The flu meets the best of intentions.

This time, my project lag can actually be attributed to diagnosed illness, rather than laziness.  All of us except for the one kid who never gets sick (he subsists on a diet of oranges, apples, and bagels -- you, too, can emulate this lifestyle and avoid viral illness, perhaps) have had the flu in shifts over the past few weeks, leaving "getting optional scrapbooking completed" below "standing upright" and "not developing pneumonia" on the to-do list.

I am backfilling now, and it is going to take a while.

Here is day four, which I had managed to get to before we started falling one by one:

The patterned paper is from this year's December Daily kit, but the little star circle is from last year's.  The penguin stamp is from Mama Elephant.  Look how ambitious I was -- I even embossed.

On to day five:

The "magic" card is from Studio Calico's Christmas cards.  The wintry branch stamp is from Memory Box, and I colored it in.  I am not giving a close-up of it because my coloring skills are faulty.  As Cher would say, it is like a Monet -- up close, it's a big old mess.

Day six is a little moody for a holiday album:

I spent most of that day in a meeting on the thirty-third floor of an office building.  No one even blinked when I took pictures through the window.  The gold polka-dot envelope is about as festive as this spread is going to get, and it is in there functionally holding business cards.

Finally, day seven:

This layout features one of my favorite things to do (I will not say "my favorite techniques," because it does not rise to that level) -- stamping a title directly onto a photo, with a journaling block underneath:

This year I am also putting borders around most of my pictures as I print them at home.  I'm just printing the photos a quarter-inch smaller both vertically and horizontally and cutting them out by eyeballing the borders.

December Daily for the goal-oriented

If you are joining me here for December Daily posts specifically, permit me to tell you a little bit about my crafting philosophy.  One, I am pretty lazy.  I like crafting, but I do not enjoy doing anything particularly taxing or complicated for leisure.  Two, I like to produce things, as in, I want a thing at the end of my crafting efforts, as opposed to a half-finished thing that I am putting aside because I cannot get it to be perfect.

I hear the same thing from a lot of people about December Daily, December Diary, Daily December, or whatever you want to call it -- they get started, but they do not get finished.  I have finished this project the past few years, not by being awesome at it or by doing a lot of pre-planning (the amount of planning I do is zero), but by doing it every day in a very simple way, and, when I finish a page, leaving it alone.

This year, as I did the last two years, I purchased the Studio Calico/Ali Edwards December Daily kit.  I like it because I do not celebrate Christmas, so the fact that it is light on Christmas trees and Santa and heavy on sparkly things and the word "December" is a plus for me.  I can repurpose sparkles for Hanukkah.  Santa, not so much.   If you are not familiar with the kit, it has come this year and last year with a Handbook, which is a six by eight album with page protectors in various configurations (like a SN@P album, but with a thicker spine).  I bought the white version of the kit.

I am caught up so far on my album, but, since I have been sufficiently slack that I am only blogging about it now, I will post about it in three-day chunks for now.

So, without further ado, here is Day One:

Please note that I am not going to let an opportunity for featuring hand knits in my scrapbooking go by without taking advantage.  Craft in a craft.  Craft in a craft!  Please note also that I blew up the left-hand photo into a 6 by 8 and therefore did not have to mess around with it.  Anyhow, I am using the Ali Edwards December Daily templates for 2014 so that I do not have to fuss with dating my layouts.

I recolored it white and layered it onto the photo.  The end.

And now, for day two.

Still only using items from the Studio Calico/Ali Edwards kit.  This time, I used one of the Ali Edwards templates by printing it out and cutting down a photo to fit in the frame:

As an editorial aside, that is what passes for "snow" in this part of the world.  Day three:

Yes, once again, knits in my scrapbook, as, if I am going to craft, I am getting eternal credit for it.  This layout has a couple of non-kit items; the "sweater weather is better weather" label is from the Walden Project Life kit (November's edition) from Studio Calico, and the little snowflake and "December" stamps opposite are from the Countdown Details stamp set sold by Papertrey Ink.

And thus, the path to completion is cleared, or trod, or forged, or something.

I am very efficient.  I started this quilt in the spring of 2013 and only let the half-finished pieces of it sit around my office for a year.  The pattern is from Moda Bake Shop and involved a layer cake of the Aneela Hoey posy fabric that I have been hoarding.  The pattern called for wonky nine-patch blocks in the middle and solid blocks around the outside, and I started out with ambitions of making all of the blocks nine-patch blocks, but the desire to finish won out over the desire to impress.  My machine started acting up while I was quilting, and I broke eleven needles (said machine has been banished to the repair shop), but it is finished and on the couch.  I will envision children reading peacefully under it and will ignore the fact that the reality is that it is wadded up on the floor every time I walk into the room.