Documenting December: Story 25 of my 2024 December Daily Album
- Kelly Sill
- Jul 27
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 27
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 25: Christmas Day
Here is a link to the post on Ali's blog that inspired this spread:
I can’t believe we’ve reached the final story in my 2024 December Daily album! What a journey this has been. For this last layout, I created two spreads inspired by Ali’s Story 25, and I had so much fun putting my own digital spin on them.
Spread One:
Let’s start with the first spread. The main design idea I borrowed from Ali was layering chipboard words on top of the “’tis the season” transparency.
I also used the green felt numbers, placing them over digital washi tape at the top of the photo. The photo itself is one I take every year: a shot from the second-floor hallway looking down into the family room after all the gifts have been unwrapped. No little humans here, but we still manage to create quite the joyful mess! I added the word “tradition” as a plastic embellishment and anchored it with one of my own digital staples.
Spread Two:
While Ali used the backside of the circle die-cut insert for more photos, I added circle photos to the second spread instead. I love the random placement of these snapshots of Christmas morning tucked behind the journal tag. That green stamped circle was a fun one—those stacked trees came from a 2017 stamp set, and I topped it with a tiny star from the Holiday Tree Stamp Set. I used the Night Jump font for “thank you” and digitally altered the “Christmas” plastic word from the Main Kit to look like a black word art stamp. And the digital brad? That one’s mine.
Now, let’s talk about the stitched tree on the right side of the second spread.
Friends, I had absolutely zero intention of recreating that embellishment digitally. None. But thanks to one of those lovely 3 a.m. wake-ups (hi, menopause!), my brain started spinning with ways I might pull it off. I figured—if I scanned in a color wheel puffy sticker for Story 23, why not scan in yarn, a jump ring, and a bulb pin for Story 25?
And that’s exactly what I did.
I now have my own digital stash that includes a strand of red yarn, a gold jump ring, and a black bulb pin.
The silver star paper behind the tree cut-out is from the Digital Album Art Set, and the mini star pattern is actually the Tag Tree Template from the 2024 Prep Day downloads. I pulled in bits from various kits—vellum doves, plastic word “believe,” a veneer snowflake, a green enamel charm (both from previous December Daily Kits), and the “joy, love, and peace” chipboard phrase—all hanging from my scanned embellishments. I even used the eraser tool in Affinity’s Photo Persona to make it all look like it’s really dangling from the yarn.
No step-by-step tutorial just yet, but it’s easier than it looks—and if there’s enough interest, I’d be more than happy to create one before the next holiday season rolls around!
Thanks so much for following along with my Documenting December series. I’ll be back tomorrow with one last post and a full digital flip-through of the album!
Products used:
December Daily 2024 Digital Album Art
Remington Noiseless Font
Affinity Publisher for iPad
Affinity Photo for iPad
Your digital pages have so much texture and look so real! Love the Brad and the bulb pin! Love all the layering nd the circle photo spots. Great pages! ❤️