibook projects, even though it has the most pages of any I’ve ever made before:

1. Do it mindlessly.

Okay, how often does anybody tell you to do something mindlessly. Never, right? Well, I’m telling you now, don’t think through this one. Don’t ask what you might be doing on what day or how to make the page gorgeous. And if you do the other tips, mindlessness will be no problem.

2. Divide your Christmas supplies into five piles:

a. Whole Sheets
These usually come 12×12 and can be paper, transparencies or fabric
b. Alternative Page Foundations
These can be scraps, envelopes, pocketed page protectors, other minibook pages, and anything else unusual that you might want to use as a page foundation.
c. Numbers
d. Small Spots
These are to place numbers on. Some ideas are circles, very small frames, or tags
e. Embellishments and Ribbon

3. Crop your whole sheets all at once.

Cut your whole sheets down to the size of your album pages. Don’t worry about page placement or embellishing while you do this. Don’t worry about how many you’ll need. Just crop all the papers you want in your album and know that you’ll use the alternative page foundations (that 2nd pile) to make up the difference.

4. Mix cropped whole sheets with your alternative page foundations.

Remember, we’re still working mindlessly here. Just start interspersing them with the alternative page foundations. The only thing to think about is variety. That’s it.

5. Add numbers and trimming all at once.

Are you starting to see the pattern here? We’re doing this in assembly line fashion, which you probably learned in elementary school is the fastest way to make a stuff, right? Now that you’ve mindlessly put your pages in order, you can add the smaller details.

If your page is from a scrap that is smaller than the regular minibook, you can give it a decorative edge, or some trimming. Don’t think hard about what to do, just know that you have these options and choose the first one that comes to mind. If your ribbon is in your embellishment & ribbon pile, you can grab it quickly and add it to a page edge without thinking or searching. Then add the next number to the page.

If your page is the size of your minibook, give yourself a break and just add a number (perhaps on a circular spot) and move on to the next page.

Two keys here: MINDLESS WORK & ASSEMBLY LINE.

Oh, and don’t forget to have fun basking in all that Christmas-color goodness.

Click here to see my entire book.

Edited To Add: Someone requested links to supplies I used. I have not bought any Xmas items this year (Imaginisce items are the only brand new ones because they gave them to me). I’ll link the items I can still find available below. Note that I’ll receive a commission if you click and buy.

Poinsetta on cover * red polka dot transparency * 8×8 book covers * polar bear paper * frosted forest paper * flower-shaped transparent and chipboard page.