Purge Blog Hop / Blog Candy Winner

Hi there! Just a quick post to announce the winner of my Purge Blog Hop / Blog Candy! Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by the blog to comment and play along in the giveaway. We had such a good response to our giveaway and have already been talking about doing this again in a few months!!

I used Random.org to choose a winner - congratulations to Heather, from the blog Wire Wrapture, who said "I think one of those SU! punches is one I've had my eye on for years. How great would it be to win it!? But I'm not picky, your whole giveaway looks amazing. Thanks for the chance to win."

Heather, please e-mail me with your mailing address (must be within the United States as stated in the original Purge Blog Hop post!) and full name and I will get your goodies out to you right away! You have until Saturday afternoon, February 4 to claim your goodies! :-) You can e-mail me at JenTapler at gmail dot com, or just click on the "View Complete Profile" in the top right of my sidebar over there and you'll find a link to e-mail me.

Thanks again everyone for the great response to our giveaway and congrats Heather!

January 2012 SFYTT, Post #3

We're in the final days of January and that means you only have a few more days to get those Sketch For You to Try creations submitted!! The SFYTT Sisters are all playing with the sketch for a final time in the last days of the month, be sure you play along with us! Here's my 3rd card using this month's fabulous sketch:


Our sponsor this month is The Cat's Pajamas and once again I played with another one of their adorable sets. This time I paper pieced that fun bear from Bear Hugs with some of the same printed digi papers I used on the rest of my card. Those papers are from the I Like Love You kit by Dani Mogstad (Sweet Shoppe).


Come on and join us! Remember, there's a HUMONGOUS prize package available for participants at the end of the year, but you're only eligible to win if you play along each month! All of the details can be found on THIS POST on Jen's Blog.

Sweet Sunday Sketch #151

It's Sunday! And it's a Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge week!! YAY! Karen has a fun sketch for us this week AND we have a fabulous Guest Sweet Sunday Stamper joining us. But first, here's a look at this week's sketch:


My MoJo seems to be in hiding right now and I'm NOT loving what I came up with for my sample card this week. I do like the sketch, but I just couldn't get it together.


I think it's that bland color scheme. It's just not doing it for me and then I had a lot of trouble finding the right stamp set that didn't just get lost in all that red, Kraft and chocolate. Finally I just grabbed my new, uninked Happy Day set from PTI and just made it work. Not my favorite card that's for sure, but it's done!

I'm sure the other Sweet Sunday Stampers did a much better job with the sketch, so head on over to their blogs and check it out:

• Dana White
  
• Karen Motz
• Karen Giron
  
• Lynn Put
• Sarah-Jane Kale'
  
• Vicki Burdick

AND...we're super excited to welcome our very first Guest Sweet Sunday Stamper, Anita Madden!! Be sure to stop by and see what she's created with this week's sketch too and give her a big congrats on her guest gig! :-)

Then play along with us and post your own creation using InLinkz over on today's post on Karen's Blog!

Project Life 2012 - Week 3

January is just flying by, isn't it? I really can't explain how happy I am that I'm doing Project Life. Not only has it changed the way I scrapbook, but I really think it's helping me to slow down and ENJOY the little day to day, small moments that really are what life is all about. I'm kind of disappointed that I waited this long to get started on something like this. But anyway, here is a look at my Week 3. A lot more journaling this week. I like how it's flexible that way - some weeks seem like they'll be way more photo-heavy and some weeks more word-heavy. And that's OK.

And here's a closer look at the left side of the layout, which features the first half of my "Weekly Overview" journaling card, a screen capture from my phone of the rather boring 7-day forecast for Kahului, photos of Joel and I on MLK, Jr day when we participated in Kaiser's (my employer) Community Day of Service by painting Ka Hale O Ke Ola Homeless Resource Center, a small photo of my completed (finally!) December Daily album, Dean at the dentist on Wednesday as well as our reminder card, and a set of photos from a family hike we did on Sunday - I used the Flip Pockets again as well as some 4x6 templates in order to fit in several photos from that hike.

Here's a few closer shots of some of the details:



And a look at the right side of the layout:

This week I took a quick photo of and journaled about the gas prices on Maui - mostly because I'm annoyed that they never seem to go down. It seems like they've stayed right at $4.37-4.47 for most of the past year - except when they've been higher. It seems like we've never been lower than $4.37 a gallon in a few years here on Maui, yet Oahu gas prices are regularly less than $4.00 a gallon. How is that right!? Anyway, moving on...I also documented the tough time Dean seems to be having with losing during Family Game Nights at this age (5 yrs old). He doesn't take it well, but we're working on it! The rest of the week was pretty uneventful until the weekend. I had book club Friday night and journaled about that (bottom left). Saturday was a busy day - Dean and I had breakfast at Krispy Kreme (ugh) while Joel got some yardwork done, we went to a fun birthday party at Maui Mini Golf, and then Joel and Dean did some fishing and grilling and guy stuff at the beach Saturday night with Joel's friend Vince.

Here's a closer look at some of the details:
And that about sums it up. Working on my album a little at a time throughout the week is still working well for me. I'm using a lot of printed digital elements and for the most part still printing at home. I do a little bit of something - whether it's printing out a photo or journaling card or sticking a bit of something into a pocket - almost every day. Sunday seems to be my day for wrapping it all up and mostly just finishing those Week in Review journal cards. So far it's been a pretty busy year so I've had lots to photograph and say. I am a little concerned about the boring weeks - but I'll deal with that when it comes up. I did have an empty 3x4 pocket this week and just filled that with one of the little "filler" cards from the turquoise digi kit and that seems to have worked out just fine. I'm sure I can manage to do that when I need to.

So is everyone still OK with me sharing this here? I'm considering moving these posts over to my Family Blog instead because I think family would enjoy seeing them and I'm not sure if my regular blog readers really care about this much detail about my day to day life?? Is it weird?

InLinkz.com

January 2012 SFYTT, Post #2

Hi there! Have you had a chance to play along with the January Sketch For You To Try yet? You've got until January 31st at midnight, so there's still plenty of time to create something and it's a SUPER fun sketch this month!


Don't forget we have a fabulous sponsor this month - The Cat's Pajamas!


Today, half of the SFYTT Sisters are posting another sample on their blogs using this month's sketch. I decided to create another Valentine's Day card using another fun set from TCP:


Isn't that penguin the cutest? Those papers are all printed digi papers from Crystal Wilkerson's Vintage Cupcake Collection (links to individual paper packs at the bottom of the post). The stamp set is TCP's Got Love, one of my favorites from them!

Be sure to stop by these other SFYTT Sisters' blogs to see what they're sharing today with this month's sketch!

Jen del Muro
Carole Burrage
Jodi Collins
Kerry Johnson
Megan Lock
Susan Liles

InLinkz.com

Purge Blog Hop

One girl's junk is another girl's treasure, right? Or something like that?? Well, my junk pile is getting out of control. A few blogging friends and I are having a hard time letting go of some of our much loved crafting goodies. The only way we can part with them is if we have a party and share them with all of you, knowing they are going to someone wants them and will use them. So we are having a Purge Hop!

It’s starting today and running for a whole week! Comment once on the hop spots you want a chance to win and tell us what you spy as your favorite item. The hop will stay open until January 28th, 5PM ET. Each of my friends and I will post a winner from our Purge Hop posts on Monday, January 30th! Unfortunately, because of high shipping costs and the weight of the items I'm giving away, I can only ship to U.S. addresses - so the giveaway is open to U.S. residents only - Sorry!

So here's a peek at what I'm giving away - it's mostly lots of embellishments - ribbons, brads, chipboard, glitter, stickles, rub-ons, etc. There are a couple of Stampin' Up punches, some random stamp sets from various manufacturers, and lots of 6x6 patterned papers. I'm not going to list everything that's here so please don't ask!! It's FREE people. If it looks good to you and you think you want it, comment. ;-) LOL. Basically all of this stuff fills up a Medium Flat Rate USPS Priority Mail Box (I'll be covering the cost of shipping to the winner).


Here's a list of the other participants in the Purge Hop:

Tosh

Andrea

Maureen

Sony

Laurie

Julee

Janelle

Betty
Teresa

Project Life 2012 - Week 2

I'm sticking with it! And I'm still LOVING IT! This is going to be another long post with lots of photos and blah blah, so prepare yourself! First off, here's a look at Week 2 as it will look inside my album (once I finally get my album), with the inserts in place - I have 2 inserts this week - you should be able to click on any photos to see them larger or read the journaling. {side note: links to all products can be found at the end of this post}


I was so excited that one of my favorite designers, Karen Lewis, released some fun new journaling cards last week that were the perfect size for Project life. I used both the Wellington Document Pack and Wellington Document Pack 2 as well as the full Wellington Designer Kit (for the number 2 and some random embellishments) this week. Here's a look at both the left and right pages with the inserts removed:

And how about a closer look at all of it? First, the left side of the page, which basically covers Sunday through Wednesday.

Because I seemed to have more to say this week than last, I couldn't fit my "Weekly Overview" onto one card, so I split it in half and put it on two cards. A look at the first half pretty much sums up the left side of the page, except I didn't mention that amazing full rainbow I caught over our house after dropping Dean off at school Wednesday morning. The photo is probably self-explanatory though.

The first insert for this week is actually a 8.5x11 insert that I just cut down to the size I needed, then used my sewing machine to close up the right side, leaving the top open. I slipped in part of Dean's Kindergarten Progress Report from school, which we received on Tuesday. The front has a really cute self portrait. I added some journaling to include a snippet of what his teacher had written on his more formal report card.

For the second insert, I used the Words and Photos 6x12 Layered Templates by Ali Edwards (Designer Digitals), slipped into one of the 6x12 page protectors. There were a couple of longer stories from this week that I definitely wanted to remember and this was a great way to capture those memories. I added just a couple of applicable small photos to the top of the template. I slipped a painting Dean did on Friday night into the protector behind the template (and the back side), cutting it down to the right size. LOVE this.

And finally, the right side of the layout. We had to buy Dean new Keens this week and they arrived Thursday. A piece of the box made a nice insert. I finished a great book on Wednesday (Cleopatra's Daughter) and printed out a photo of that along with a "1 of 24" sentiment flag - you may remember from Week 1 that I set a goal to read 24 books in 2012. I also created a little pull-out envelope to hold some important receipts from this week (the Vitamixer, Dean's Keens, as well as a few other purchases for the house). We had a family game night Friday night and spent a fun afternoon at Kamehameha III Beach Park Saturday for a baby luau (first birthday party). I also captured a photo of Dean playing on one of the Kindle Fires this week and created a little collage of some of his favorite Kindle Apps, which I think will be fun to look back on years from now.

I thought I'd mention that I started participating in Cathy Zielske's Move More, Eat Well class this week. I'm not a very good student. I think it's hard for me to be motivated mostly because I don't need to lose weight. However, I definitely DO need to exercise more and eat a lot healthier than I do. I'm now 35 years old and starting to both look and feel my age, which I don't like. I also have a 5-year-old son who I probably need to start setting a better example for. So, yeah. Old habits die hard. And my theory is they die harder when there's very little extrinsic motivation (such as the need to lose weight) to kill them. (especially when it's not really socially acceptable for a thin girl to talk about these things as if they were a "struggle". I get that). Moving on.

And finally here's a closer look at that 2nd half of the "Weekly Overview" journaling card:


That about sums it up! I'm still keeping things pretty simple with this. I've found that I'm working on my layouts a little bit here and a little bit there throughout the week and that seems to be working out pretty well so far. I've been printing my photos at home, which I didn't think I was going to do because I worried about the print quality. There are a few photos that I love that I think I'll go ahead and have re-printed from Persnickety Prints, which is also where I'll be ordering my 6x12 templates from now on. I had the 6x12 insert from this week printed at Costco and it really looks terrible. The photos at the top are awful - they're so dark. I had it printed on a 12x12 sheet along with another 6x12 that was intended to go in front of my Title Page, but that page looked SO BAD that I actually threw it in the trash. The colors were so completely off that it was ridiculous - I should have returned it, but Costco is one of my least favorite places to go. Actually, maybe I should dig that print out of the trash and do a comparison post when I receive my new one from Persnickety (and then take them both in to Costco to show them how bad theirs is). We'll see. Anyway, I had a point with this rambling. Oh yeah. I seem to be someone who just works on Project Life a little bit every couple of days. When I have a photo or story I want to include, I go ahead and add it in rather than waiting until the end of the week. I keep seeing blog posts with all of these fancy planning pages and such and I'm just not putting that much thought or time into mine. This project for me is more about just getting it done and capturing my family's memories.

InLinkz.com