Monday, January 16, 2012

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.





Sunday, January 15, 2012

Sweet Sunday Sketch #150

Well, I'm super late with this post for no other reason than I just completely forgot to make my sample card! Seriously. Dropping down to every other week for the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge has completely thrown me off I guess! I was browsing through Pinterest this morning and I saw that sweet Nancy Riley had the sketch pinned and I was like "What is she doing? We haven't done that sketch yet. She can't post that", completely ignoring the fact that Nancy is no longer on the team! LOL. And then it hit me. I swore a couple of times and quickly figured out what I wanted to do, sent an e-mail to the rest of the gang promising to get right to work, and then I went on a hike with my family! ha! I was already late, so what the hell. Anyway, here's this week's sketch, which I'm sure you've all already seen by now:


And here's a look at my hybrid card, using some of the fabulous new Verve stamps that just released Friday night as well as a new digi kit by Libby Pritchett (one of my favorite combos)!!


First off, those fun (and much more girly than is typical of me) papers are from the new Love You Out Loud kit by Libby Pritchett (Sweet Shoppe). I also used the new Wings of Love stamp set by Verve, which is seriously such a fun set! The "be mine" sentiment is from the older Love Notes set. And that's about it. So easy!

Be sure to stop by all the Sweet Sunday Stampers' blogs and see what they've done with this week's sketch.
Then play along with us and post your own creation using InLinkz over on today's post on Karen's Blog!

I'll be back sometime tomorrow with a look at my Project Life 2012 Week 2!! Still loving that project! :-)





Sunday, January 8, 2012

Project Life 2012 - Week 1

Well, I've decided to jump on board the Project Life bandwagon this year and for the first time in a very long time I'm getting back to my traditional paper scrapbooking roots and creating a "real" scrapbook! I just wrapped up Week 1 of my Project Life 2012 and I have to say - I'm LOVING this style of scrapbooking!! And overall I'm pretty happy with how my first layout turned out. I'll mostly be using the Design A pages, although I haven't committed to an album yet. I'll also be adding in a variety of different sized protectors throughout the year depending on the different "stuff" I have to add - you can see below that I've already added a few extra inserts. I did purchase 2 of the core "paper" kits (Turquoise and Clementine), but then I also bought and downloaded a few things from the digital version of the Cobalt kit, printed and used it for week 1 and I'm already using some other printed digi goodies for week 2. So I'm definitely taking a hybrid approach to my Project Life.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and get on with it. Links for all of the products I used can be found at the end of the post. Please tell me what you think. Are you doing Project Life this year? Have you found any good inspiration links? Please share! I'm compiling a Project Life Inspiration Pinterest Board and I'd love to fill it up!!

Here's a look at both pages for Week 1 as they'll look together in my album:


The "Photo a Day" approach definitely does NOT work for our family - I work part-time as a Physical Therapist 3 days/week and those work days are LOOONG (10 hours) and photos just don't usually get taken on those days. Because usually we just don't do much as a family on those days (although I plan to journal if Joel and Dean or my Mom and Dean do something fun after school - but neither Joel nor my Mom is great about taking photos. It just is what it is). So anyway, my Project Life will be more of a "Weekly Overview" type of project. Which I like. Some weeks will be busier and have more stuff (and likely more inserts), some weeks will be more boring and have more pockets with just embellishments to fill up the space. I'm OK with that.

Here's a look at the left-hand page. Week 1 was pretty full. Joel and Dean had an "adventure" on Sunday where they spent the morning at the beach and then went and saw the movie Chipwrecked. I stayed home and did some cleaning and laundry and grocery shopping, which almost always means 2 stops - Safeway and Whole Foods. Monday was a holiday for both Joel and I, but Dean spent the day and night with my Mom, which meant a rare Date Night!! (we went to the movie Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).


And the right-hand page with a look at a few inserts, including an altered page protector that I cut down and sewed closed to hold a small drawing Dean made of a Color Wheel (along with some journaling). Also on Monday Joel took the Christmas lights down from the 3 big Palm Trees in our front yard. The rest of the week was filled with back to work and back to school after a lot of time off during the holidays. Saturday we went on a hike in the morning and then had a family "Slumber Party" in the living room - ordering pizza and watching the movie Rango while snuggled in our sleeping bags (and spending the night on the living room floor - Dean LOVED this!).

Here you can see the page with the color wheel insert turned over, out of the way. This reveals the rest of the page - the tag from my new chair at work that we received on Thursday (big excitement over this!), and a few other things.


Probably my favorite 2 inserts from Week 1 are these 2 3x4 cards - one capturing a conversation between myself and Dean and the other a small clipping from some of his doodled artwork he created while waiting for dinner to be ready Friday evening. Both a perfect capture of Dean right now and a perfect example of why I'm doing this project!

2 more 3x4 inserts this week - a "2012 Goals" freebie from the Plucky Momo blog (she's doing a Project Life freebie every friday!) and a journaling card with our "Week in Review". I plan to do some type of Week in Review each week. Loved how this turned out.

I can already tell the hardest thing for me with Project Life will be narrowing down my photo selections to just a few photos for each "event". We basically had two real outings as a family this past week - we went to the beach and we went on a hike out in Makena (King's Highway Trail) and both outings resulted in about 50 photos each. Picking just a few photos to tell the story for each event was agonizing for me. And that's what's nice about these extra inserts! For the beach trip, I just used up a few of the pockets from the first page protector. For our hike, I added a Flip Pocket and also used a 4x6 Template to create a photo collage for the bottom photo. It worked out great! You'll probably be seeing this a lot.

So that's it. Week 1 is done!! I am on a mission to finish all 52 weeks this year and to stay fairly caught up throughout the year. I'll try to share my pages with you here. Hopefully someone will find something inspiring. If you do, please let me know! Thanks!

Products Used:





Saturday, January 7, 2012

January 2012 SFYTT


It's finally here! A new year, a new first Saturday of the month, and a new Sketch For You to Try!! Lots of exciting things in store for participants of the monthly SFYTT this year, including a chance to win another fabulous huge prize package at the end of the year!! All of the details can be found on today's post over on Jen's blog, with some of the details outlined in the "In a Nutshell" graphic at the end of this post.


So, first things first...we're kicking 2012 off not only with a super fun sketch but with an awesome sponsor, The Cat's Pajamas!

And how about a look at the new sketch, which quickly went into my "favorites" folder to be used again and again (do I say that every month?)


I created a fun hybrid card using the Happy Camper stamp set from the Cat's Pajamas and some printed digi papers from a few different paper packs by Crystal Wilkerson (individual links at the end of this post).


Be sure to stop by the rest of the SFYTT Sisters' blogs to see what they've done with this month's sketch!

Jen del Muro
Amber Hight
Amy Sheffer
Becky Carafa
Carole Burrage
Iwona Palamountain (Chupa)
Jodi Collins
Kerry Johnson
Megan Lock
Susan Liles







Thursday, January 5, 2012

Verve Diva Inspirations January 2012 Blog Hop

Hey there Verve Fans! Welcome to the first Verve Diva Inspirations Hop of the New Year! We'll be bringing our Inspiration Creations to you on a new day of the month (the 5th) this year, so mark your calendars and join us for a little Verve Inspiration using some of those past Verve sets from your stash (or the ones you've had your eye on in the store for awhile!).

You can start the hop at the beginning on the Verve Blog and continue on through each fabulous blog - be sure to leave a little comment love along the way and you just might win some Verve goodies of your own! If you arrived here from the talented Jen d's blog, then you're on the right track!

Since I was so bad about making and sending Christmas cards this year, I decided to get an early headstart on Valentine's cards! I pulled out some of my favorite love-themed Verve sets and got to work creating my first Valentine of the year!


That heart DP is from the With Love collection by Pebbles. I love it. I also created some of my own DP with the "be mine" stamp from Heart's Desire. I don't do that very often because it's time consuming and honestly kind of hard to line up those words all even like (and you all know I'm not one for doing anything that takes a long time!), but I'm really liking how this turned out. I just might have to twist my own arm and try it again. The focal image (can it really be called an image? large sentiment? Whatever.) is from an extremely versatile set that I really don't use often enough - Sweet on You. I just LOVE that scalloped border (and am set on convincing Julee we need a set of 2 dies to go with it - one for just cutting out the whole thing and another one for cutting out the inside oval to make a frame. Now quick! Everyone start bugging Julee about this so my evil plan will work! bwahahaha). I also added a little flagged "xoxo" sentiment to the bottom, from the Love Notes set. And I know it's really hard to see in the photo, but there's a little felt flower under that red button, that was cut out using one of the From the Heart Dies - it looks really cute in real life, trust me!

OK, that's it from me. Now head on over to the boss-lady herself, Julee's blog, for some awesome eye candy! She's next in line on the hop!

And one final reminder, be sure to mark your calendars for the upcoming Release Party, Friday, January 13, 9:00 pm Eastern in the Verve Forum!! The Release Team will be sharing creations using the fabulous new stamps and dies that you won't want to miss!!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Sweet Sunday Sketch #149

ETA: I have been trying to post this for more than 24 hrs. Sorry it's so late! I'm not sure what's going on, but our internet has been so sloooow! I've had the post all typed up and ready to go for 2 days, but I couldn't get my photos to load!! ugh. Anyway, better late than never right?

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season and is having an amazing start to 2012. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to spend less time "plugged in" and more time unplugged just enjoying togetherness with my family. So, much like the past few months, you'll probably continue to see these sporadic posts from me. I've cut WAY back on my Design and Creative Team commitments and I have to say, it feels really good to have the extra time with my family! I will be scrapbooking a little more this year and am still trying to decide how much of that to share here - I'll be doing Project Life and continuing to digi scrap as well. I'm just not sure how much you guys really want to see that? I'd love to hear if you're interested in having me share my scrapbooking with you? It seems like when I do share my scrapbooking layouts I don't get much (if any) response, so honestly I just don't want to waste my time writing up blog posts if nobody really cares ya know? ;-) I just about have my December Daily album finished, if anyone is interested in having me post my completed pages, let me know and I'll take some photos and share it.

OK, anyway, moving on to the reason you're all here...It's a New Year of Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenges!! And 2012 is bringing a few exciting changes to the Challenge - first off instead of a weekly challenge, you'll be getting a new Sweet Sunday Sketch every other week in 2012!! Also, there will be chances to earn a Guest Designer gig with the Sweet Sunday Stampers team just by playing along with us! More details over on Karen's Blog. And finally, this year the sketch will periodically have a sponsor!! How cool is that?

And this week just happens to have our first sponsor - Sparkle Creations! Play along with the sketch below before Friday, January 13 (post links on the Sweet Sunday Sketch #149 post on Karen's Blog), for a chance to win Charlotte with a Rose AND Scooter Chloe! You can enter as many times as you want, so start creating!!


Fun sketch, right?

So I decided to pull out some neglected Verve for my card this week and came up with this:


Those papers are printed digi papers from the new Pipe Dreams kit by Libby Pritchett (Sweet Shoppe) - it's actually a Super Mario themed kit that is SUPER cute! Be sure to check it out if you have any gamers in your family! I used Verve's Up Up and Away stamp set for the hot air balloon and my all-time favorite, Bountiful Backgrounds, for the sentiment. Quick and Easy - just how I like 'em!

Be sure to stop by all the Sweet Sunday Stampers' blogs and see what they've done with this week's sketch.
Then play along with us and post your own creation using InLinkz over on today's post on Karen's Blog!