For our February Project Challenge, Jake and I both set out to finish an abandoned project and challenged you to do the same. I chose to finish my abandoned December Daily album from 2009. It feels so good to have it done!

*Click on the photos for an enlarged view.

Edited: I’ll be releasing a self-paced workshop teaching how to make these book mini books October, 2015! Make sure to sign up for The Nerd Nest newsletter so you don’t miss registration!

Putting this together was pretty easy, because the pages were already in there and the supplies I held back for the project have been in a big ziplock bag with the book since December 2009. It saved me a lot of time to not have to go searching for my stash, but that also means that most of the products you’ll see are now unavailable. The available products will be linked at the bottom of the post.

All of the photos I had were already printed out, but for some reason I thought there were more. I scoured our photo archives, which are not well organized before 2010 (April’s project?), only to find that all of the photos I had really were printed out.

Thankfully that baggie also contained a Composition book that held a list of all the days in December and a little note about what we did each day. That helped me create the missing pages; I never would have been able to without that little book. The lesson: always take notes!

This is probably my favorite book journal cover ever. The title of this book, which still shows on the spine, is not at all Christmasy (“The Battle for the Atlantic”), but the flower circle on the cover is actually part of the book. I just slapped a starburst tag from every jot and tittle over the title in the center of the flower circle and topped it with a hat from K & Company (which covered up a battleship).

Title page. A little lace, and favorite papers from out of print designers: Love, Elsie for K.I. Memories and Sassafras. I love that the funky letter stickers keep the tone with the patterned paper.

Day 1 was made in 2009. The photos are from a stop motion video Jake made of Eliza (which we just realized we’ve never shared; we’ll try to get it up this week).

Day 2 created in 2009. Documents our favorite Christmas stories. It’s nice to see that those book traditions live on; we’ve added a bunch of new books to our Christmas season too.

Day 3 from 2009. Candy canes and paper wreath. We did a tutorial on how to make an even cooler paper wreath last year, if you’re interested.

Day 4 from 2009. A lot of cool everyday stuff in the journaling: “Today Jake caught up on sleep, Eliza and I cleaned the house, I went to get coffee at City Market Coffeehouse & updated the Etsy shop w/ Christmas books and fawn headbands. Eli and I have been watching Roswell.”

Day 5 from 2009. I learned to knit in ’09, so it’s only natural that I’d document my first scarf.

Day 6 is where I dropped off. I didn’t take any photos for the day, and I felt like I had ruined the project. I had no idea how to deal with having no photo. I thought I could take a representative photo later to add, but never got around to it. Good thing 2012 Megan is way more chill than 2009 Megan. I knew from my 2009 notes that I intended to do a page about finals (Jake and I were in our second to last semester of college in December 2009). I searched the archives of the blog to get a little journaling, and voila. Documented.

Day 7 done in 2009. I’d like to add that the picture (which is of our favorite antique store) is not from December 2009. So I was flubbing even then.

Day 8, of 2009. It used to be a tradition for us to decorate my grandpa Poppy’s house, so this page is about our decorating party.

Day 9 is the last page I made before I gave up December Daily 2009. There was a blizzard! 2009 Megan gave up when she hit page 10. 2012 Megan is all about going with the flow. I decided not to worry about doing a page spread for every day. I only had a few sentences for Days 10-12 and no photos, so I just put a few journaling strips on and called it a day. Oh, and the grid pattern is totally packaging for stickers. Use your trash!

Day 13 is about Eliza and I making ornaments. I’m thankful that this little gingerbread guy we made survived all the way to 2012 in the ziplock baggie. Day 14 has one of the few photos I had already printed out. It features one of the best things to eat in Kansas City: a breakfast sandwich from YJ’s. They have a constantly rotating menu, so you have to go at just the right time to get it. It’s the sandwich that got away. I stole the journaling off of a blog post from 2009.

Day 15 is our Christmas card. Back when we still made Christmas cards. After several years of giving them out in January, I gave up. The photo is the one we inserted in the card; it was taken earlier in the year.

Inside of the card.

Day 16: a walk downtown, a movie seen (A Christmas Carol in 3-D).

All I gave myself in the way of notes for Day 17 was “went Christmas shopping”. I don’t at all remember where I shopped or what I bought. I also realized that I couldn’t remember what kinds of things we gave/ received in 2009 other than the many scarves I gave out. That could have been the year Eliza asked for “a computer and a book” and made us cry with joy (#doingitright), but that could just as easily be a different Christmas. If I realize that it was 2009, I’ll probably add that story somewhere in the book. This just lets me know the kinds of things I’ll like to know later, so I can change the way I’m documenting things now. Anyway, all this just to say that Day 17 ended up just being the number 17 and the words “Christmas Shopping!”. I’ll live.

Day 18 was about Jake’s work Christmas party. We took pictures of the shiny ball in a storefront window on the walk to the party.

Close the little envelope to hide the journaling and reveal the day’s number.

I really love Day 19. It’s just Jillibean Soup Journaling tags with bits of journaling pulled from the blog archives. I never would have remembered that I wrote over 70 pages in term papers that semester!

Day 20 documents the day we got hedgie! Santa brought Rollie Pollie the hedgehog a few days early so that she wouldn’t get too cold on the sleigh ride. He even left a note! I attached the note with a Smash clip. If I were being fancy, I would have put it in some sort of a transparent something, but I was in full on get it done mode for this project.

The other side of the note. Santa likes Etsy too. Postcard by Our City Lights.

More days of just a bit of journaling. Day 21 is baking cookies, Day 22 is an everyday sort of night for 2009, and Day 23 is getting ready for Christmas!

Christmas Eve! Journaling: “We were going to go tons of places X-mas eve, but only made it to Jake’s parents’. There was a blizzard and we were snowed in! We put out cookies and milk there and slept over.”

Christmas! Journaling: “Merry Christmas! We’re still snowed in, so we spent the day lounging at Dad’s.”

Lift up the Santa buckle gift tag for more journaling.

Because we were snowed in on Christmas Eve and Christmas, many of our holiday family parties were postponed. I included Day 26 and 27, because they were still part of the holiday season that year.

The end. I left the last page blank, just in case I dig up something I need to add later.

Annnd the back cover.

I loved doing this project! Once I realized that I was only kept from finishing this for years (years!) because of some preconceived notion of what the project was supposed to be (a photo a day). I realized that what was important was the memory keeping. Photos are great, but words are just as important. Anything can be anything you want it to be! Don’t let someone else’s rules get you down! (Though DD doesn’t really have rules… I did that to myself).

If you’d like to learn how to make books like these, don’t forget to sign up for The Nerd Nest News for early registration and a discount to Rebook, coming November 2015!