Documenting December: Story 22 of my 2024 December Daily Album
- Kelly Sill
- Jul 24
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 26
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.
December Daily Story 22: Pig Jig
Here is a link to the post on Ali's blog that inspired this spread:
Ali's Story 22
Every year, our neighbors down the street host a Pig Jig during the holiday season, and it’s always such a fun evening. I had so much fun putting this spread together—and there are a few details I especially loved creating. Let’s take a look!
The left side of the layout features three of my favorite digital techniques: two photo fixes and one embellishment trick.
Favorite Photo Fix #1: When lighting isn’t great, my go-to solution is to turn the photo black and white. It’s a quick way to salvage tricky images, and sometimes bumping up the contrast a little afterward brings even more clarity. It really is a bit like magic.
One of the 3x4 black and white photos on this page is of the roasted hog itself. It’s tucked under the title. It might be hard to make out—and that’s intentional! The lighting wasn’t ideal, and honestly, the subject wasn’t super photogenic either. That brings me to…
Favorite Photo Fix #2: To soften the impact of the image, I drew a white rectangle over the photo and lowered the opacity to 65%. I tried simply lowering the opacity of the photo itself, but that affected the contrast too much. This trick gave me the subtle effect I was looking for without losing the details entirely.
Now let’s address the “Pig Jig” title (made using letters from the Alpha +Numbers Stamp Set), which brings me to one of my favorite digital embellishment tricks! If you’ve been following along with this Documenting December series, you may know how much I enjoy giving certain words a plastic-like effect that mimics the white plastic embellishments from the 2024 December Daily Main Kit. I first shared how to create this look back in Story 7 (there’s a video tutorial there!), and I used the same method in Story 5—and you’ll see it again in Story 25! I love how the title turned out on this page using that technique. I finished it off with a digital staple of my own design.
I finished off this side of the page with a scalloped journaling card and added a few handwritten notes right on top of the photo.
Now let’s talk about the right side of the layout—this part was so fun! It mirrors the design Ali used in her album.
The beige and white tree is from the Digital Variety Die Cut Bundle.
For the second tree, Ali wrapped a plastic tree in washi tape. I reimagined that digitally by stamping the solid tree from the Holiday Tree Stamp Set, then clipping multiple layers of digital washi tape to it. It worked beautifully!
I added a digital stitch brush by Katie Pertiet, the number 22 from the Gold Foil Number Sticker Sheet, and topped it all off with a silver brad I designed myself.
And my final favorite detail? That “spreading good cheer” chipboard phrase. It felt like the perfect sentiment for this story. Adam and Katie are such generous, kind-hearted people—always finding ways to share joy, not just during the holidays but all year long. It was the perfect embellishment to wrap up this page.
We are almost to the end of this series! I'll be back tomorrow with Story 23. Thank you so much for reading. Drop me a line with any questions or comments!
Products used:
December Daily Past Kit
Remington Noiseless Font
Affinity Publisher for iPad
Affinity Photo for iPad
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