scraps-a-little

Week 3

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Week 3: January 16 - 22, 2012

I ended up using a couple of different methods for journaling this week.

Last week as I was doing some other computer work, I went ahead and added my journaling to the picture of my daughter & I making a cookie cake for her birthday. I took the picture using the self-timer on my camera & setting it on the counter on the other side of the kitchen. The framing isn't what I would've done if I had been able to see what I was actually aiming at, but it worked out well to have so much of the pantry in the view so that I could put my journaling over it. I also used a SMASH sticky for a note about sitting on the floor in the hallway using the iPad during bathtime (directly outside the bathroom door, but it keeps the iPad out of the splash-zone).

I had some journaling already typed up for the pictures of Claire painting, so I just used a journaling printing template that I made in photoshop and then held the journaling card up to my screen to fit the text around the decorations on the card. I ran out of places to put journaling again this week (in fact the journaling on the other 3x4 card is about how many pictures I took in one day) so I ended up cutting down a grid card to add some journaling about taking "semi-professional-but-mostly-amateur" pictures of Claire using a sheet and lots of natural light in our diningroom. And I used one of the cobalt pennants that I made to add a note on the trampoline picture.

I also have an insert this week. It is an 8x8 page protector. The front will have a collage of pictures from some shopping my mom, sister-in-law and I did on Saturday - I decided to order it from Persnickety because I was ordering other pictures and it was cheaper to just add the 8x8 on to that order instead of ordering from Target. The back side is Claire's painting with one of her hand-prints on top of it.

Goodbye 2011

2012-01-22T21:21:00.000-08:00

I finally finished up my 2011 Project Life album.

I'm already liking 2012 more than I like 2011. Possibly because the pictures are better with my new camera, however most likely because I am putting more thought into what my layout will look like through out the week.

Tonight, I did FIVE weeks worth of 2011, which was pretty much standard for last year. I would wait until I saw SnapFish was having penny prints and then I would order 5-6 weeks worth of pictures. Then spend an evening clipping the corners & putting pictures into the correct slots in my book. Then I would pull out my journaling cards and figure out stories to fill in the blank areas.

So excited to have this done(-ish). I was just looking back through the few weeks prior to what I finished up tonight and realized there is one week in November that has a few open spaces. I'll need to check to see if I have pictures or if I need to do something else. There are probably some other weeks earlier in the year that need to have some filler, but I think for me - this is good enough.

Cobalt Pennants

2012-01-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

After seeing some of the pennants that people have been using on their Project Life layouts, I wanted some. I went to Michaels and found a few that were nice...although not exactly what I was wanting. I went ahead and bought a couple of packages of them in hopes of deciding they were good enough for now.

Tonight I opened up my digital elements in Photoshop and made my own awesome Cobalt pennants.

Used bits and pieces of some of the cobalt digital paper pack and the font is SS Play Font Words.

Week 2

2012-01-17T20:56:00.000-08:00

Week 2: January 9 - 15

It definitely feels like I am spending more time on Project Life this year than I did in previous years. I don't necessarily feel like that is a bad thing - I am putting more effort into my journaling. In previous years it has been more of a let's just get it all in the album type of thing. And usually I would have about 4-5 weeks worth of pictures, about 6 journal cards total and be trying to figure out which pictures went to each week and something...anything...to say about our life. I like it better this way - the week is fresh in my mind and I can write something that matters, not just something to fill the space.

I'm actually quite happy with the two new journaling things I did tonight. I had a ton of photos that I wanted to include this week - we had a really busy weekend and once I got all the pictures in, I realized that I had ONE 3x4 spot open for journaling and I already had a specific story from Monday that I wanted to include there. That meant nowhere to put even a highlight card of what was going on (a trip to build-a-bear, riding the carousel, my little girl's birthday party, my older girl's pretend "modeling" session).

After looking through some ideas I had bookmarked, I decided on a 6x12 journaler. I didn't buy her template since I have some experience with Photoshop, instead I just made something of my own. I already had a picture that I wanted to use printed, so I use an 8.5x11 sheet of cardstock to print my journaling, then I attached the picture to the top.

Then I wanted a 6x4 journaling card to fill in the spot that I empty by using the picture on the 6x12 page. I wanted one that matched my Cobalt kit and it drives me insane that there aren't any 6x4 journaling cards - the bifold ones are just a little too small. Which brings me to why I am so happy that Jessica Sprague has digital project life elements - particularly the grid journal card. I downloaded the (FREE!) 3x4 card, opened it in photoshop and made a pattern of a 2x2 grid section of it. Then I opened a new canvas that was 6x4 and filled it with the grid pattern. A little text and a couple of lines in colors that match Cobalt and I have a new journal card to matches my kit AND fits in the pocket correctly.

Since I don't have any 6x12 page protectors yet, I haven't put my long journaler in, nor have I figured out which pictures will go on the back of it. But here is what the layout looks like without the insert.

Thanks everyone for coming and looking!

January 1st & Week 1

2012-01-10T05:00:00.000-08:00

January 1st
As I said in my set-up post, January 1st got it's own spread so that my weeks would run Monday thru Sunday. The first page is full of pictures of the kids playing in the morning. The journaling is about my daughter's Christmas present that she got from her aunt on Sunday. My sister-in-law accidentally mailed it to her brother with all the presents for his kids. We figured it out on Christmas Eve, but it was too late to do anything about it. My sister-in-law was so irritated about making that mistake, but it happens and when Claire did get the present she was THRILLED. The second page shows our belated New Year's Eve Celebration. The journaling on page two is all about why we had a belated celebration and what we did to celebrate (drink sparkling grape juice, throw poppers in the garage and we each got a blower/noise maker to play with).

Week 1: January 2 - 8
I had a ton of pictures for this week. I think I have taken more pictures in the first week of January this year than I took in the entire month of January last year. I got a digital SLR for Christmas and I just don't put it down.

This week was supposed to be a pretty boring week. The kids were going back to school, we had one doctor appointment for Claire to check on her ears, but other than that - NOTHING was planned.

We went to see the Dr about Claire's ears and ended up in out-patient surgery early the next morning to get tubes put in!! She ended up staying home from her first day back at preschool to give her a little longer to recover.

This is one of the larger scored journaling cards. I ended up writing on two parts of it and plan to order a pre-surgery picture that is on my phone to put inside with her name bracelet.

Since I had SOOO many pictures, I decided to do an insert with a few extras. One side shows two of our cats, the other side has some pictures from Claire playing with her dolls at my mom's house.

Why I do this scrapbooking thing...

2012-01-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

I just remembered WHY I used to scrapbook so much. It's not for the fun stuff...it's for the memories. Like so many other people I started trying to design too much. I got too caught up in the embellishments and the toys and the techniques and forgot about the most important part...the memories.

One of my projects for 2012 is organizing my house - mainly getting what used to be my scraproom in the basement cleaned up and converted into some other type of room. I hate the basement, it is cold and smells like cat pooh (it's where the litter boxes are), so I've moved some of the scrapping stuff that I actually use up to my bedroom (not cold or stinky!). Since I haven't been using the basement room for it's purpose, my husband as slowly piled things in there (computer parts, painting supplies, legos, etc). Now that room is a mess. I can hardly even walk into it to get other supplies that I left down there.

Unfortunately, one of the things that got left in the basement were all of my scrapbooks except the one that I was working on at the time - my little girl's baby album. Which means the basement has been a mess for at least 2 years! As part of cleaning up & organizing, I decided the scrapbooks needed a new home. Somewhere that people COULD look at them, but not somewhere where the almost 3 yr old would tear them up. Tonight I cleared off the bottom shelf of my bookshelf on the landing at the top of the stairs and moved almost all the scrapbooks from the basement to that shelf. Easy access - but not somewhere she normally plays.

Back to my original thought - the memories, not the scrapbook industry fluff - as I loaded the books onto their new shelf, I wanted to put them in chronological order. Flipping them open to figure out the dates lead me to flipping through the entire album. The one of my senior year of college. The year that I moved into an apartment, got married, gained a step-daughter, bought a house - all in ONE year. The trip we took to Atlantis in the Bahamas. The scrapbook that I made for my step-daughter of things she did while she lived with us. And all the memories in between - until 2007 because in 2008 I got overwhelmed with the scrapbook industry fluff. In 2009 my baby girl was born and the only album that I worked on was her baby album although honestly, I only made it to her 9 month page - that was the year that I attempted to scrapbook in the stinky basement.

In 2010, I started Project Life. In 2011, I did it again. This year I will again.

And I'm going to go back to 2007, 2008 and 2009. I have two PL albums Cobalt for 2012, Clementine for the past. I didn't get the core kit to go along with Clementine because I have so much stuff left over from the Original Kit & Turquoise and now I have the Cobalt Core Kit.

I'm not saying that there is a problem with all of the scrapbook fluff. I still LOVE some of the fluff - but for me it was overwhelming.

Project Life 2012 - planning & title page...

2012-01-05T08:24:00.001-08:00

I'm doing Project Life for my third time. My 2011 book is almost complete. I only need to print out & place my December pictures. So excited to have it finished! I still have blanks in my first one (2010) and I think at this point I'll probably just leave it unfinished.

So...on to 2012...

My plan for this year is to continue creating weekly layouts. During 2011, I gradually progressed from picture-a-day to weekly and I definitely prefer the flexibility of weekly. My weeks go from Monday to Sunday - having the weekend all together creates a better flow for me.

Since January 1st was a Sunday (the end of my "week"), it gets a spread all to itself - also worked out this year since we had a sick kiddo on New Years Eve, we did all our celebrating on New Years Day Evening (fake bubbly, poppers, blowers, ect).

As far as this blog and Project Life go, I am hoping to update every Tuesday with the previous week's layout. Next Tuesday, I should have two layouts one for January 1st and one for week 1 (Jan 2 - 8).

Now...my 2012 title page!

It's is amazing! It's exactly how Becky Higgins suggested according to the back of the cards!

I may eventually pull some of the cards out to replace with family pictures. I think on my January 1st layout, I'll probably include stats on all of us (current age, grade, job, something, etc). I had everyone fill out a 2012 Now & Goals sheet on New Years Day so I may include those.

Subject: Pineapple Chair

2008-04-15T20:58:00.001-07:00

This is for ScrapMojo's most recent challenge...due today. I've had this layout mostly done since...whenever I posted last week. But I wanted two pictures of me sitting in the pineapple chair when I was a kid so I had to wait until I could get those from my parents. Finally got them and got them printed and all finished up tonight!

In my family we call this chair the pineapple chair. It may be hard to see why from these pictures but the little design that is all over the chair looks like a little pineapple! I love this thing. It is ugly as all get out, but it is seriously my favorite chair ever. My parents even had a matching couch (it was the 80s after all) but that has long since been given away and it probably in a landfill somewhere. But the chair...it's in my livingroom right now. :)

What? 4 posts in one day!

2008-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Holy crap! This is my FOURTH post today! Evidently in order to find time to scrap I just need to go scrap and not worry about the dishes or the laundry or anything else.

This is my layout about getting tickets for and going to the Garth Brooks concert in November with my mom. It was probably the best concert I have been to ever. Garth is amazing! And the process of getting the tickets was almost as big of an ordeal as the actual concert. Thanks for checking out my layout!

Products:
PP - DCWV RockStar
random white cardstock
and that's it!

Say It In Scrap - Challenge #1

2008-04-09T20:00:00.001-07:00

A Whore from MySpace started up her own challenge blog, Say It In Scrap. The idea is to make pages that don't follow the traditional themes of scrapbooking. The first challenge goes off the phrase: Which Way to Real? My take on it focuses on my husband's and my future. We recently found out that he is on Maximum Medical Improvement from a work injury and now facing the future of having him disabled for the rest of his life. This is not really what we had planned for our life and now we have to work out new plans. Because evidently this is for real.

Thanks for checking out my layout!

Products used:
Pattern Paper - DCWV Rockstar Stack
Alphabet Stickers - American Crafts Thickers (Chipboard & Foam), Making Memories (Velvet)
Stamps: Love Elsie (Heart), Studio G ("FOR")
Ink: Zig, Inkadinkado, Creative Living

Current Challenges

2008-04-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Since I'm tired of hunting through all the blogs to figure out what challenges are up right now that I'm interested in, this is a list of them all...

One Little Word - BEST

Scrapping The Music - Turn it Up!

Scrapjack - I just love this layout by Laura Kurz! - missed the due date, but I still love the layout...

Creating Keepsakes -
any 2-pg layout - due 4/11
1st day of school - due 4/11
becky's sketch (october) - due 5/2

WooWhoo

2008-04-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I scrapped last night. I went to bed at 11:30pm and by midnight I was still up and not even sleepy. So I go up and went to my scraproom and made two layouts! I'll be posting pictures tonight. The camera batteries were dead and I wasn't in the mood to go roaming around the house at 1:15 while everyone else slept to try and find batteries.

Actually, I'll probably only post one of them right now. This weekend I'm going to look for a picture from when I was a kid to go with the other layout. :)

Yay

2008-02-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

Here are the two new things that I added to Etsy! Click on the to see more details. I *love* the star album. I almost didn't want to list it. The '08 planner was easier to list because I already made myself one! :)

Star Album - Girl Theme:

2008 Planner:

Thanks for coming to check this stuff out! Have a fabulous day! :)

Birthday Cards

2008-02-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here are some birthday cards that I made this week.

The one with the birdy holding the balloons is a complete scraplift of Kelli. Kelli's cards are so beautiful, I'm always checking her blog out for ideas.

ETSY

2008-02-23T19:22:00.001-08:00

I did it! I opened up my own Etsy shop. Check it out! Pretty please with a cherry on top?!?!

My Etsy

THANKS EVERYONE!

Scrapjack - Christy Berkhouse

2008-02-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

This is my layout for Scrapjack - Christy Berkhouse. It's a picture of Red from this summer. I don't really remember what she was doing, but she had such a serious expression on her face.

Unpubbed - Open Call

2008-02-08T20:41:00.001-08:00

This is probably one of my favorite layouts that I've done recently. It is an overview of our 2006 trip to Atlantis. The papers just all seem to go with the pictures - I love the layout (based on a sketch by Becky Higgins) - and the A for Atlantis is actually cut out from a cardboard coaster that I brought back from Atlantis.

etsy

2008-02-06T11:58:00.001-08:00

I'm going to start up an Etsy shop. I have a few things that I've made that I could easily reproduce in different colors / styles /themes and put them up for sale over there. So if anyone (Michelle? because I think you're the only person to read this) has any suggestions for selling stuff on Etsy please share the love. :)

And I thought this would motivate me!

2008-02-01T08:12:00.001-08:00

I thought - mistakenly - that having a blog about scrapbooking would motivate me to actually DO some scrapbooking. How wrong I was. However, I did add a couple new links over there under Challenges & Inspiration. And I'm looking at adding a calendar that lists when different challenges and publication submissions are due.

AND last night, I finally actually really started cleaning up that huge mess I showed you earlier.

AND expect some new layouts this weekend. On Sunday I'm going to a Superbowl party with my Sunday school class. And there's a few of us that scrapbook so we're planning to bring our scrapbooking stuff and doing that while other people watch the Superbowl.

room

2008-01-26T09:18:00.001-08:00

My scrapbook room looks like a scrapbook store exploded in here. Or like a tornado hit it. Or something else equally as destructive. My goal for today is to make it so that I can actually scrapbook in my room rather than taking what I need to the dining room table or livingroom floor. Here are the before pictures:

3 new layouts

2008-01-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

These layouts are for my sister-in-law's 2007 album.

This is from when we went to Branson summer 2007. The first night we were there when went on the Showboat Branson Belle.

This layout is from Sketch 66 at the Pencil Lines Sketch blog. The pictures were taken at my parent's house on Christmas Eve when we opened all our presents.

This is my mom's open house. She has one every couple of years. (That's my brother wearing the snowflake headband. He put it on as a joke, then was wondering around taking pictures of the food before everyone showed up and he noticed that I was taking pictures of him. When I told him he looked funny in the snowflake headband, he stopped, reached up and felt his head and said, "Oh, I forgot I even had it on!" and then took it off and put it on his wife's head.

2008 Planner

2008-01-15T20:06:00.000-08:00

So, the project. Oh, I love the project. It makes me happy. See, back in November-ish (maybe December), I dunno. Ruben and I were at JoAnn's. And we found these not so cute, yet completely functional 2008 Daily Planners. I knew I used my 2007 planner a whole ton and needed one for 2008 and really, while not cute, the JoAnn's ones were only a $1. So if something better (cuter, functional AND not too expensive) came along, I could buy it without feeling bad about wasting the $1 one. Well, 2008 came. And I still had no planner and didn't actually know *where* the $1 one was! I eventually found it, filled it out and stuck it in my purse. Then on Monday, I was looking at it and thought to myself, "you know, attaching a piece of ribbon to this to use as a bookmark would make it easier to find this week." Then I took the planner out of it's completely functional, yet not cute, cover and thought about how I would attach the ribbon. Which lead to, "Well, if I'm attaching ribbon, I ought to just cover the whole thing with paper and make it PRETTY!" So, on Monday night, I pulled out my planner and looked at it and remember all the hard work I did putting all the nights I tutor in it and all of Red's activities that I know about already and what not. And then I remembered the we also bought Ruben one of these so really, I'm going to be trying something new on it, I ought to do it with the one that doesn't have lots of stuff written in it already. Ruben called me a jerk (lovingly) for that train of thought, but gave me his planner and picked out his paper and I set to work.

It was mostly done Monday night. I just needed to glue the folded over inside tabs on the back and stamp "Planner 2008" on the front. And so now it is done. AND since his appears to have survived, I will soon (tonight/tomorrow) be doing my planner! Only with different paper. I thinking black with the shiny pink hearts from the Rockstar stack.

I tried to find more of these to alter and sell on Etsy, but there were none to be found. :(

I can't wait!

2008-01-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

I started a new project late last night. I didn't get it quite finished. Maybe 10-15 more minutes worth to do but I had to let it dry and it was late enough that I needed to sleep. But it is so freaking awesome looking. I can't wait to share! Maybe tonight! :)

Unpubbed - Open Call

2008-01-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

This isn't really my normal style. This is a layout that I did for my step-daughter's album for when she had a friend sleepover. My favorite part of it is the letters that say Sleepover. I printed them on tracing paper (basically like thin vellum) and then cut them out and stuck them on. Not to difficult and I like the effect.

scraps-a-lot

2008-01-11T08:48:00.000-08:00

This blog will serve as my scrapbooking blog. I'm keeping my Step-mommyhood blog, but since it is mostly about personal stuff, I thought I'd start up a new blog for my scrapbooking. Hopefully I will also start posting some tips/techniques type of thing at least once a week (or every other week).