Good morning all! Today I have the first 5 days of foundation pages for my December-Daily type album all set up using Hip Kit’s December Documented Kit. I’ve added some visual aids in Photoshop to help you all see where my photos and journaling will go, and what size I’ll print my photos at.

I’ll let you all in on a little secret. I’ve never actually made foundation pages before. Want to know what else I’ve never done? I’ve never finished one of these albums. This year, I’m branching out into the unknown world of foundation pages and hoping that it’ll help me actually finish.

At first, I was wracking my brain. How do I scrap something that hasn’t yet happened? How do I glue down embellishments when I know there will be more that I’ll want to add and change later on when I actually have photos? So after perusing Pinterest and thinking about how I scrap, here’s what I did.

First, I made the focus of my album to document 25 memories in December, not necessarily 25 days. As I was making my foundation pages, I found myself wondering how many spaces to leave for photos. Documenting 25 memories instead of 25 days allows me to scrap without regard to scrapping chronologically. I made some foundation pages with only a few spaces for photos for those memories with only a few applicable photos, and then I made entire spreads with tons of spots for photos for other days.

Second, I glued a lot of the embellishments on the outside of the page protector. This affords me a great deal of flexibility because I can still manipulate what’s in the page protector. If I decide a certain paper isn’t working, I can take it out and replace it with something else. It allows me to create ahead of time without having to commit fully which is what I feared I would have to do.

(disclaimer: the photo above should say 2.5″, indicating a 2.5″ square)

Third, the embellishments that I did glue down on the inside of the page protectors are adhered with temporary adhesive. I’ve never really used temporary adhesive but I picked some up because I wanted to be able to change things if I want but I also wanted to have the luxury of only having to add photos.

Fourth, I planned my photo sizes ahead of time. For someone who fears relinquishing creative control before my photos are in my hands, I’m surprised I went this path. But I needed to be able to envision what it would look like plus I needed to give myself very brief and specific instructions for how to finish it in December to make sure I actually get this album finished.

I added quite a bit of dimension on the outside of the pockets, but I tried to keep it pretty uniformly spread out across the page protectors so it wasn’t all lumpy and uneven when I closed the album.

I paper-pieced a tree and stitched down the papers very loosely so I could vend up the edges and add some extra dimension.

I cut down several 6×8 page protectors to make little inserts. The insert in the page above is 3×8.

I wanted to have an entire page of smaller photos but with a little bit of patterned paper sneaking through so I set up this page of 3×4 slots with 3×3 photos and 1×3 strips of paper. I’m sure I’ll add at least a little more embellishing when my photos are in.

Are you making your December album with our December Documented 2015 kit? Come on over to the Hip Kit Club Member Forum on Facebook and share with us what you are making. Let us be inspired by YOU!