Hey everyone. Tiffany here with a look at a month-long minibook project I’ve been keeping this December. I’m calling it my December Reflections minibook and it’s been my alternative to December Daily. I don’t celebrate the holidays, so I didn’t want to do a December Daily album this year (I did a non-holiday one last year and well, it was hard to keep up with and I didn’t like it at all). So for this year, I decided to use my winter TN junk journal that I shared back at the ending of November to document each day in December in a very simple and reflective way. I participated in a photo challenge on Instagram this month that had me reflect back on my entire year. Each photo prompt was introspective in this way, which had me reflect and write a little something to answer each prompt along with the photo. Since I wasn’t doing December Daily, I decided that keeping a little log of all of these photos and short captions was the perfect way to document my December.
The majority of what I used in this small minibook were bits from the Jolly kit, though I did include a few stickers from the Take Note kit and some old book pages and white doilies from my stash too. I kept with the soft wintery feel of my junk journal and continued that style on all of the pages. Since this book is so small--it’s pocket-sized--I printed my Instagram photos as 2x2 squares. I love this size because I can compile six 2x2 photos onto one 4x6 photo paper to print them out easily that way. I also typed up all of my photo captions and printed them all out very small as well to include underneath my photos. Once I had everything printed and cut out, I simply worked through my journal in small batches.
I kept this little book fairly simple. For each photo, I matted them on one of the pattern papers that coordinated with whatever pattern paper was on the opposite page. Since this minibook was constructed like a junk journal, each page was something different. So I made sure to balance out those patterns as best as I could. I even matted the captions when I needed too. Sometimes I just layered a Take Note label sticker, a scrap piece of pattern paper or a die cut behind those too, to give a bit more variation to each page.
But for the most part, I took a minimalist approach with this minibook. December can be a bit hectic and I wanted this project to be manageable. So even my embellishments are a bit sparse, but enough to frame the photos and the captions that really tell the stories. The only pages that had more embellishments were the pages that I added in the little clusters from my pocket TN. My TN was getting a bit chunky with the one pocket all decorated, so I used a few of those embellishments that I made for the pockets in my minibook. I think that was a great way to use little decorative bits that you make for your planners and TNs that wouldn’t get used in anything else otherwise.
I think keeping a small minibook like this is the perfect alternative to a December Daily. Especially for those who either don’t celebrate the holidays or can never keep up with documenting your month with all the stuff going on. Just taking a photo a day and jotting down a few words, then compiling all of that into a small book makes a very lovely keepsake of your final month of the year. It’s simple and easy. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my minibook!
