2023 megaaa DECEMBER DAILY thread (ALL December projects)

I am determined to finished story 25 (Christmas morning) today. I am sooooooooooooo ready to put my Christmas items away in my scrap space. I need a break before I scrap Christmas events, Eve, and Day for the kids albums lol

Photos are printed. Just need to cut them down to 3x4 pocket size and make the journal card.

But first, dinner and football.

And I. Am. Done! Not going to share story 25 as it has 7 photos of us Christmas morning and then the journaling tag. I ended up using the 4 3x4 pocket page protector. Front 4 is journal tag, Christmas tree with gifts, filled stockings, and dogs in their new beds. Back four is a photo of each 1 of us opening a gift.

I’ve been working on planning, journaling, taking notes, and photos for my album.

This is my first year doing a December album and I’ve learned I don’t have the ability to be present in December while completing an album. I plan to work on it in January.

I’m impressed with everyone’s progress! It’s inspiring.

I did days 21/22. I printed photos for days 23-25. I’m going to lunch about an hour away. I’m going attempt to journal in the car so that this weekend I can maybe finish this thing. I’m an early morning scrapper and staying overnight away from home tonight so it may be a Sunday finish.

Yesterday I surveyed my DD supplies I had (partially) set up a couple weeks ago, admired how cute they are. And then peacefully came to the decision that I just didn’t want to make a DD album this year. I packed it all up (I finished opening the AE advent first). I hope to be in a more jolly and crafty headspace next year so I can do the project with joy. As it is, I am just going to document our December in PL and move on.

This is such a bummer. Drives me nuts. Yesterday I started cutting and I was getting that terrible cut/fleecy edge look. I had to stop and go buy new blades before I began. It was a pain. But I was able to get them. And I was able to get through day 10 yesterday.

I'm about 1 page away from being done. I usually do a reflection page at the end of my album and that's all I have left to do. I made the decision to only go until Dec 25 and that works for me this year. My space is a mess and I'm starting to get twitchy about it 😆

Well to start, I was a loyal subscriber for 5 years. The past 3 years I’ve subbed to every kit, bringing my sub cost to about $300 a month, not counting the extras I bought.

They came out with a new website I think at the beginning of November/end of October. As I was a subscriber i had early access to the ordering portal which by the way now you can only add the items that Christine allots in your box. So say you want a color of ink that doesn’t go with the kit-if she doesn’t put it in the portal, you have to buy it separately and pay shipping.

I noticed that the memory keeping classified kit was no longer listed. I subbed to it for the extra planner papers which are also no longer available to buy Ala carte. So I send a message their way and I’m told it’s simply because they are at capacity so it’s not showing up which makes no sense to me because if tgAt were the case it would have a waitlist sign up. I say ok I really hope it isn’t goin g away because I really like the extra planner papers. No worries. It’s still a thing

FOUR DAYS LATER there’s a mass email sent saying the memory keeping classified is going away. It’s on the group as well. So I email and say that was pretty shady because I knew something was fishy and they could have said the kit is in limbo rather than outright lie. I’m told it wasn’t a lie. They had just made the decision to ax the kit.




Sure Jan. A kit that’s ordered at least a month in advance. I repaint with that’s fine. Stick to your lie I’m done. I wait for the November kits to ship (so I would have all the way through December) and cancel it all. All 13 monthly items. I put in the comment box why I was upset and I didn’t appreciate being lied to.

Never heard the first thing back. No sorry to see you go no thank you for your years of business. Nothing.

Then I get the December kits and they are almost exactly the same as last December. Extremely lazy. It really pisses me off still. I should just sell the stupid things because it is really annoying.

Then, I stay on the group for the free phone backgrounds and they’ve completely changed on e of the planner sticker kits without announcing it. It just shows up amd the people who use those stickers are mad because they don’t fit.
Those posts are removed. Then someone posted that they couldn’t get through to customer service and that post is removed as well.

So yeah. I decided to take my $3000 a year (Jesus. That’s a lot) and save it up or buy something for my family. I went nuts on Ali edwards sale and a few other places. I have almost the entire year of cocoa daisy not used for 2 reasons, 1. I hate more than I love-March especially was horrid. And B. My dog takes up so much time that I don’t have time to scrap. I also got stuck on a project from February and have had a heck of a time moving into a new project. Plus 10,000 new doggy photos. lol

So I’m going to freeze all of 2024 and use what I have. I have a bit of a shopping problem that I’ve shared about before and I’m really trying to live what I have, use what I have, be thankful for what I have in alll areas of my life.

If you made it this far, thank you for listening. My husband and I run a retail business and we make mistakes or misspeak too. A simple “gee I’m sorry I misspoke” goes a LONG way in customer retention. I’m at a point in my life where I’m done trying to be understanding. I just speak with my wallet.

blemon And I also think no more swaps for me. It's a lot of work and I have a lot of stuff that I didn't use this year.

I'm going to try not to buy much next year.


Same. I had 3 items from last year I have yet to use and a lot from this year. They will get used but it does make me sad to not have used them yet.

ETA and I am super duper sure it's a lot to collect, monitor, separate, package, and mail out.

Took the idea from blemon and posted this to finish out my 2023 album.

http://instagram.com/p/C1fsjyDvBkG

Thanks for letting me know! I'm sorry that happened... that sounds super frustrating. I tried to do quick quotes so I could respond to certain parts of what you said separately, but my computer is being wonky apparently. For the being able to only add certain things to your box gripe, I agree that is annoying, but it seems like that is a trend with all of these brands... Ali Edwards and Studio Calico have that same model. My guess is they are doing it to keep shipping costs manageable for them, since they are offering flat rate shipping with subs.

On the main issue... I am super new to the CD brand (and full disclosure I joined their creative team for 2024), but I've always found their products to be beautiful... but intimidating. And I don't feel like the products themselves are intimidating, but they have a lot of different kits and keeping the names straight, etc. is confusing. The classified ones were the mini versions, right? I thought they included dupes of the larger version but maybe I have no clue, ha. Like I said, they have so many options it's difficult for a newbie to parse. Changing kit names/contents without clear communication would compound that issue. 

I can definitely see why you were frustrated with them changing things up, and the poor communication adds insult on top of injury. I think that poor communication seems to be a common theme in the scrapbook industry, unfortunately. So far, I have not had similar experiences, so one can only hope that they will learn from losing loyal customers when there is an issue and fix things going forward. 

On the bright side, it seems like 2024 will be a good year for you to try to stash bust and use up some of the beautiful products you have in your stash! I hope that you have a great year using all the products you bought and revisit the brand, or other brands, in 2025. Happy New Years!
 

Looked like you had a great trip!

And I'm finished!

I'm really happy with how my album turned out, and I'm cheering on those of you are still working on your albums.

We did, thanks. I just went through the photos and tried to narrow down which ones I want to use. I'm using the monthly view of my Get to Work Book to make notes on what we did each day to get an overview of the season. I barely started my album before we left so there's a lot to do but since it's digital it doesn't bother me to do it slowly.