My Super Crazy Simple Approach to December Daily

So, I am hesitant to write this, but here I go! I am only hesitant because it's only December 2nd and I haven't actually completed a December Daily album ever. I have always wanted to. The holidays are full of mixed feelings for me so I tend to get pretty blah about them. After the last few years full of icky in our life I decided this year was going to be full of family memories and Christmas magic. You saw my December calendar already with daily activities. This is kinda a loose calendar. I am doing something everyday, but some things might end up out of order depending on what I have on hand and what I have forgotten to buy. I am all about keeping things easy and low stress! I just want the kids to have fun because those tiny humans deserve it! So here is my approach to documenting these special days.

• Take pictures every single day. We are doing our activities whenever we get the chance in the afternoons. One of the advantages of home schooling! I am snapping pics throughout the day. Sometimes with my phone, but mostly with my big girl camera so that I can have more editing freedom with larger file sizes. I figure as long as I have the photos, the hard part is done! 
• Edit the photos at night every day. This is just for my own personal process. Editing photos takes a long time for me. I fiddle and fiddle and try to correct the terrible indoor lighting. By the time I am done editing, I don't want to sit here anymore usually. It's best for me to get them done early! I also just edit the best ones from the day. All of the best ones. I don't try to pick one for a certain size or anything. I don't want to worry about how I am going to put it together. I will put everything together around what I have without too much fuss.
• Upload the photos to Facebook and wherever you need to print [if not printing at home]. I do not have a color printer at home. I have a black and white one (and it's out of ink) so I have to order prints. After I edit my photos, I post them in my Facebook December album with a little snippet about each one. Sometimes I think to myself "I will never forget this moment!" and convince myself that I will remember exactly what was happening in the pictures I take. That is so not true for me!! I need the snippets to help my memory. Plus Facebook is a great place to share with loved ones as well, or you can make your albums completely private and just for you! Then I upload them to my December daily album at Persnickety Prints. Sometimes uploading tons of photos at one time takes forever, so doing each days pictures by themselves is faster. Then I do the manually cropping and add them all to my cart. 

These are things that I have been doing everyday. The next few things are my plan for the documenting and putting the pictures into an album. 

• Order prints weekly. Since I have to order prints, I decided to do it weekly ....or in one big batch at the end of the month. It can be costly to pay for shipping that often so I am on the fence with this one. I just know that I am going to do it in batches or one big batch. I would prefer weekly so I am going to try that unless shipping ends up more than my print total haha! 
• Pop the photos in my binder. I will share a post about the specific products I am using sometimes in the next week. I am waiting on a few products to come in still. When my photos come in I am just going to put them in my binder. I will then fill in gaps with the journal cards and work on my journaling. EASY PEASY! 
• Make full size pages as needed. I feel like I will need some full sized 6x8 pages in this as well. At the moment I am not sure how many or what kind I would need (journal pages, full photos, more scrapbook like ones). This will come at the end after I have my photos and journaling done. If some of my favorite photos don't fit, I'll print some 6x8 photos and put those in. If I felt like one week didn't have enough journaling, I'll do a whole page of journaling. This really is going to be in my finishing touches phase after I do everything else. Though I think I will make a 6x8 title page to order with my first batch of photos. When that is done I will share the template with you all! 

I do not plan on adding tons of embellishments, if any. That will save me so much time, money, and stress. I am not a natural paper scrapbooker so when I try to mess with paper products it really freaks me out! I get so stressed know that once it's down, it's down forever! No ctrl + z on your paper pages! People have told me that doing the prep before hand takes so much pressure off, but I was late to the game, so I am taking the pressure off by doing most of the work after December. The finalizing of pages and all that jazz I will do at the end. I really really want to enjoy the holiday season first and foremost so I am not allowing myself to be pressured. 

This is my first year attempting this kind of a project, though I have attempted [and failed miserably] Project Life. I think the kids and family would appreciate seeing albums like this though so I really want to give it a good go! Hoping that by blogging my process it will help me to be more accountable and hopefully helpful to anyone else who might be intimidated or has fallen short on projects in the past. We can come together and get this done guys!! But really though, the most important thing, is that you are creating memories and enjoying your sweet families.