Project Life, My Way - Week 2

This week was a little bit of a whirlwind, with most of my pictures coming from a trip to visit my sister for a girls (scrapbooking weekend) at her place.

My sister and I live almost exactly 180 miles in opposite directions from my parents' home. So I drove from Des Moines were I live, to the Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois border) to join up with my mom and my aunt, and then we drove on to Chicago to spend the weekend at my sister's place.

Iowa and Illinois die cuts using shapes from the Silhouette Online Store 

and hearts backed with yellow washi tape.

During the "layover" in the Quad Cities I got to see my newest little niece and bring the baby gift that I'd forgotten to give her when I was home over Christmas. For whatever reason, when I made the journaling card for this photo I was thinking that was the first time I met her... and that's what I wrote out on the journaling card... except I had actually met her over Christmas. Oopsie!

[Image blurred to protect personal information.]

So in an effort to salvage the journaling card and not have to replace it (No project life card shall be wasted, right?), I added a little label sticker over the first few words. The label had a "No." printed on it that didn't work with the rest of the journaling, so I added a little red chipboard star to cover that part up. Then to balance the additions and tie it into the color scheme of the color next to it, I also added a little gray star sticker to the upper corner. The best part? I worked in the Iowa State University school colors without even realizing it. I love when happy accidents come together like that!

Tip: I tried several different white pens before finally finding one that worked well on the black journaling card. I started with my white sharpie paint pen, but it soaked right into the card and virtually disappeared. After trying a couple of others, I found the one that worked best was the tried and true Uniball Signo white pen.

...And I just so happen to have an extra Uniball Signo Pen to giveaway to one lucky reader. Leave a comment below by July 7 for a chance to win one of your very own!



I love this kit, but I'm not quite sure there are so may "perfection" themed cards in it. I mean, seriously, how many times do you need to declare something as "perfection" in your scrapbooks? Anyway... when I was looking at which kit to buy, I didn't really think I would have much use for the yellow cards, but I'm totally digging the yellow/gray/teal color combo right now so I wanted to find a way to make one of the "perfection" yellow cards work. To conceal the letters, I covered them with a couple of strips of washi tape and then started adding a variety of stickers and a punched doily to give the card lots of visual interest, without a lot of bulk.

And here are the spreads for week 2:

[Image blurred to protect personal information.]

Week 2 - left

Later I found a gift card and spoon from Pacuigo that I forgot to include,
so I swapped out the blue heart for those items.

Week 2 - right



Don't forget to leave a comment below for a chance to win a Uniball Signo pen!

Project Life, My Way - Week 1

I have finally begun working on scrapbooking 2013 Project Life-style.

As I sat down to begin (5 months into 2013 and already feeling super far behind), I realized I was going to be a wee bit challenged. In order to scrapbook this way I was going to have to scrap in chronological order. Yes, the dreaded method that requires organization up front. (Which, coincidentally, is not one of my strong suits when it comes to photos and memorabelia.)

So today, we're going to talk about that dreaded word: O-R-G-A-N-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N.

Instead of diving into my collection of goodies, I found myself sitting down to organize photos. One of my biggest barriers to getting my scrapbooking done, is the prep work. I often get photos from my mom, and my sister, and my brother that go along with the photos from my camera, my cell phone camera, and my husband's cell phone. And of course, we all have Nikon cameras and Samsung cell phones which means that all of our collective photos are using the same file naming structure. And that's a problem, because IMG_001 from my camera is not the same as IMG_001 from my mom's camera, and I if I don't give the files unique names, and I'm not super duper careful, I could end up writing over a precious photo. No pressure, right?

So here's my workflow:

First, I collect photos from all sources. Then I put them in their own folder named after the image owner.

Next, I go through those photo files, and rename them to add a 3 character extension to the file name that indicates who the original the image owner is. (For example, if the photo owner is Jane A. Smith, then the photo would be renamed as IMG_001_JAS.)

 

Finally, once all of the photos are renamed, I put a copy of them into an annual file folder where I compile all of the photos for the year. Then I sort them into file folders by date. Here's what it looks like:

...and from there I am ready to start scrapbooking. Well, I am assuming that I know where I put the memorabelia.

 

Several hours later, I finally had the first month's worth of photos gathered, renamed, and all in the same folder where I could then sort by date order to start working with them. Whew. Glad that's over!

 

Finally. Time to start scrapbooking!

 

Week 1 - Left side

Week 1 - Right Side

 

We don't have children and live fairly mundane lives, so I don't have a lot of very interesting activities to scrapbook on a daily, or even weekly, basis. Taking that into consideration, I've decided that in addition to photos, I will include things like what I was thinking or feeling on a particular day, maybe a quote that resonated with me that day, or my Facebook status update. Fortunately I have a handy little iPad app called Momento that collects information from my Facebook, Instagram, and FourSquare feeds onto a calendar. This way, I can just grab my iPad to help jog my memory and provide content for my album.

 

I've added a photo gallery over on my Facebook page with close-ups of some of the page elements. Head on over there to see more images for these two pages. 

 

Want your own personal shopper to help you re-create these pages for yourself? I've collected the materials I used all in one place for you. Buy them here.

 

Other supplies used that are not available through Amazon:

• Freckled Fawn Washi Tape
• October Afternoon Midway Chip Shapes
• Me and My Big Ideas Icons (Dollar Sign)
• Martha Stewart Anywhere Punch (Doily)
• Basic Grey Mono Stickers (Black)

Happy Scrapping!

November/December issue of Creating Keepsakes available now!

The latest issue of Creating Keepsakes is on newsstands this week. (Those of you who subscribe probably already have yours in your mailbox.) If you didn't get your copy, you can always go online and order a copy here.

And I'm happy to share a project that I made for this issue with you too! (It's on page 83 for those that want to follow along at home.)

"Elf Banner" as seen in the November/December 2012 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. 

Copyright Creative Crafts Group. Posted with prior permission from the publisher.

Birthday Boy

More Owl Soup - can't get enough of it!

Sweet Victory

Was in the mood to rock a little Jillibean Owl Soup and lucky for me, Lance just happened to have some color coordinated birthday pictures to go with it. I'm such a lucky girl :)