Days of December - Daily Journal

Days of December - Daily Journal

Ah December. The whisper of soft snow flakes. The magic of twinkling lights. The promise of Christmas Day. But how to capture all of it?

Well, if you haven't  heard of a December Daily by Ali Edwards, you can read about them here. 

This is my own version based on a design I created. You can buy the journal kit for this Days of December Journal here.

It makes a fun craft project. You can also use the kit to create cards, scrapbook pages and other fun projects. Get the kids involved with crafting, photos, recipes & more. 

Getting Ready

To begin, I printed & cut out all my journal pages and decorative elements. Next, I punched the holes for my binder rings. The kit comes with a handy hole punch guide so they'd all be lined up nicely.

A 1-inch circle punch comes in handy for punching out numbers and snowflakes.

Another handy thing to keep nearby is mounting tape. I use it to give dimension to my decorative elements to raise them up off the background page.

I spread all my elements and papers around my dining table so I could see what I had to work with. Then, I laid out each page to see where things would fit before gluing them.

 When all my pages were finished, I bound them using binder rings.

I used the number tags like daily calendar numbers, adding "December" to each one and tying them to my journal pages with string or bakers twine.

The kit includes these really cute recipe pages to record all the Christmas recipes our family will bake together!

The kit comes with special divider pages in the shapes of a star, an ornament and a tree.

I can't wait to start counting down the memories and adding my own photos, recipes & journal entries! Get this printable kit and make your own Days of December journal.

Tip: 

Print your papers on the back of your journal pages for a finished look, so the backs of your pages are as pretty as the fronts.

Some Special Supplies I Used:

Craft Glue Sticks

1-inch Hole Punch

Bakers String

Binder Rings

Mounting Tape

Make Your Own 221B Baker Bag: Sherlock Purse

Make Your Own Sherlock Bag
I've been working on several cool furniture projects for an upcoming Spring Market. Unfortunately,
most of those are still unfinished.

However, I did find time to finish one project, not furniture but something else I've wanted to do for a looooong time: a Sherlock Holmes purse!

I'm a bit of a geek, especially when it comes to books/movies, and I recently came across an Etsy shop that sells bags that look like Sherlock Holmes' door.

So cool! I wrote to the guy and asked him about them and found out they are just flat, two-dimensional pictures. There is no real hardware on the bags: no coolio door knocker, no numbers. I probably should have realized that right away, but I geeked out over it and thought maybe it had actual hardware included. Nope.

I decided in order to be truly cool, I needed a purse with actual hardware. Then, I remembered that Tim Holtz makes a mini lantern.

From Amazon




Thus was born my 221B Baker bag! I bought the bag at Goodwill. It seemed like a good size and had a nice, flat black back that made a perfect canvas for my "door." Then I found a black fabric belt to criss cross over the purse and create the illusion of panels intersecting. After much searching, I found a shop on Etsy that sells small metal numbers and letters. I painted them with gold acrylic, then did a light misting of black spray paint to make them look old and weathered. I also ordered a pendant pull on Etsy that resembled the actual door knocker from Sherlock.

I assembled it all by fastening the hardware on and sewing/gluing the belt to the purse. Finally, I tucked the battery pack to my lantern inside the purse pocket and allowed the lantern to hang outside the door. The final result is just awesome! At least for a geeky girl like me. :)