If You’re Paper Crafting This December, I Invite You to Check Out My Top Picks for the Best December Daily Albums and Other Craft Supplies!

Those of you who celebrate Christmas have all year long to prepare for this festive holiday. But, even if you’re proactive about preparing for Christmas ahead of time, somehow, when the holiday season arrives each year, it often seems like there isn’t enough time to get everything done that you might like to do.

One of the things that can “fall between the cracks,” so to speak, is your memory keeping during the holiday season. If you’re busy rushing around to Christmas parties and card making swaps and gift exchanges and shopping trips, you might forget to grab your camera (or your phone) and take pictures of all the activities you and your friends and loved ones are participating in.

And, even if you take pictures, you might not ever get them into albums if you don’t specifically allocate time for doing so.

Amongst paper crafters, December Daily is a tradition that ensures that its participants take time out of every day in December to document all those fun memories you’re making.

So if you celebrate Christmas, and you’d like to participate in the fun of December Daily this year, I invite you to check out my top picks for December Daily craft supplies. This list covers my recommendations for binders, albums, pocket pages / page protectors, pens, markers, paper, stencils, stamps, dies, stickers and related supplies for December Daily memory keeping.

The Best Binders, Albums, Planners, Pocket Pages and Page Protectors to Use for December Daily Scrapbooks

You can use any binder or album for your December Daily album, but some options are better than others.

In all cases, I’d recommend making your December Daily album acid free and archival safe. Other than that, the most important considerations are what you like, and what you can afford.

Many crafters prefer to use a small binder or album for their December Daily album. If you can choose a small album in a standard size that mainstream manufacturers make pocket pages to fit, you will greatly reduce the amount of work that needs to be done to keep up with your December Daily scrapbooking project.

For that reason, I highly recommend looking at 6”x8” albums to use for December Daily. They’re small, and it isn’t too overwhelming to work on one page (or one double-page spread) each day, even in the heart of the holiday rush; yet 6”x8” albums are big enough to leave room for creativity. They display beautifully on shelves, especially if you stick to using the same manufacturer’s albums each year.

So here are my suggestions for the best December Daily albums:

6”x8” Christmas Albums by Echo Park and Carta Bella

If you want to use an album that’s printed with a Christmas pattern, take a look at Christmas-themed albums by Echo Park and Carta Bella.

Pictured above, you can see one that I purchased from a previous year called “Christmas Day Floral 6X8 Album.” I bought multiples of this style, and I’ve been super pleased with them.

I can also recommend the 6”x8” poinsettia album from the Home for Christmas collection, which I purchased a couple of years ago; it’s still holding up beautifully despite a lot of wear and tear.

Pictured above, you can see one that I purchased from a previous year called “Christmas Day Floral 6X8 Album.” This same exact style might or might not be available at the time you find this page, but the folks at Echo Park and /or Carta Bella periodically make new Christmas albums available to match their latest Christmas-themed paper collections. So, even if this exact design isn’t available, you’ll probably be able to find their latest similar Christmas album design.

Chipboard Albums for December Daily

If you don’t feel compelled to use page protectors for your December Daily album, it opens up a world of interesting possibilities for interesting shaped chipboard albums.

Pictured above is one truly stunning chipboard album design; it’s a winter snowflake-themed chipboard album base by Mintay Papers, from their “Chippies” collection. This just couldn’t get any prettier (well, it could and it will, when you embellish it and add your photos to it…just imagine the possibilities!)

Traveler’s Notebooks (Or Lookalikes) for December Daily

If you’re in the “I don’t need page protectors” camp, a Traveler’s Notebook is another possibility you could consider adapting for your December Daily album.

OR you can make your own Christmas-themed Traveler’s Notebook lookalike using these instructions.

Using a Planner for Your December Daily Project

”Memory Planning” is a thing right now. If you want to plan your Christmas holidays and also use the same planner as a keepsake for preserving your holiday memories, I recommend using a planner rather than a binder-style album for your December Daily project.

There are many possible planners you could use, and many different ways you could approach this idea. A few possibilities are as follows:

• Use a planner extension pack; there are many suitable possibilities by the Happy Planner/ Me & My Big Ideas (MAMBI), Heidi Swapp and Maggie Holmes. The Happy Planner specifically makes Christmas planning packs that would be ideal to use for this purpose.





• Use any discbound planner and add extra pages to it in December to create your December Daily pages.





• For the photos, you can use a Happy Planner box punch to cut out rectangles that are EXACTLY the same sizes and shapes as the spaces in Happy Planner’s vertical page layouts.
  
  So if you want to do your December Daily pages this way, you can initially create your pages without photos, but you’ll leave space for photos with the intention of adding them later.
  
  Then later, after you’ve printed your pictures out, you can go back and use the box punch to punch them out, and they’ll be exactly the right size and shape to add to your pages.

The Best Paper for December Daily Scrapbooking Layouts

Any Christmas-themed paper would work well for designing December Daily pages. Beyond that, you could use any winter-themed patterned scrapbooking paper. It’s also an option to use plain cardstock or any other paper if you prefer.

Pictured here, you can see several of my favorite paper collections for making December Daily pages.

I’m enthralled by Ciao Bella’s elegant Christmas collection called “Sparkling Christmas.” If you’re into the luxurious look, this one might be a fantastic choice for your December Daily pages.

If you’d rather use a more casual, overtly Christmas-y themed paper collection, check out this one called “The Magic of Christmas,” which was designed by Lori Whitlock for Echo Park.

If your holiday celebrations will include babies, toddlers or small children, and you want to use cutesie paper designs, perhaps you might enjoy taking a look at the current Christmas and winter-themed offerings from Doodlebug Designs. I happen to have some papers and embellishments stashed from the “Snow Much Fun” and “Candy Cane Lane” collections, but this company makes a broad variety of cute Christmas-themed craft supplies that would be fun to use for December Daily pages.

The Best December Daily Stencils and Stenciling Media

Any Christmas stencils work well for making December Daily layouts and projects. That said, you don’t specifically need to use Christmas-themed stencils for this purpose. I tend to use everyday stencils with allover patterns that make interesting but not-too-busy backgrounds.

My favorite stencils to use for December Daily are as follows:

The Merry Bow Stencil by Waffle Flower Crafts

The Brick Wall Stencil by Mintay

Assorted Basic Shape Templates by Staedtler and Fiskars

Stamperia’s “Little Dots” stencil that looks like snow or stars

Elegant Swirls Stencil by Altenew

My favorite Stenciling Media to use for December Daily are as follows:

My all-time favorite stenciling media is Stencil Butter by the Crafter’s Workshop.

You could use any color of Stencil Butter that looks like it’ll coordinate with the papers and embellishments you’re planning to use. If you don’t know what color to get, consider starting with “Pearl White,” which is a fantastic, all-purpose color of Stencil Butter that’ll work perfectly for making December Daily layouts, and will also continue to be useful for your everyday projects long after you wrap up the holiday season and pack your Christmas ornaments away.

If you’re planning on using gold accents to create your December Daily pages, you might also want to take a look at the “Champagne Gold” color of Stencil Butter. This color is rich, luxurious and festive. It complements Ciao Bella’s “Sparkling Christmas” collection perfectly.

Every year, Tim Holtz releases different collections of Distress Mica Sprays that are also really fantastic to use with (and without!) stencils. If you want to add a bit of color and shimmer to your December Daily projects, I highly recommend trying these.

Scrapbook.com’s “Pops of Color” can also make really fantastic stenciling media. These are great if you want to create a resist with your stenciled image and then do ink blending or similar techniques behind it in the background. You could try the red glitter colorway for a really festive Christmas look, or choose whichever color looks like it would coordinate well with the papers and embellishments you plan to use for your December Daily pages.

The Best December Daily Stamps and Dies

If you own a die cutter, Scrapbook.com’s Mini Snowflake Shape Dies are fantastic standalone designs that create lovely snowflake shapes that’ll dress up your December Daily pages beautifully. Pro tip: Use them with Altenew’s Glitter Paper for an easy, no-fuss embellishment that’s also truly impressive looking.

By far, my most-used stamp set featuring evergreen trees is Echo Park’s “Let’s Go Camping” clear stamp set. It isn’t specifically Christmas themed, but it features evergreen tree stamps you can use for stamping tree images that resemble undecorated, outdoorsy Christmas trees. This is perfect for the wintry projects I make each December, but if you don’t already have some suitable stamps for December Daily projects, you might prefer to buy a specifically Christmas-themed stamp set instead.

Ciao Bella’s “Sparkling Christmas” stamp sets are also worth your consideration, whether or not you end up buying any of the coordinating “Sparkling Christmas” patterned papers, vellum papers or other supplies. Their stamps are beautiful and extremely versatile. I bought one of the stamp sets from the Sparkling Christmas collection, and it’s not actually Christmas themed, that I could see; it features damask images that will be useful all year around.

The Best Pens and Markers for December Daily

Usually, Sakura’s Metallic Gelly Roll pens are my go-to pens for any scrapbooking project – and Marvy Uchida PastelLiner highlighters are my other standby. But, in the case of December Daily, my usual go-to supplies mostly aren’t what I use, because I don’t happen to have the right Christmas-friendly colors of those stashed.

But this depends what colors you plan to use for your December Daily layouts. If you’re going with a blue or aqua color scheme, you could safely use my usual choices; in that case, maybe you’d want to try the silver, gold, blue or blue-green metallic Gelly Rolls and a light blue PastelLiner.

But if you’re going for red and green color combinations, you’ll want to look at other choices for markers and pens. My current red and green favorites are LePen by Marvy Uchida.

If you’re going to stamp and color on any of your December Daily pages, you might want to look at Copic’s or Altenew’s alcohol markers.

If you’re planning on brush lettering on any of your December Daily pages, you might want to consider using Tombow’s brush markers.

More Craft Supplies for Making Snow to Use in Your December Daily Pages

We already talked about some fantastic snowflake dies. But if you need a snowy look, with or without actual snowflake shapes, there are some mixed media supplies you’ll want to know about.

There are a zillion of these types of products, by the way, and most of them aren’t that great. So, I’ll save you dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars buying duds. The best options I’ve found so far are as follows:

Distress Grit Paste Snowfall by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries

Distress Mica Flakes by Tim Holtz for Ranger Industries

So there you have it! Those are my top picks for the best December daily supplies.

Please keep in mind that there are many other worthy choices other than these, but if you’re not sure which supplies to use for December Daily, this list gives you an excellent starting point to consider.

Find More Christmas Crafts, Winter Crafts and Holiday Craft Ideas

• Check out our main directory of Christmas crafts HERE.
• Take a look at our main directory of winter craft project ideas HERE.
• Find more holiday crafts HERE.

Methodology I Used for Creating This List of the Best Craft Supplies for December Daily : When creating this page of recommendations, (unless otherwise noted,) I stuck to only suggesting and recommending Christmas -themed craft supplies (and also some everyday craft supplies) that I have personally used, enjoyed working with, and was satisfied with overall.

This means that a lot of worthy options were excluded from the list, simply because I haven’t tried them, don’t have any experience with them and can’t definitively recommend them.

Under each subheading, towards the top of this list, you’ll find the December Daily -themed craft supplies that I tend to use most often and that I think offer you the best value for the money you’ll spend on them.

Under each subheading, the items that you find towards the end of the list are the December Daily -themed craft supplies that I like and recommend but tend to use less often.

Furthermore, if I discover that a product I’ve recommended has been discontinued or is getting hard to find in stores, I might move it down to the bottom of the list in hopes that you’ll consider that item if you’re already familiar with it and know where to find it, but that you’ll avoid wasting time on a wild goose chase unless you’re considering it as a last resort.

I hope these recommendations are useful to you. Thanks for your visit to KnittingCrochetCrafts.com today!

If you found this page helpful, I invite you to return to this site often for more December Daily inspiration, craft tutorials, and project ideas! You can make sure you keep this site on your radar by signing up for my newsletter and community at Substack. .

Basic subscriptions are free; I send out regular newsletters to let my subscribers know about new craft articles and tutorials as they are posted. I also share details about the craft projects I’m working on, and invite my readers to share their projects, too. So there is no need to feel like it’s just you, crafting all alone at home. I’d love to have you join us! You’re invited!!

By Amy Solovay

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About the Author:

Amy Solovay is a real, live, human content creator and educator who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Sweet Briar College; she has also earned a separate Associate of Arts degree in textile design from FIDM LA (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Los Angeles). She is NOT a robot and does not use artificial intelligence (AI) to write book reviews or articles for this website.

Amy learned to stamp, color and collage as a small child, and she still enjoys mixed media art techniques all these years later.

As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles.

If you’re interested in reading Amy’s personal blog, she invites you to visit her official website, AmySolovay.com; and, if you’re interested in earning income while spending time crafting, she encourages you to check out Crafterprise.com.

This page was last updated on 11-6-2024.