Project Life, week 4

The full spread:

Left page:
Jacob at the dentist; Jacob playing with my phone (backside of the MME paper from last week, OA label sticker); BH double journaling card talking about the dentist; BH journaling card with a business card where we had our date lunch; BH blank journaling card with a business card from where we had my car work done; DCWV Songbird paper leftovers with typed journaling of what songs we downloaded this month and the itunes gift card; pic of Brandon and his friends getting read for camping with a bit of Love, Elsie scrap paper and an AE stamped journaling block.

Right side:
Photo of me taken with the ipad; MME Lost and Found 6x6 paper cut down with MaMBI stickers; Crate Paper journal block; BH journal card with MM school metal die cut and typed journaling telling what classes Brandon signed up for at high school next year (Holy Crap!); pic of Rick and Brandon reading class descriptions with a Jillibean Soup sticker; collage of dinner and a movie for me and Terri; Crate Paper journal block with a pic of Jacob with this 3 lunchboxes of snacks for the trip to Dad's office; and a journal block about our normal/boring weekend (scrap paper cut with the MS fringe scissors, Echo Park house sticker and Bic Mark-its for the title).

365 Layouts total: 93 layouts and 3 mini albums.

Ditch the Kids Crop part 2

DCWV paper, MM glitter swirls, Heidi Swapp Ghost Letters, TH tags from the crop.
Deja Views text paper, strip of EP Winter Time paper.
So happy to use my MME snowman paper! It was probably the one time that orange winter paper would be appropriate :) QK letter die cuts.

365 Layouts total: 92 layouts and 3 mini albums.

Project Life, week 3

The full spread:

Left page:
"sketch" of Terri and I from Chuck E Cheese trimmed down to fit, collage of CEC pics made in Photosheet (Phototility); BH journaling card with a typed list of movies picked up at our closing Blockbuster with a few of the bar code stickers stuck on the bottom; BH journaling card with a photo card from CEC, Bic Mark-It marker for title; BH journaling card talking about Pinterest, BH journaling card with a Dove strawberry creme wrapper; part of a brownie mix box cut down and mounted on white cardstock, with an Avery file folder label with journaling about how I make the boys a treat each Wednesday; and a shot of my pinterest page.

Right side:
Title card is a piece of Crate paper from a 6x6 paper pad with the edges inked, Thickers letter stickers and an Avery file folder label with the dates stamped on it; pic of Brandon next to his dental xray with Thickers letter stickers; a Simple Stories journal card cutout with a pic of my new Fruit Ninja high score; BH journaling card with a photo of Jacob on the elevator at Rick's office with a heart punched out of some scrap paper; BH journlaing block talking about Brandon getting ready for braces; a Simple Stories journaling block with a typed recap of the week; BH double journaling card with a photo of our cupcakes from Gigi's cupcakes and talking about the crop; a BH filler card, scrap paper trimmed with the MS fringe scissors to mimic grass, and a StampinUp butterfly stamp stamped with Jenni Bowlin Lemon Drop ink with a pic from the crop; BH journal card with a pic of our "adult root beer floats" made with whipped cream vodka.
Someone asked how I print out the film strip photos from my iPad (the app I use is Pocketbooth). I sync the iPad to my computer and transfer the photos when prompted. Then I just open Microsoft Word and do insert-->photo-->from file. The first image above is how it drops it in with no editing from me. The second set is simply made smaller using the corner dragging tools.That's it, easy peasy.

3rd Annual Ditch the Kids Crop

Echo Park Splash paper set
More EP Spash. It's really one pieceof paper pieced together to make it look like I used two pieces. MM ribbon.
More EP Splash. The pennant at the top is part of a border strip. I trimmed around the pennants and since I didn't quite have enough, I also trimmed a pennant piece from a journaling card.
Not sure who the paper is by, but Deja Views die cuts, Heidi Swapp clear snowflakes, the white snowflake is a Jesse James button with the shank cut off, and MM ribbon.
MME paper and chipboard letters from the .99 section at Target.
New Echo Park winter paper kit and some old brown gingham ribbon.
More Echo Park winter paper and border sticker, and a glitter word sticker from Hobby Lobby.
Bella Blvd. paper, Deja Views word stickers and red gingham ribbon from Michaels. Considered using black and white photos for these to make it easier to find paper to match, but liked the color photos.
Basic Grey paper cut down and inked, and MM glitter swirls. Tim Holz giant tags (thanks Connie and Carolyn!)
More Echo Park winter paper kit. I like that they use the same color pallet for their holiday collections so papers can be matched up from year to year.
Echo Park paper, MM glitter swirls, TH tags.
Strips of Echo Park paper cut with a Martha Stewart border punch.
Recollections paper pad from Michaels.
More Recollections paper and stickers from Michaels, and word sticker from Hobby Lobby.

There are 4 more layouts that are mostly "done", just need either a title or some computer journaling.

365 Layouts total: 89 layouts and 3 mini albums.

Orlando vacation album, part 5

Older PC paper.
Feel like this layout is a little blah. Don't know what else to add, maybe some patterned paper under the main photo.
Brandon really likes the gator specialty paper, so it was good to finally get to use it...once I stole it back from him.
I like how this one turned out. Colorbok and MM paper, AC thickers stickers. Golden ginko leaves from Michaels.
No journaling, since the pics are pretty self-explanatory.
Ignore the use of the wrong stamp for the exclamation point. Should know better than to stamp while on the phone.

There are still Harry Potter layouts left to do for this vacation album, but I'm really tired of working on it, so I'm going to set them aside for now.

365 total: 75 layouts and 3 minibooks.

Project life, week 2

The full spread:

Still not sure if I'm going to decorate the title block each week or leave some of them like this.
Left side: PL title block, pic of Brandon and his friend Jason "building" a catapult, PL journal block talking about my new typewriter, OA journal block talking about the catapult, SS journal block talking about weeding through my paper stash for the upcoming crop, and a pic of Rick with the honey cornbread muffins for his office potluck, printed as a square in Phototility and mounted on BG Life of the Party paper.
Right side: photo of the after results of the boys' haircuts mounted on a SS journal card, the Shipley donut logo cut out of the donut box and mounted on a PL journal block with a list of our usual choices for our Sunday tradition, photos of the Monday rainstorm with info printed on a PL journal block, photo and journaling of Rick and Brandon getting ready for the 8th grade career day, with journaling by both of them (handwritten) on a PL large card. Weekly recap on a plain journal card with title handwritten with a Bic Mark-it marker and journaling typed. The blank journaling card is a spot to record the loss of my beloved Texans in the playoffs, but I need to wait awhile before I change out the color ink cartridge in the printer to print the logo (Jacob will go through an entire new cartridge in a day and I just changed it out 2 days ago.)

365 layouts total: 69 and 3 mini albums. Have a few more to post on the vacation album, but am waiting to finish one last layout so I can post them as a group.

Project Life week 1

The entire spread
Left side: Not real pleased with the Happy New Year block, so might change out the sticker letters to something more noticeable. The title block, laugh decorative block and the red edge journal block are from the Becky Higgins Clementine project life core kit. Photo of me was taken with, and edited on, my iPad and printed at home using Phototility (a free collage making software). That a boy (Crate Paper sticker) block tells about Brandon getting A/B honor roll (that's his actual report card on the bottom left). Journal block next to the stack of photos picture is a Simple Stories cut out block and is a weekly review typed up on the typewriter).The red edge block is a conversation between Rick and Jacob, written in their handwriting.
Right side: First block is a collage of tops from receipts from after Christmas sales (talked about in the blue edged journal block). Photo of the boys (printed at Walgreens) with a Doodlebug sticker, with another Doodlebug sticker adorned journal block below it, referencing Jacob's "school today?" dry spell coming to an end. Photo of the rose is mounted on a plain journaling block from the BH kit with journaling typed on the typewriter. Orange journaling block (stamped with an Ali Edwards stamps) talks about getting back to a routine. Photo collage of tv shows we are watching right now was made in Phototility. Photo of us printed at home.

365 Layouts total: 68 and 3 mini albums. (I'm totally counting my Project Life layouts, since they take as much time as a regular layout.)

Project Life setup

Project Life is the same as the Project365 album I did in 2010. I swore I was never going to do another one, or if I did, I would do it digital. I found that for me, a picture a day was restrictive and while I did end up taking pictures of little things that I wouldn't have otherwise, I chafed at the idea that I HAD to take a picture every day and some days found myself searching for something, anything to take a picture of. As a result, I took very little photographs for the first 3 or so months of 2011, and didn't really get into a photo groove until Easter. So, I'm as shocked as anyone that I decided to do it again this year, and not digitally. Since discovering Pinterest, I've found a plethora of Project Life ideas, and I realized that I could make the project anything that I want it to be. I'm still doing a weekly format, but making it a little more "me" with patterned paper and bits of ephemera here and there and am liking it so far. To make it easier to stay caught up, I created a little PL station on top of my wall o'baskets in my room:

Easy peasy. I have some paper, a pen and a stack of sticky notes right there with my album to jot little notes and slap a sticky note on the area of the page protector where I want something to go. My little printer (HP A646) sits right there so I can print out a pic straight from the camera or memory stick. In the drawer is my ink pad and date stamp (so Jacob doesn't have easy access to the ink pad), as well as extra photo paper. On the bottom shelf is this:
A file box I got from the office supply section of Walmart a few years ago. I was keeping dies for my die cut machine in there, but I don't have very many non-alpha dies, so they were easy to move elsewhere. I took all the components of my project life core kit (Clementine edition) out of their boxes, cut up the Simple Stories/Crate Paper/Echo Park accent sheets and added in a stack of precut 4x6 white cardstock, my October Afternoon journaling cards, cute little notepads and these:
Prestamped journaling squares. So far I'm liking the set up.

Orlando vacation album, part 4

The weather has either been windy or wet and windy, but I finally gave in and photographed them in order to get them off my desk. :)

Basic Grey paper and an image printed from google.
Uh, ditto from above, LOL. Still needs a strip of journaling along the bottom. Will probably add that this week, with my new typewriter (squeeeeeeee!!!! I know, I'm a dork.)
MME paper and a piece gold metallic pipe cleaner from one of Jacob's art projects (I had trimmed it down to use on a page, and had the leftover piece still on my desk.)
When I originally pulled papers for this layout, I had grabbed the Basic Grey archaic, but since I used that on all the Jurassic Park layouts, I didn't want to use it on this one, too (plus, I was kind of sick at looking at it.) So I went with my other tried and true dino set, MME and a journaling spot from Jillibean soup. Based on an Allison Davis sketch (the same one from the rodeo layout, but flipped).
I could probably find another set of the letter stickers at Michaels and fix my second "a" but I'm trying to get out of the habit of buying letter stickers, soo...had to get creative. MMe striped paper, not sure about the blue. And look! Not one, but two kinds of ribbon. Trying to get into the habit of using ribbon, because I have a lot and can't bear to part with what I have left.
Totally winged it on this one. I had dug out the journaling card from MME then decided to see if I had any paper to match. The MME Quite Contrary line doesn't quite match, but I liked it the best and thought the tree leaf paper tied in with the story of Curious George throwing an imaginary stick into the tree for Scooby Doo.
I'm totally in love with this green paper from Crate Paper's Christmas line and struggling valiantly to keep from buying more.Not quite sure what to do with the open green area; I kind of like it, but it's kind of noticeable. Becky Higgins sketch, Martha Stewart photo corners, MM glitter flourish.
Jillibean Soup patterned paper, Bazzill border, MM glitter chipboard letters, and Thickers letter stickers.
Ok, it took 2.5 years, but I finally learned to weld words on my Gypsy! (see "land" above). I was on the right track, just missed a few steps. Crate Paper Toybox paper and stickers, Allison Davis sketch, QK letter die cuts, cricut Opposites Attract cart.

365 Layouts total: 67 and 3 mini albums

I'm a little behind (I should be at 73). I've been setting up my Project Life workstation, and I used my Christmas gift money to buy myself a typewriter to make my PL and regular scrapbook journaling easier. That, of course, meant having to clean off my desk to make room for it, which led cleaning up my room, which needed it anyway. Add in going through all my stuff in preparation for the crop on the 21st, and my scrapbook time has been used for everything but scrapbooking. I'm not too worried, though. I usually get 20+ layouts done at the crop, so I should be caught up after that.

Orlando vacation album, part 3

The more I look at it, the more I think that I need an arrow down in the bottom left to point out Brandon lined up against the fence. Sassafrass paper from HL and an image printed from google.
The Creative Imaginations drippy goo paper from the Halloween section at Michaels seemed fitting for MIB, so...After perusing my cricut carts for an alien, I settled for this one from B is for Boy, since just about everything else was more monster than alien. Added small googly eyes instead of paper ones.
I really wanted to use this funny pages paper for this section of the park as soon as I saw it, but when it came time to use it, I struggled until I remember an Allison Davis sketch that uses a 12x12 sheet as a background accent and gave it a try. The paper placement is AD,but the photo placement was whatever worked with my photos.
GCD Criuse line paper, which just love the colors of. Doodlebug twine and BG letters. There should be a photo of the mariners statue in the large open spot, but I didn't print it 4x6 like I thought so it will wait for the next photo run.
Another one I really struggled with. I really wanted to use 4x6 to show the details on the characters, but didn't want to do more than one layout. I set everything aside until after vacation, walked in my room and immediately knew what I wanted to do. Don't know why it took so long to come up with. Old, old Spiderman paper from Sandylion and an old MME journaling card from Scrapbook Village (sob!)
I really love when a layout can come together in about 10 minutes! It was literally choosing the layout of the photos, looking through my pink/purple paper holder, matting photos, sticking everything down. Longest was selecting a journal square!

365 Layouts total: 58 and 3 mini books (with two more waiting for titles...which means I am 5 behind to maintain 1/day averaging. Not bad for being out of town for a week and taking a couple days off to spend the time with the boys.)