Designer Series: December with Pearl Lui-Chan

Hi there! Pearl here, to share the base I made in November for my December Daily. I'm expecting a super busy Thanksgiving and Christmas as it is with every year, so I made sure I had a head start on creating a foundation for documenting my family's December. Are you making a December Daily album this year? If so, did you start with foundational pages too?

The Mama Elephant Inline Letter stamps, coordinating Creative Cuts dies, and Embellished Tag Creative Cuts die are perfect for this project. In fact many of Mama Elephant's latest releases are perfect for December Daily. For my December Daily, I used all of these stamp sets:

• Confetti
• Fair Feathers Creative Cuts dies
• Four Seasons
• Embellished Tag Creative Cuts die
• Inline Letters and coordinating Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies
• Winter Wonderland
• Remember December
• Merry Greetings
• Mama Elephant Cinnamon Spice stamp set especially designed for the October Studio Calico card add-on kit

Title Page: Here's a look at some pages I put together, starting with the title page. To create this page, I used Inline Letters to stamp "joy" multiple times on a Midnight Project Life card in black and grey. I then die cut "2013" from the Inline Letters Creative Cuts die cuts. And then I stamped the little deer image from the Winter Wonderland set. To further give it some dimension, I die cut tissue paper features from the Fair Feathers Creative Cuts dies. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, so I didn't stamp the coordinating feather images. Instead, I cut little slits in the feathers in various parts of the feathers to give each a slightly unique look.

Day 1 spread: To create the "Day One" tag, I stamped "day" with Inline Letters and then used the coordinating Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies to cut out "one". Then I used the Silhouette to die cut "dec" and layer it onto the Embellished Tag. As you can see, I put in packets of sequin stars in the slots where I would expect to use them. By laying down a foundation ahead of time, it will be easy to just slip photos in and jot down simple journaling during the busy days of December.

Day 2 tag: For the day 2 tag, I used a ton of sequins and glued them to the base card. I then die cut "day" using the Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies and stamped the number "2".

Day 3 tag: For the day 3 tag, I simply die cut the word "day" using the same kraft color cardstock as the tag base for a tone on tone shadow look. I then die cut the number "3" and put a piece of glitter cardstock beneath it. I then finished it off with a few sequins. To keep a light transparent look, I adhered the tag onto a piece of transparency.

Day 5 spread: To create the day 4 and day 5 tag, I stamped the words "day" with Inline Letters and then stamped the numbers outline image from the Four Seasons set beneath it. To highlight the actual days "4" and "5", I filled the outline numbers with gold and silver Stickles.

Day 6 spread: For the day 6 tag, I stamped the "day six" letters using Inline Letters in grey on the tag. I again decided to go for a transparent look by adhering the tag to a clear transparency. To give it a bit of depth, I sprinkled some silver stars in the pocket and stitched it up. For the right side of the spread, I put green glitter in to a stitched vellum pouch. The photo doesn't quite show the little green specks peeking through the vellum, but there's a nice pine needle feel about this page in the background. I then took a regular shipping tag, stamped "twinkle all the way" from Merry Greetings on it, and added sequins and stars from Confetti in black and silver ink.

Day 7 spread: To create the day 7 tag, I used the Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies to die cut "day 7" in vellum. I then added a piece of silver doily to the edge of the tag to give it a bit of texture. To add more dimension, I die cut a heart filled kraft card using the Silhouette and backed the tag to keep a fairly transparent and airy look. On the left, I added a piece of white glitter decorated cardstock to the back of the vellum pouch from spread 6. I added some Fair Feathers die cuts and sequins. I envision stamping a label of some sort and adding it underneath "Dec" once I have photos in December. As you can see, I also added a pouch of gold stars in the bottom pocket, again so that all I have to do is add photos and sprinkle the gold stars in December.

Day 9 tag: To create the day 9 tag, I die cute "day" from vellum and adhered it to a woodgrain tag. I then die cut the number "9" from the woodgrain tag and slipped a piece of silver glitter cardstock under it. Then in the left pocket, I stamped the word "cherish" from Remember December in white several times on transparency added some clear glitter stars in the pocket and stitched it up.

Day 12 tag: To create the day 12 tag, I stamped the word "day" using the Inline Letters set and the numbers outline from Four Seasons. I then added silver Stickles to the numbers 1 and 2 to highlight "12". To the left of the tag, is actually the back of the day 12 tag which is a clear tag sewn to a piece of transparency sandwiching some tiny glitter stars and then I added large silver sequins to the back pocket and stitched up the pocket.

Day 15 tag: For the day 15 tag, I die cut the tag from an old Hambly overlay. I then die cut the number "15" from the overlay tag for a super transparent look. To give it a sense of transparency, I added a piece of silver doily and some gold glitter stars to the pocket.

Day 18 spread: For the day 18 tag, I kept it very simple by die cutting "day 18" from the same kraft cardstock as the tag base and adhered it to the tag for a tone on tone shadow look. To the right of the tag, I stamped the words "celebrate", "capture", "remember", and "cherish" from Remember December to a Midnight Project Life card. That's what I really love about the Mama Elephant stamps, they can be added to any preprinted Project Life card for a lovely unique look.

Day 19 spread: For the day 19 tag, I die cut the number "19" from cardstock, adhered it to a Hambly overlay tag, and then further adhered it to a piece of gold cardstock.

Day 20 tag: To create the day 20 tag, I die cut "day 20" from a vellum tag and added clear star confetti to the pouch and stitched the pocket up. I really love the layered, yet transparent look.

Day 21 spread: For the day 21 tag, I simply stamped "day 21" onto an Embellished Tag die cut and adhered it to a piece of gold glitter cardstock.

Day 22 spread: For the day 22 tag, I simply stamped "22" using Inline Letters on a tag and added a flair to the tag. On the right page of the spread, I stamped the sentiment "merry, merry, merry, merry" from Merry Greetings and a bunch of sequins and hearts from Confetti onto a shipping tag.

Day 24 tag: To create the day 24 tag, I die cut the tag using Embellished Tag from a polka dot-embossed kraft cardstock, adhered it to a piece of transparency, sprinkled gold glitter stars behind the transparency, and stitched up the pocket. I love how the stars fall under the die cut number "24" for a sparkly transparent look.

Day 25 tag: To create the day 25 tag, I die cut "day 25" using Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies from a woodgrain tag. I put washi tape behind the word "day" and silver glitter cardstock behind "25". I then layered the tag on top of a piece of pattern cardstock. To the right of the tag, you'll see the back of the day 24 tag/pocket. By adding glitter hearts to the back of the pocket, the transparent backside of the pocket blends in with the rest of the page nicely.

Day 27 spread: To create the Dec 27 tag, I die cut the number "27" using Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies and die cut the tag using Embellished Tag, both from vellum paper for a tone on tone shadow look. I then used my Silhouette to die cut "Dec" from a piece of woodgrain paper and adhered it above "27".

Day 29 spread: To create the day 29 tag, I simply combined stamping the word "Day" using Inline Letters and die cut the number "29" using the coordinating Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies and slipped silver glitter cardstock behind the number opening. Also on this spread, I added a kraft envelope to collect memorabilia throughout the month of December.

Day 30 tag: For the day 30 tag, I simply die cut the number "30" using the Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies from a Hambly overlay tag created using the Embellished Tag Creative Cuts die. To the right of the tag, I created another tag by stamping images from Winter Wonderland and Cinnamon Spice.

Day 31 tag: For the day 31 tag, I adhered a ton of sequins to a piece of transparency. I then die cut the number "31", using Inline Letters Creative Cuts dies, from an Embellished Tag die cut polka dot-embossed kraft cardstock.

Hope you enjoyed a peek at my December Daily foundation pages! If you'd like a detailed look at all of my pages, feel free to come on by my blog for a look at all of my pages and tags.