Project Life 2014 - Weeks 21 & 22

Moving right along with my blog post catch-up to Weeks 21 & 22...

Week 21: May 18 - May 21, 2014

Around here, I started crocheting a baby blanket. Joel picked up a new indoor grill. I made a batch of soap. We drove up to the summit of Haleakala to watch a meteor shower. Dean got a new computer to use in a new school situation for the 2014-2015 school year. And, my favorite, Dean was absolutely certain Tulip the cat wanted to take a selfie.

I used lots of printables from Emily Merritt (now retired) along with cards from the Jade Core Kit this week and little tags added to photos for detail. The name of the game this year is keeping things simple.

Week 22: May 25 - May 31, 2014:

Around here, Joel brought home flowers. Dean did a fun science experiment from his favorite new book, Dr. Mollie Cule Reboots the Robot .  Dean and I watched the live stream of the Hokule'a launch on the first leg of it's Worldwide Journey (if you're not familiar with Hokule'a, please read about it here. It is simply amazing. And you can follow the crew and their beautiful journey on Instagram @hokuleawwv). Dean wrapped up the end of 2nd grade and will be trying out something different next year - we finished the year both excited and nervous for new educational adventures! And I finished the baby blanket I started the previous week.

This week I used lots of Becky Higgins products - a self portrait card from the Bridgeport Childhood Mini Kit (not sure that's still available) and several cards from the Happy Core Kit.

And that wraps up 2 more weeks! I'll be back soon with more. Have a great week!

Project Life 2014 - Weeks 19 & 20

Hi there! I'm back again today to continue with the Project Life blog catch-up. Today I'm sharing Weeks 19 & 20.

Week 19: May 4 - May 10, 2014

Around here, we settled back into our normal routine after a week of vacation - never easy! I started a crocheted teacher's gift (pencil scarf). We celebrated Boy's Day and our favorite boy. Lots of Lego creations. Dean and I spent a fun day together in Lahaina. Dean started reading the Harry Potter series.

This week I used cards from the Becky Higgins Coral Edition along with a few printables by Emily Merritt (now retired) and embellishments from Studio Calico.

Week 20: May 11 - May 17, 2014

Around here, we celebrated Mother's Day with brunch at Five Palms Restaurant in Kihei with my Mom Sunday morning. Dean and I made our Summer Fun Bucket List. Dean worked a little bit on his Lego Ewok Village. We met Sarah and Brooklyn at the beach in Wailea for dinner and sunset Friday evening.

This week I used lots of printables by Emily Merritt (now retired) and a few card from Becky Higgins kits (I don't remember now which ones). Very little embellishment this week - nice & simple!

Project Life 2014 - Week 18 - Disneyland Trip

Today I'm sharing my Project Life pages that document a week-long Disneyland Trip we took in the spring! The 3 of us, along with my Mom (Tutu if you're a regular reader), flew in to LAX from Maui on Sunday, April 27 and used a Limo Service (really a fancy SUV) to get to the Disney Resort. We stayed at Disney's Grand Californian Resort & Spa and didn't leave the Disney property until heading back to the airport on Saturday, May 3 (that's just how we do Disney - if we're gonna do it, we're REALLY gonna do it). This time around, we purchased 5-day Park Hopper passes and spent a little time at both parks each day. However, the parks were PACKED this trip (when 2 years ago the same week they were pretty dead, so that was a little disappointing) and so many of the rides were closed (Indiana Jones, It's a Small World, Grizzly River Run, The Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo, and 2 or 3 others that I now can't remember, and Radiator Springs Racers had a lot of problems and was closed several hours each day) that it meant the lines for all the other rides were even longer. And Anaheim experienced record-breaking heat that week as well. Like temps were 100* almost every single day - something we are definitely NOT used to here on Maui. And finally, our first night in the hotel, after a very long day of travel, we were awakened in the middle of the night by the fire alarm - a very scary ordeal as the housekeeping staff continuously told us "this is real" and we had to evacuate very quickly in our PJs!! We then had to wait outside barely dressed and in bare feet for over an hour until we were given the "all clear" and headed back to our room, only to find our door handle broken and unable to get back inside - so, another hour-long wait for maintenance to come fix it, but it remained faulty for several days, making those late-night returns to the room even later as we again waited for maintenance to come let us back into our room. It was definitely not our best trip to Disney, but we made the most of it and still had a great time and made some pretty fantastic memories anyway. It will probably be quite some time before we talk Tutu into going back though. ;-)

So anyway, on to the Project Life pages...

Week 18: April 27 - May 3, 2014:

Above, you can see the left and right side pages, as well as several inserts, all layered together. I used printables from the Project Mouse Bundle (there are now several different versions of this available) by Sahlin Studio for some of the cards along with a few Becky Higgins cards and Emily Merritt (now retired) printables.

I added a Design H insert to hold some of the extra photos I wanted to include from the week. I will also be making a separate mini album from the trip, so didn't feel that much pressure to pick out the very best pictures - I mostly picked out my favorite group pictures that included all of us in different areas of the park so as to cover the entire week & / or if there were any special moments I wanted to capture.

One of my favorite inserts to include when I have tons of photos is a coin collection page - this is especially perfect for instagram photos and that's just what I used it for here. I did trim it down a bit and then printed lots of my favorite instagram photos from the trip and slipped them into the 2x2 inch pockets. Hint: if you don't want to overload your instagram feed with vacation photos while on vacation, you can still process the photos through instagram without actually publishing them. Just go far enough along that you get that "processing" screen and they'll show up in your Instagram album on your phone. (At least that's true with the Samsung Galaxy S5, which is the phone I have - I've never owned an iPhone, so I'm not 100% sure about that). Also of note, I didn't even take a regular camera on this trip - All of these photos were taken with our phones! My husband and I both have a Samsung Galaxy S5 and making the decision ahead of time not to take my big camera really took a lot of stress off of trying to get perfect photos! But we still managed to capture tons of great shots!

And finally, I used an 8.5x11 insert to hold maps, brochures, and other random keepsakes from the trip.

And that's it! A week of Disney perfectly captured in Project Life!

Project Life 2014 - Weeks 15, 16 & 17

I'm back today to share a few more weeks of my Project Life 2014 Album! Once again, in an effort to simplify the catching up process, I'm just going to keep the verbage to a minimum and just post the photos and a short blurb about the highlights of the week. If you have questions about any of the products used, please post a question in the comments and I'll add information as it's requested. I tend to use a combination of physical products from the Becky Higgins core kits and random Studio Calico products along with digital products from Emily Merritt (not retired) and Ali Edwards.

Week 15: April 6 - April 12, 2014

Around here, Game of Thrones Season 4 premiered. We attended the Artist in Me night at Dean's school. Joel and I purchased new phones (the Samsung Galaxy S5 - we've always been Galaxy users, never owned an iPhone).

Week 16: April 13 - April 19, 2014

Around here, Dean and I drove up to the summit of Haleakala to watch the Lunar Eclipse. We all celebrated Brooklyn's 3rd Birthday (we are dear friends with her Moms). We dyed Easter Eggs. Received a very special gift in the mail from sweet, sweet friends. Documented an historic selfie.

Week 17: April 20 - April 26, 2014

Around here, we celebrated Easter at Tutu's (my Mom's). Dean did an awesome job on his Endangered Species project at school. A lifelong friend arrived on Maui to housesit for us the following week while we went to Disneyland (stay tuned for my Disney layout soon!).

Project Life 2014 - Weeks 11, 12 & 13

Well, Aloha! I wonder if anyone's still out there reading this blog? I took the entire summer off from blogging and it was wonderful! I just wasn't feeling it and needed a break. I'm going to try again and just see how it goes and see if my heart's still in it at all. I'll start with trying to catch up on sharing my Project Life layouts and go from there. I've still been creating Project Life and am mostly caught up, as you probably know if you follow me on Instagram (@JenTapler).  So my plan is for the next several posts I'll be posting multiple weeks at a time to attempt to get somewhat caught up with sharing and keep the chit chat to a minimum. If there are questions about product used, please post a comment and I'll come back and add that information as it's requested. Thanks for sticking with me!

Week 11: March 9 - March 15, 2014

Around here, Dean had a tourist friend back on island, we started watching the series Cosmos (Dean loved it), I finished up another awesome Clay class at the Hui, and we got lots of rain.

Week 12: March 16 - March 22, 2014:

Around here, the weather continued to be awesome - nice and cool! Joel played golf in Pukalani with Vince and Tina. St. Patrick's Day was this week. Dean and I used our season passes and spent a morning at the Maui Ocean Center. Joel and Dean went to see the new Muppets movie. Lots of Mario Kart.

Week 13: March 23 - March 29, 2014:

Around here, Dean went golfing with Joel at the Dunes at Maui Lani. I did lots of crocheting and made my first batch of all-natural lip balm. Dean and I tried Wow Wow Lemonade for the first time. Dean made an awesome diorama about the book The Secret Zoo for a school assignment.

And that's it. I previously shared Week 14 HERE, so be sure to check that out if you missed it. I'll try to be back soon with Weeks 15, 16 & 17 and more.

Project Life 2014 - Weeks 9 & 10

Well hi there! It's been over a month since I blogged - a very busy month with a week-long trip to Disneyland, Joel finishing up his first year of grad school, lots of end-of-the-year activities going on at school for Dean, etc etc. So I have a bit of catching up to do with sharing Project Life here on the blog. I also have a few non-Project Life posts planned soon, so we'll see how that goes.

Week 9: February 23 - March 1, 2014:

This was the week I spent a long weekend on Oahu - the purpose of the trip was Continuing Education (Vestibular Rehab - which is basically Physical Therapy treatment of vertigo and balance disorders), but I made it a longer than necessary trip so I could hang out with Aunty Les and do some shopping (she took me to several really nice yarn shops and a Korean store and I spent lots of time at Ala Moana). I also got to meet my Instagram friend Erin. While I was gone, Joel and Dean went rollerblading and generally made a mess of the house. 

For product, I used the Sunshine Core Kit along with a few Emily Merritt products - Happy Place, Spring is Coming, and Dotted Numbers. I also added a few cards and embellishments from Studio Calico.

Week 10: March 2 - March 8, 2014:

Pretty chill week around here, lots of time at home. I started watching House of Cards and then spent countless hours in front of the TV doing nothing else. I volunteered in the school library. Lots of rain again this week (we don't mind, Maui needs it!), and I spent some time in the Ceramics Open Studio.

Product Used: Coral Core Kit, various Studio Calico embellishments, and a few more Emily Merritt goodies - Spring is Coming and Big Number Week Cards No. 2.

And there you have Weeks 9 & 10!

Just a note to say that I've been getting quite a bit of spam in my comments lately, so I might be making some changes to the comment thing on my blog. I'm exploring that a bit - deciding between moderation and using a captcha. Any input? I don't get many comments at all, so moderation wouldn't be a big issue. Would love to hear some opinions on this.

I will be sharing a link to this post on The Mom Creative blog.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

Project Life 2014 - Week 14 - with Reverse Confetti

March 30 - April 5, 2014:

Hello April and Hello REVERSE CONFETTI Fans!  I'm so excited to be hopping along again with the Reverse Confetti Design Team and Special Guests in this month's Blog Hop! As has been my standard when I play along with the Confetti Crew, I created another Project Life layout this month - incorporating my favorite new and past stamp sets into my spread, both on journaling cards and directly on my photos to help tell the story of our daily lives. I used my new Class Act stamp set along with several of my older Reverse Confetti stamp sets in this week's layout. 

The hop started over on the Reverse Confetti Blog and you should have made it here from the amazing Amy Sheffer's blog. It would be worth your while to start at the beginning of the hop so you don't miss a thing. We have tons of inspiration for you to see using all of Reverse Confetti's amazing stamp sets!

Along with the new Class Act stamp set, I dug into my Reverse Confetti stash and used a few of my old favorites, including Take Note, Lighthearted Letters, and Celebrate Cake as well as the flag-ended banner die from the Tag Me Confetti Cuts die set. All of these stamp sets are perfect for using on Project Life Pages and went well with The Good Life Emily Merritt printables I used this week along with a few random Becky Higgins journal cards I added in.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hopping with us today. Be sure and hop with us on the 8th of EVERY MONTH for more REVERSE CONFETTI inspiration! Now it’s time to hop on over to Sarah Gough's blog. If you get lost along the way, you can find the hop order and list of all the participating designers over on the Reverse Confetti blog. Also, for you cardmakers, don't forget...April’s SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY is open for you to play along.

How would you like to win some Reverse Confetti goodies of your very own? Leave a comment on each stop along the way for a chance to win a $15 gift certificate to REVERSE CONFETTI. Comments are open until Thursday, April 10 at noon CST, and the winner will be announced on the Reverse Confetti Blog!