Last of the Journal Your Christmas - Dec 25, Final Page Calendar, and Cover!

I hope you had a beautiful Christmas Day yesterday!  It was magical for us and I have to credit my kiddo for that!  It was also our third day of Christmas dinners, family get-togethers, and gifts to share.

This is my December 25 page for my Christmas journal:

I wasn't sure how I was going to tackle this day.  I had decided to end my journal on the 25th for logistical reasons [read: this book is out-growing the largest book rings I could find], so I needed these pages to be somewhat different but I still wanted to keep my page size, shape, and date location in the upper right corner.  I figured it out when I found a free printable by Hope Ink Art and Design.  You can find it by clicking here.   I used her design, scaled down to my 5-1/2" page size for the left side and used a white pen to do some of my own doodling for the right side.

I found this here:  http://www.hopeink.com/2012/12/23/merry-christmas-new-printables/

Since this is the end of my journal date pages, I had been wanting a calendar page so I added it to the reverse side, the very, very end!  This is a calendar that was made available by Marie at A Stitch in Time.  I hand-wrote my daily schedule.  Note to self for next year:  fill it in as the days pass.  A fun thing about the calendar is that I will continue to write on it as the month unfolds!

I found this here:  http://stitchintime.typepad.com/stitch_in_time/2012/12/december-daily-day-5.html

For my cover, I used 6" chipboard covers that I had in my stash.  I covered them with decorative papers using Mod Podge to adhere them and a brayer to ensure that they were smooth.  I used my Crop-A-Dile to punch holes in my pages and covers.  Three-inch book rings bound it all together.  My cover design incorporated a larger size medallion and font, like the one that I had repeated on most of my pages.

My daughter finally wrote a little message about her Christmas (that I had been begging her to write) and I included that along with my own notes in a little pocket I made for the inside back cover.

  As you can see, this fella is thick.

So.... I have to say that I loved this project!  It forced me to appreciate each day-- to find something good to share each day.  We didn't do half of the activities that I had hoped we would and yet our lives were full and our season was lovely.  I did write lots of things on my journaling tags and hidden within my little envelopes and pockets that weren't always happy but were always truthful and representational.  I have faith that by including that stuff that this journal will be more meaningful in the years to come and to others aside from me.  As a keepsake, I think it makes it more poignant.

I also loved that I have so many wonderful photos of the season.  Normally, I would have a picture here or there, but for this project, I took tons of pictures daily.  I printed off many for grandparent gifts and have them all in a 2012 digital file.  This was an extra gift to me and my family!

I have previously blogged my pages one, two, and three pages at a time, but I wanted to share them bound and all together.  I intentionally made each day with different papers and different colors to associate best with the photo or theme of that day.  That is something that made the dailies take longer to complete, but made it so much more fun for me!

Links to the posts for the pages shown above:
December 1-2
December 3-4
December 5-7
December 8
December 9-10
December 11-12
December 13-15
December 16
December 17-18
December 19
December 20
December 21
December 22-24
December 25 (here!)

Thank you for checking my blog post today!  I learned a lot from this project and I know lots of things I will do differently next year.  (I hope to make this a holiday tradition!)  I am off to get my house back in shape after the holiday fun.  I hope you are continuing to make many happy holiday memories to warm your heart the rest of the winter.