Monday, May 28, 2012

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is not about the BBQ’s or parties.  It is about honoring America’s bravest hero’s who sacrificed their lives for our freedom.  Please take a moment to remember their courage and dedication to our great country.

Lorraine Cemetery

In March we visited several American cemeteries in France from both WWI and WWII and I was so moved that I had to fight back tears many.  This photo is from the Lorraine Cemetery and Memorial.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Project Life Weeks 1 & 2

Last night I looked over my completed weeks and loved it!  Really, really love it.  I am super determined to see this through for the next 49 weeks!

Here is my first week, all put together.  I used some Echo Park Hello Summer digi papers to make my week title cards in PSE 10 and printed them on photo paper.  I think I will stick with this all summer and then change it out in the fall.  I like the seasonal feel.  I will probably use some of the cards from the Clementine Kit, as well occasionally. 

Week 1A

Week 1B

I used some screen shots of from my Facebook page this week since I had two cute stories to share.  Nothing fancy here at all but I still love it.  My girls want to add drawings every week so I think that is something I will continue to do.

Here is week 2:

Week 2A

Week 2B

Flowers, flowers everywhere!  The girls picked so many flowers from the yard this week and I found piles of them all over the patio.  Lolo thought that stickers look better on her rather than on papers!  Silly girl! 

I dug through my stash and found a ton of old rub-ons and decided that they would make fabulous additions to the grid journaling cards.  It is always a great feeling to use lots of things from your stash for projects like this.  

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  We were busy sorting through some things before the movers come tomorrow.  I have a lot to do today as well as run some errands on post.  I shouldn’t even be procrastinating on here!  Yikes!  I hope to check in on Thursday after the movers finish up.  With any luck I won’t have a single horror story to share.

Thanks for stopping by today!  Have a great Monday!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

I Must Be Crazy…Right?

Who in their right mind starts Project Life 3 weeks before the movers come in and pack up your belongings for at least 2 months?  Because not having all of your supplies can be pretty inconvenient, right?  Geez, when I put it that way it makes me want to change my mind!  Ha!  Just kidding…I think.

I have been admiring all the fabulous people who have been sharing their weekly spreads for a long while now.  It has been a project that I have been wanting to do but to afraid of not being able to stick with it.  As our time is running out here in Germany I decided that I wanted to capture the little bits of our daily lives here and then throughout the transition into a new routine in a new home, new town, new state and a region of the USA that we have never lived in before. 

Me and Lolo 30 Apr 2012

So, when I turned 32 a couple of weeks ago, I decided it would be a great time to finally pull a year of our daily lives into a scrapbook.  I already have some of the divided page protectors left over from organizing our travel photos but will order more soon since we still have 6 weeks here.  I ordered the Clementine Core Kit as well and have plenty left over from the travel stuff so I will be using some bits of that in my album as well.  I love the Grid Cards and have a new box of those ready to toss into my suitcase.  There are also so many fun, free downloads for journaling cards and such that I have some of those ready to go, as well.

Here is my plan:  I don’t have a binder, yet, but won’t be purchasing one until we are settled into a new home.  The box the page protectors are stored in is a little big but also flat enough it will take up little room in my suitcase so I will keep all my weekly spreads in there.  I have small plastic organizers that I will put the blank journaling cards in as well as a small pair of scissors and maybe some glue dots so I have some sort of adhesive with me as my ATG is just to big to bring with me.  I am going to cut some sheets of cardstock down to 4x6 and 3x4 to keep in the organizers as well to help fill in the spots on days I may not get a photo or want to tell a longer story.  Finally, I won’t be able to print my photos from home after the movers pack my printer so I will make sure I upload them to Shutterfly so I can order them all at once when we get a permanent address. 

I am confident that I can make this work without photos until we get settled.  I will make it a point to add little bits of things as well as journaling every few days and stay on top of uploading my photos.  I will have plenty of time on my hands as we are shipping our vehicle next week and I will be stuck at home during the day with minimal belongings to keep us occupied. 

I love what I have pulled together so far and want to share a few photos that I wouldn’t have taken otherwise.  I am in love with the idea of this and hope I can stay strong for the next year!  The photo above is of my youngest daughter and me that I took with a tripod and the timer on my camera on my birthday.  I need to get in front of the camera more.

May 4

Lolo got a little tiny scrape on her foot but to a 4 year old it was nearly the end of the world.  Aubrey was so concerned she grabbed her favorite pillow for Lolo to rest her foot on while I applied the magical Band-Aid that brings all tears to an end.  Notice the princess dress under the table and tea cup next to the pink chair…it is part of having 2 little girls at home.

May 7 Collage

While I was working on a scrapbook layout Lolo decorated herself with stickers.  She thought the ones on her face were extra funny.

May 13

I used Cathy Zielske’s Tiny Templates that I purchased from Designer Digitals for these two photos.  I added a cute digital element from Echo Parks Hello Summer Digital collection that I also purchased.  I love fun digital products and I have printed several of the journaling cards to slip into my pages later on.  I have also used the products to print off my weekly title cards.  Fun stuff, for sure!

May 14

This cool airplane art is across the street from our favorite local German restaurant.  I am happy to have this added to my book.

I imagine I will be adding lots of posts about Project Life for a while.  I figure by posting about it on the blog that I will be more likely to actually stick with it but any support you may offer will certainly help keep me chugging along. Smile

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Monday, May 7, 2012

You Make Me Happy Layout

Wouldn’t you know my scrappy mojo came back just a couple of weeks before the movers come and I don’t have much time left to scrap.  That is my luck, for sure!

I checked out Frosted Designs this morning and saw they still have some NSD challenges open so I played along with Heather’s challenge to use strips of paper on a layout.  I had so many strips leftover from the layout I completed yesterday so I went to work to use up as many as I could. 

 

All the products used are, once again, from the Echo Park “This & That Graceful” collection.  I think Echo Park knocked this line right out of the park.  I love it!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

A Few More NSD Projects

Wow!  So many fun scrappy challenges around the internet yesterday!  Did you get a chance to play?  I was able to finish up a few challenges today since many were posted long after I went to bed.  I will confess that I cannot wait to play along with challenges when I am back on the same continent! 

We are less than 60 days from flying back and the movers will be here in just 2 weeks.  Knowing that my stuff is going to be packed and moved across the Atlantic Ocean on a ship has certainly motivated me to get some scrappy time in this weekend.  So, without further unnecessary chatting from me, here are a few projects I completed for some of the Echo Park challenges that were issued yesterday.

First up, NSD Challenge #3, to Scraplift a Design Team Expert and I chose the cute card by Kandis Smith.  I used papers from Victoria Gardens along with embellies from the cardstock stickers.  I placed a foam dot behind the doily sticker in the middle and used some green floss to stitch down the middle of the design.

Echo Park NSD Scraplift Challenge

I also completed the NSD Challenge #4, Create a Layout Based on a Sketch.  I double dipped and used this challenge for the Big Picture Classes challenge to use a photo from then and now.  Yikes!  My girls have grown so much in 3 years!  I used the This & That Graceful Collection for this one.  Boy, I am in love with these papers and embellishments.

EP NSD Sketch Challenge and BPC Challenge 2

Finally, I completed NSD Challenge #6, Project Playground.  If you haven’t checked out the amazing free projects that the generous folks at Echo Park have on their site you are really missing out.  For this challenge we had to select a project from the site and then re-create it.  So I chose a This & That Graceful layout project and love, love, love the way the finished layout looks (and I really, really love the photo of my baby)!

Echo Park Project Download Challenge

So those are my completed NSD projects!  I still have my stuff scattered all over the table so I think I am going to jump back in and complete a few more things before I organize and pack up my scrappy stuff in preparation for our huge move. 

Thanks so much to Echo Park for offering such fun challenges and fab prizes and thanks to everyone for swinging by my blog today!

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Echo Park NSD Challenge #1

Echo Park Congratulations Card

The fabulous folks at Echo Park released a challenge to create a card within 2 hours.  While this card didn’t come close to taking 2 hours to create it took me a long time to decide on what line of amazing Echo Park products to use. 

I was in need of a card for one of my beautiful cousins who graduates from college today and decided to go away from a traditional cap/gown theme and went for a simple but pretty card made with Echo Parks This & That Graceful line.  I added some foam dots behind both flower for some pop and then some pretty pearls from Kaisercraft to finish it off. 

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look!