Getting Started with Christmas Journaling
I journal all year, all the time. I fill up notebooks with text, images and what-not like a it’s my only task in life. But in December, I do Christmas Journaling, or what might be called December Daily journaling. A little switch turns on in my head and I’m all into glitter washi tape, snowflake stickers and pink Christmas tree images…
Wanna join me?
Do you remember the craze from last year? I filled this chunky Traveler’s Notebook to the rim! It is made out of an eclectic mix of papers, with everything from wrapping paper to ordinary printer paper.
And I filmed a few process videos too, which I want to do this year again. In fact, the first one is already uploaded, and in it you’ll see how I set up the first couple of pages in my not yet bound together notebook of this year.
I wanted to make a couple of “introduction pages” in this notebook, where I’ll journal about why I’m doing this project and how and why it feels so meaningful to me. I’ll tell you about that more in this post, but first…
…here’s the video. I hope you like it. Maybe you’ll be in the mood to craft along with me?
Video: Christmas Journaling Starter Pages – part 1
Click here if you can’t see the video above, and give the video a thumbs up while you’re at it.
I get that a lot of you are too busy to make a journal like this and work in it every day for an entire month, but remember that you don’t have to do it like me. There are no rules and you can do as much or as little as you please. If you feel like making a Christmas journal, then do it, and enjoy filling the first couple of pages!
I promised myself I would make one this year too simply because I had so much fun filling my very first December Daily Journal last year. Making a page each day made me notice the season better, and enjoy it more. So I guess that’s my biggest reason for making another Christmas journal this year. I really, really wanted to.
Making meaning
I think that all journaling is about making meaning for yourself, in some way. And at least right now, as I am in the middle of my new journal, I feel that is especially true for a Christmas Journal. It’s about noticing something, anything, about your day and making a page about that thing in your journal.
December Daily is the invention of scrapbooker Ali Edwards, who makes her 25 pages in a rind binder in plastic pockets. In them she adds decorations and journaling cards as well as one or more photos for each day up until Christmas Day.
My approach is a little bit more “scrappy” with less photos and more focus on gluing things in. Last year my traveler’s notebook was filled with vintage Santa images and rain deer:
This year I hope to give myself more empty pages for simply writing/journaling about how I feel and what’s up in my life. I have also downloaded a lot of Hello Kitty images, because I love her. They’re all Christmas themed, and she looks so cute with her hot cocoa and in her antlers, so I’m looking forward to gluing them in everywhere. I also intend to use a lot of glitter tape, because at what other time of the year could it be more appropriate?
I’ve used magazine pages from both Swedish and American magazines as folded pages this year, all of them with a winter or crafty Christmas theme. Most of the magazine images are from the Somerset Studio magazines, because I got a whole bunch of them from a fellow collage artist last week. I’m thrilled to go through them all to find the hidden gems.
I think Christmas journaling is my new favorite habit, and I hope to keep going with it. When you do something for the second time, it’s a tradition, right?
I’ll be back with another journaling video soon, as I keep going in my current Christmas Journal. Are you doing anything special this year as a way of documenting life in general or December in particular? Let me know in the comments below.
Christmas Inspirations
- Christmas Crafts – blog posts from the past to the present
- Pinterest Board: Craft Ideas Christmas – where I collect inspiration for Christmas
- Christmas Journaling Playlist – all my Christmas journaling videos on YouTube
- Spiral bound Christmas Journal – before I knew about Travler’s notebooks of course…
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Loved the video, Hanna! I’m a huge fan of anything journal and Christmas!! Thank you for sharing some of your process with us. And thank you for the reminder that no matter how busy, we can have the freedom to create and journal – even if we only do a couple pages this year, we can always add more later. Sometimes it’s very hard to remember there aren’t rules to being creative. We don’t have to devote large amounts of time to it, or only start projects when we know we’ll be able to finish them right away. Really appreciate your encouragement, reminder, and inspiration! Thank you, Hanna!
I enjoyed watching you embellish your December journal. I started to make one a couple of years ago, and then abandoned it… it is so ready to be brought back out into the light!! I love the yummy photos of your bursting book at the end of the post.
I made a few too, that I abandoned before December was ending before last year, when I committed to make one spread about each day and had so much fun with it. I hope you get into it, or any other kind of journaling, this season.
Merry December!
Hello! I just stumbled upon your blog via Pinterest! I love your crafting esthetic!