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?

 

Layouts To Share

Recently I have begun going through my photos and memorabilia.  High on my priority list is to create an album for my little brother Danny (1967-1973).  This is my favorite photograph of him as a baby.  It really shows his personality, even though he wasn't old enough to sit up yet.  Our Dad played minor league baseball, so the baseball elements were a must.  This layout was created using two of my kits, My Family Tree - Baby Edition and My Family Tree - Baby Edition Add On.  These kits were created to make, soft neutral baby books.

While perusing the Heritage Scrap Gallery, I found this wonderful heritage layout from Creative Team friend Helene (Victoria32).  If you would like to see more of her beautiful artistry, you can find here gallery HERE.  Helene is an avid scrapbooker and all her layouts go into her family albums which she prints up for her grandchildren and family.  What a blessing that must be for them!  In this particular layout I was impressed with all her clustering and layering.  I almost didn't recognize it as coming from my own kit, but it is.  She created this layout with one of my new kits, Family Treasures.

If you post one of your layouts using my kits at the Heritage Scrap Gallery, I would love to see it and feature you as well.  Happy Scrapping!

My Great Grandfather and His Daughter

Recently I have been going through a lot of boxes that my Mother brought me with things from my Grandma's house.  My Mother saved me bits and pieces that she knew I would treasure.  She kept spiral notebooks on her end table where she sat and filled them with all kinds of good "stuff"!  She always said "'stuff' is a good word, it's in the Bible 8 times".  She had looked it up in the concordance.  That's just how she was.  Anyone who lived in her town could see her little white "dandelion" head sitting on her couch in front of the front window.  She read her Bible, Grace Livingston Hill and Essie Summers books.  In her "handy dandy notebook" she wrote down lists (copiously) of names she liked.  "My Hobby", she penned next to some of the lists. She copied down phrases that she liked from her reading (I too enjoy a well phrased novel and smile at the descriptions and words I know she would have jotted down).  There were hundreds of pages of Bible study notes, lists of animals, plants and birds in the Bible and key verses to memorize (I plan on doing my devotional studies from some of these pages this year).  I could go on for several more paragraphs about the kinds of things I found, but I won't! ;-)

Last night a little slip of paper fell out of one of those notebooks and I have included it on the page above.  Tucked in amongst quotes, lists and so on, here and there are family history gems.  It is truly like a treasure hunt.  This particular note talked about her Dad, my great grandfather Fred (F.W. Tisdale), who was quite an interesting man. Because of this little note I now know where my Grandma, my Mother and I got our love of quotes.  As I read it, I remembered her telling me this before.  Every Monday, Mr. Tisdale would write an inspirational quote on the black board. He said it would "rub off" on his students.

The note also listed the last two places he taught and was superintendent as well as what subjects he taught.  On the back side were some of the silly quotes he would say.  He was fun loving by all accounts (he died in 1940) and most picture show him with a twinkle in his eye.

This man I never met, passed on so much to me through his oldest child, his daughter Holly - faith, creativity and a love of learning. There are some pesky traits he pass on too, but no need to mention those here! HA HA!

Today I created a layout with his school superintendent photo, that slip of paper in Grandma's school teacher printing and a photo of all the students of Lake Stevens (WA) High School in 1922.  For the layout, I used primarily my new School Days Kit along with a key from my His Story - Family Tree Kit which shares the same color palette.

Thank you for taking a journey down memory lane with me today!

July 2011 Heritage Challenge - Summer Adventures

Every 2nd Thursday I host a heritage challenge at Faith Sisters.  You can read about this month's on the Faith Sister Blog. The information can be found in the forum too. To give you a brief summary, the challenge is so that you can scrap and document what your family or ancestor's summer activities were.  As always there will be a posting bonus!

88 Years later, we're doing pretty much the same thing.  The beat goes on...

(Layouts created with my North Coast Digital Scrapbooking Kit available at Faith Sisters and Heritage Scrap)

New Release At Faith Sisters

I created the Outdoors Adventures and Outdoors Adventures Add On kits to scrap all my Pacific Northwest pictures, past and present!  This has been previously available at Heritage Scrap here and here, but is now newly available at Faith Sisters here and here.

Outdoor Adventures Kit



Outdoor Adventures Add On Kit

Thank you for looking and remember to stop by and check out my monthly Heritage Challenge at Faith Sisters!



Sunshiney - New at Faith Sisters



Sunshiney is new in the shop at Faith Sisters.  I wanted to create something fun and fresh to use with pictures of my twin daughtesrs.  They looked at my designs and said, "It looks sunshiney Mommy!" and the name stuck!



I created this layout today with a picture of my youngest when she was four.  It was a lot of fun and much different than my usual heritage scrapbooking!

Some of the elements

Papers

Frames and Journaling Elements

Shapes and Elements

Sunshiney will be 25% the next couple weeks.  Have fun scrapping!

25% Off At Faith Sisters, New Kits and New Customer Appreciation Kit



Faith Sisters has a brand new customer appreciation kit, just out!  It has lovely soft spring colors and celebrates the resurrection of Yeshua/Jesus.  All the designers work together on this and it's a great way to get to know different designers' styles.  This kit, "He Is Risen" is free with any $10 purchase in the store.

All the designers who work on the collab, also put together a quick page.  These are available in the store for $1.  You can find my quick page here.

My Faith Sisters shop can be found here and I will be having 25% off all kits through April 30th.  Yesterday I put a new kit in the store, called Flutterby Mini Digital Scrapbooking Kit.  The previews, unfortunately don't do it justice (I'll admit, I need help on that!), but I had fun working with and will post a layout below.  Flutterby is full of butterfly papers and elements and is lighthearted and whimsical for spring, feminine or little girl pictures.  To see hte patterned papers, please check the store listing for more previews.

Last but not least, I have a "new, old kit" - one that has been at Heritage Scrap and is now at Faith Sisters, called North Coast.

Many of these papers are made with my own high resolution photographs of California's beautiful North Coast.