Documenting December: Stories 19 + 20 + 21 of my 2024 December Daily Album
- Kelly Sill
- Jul 23
- 3 min read
Welcome back to Documenting December—my Christmas in July blog series where I’m sharing one story a day from my completed 2024 December Daily album. Each post offers a peek at my digital pages created in Affinity Publisher for iPad, along with tips, techniques, and creative encouragement for finishing your own album.
I’ve also included a link to the corresponding post(s) on Ali Edwards’ blog. I encourage you to open it in a separate window so you can see how my digital pages were inspired by the physical versions she shared.
Today I'm continuing with the idea of sharing multiple stories in a single post—not because the stories are grouped together in one layout, but because the designs are simple and don’t require in-depth explanations. These were all quick and satisfying pages to create, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. So let’s dive in!
December Daily Story 19: Nostalgic Christmas Music
Here is a link to the post on Ali's blog that inspired this spread:
Holiday music is something I’ve documented in many of my December Daily albums. Our go-to favorites are the classics—Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Dean Martin, Brenda Lee. Don’t get me wrong, I love the contemporary tracks too, but nothing says Christmas quite like Johnny Mathis singing We Need a Little Christmas while I’m decorating the house.
And sometimes, we go full nostalgia and cue up The Chipmunks or this gem of a record from Chris’s childhood: Captain Kangaroo’s Merry Merry Christmas. I'm laughing. Are you laughing?
If you have Ali’s Story 19 post open while reading this, you’ll see she used a 6x4 journal card with colorful trees to tell her story. I took a similar approach using the 10x8 tree paper to represent that element. I added journaling on the scalloped tag stamp and brought in the phrase a little story from right now—a nod to the wording on Ali’s tree card. The green felt numbers 1 and 9 have a realistic, felt texture applied (I shared how to do this back in Story Four), and the right side of the layout is a simple photo of the album in its rack.
December Daily Story 20: Christmas Cookies
Here is a link to the post on Ali's blog that inspired this spread:
Ali's Story 20
Christmas cookies are another tradition that always finds a place in my album. This year, I’m telling the story of my once-again-failed-attempt at making Spritz cookies. (One day I’ll get them right! Maybe.)
The layout is straightforward: a 6x4 photo paired with a full-page 6x8 image. I added a simple white circle, half on and half off the smaller photo, to act as a tab for the number 20.
The word art below the journaling was created using the Make Some Merry stencil set. I used selection and masking techniques in the Photo Persona to isolate each word onto its own layer, then sampled a shade of green from the cookies to color the text.
And that big embellishment? The large vellum asterisk die cut! It was the perfect match for the starburst pattern in the cookie photo. I lowered its opacity to 65%, clipped a glittery texture to the star in the center, and added a 3D effect for a little extra pop.
December Daily Story 21: House Lights
Here is a link to the post on Ali's blog that inspired this spread:
One photo. No journaling needed.
For this layout, I loved how Ali framed her photo and journaling using a white paint marker in Story 21, and I wanted to recreate the look digitally. The “twenty one” word art is from an older December Daily 3x4 overlay—I'm not quite sure what year. The original had a frame and the word “December,” but I erased those in the Photo Persona, keeping just “twenty one.”
To create the frame, I used a brush and made four simple strokes. That’s it! Simple and effective.
Three more stories complete! If you have any questions about the design choices or Affinity techniques I used, feel free to reach out. I love hearing from you and am always happy to help.
Thanks for following along—I’m so excited to share the rest of the pages with you soon!
Products used:
December Daily Past Kit
Remington Noiseless Font
Affinity Publisher for iPad
Affinity Photo for iPad
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