Project Life Tuesday: Week 4

Yesterday it sure was a treat to get my new pictures and sit down and steal an hour of time to work on my pages for week 4!

I was glad to get my cover finished as well. In my stash I found some number letter stickers that I have had for about 10 years. I thought they worked perfect.  We added a picture of Hubby and the kids in front of our house. The garden is pretty brown and barren this time of year and it will be interesting to see what it looks like a little later in the year.  My son took a photo of Hubby and I as well.  It's not my favorite but I have made a commitment to include photos of myself in my scrapbooking so that my children will have memories of me as well.  The horrid thing is that hours after these photos, we began falling like dominoes with nasty Noro virus!

I'm still working on how to take better photos of layouts.  I'm not there yet!  Here is the two page spread of our week.

 

 

We had a busy MLK Jr three day weekend which began with extra guests. Hubby and I worked in the garden and my daughter sprained her wrist!

 

 

 

 

I've included information about our drought, the little guy who is staying with us and our Hebrew lessons.  The sunrises have been so beautiful lately that I had to include another one.

 

 

I'd love to hear about your Project Life!



Project Life Tuesday: 2 Weeks

Last night I had fun catching up on Project Life. The pages I completed were for weeks 2 and 3, though I am questioning whether or not I am counting correctly.  The first week of the year was a half week, so maybe I will always be one week ahead in numbering?  I apologize ahead of time for the sub standard photographs. I need to plan ahead so that I can take them in natural light and with my dSLR.

 

Week 2 was cold and broke cold records in some parts of the states, even though our state was unusually warm and in a state of drought. I included captures from the web regarding the weather to document this. 

 

 

Also during this week, we found my 7th grade picture taken at the same age that my son is now. It's hard to see here but we do look quite a bit alike, much to my son's chagrin. Our family likes to watch series through Netflix and I took a photo of our TV of our latest viewing interest.

 

 

I have been enjoying the winter sunrises seen through the bare 100 year old black walnut tree.  The two photos were taken on the same day - sunrise and just before sunset.  Upper left is a photo of my youngest who was given a dress up Little House on the Prairie dress. It was hanging off of her a year ago, it was so big and now it almost fits.  She would wear it every day if I let her.  My son used some of his own money to buy the cat themed kit for Project Life. The photo with the 'moose' is my mantle. I finally got a print of my Mommy as a toddler with her Daddy's moose. It fits perfectly in the frame.

 

Week three started with a wonderful visit from an out of state friend.  A lot of things happened, so this is actually the first two page spread of two spreads.

 



The cats have loved the fact that we are recovering from illness and have sat around a lot. They like to "help"!  My daughter loves pink and she saw this Smart Car while we were shopping and asked me to take a picture to put in our Project Life.

 

This layout features our friends and the kids around home.  You can see I have not added any embellishments. I am using the Rain core kit from Project Life and Becky Higgins' Project Life pens for journaling.  So far I am just trying to get into the rhythm of everything.  Yes, it could be "prettier" to do more embellishment, however, my goal is to keep it simple and get it done!

 



Here is the second spread from our week, which involved a lot of social interaction and work around home.

 

We made applesauce. did reading and the kids had a "sleepover" in the girls room when our friends came to stay for a couple weeks.

 

 



We also enjoyed a Skype session with out of town friends and our little friend who is visiting enjoyed steak dinner on Friday night.  The girls had their orthodontist check and we began learning the Hebrew aleph bet.

All in all I am enjoying this project more and more. How about you?

Project Life Tuesday: The Beginning

We (my son and I) were so excited to get started on Project Life and then we got struck down with a nasty virus.  So we have a slow start and I didn't get all my photos printed.  But I will share what we have done so far.

 

In the future I will need to work on better ways of photographing my layouts. It has been so long since I worked with paper scrapbooking - I'm out of practice!  First, I have started with the Rain kit since I am a "purple girl".  I doubt I will use it exclusively throughout the year but that is where I am starting. Second, I am not sure how much of other embellishments I will be adding.  I want to keep it simple in the beginning because I don't want to fail. If it becomes too overwhelming, I will start slacking. Also, since I am doing this with my children helping, I would like to keep it so that it is not too difficult for them.

 

Anyway, this will be the cover page.  I am contemplating putting 2014 in some sticker or template cut numbers, but haven't decided.  The sticky notes are telling me which photos, when developed, will go in those slots.  So this page has the photo taken of my children in October 2013 and will have a photo of my family in front of our house and one my son took of my husband and I.  One fun thing with the rain set was a card that said "Cast of Characters".  I had already thought of doing that and so it was a pleasant surprise to find a card pre-made. Another decision I made, to keep it simple, is to write in my own handwriting.

 

 

So, here is my double page spread for the first week. Again, the sticky  notes are for photos that have yet to be developed. I also need to add the journaling for the second page.

 

 



This is the left side of week 1. On the top is a photo from the TV and talking about what we were watching on Netflix while we were all sicky couch potatoes.  The sunrise was what I awoke too on January 1 and my husband and I spent the day organizing old papers.  The lady on the bottom is my Grandma, a few years before she died of Alzheimer's Disease. Her birthday was January 2nd and New Year's Eve was always a big thing for her, so she was on my mind.  Pieces of the past always make up a part of our present, so I thought it was nice to include.  I misplaced my corner rounder that matches with the Project Life cards, so I will go back later and round those.

 

 

Right side of week 1.  Again photos are missing and I need to journal about our experience of everyone being sick.  In the middle are pictures of my daughter and the cutie little guy who brought us the lovely virus!  He's so cute we couldn't get mad.  After I made this page, I forgot that I wanted to make a calendar for each month.  I am debating whether or not to put one in the bottom right corner. I do have the digital edition of Rain and some CU calendar templates, so I am thinking about creating one and having it print on a 4x6 photo at Costco with my other prints, then it would be matching.

 

 

Even though I have had a slow start, it has been fun.  I'm just a beginner at this new way of scrapbooking and I decided I am going to enjoy the process and not be so critical of the product.  My goal is to keep it fun and be engaged with my family.  As a matter of fact, that has been the most satisfying factor for me - my family is getting into it as well - even my cat Tasha!

 

When Project Life Tuesday starts up again, I will be linking up there. What are you scrapping?

 

Project Life Tuesday: Organizing and Delayed Start

Today I was hoping to post pictures of my title page and my first week of Project Life, but my family has spent the last week fighting nasty viruses. During this time I did manage to take some photographs and set up my planning notebook.

The first thing I organized was my Project Life Kits. I had been perusing Pinterest and various blogs for storage ideas and there are some great ones out there, but my budget was pretty tiny. What worked for me at $2.49, from my local Target store, is the Sterilite 6 quart ClearView Latch Box. Each box can hold 3 complete core kits with a little bit of wiggle room. I made divider cards to separate the different kits. The corners are slightly rounded however, that doesn't greatly affect the useable space. At this point in time I am keeping my kits together until I see how I use them. Later I might separate by color.

 

 

Here is my messy desk and my notebook. I chose some pretty scrapbook paper (sorry I can't give credit for this - but I purchased the paper from either Michael's or Hobby Lobby) to slip in the cover and spine. It makes me happy every time I see it.

 

 

 

For each month I printed out a calendar which I found at Donna Young. Then I also included a planning page from The Erratic Project Junkie. The current month I keep in a pocket folder in the front and the rest in sheet protectors. I am using these for taking notes so I won't forget details. Most days the main calendar will be sufficient, but the second sheet will help for special days, events and vacations. Marcy Penner has a great free planner that is nice too, which I found after the fact. I also included some planning pages for each of the designs of sheet protectors for the times I want to sketch out.

 

I'm always looking for good ideas to post on my Pinterest board. A few things I have found are:

 

Tutorial for printing on journal cards (Paislee Press)

 

Using stash for Project Life (The Scrap Master)

 

Free printable journal cards (Miss Tiina)

 

 

The best part of Project Life? My son is interested with me!  He used some of his own money to purchase the cat theme kit!  And he wants to help Mom work on the pages. That makes this long time scrapbooking Mom proud!

 

So, what are you working on?