December Daily Peaceful Winter Tutorial

Hello crafters! Here comes one of my favorite projects of the year, my December Daily journal. This December is going to be different from any other year, making it even more important to try to document the month. I really like Ali Edwards's concept of a December Daily and have been doing it since 2012. I do something of a mini version, without a lot of photos, but instead focusing on the words.

Today I am sharing a tutorial for the cover. I will do the inside pages next week. If you don't want to do a journal, you can use the techniques for cardmaking, art journaling or perhaps on a canvas to give as a gift to someone.

Since 2013 I have used Tim Holtz worn binders as a base for my December journal and it did that this year too, since the covers are very versatile, sturdy and since they all look nice together on a shelf. This is the eight one and this year's version features another peaceful winter scene. It was made with dies by Tim Holtz and Simon Says Stamp in combination with pastes and paint. I usually try to avoid bulky objects on journal covers and this one has a lot of dimension and texture, without being bulky.

Start by coating the worn binder with gesso. You will need to add more than one layer, since the covers soak up the gesso.

When dry, paint the top with Speckled Egg and Faded Jeans - I placed Stormy Sky in the photo by mistake, but it is a similar shade of blue, so if you don't have Faded Jeans, you can use Stormy Sky instead. Many of my December Daily journals have a teal tint (since I love teal), so I decided to make this one different, with paler blue colors.

Stamp the sky with the SSS Old Letter Background stamp. Having some of my designs being turned into stamps by SSS was one of the highlights of my year, and I wanted to include one of them in the cover.

Die cut the Tim Holtz Snowscape Colorize dies from watercolor paper. 

Layer and glue them together with matte medium. 

Die cut the Darling Deer from watercolor paper.

Coat the snowscape and the deer with gesso.

Paint the snowscape with Speckled Egg, Faded Jeans and Pine Needles. Don't worry about perfection since we are aiming for a textured look.

Glue to the background with matte medium and extended the river so that it flows off the cover to the right. 

I only used three of the deer and picked three that looks most like the deer who come to visit in our garden. Apply Grit-Paste to the white area of the cover, creating snowy hills. I added a thicker layer to the front and a thinner layer to the spine and back. Later, I added some more to the spine, so that it formed a natural hill together with the die cut.

Here you can see the added grit-paste to the spine. Let the paste dry and then dry brush with the blues and green here and there. 

Add a little more grit-paste into the snowscape scene and as snow on the deer.

Splatter the background pretty heavily with white gloss spray.

Ink 'Joy' from the SSS Happy Days set with Winter Sky and Soft Navy, for a two-toned effect. Stamp the sentiment from the Circle Sentiments Christmas set with Soft Navy ink.

Add a little Moon Dust Stickles here and there to make the snow sparkle.

I also die cut some SSS Snow Flurries snowflakes and the words 'winter' and 'snow' from white glittery cardstock and glued to the cover.

I wanted to take a photo of the cover against a snow-covered background, but we only had a dusting of snow so far.

I like the look of the snowy hills and the two-toned trees in the snowscape. 

I really like the stream that is part of the die cut. It can also be a path. Extending it to flow off the cover looked nice and it would have looked weird if the grit-paste snow would have stopped the river.

The SSS glittery paper is very sparkly, but without shedding any glitter at all, perfect for a journal cover.

Stamping with two colors ink give a great effect on bold words like this one.

I love deer and these are so cute. There are three deer who come to our garden during the cold months of the year and I see them often.

The deer all got an eye with a black pen. Adding eyes adds life to the animals.

The back is kept simple, with just a die cut word and two snowflakes.

I die cut the year with SSS Archie Jr Solid from the glittery paper.

The grit-paste in combination with the paint and the glitter gives a great textured snowy look. For another example, check out my snowman from earlier this week.

Folded open, the cover creates one continuous snowy scene.

My journal posing together with the light Santa/gnome in the garden. The leg you see behind it belongs to an elk. I am taking out more Christmas decor and lights this weekend. It will give some warmth to a bleak November month.

You can find my previous Christmas Daily journals here:

2019 - Snowy Mountains December Daily

2018 - Birch Forest December Daily
2017 - Narnia December Daily
2016 - Winter Village December Daily video
2015 - Believe December Daily
2014 - December Daily
2013 - Christmas Daily
2012 - December Mini-book

Thank you so much for stopping by here today! 

Happy Christmas crafting!

Anna-Karin

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