Project Life Weeks 5 & 6

I really, really have the hardest time photographing the weeks through the page protectors. This week I tried my point and shoot rather than the DSLR and ended up with worse shots.  I really struggle to get good light in this house.

Week 5:

I didn’t get a clean image when I stamped the date but I just left it.  It doesn’t bother me too much.  A photo of some of my girls dress up clothes and some of our crazy weather.  The ice on the pool cover started to melt in an pretty cool way so I took a photo of it (bottom left).  I used some Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type stickers on the last card to spell out “Favorite Songs” and listed a few songs my girls are loving right now.

Aubrey celebrated 100 days of school this week and we had to make a shirt with 100 things.  She brought home the 100th Day sticker so I just added it.  I found a drawing the girls made from one of Aubrey’s school projects so I reduced it and printed it out.  The bottom right is my grandma’s writing on the back of a quilt she made.  My family had saved me some of her things after she passed away so this is extra special to me. 

Week 6:

Last week I shampooed our living room carpet, it was a mess!  It looks so much better and the photo is before I moved the furniture back in.  The Daisy girls made Valentines cards for the elderly and Josh Groban’s album “All That Echoes” was finally released.  I love it so much I dedicate a few pockets to music this week.  I found the photo of Josh Groban on his website and added my journaling right to the photo.  I cut the heart music note on the Cameo and then found a music quote I liked, typed it and left a spot for me to write in a word.  P.S. – The CD is AMAZING!

The Fraizer History Museum in Louisville has a temporary exhibit, “Spirits of the Passage: The Story of the Transatlantic Slave Trade”, so we went to check it out.  It was a great exhibit.  The museum usually has some kind of interactive element in front and this time it was a long blackboard where you completed the phrase “Freedom is…”.  Aubrey wrote helpful, Lolo just wrote her name. 

The weather was mild this week so we spent some time playing outside.  I used a brush from Ali Edwards for the <3 Today and just stamped it off the edge of the photo before I printed it.  I used Cathy Zielski’s Tiny Templates for the 3x4 cards this week.  I love these little templates so much!  I can add a little bit of journaling and have extra photos.  By the way, you can find both Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielski’s stuff at Designer Digitals (the quarterly sale is still going on until tomorrow 2/15). 

I love this project more and more every week.  I cannot wait to have our entire year documented! 

Project Life Weeks 3 & 4

I’ve been staying current with my Project Life so far and I do love this project!  Due to some less than perfect weather days I haven’t had many chances to photograph my weekly spreads because the lighting has been off.  I gave it a go last Friday and it looks ok.

I mostly used the Seafoam Core Kit cards but added a little bit of Echo Park digital patterned paper that I sized to a 3x4 card to use as a filler.  It is bright and cheery, unlike the dreary start to our week.

My hubby and I had our first date night in over 5 years!  Crazy, huh?  We dropped the girls off with my mom and spent a night in Nashville!  We met up with one of JG’s old military friends and we went to dinner and did a little bit of bar hopping.  We ended the night at Margaritaville.  I love live music and Josh Helms was fantastic!

Week 4 included Aub’s first bad weather day!  She was excited to get a long weekend.

I used another card for Technique Tuesday here (everyday) and the Seafoam kit for the rest.  I found my cats in their usually spot on my bed and was treated to an impromptu puppet show.

I went to Starbucks and picked up their free song of the week offering so I attached it to a blank grid card with a piece of washi tape.  I found some old stamps and used them for the “No School” title.  I went to wake Aub up and found Lolo in bed with her sissy!  They love each other so much and have been having “sleep overs” in each other’s bedrooms on the weekends.  Aub was also invited to her first birthday party and she had a blast!

I love this project so much!  It is forcing me to pick up my big girl camera more often.  I do use my iPhone a lot.  I decided not to fret if I don’t get a photo every day.  It just fill it in with something else.  It is not a big deal to me at all.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Project Life Weeks 1 and 2

I fell flat last year on Project Life and have about 2months finished.  While I loved the process and the end result I just couldn’t maintain it while we were in transition due to our move.  I gave up on it and just decided to start fresh for 2013.

This year I will be mostly using the Seafoam kit with bits leftover from the Clementine kit and some of my own stuff as well as printables that I come across.

Week one is a mix of different projects as I was waiting for the Seafoam kit to come available. The title card is from the Seafoam kit, the Love card is some rub-ons from my stash and the Today card is from Technique Tuesday.  The Happy New Year and 2013 die cuts are from Silhouette.

Week 2 is just as simple, I don’t think I am going to make these weeks difficult.  I want to document our lives without being too product crazy.  Some weeks I may be more creative but I imagine simplicity is what will help me stay current with this.

Aubrey brought her second quarter report card home so I photo copied it and stuck it into a 8.5x11 page protector.

I had these fun little coffee stickers sitting on my desk for a few months.  I picked them up from the Target Dollar spot and was waiting for something to add them to.  I just grabbed a grid card and stuck them on there. 

The photo with the EEEEK! journaling was made using one of Cathy Zielski’s mini templates.  I love these for small prints! 

I have week 3 finished but need to wait for better light to photograph it.  Does anyone have tips for helping these photos look better?  I have such a hard time photography through the page protectors!

On another note, I just sold my Cricut Expression so I could purchase a Silhouette Cameo!  It was such a tough decision for me since I loved the Cricut but the flexibility of the Silhouette better suits me right now.  At least the Cricut stayed in the family since my aunt bought it off me so I can have visitation when I feel the need for some super cute Create A Critters! 

Just Like Mommy!

I love Starbucks.  This is a well known fact around here.  Unfortunately for me, they are just not found in every town in Europe so my chances to get a coffee from there are few and far between.  So imagine my surprise when we came across one in Aachen, Germany a few weeks ago when we stopped on our way home from Brussels to visit their famous Dom (King Charlemagne's remains are here).

Aubrey is pretty quick to spot them for me and will even tell James that “mommy wants Starbucks”.  While we drink our Frappuccino’s, the girls usually share one of the bottled smoothies you can purchase there.  They love getting these drinks!  This time, however, I told James that we should let them share a Strawberries & Cream Frappuccino*.  Their very first drink with a green straw! 

This was huge for me so I had to snap photos of them enjoying their Starbucks.  At least they humor me.   I guess a photo was a small price to pay for their drink since it was gone in no time.  There was a small demo of some sorts going on that weekend so it made for a cute back drop and I will use these photos for my Project Life album. 

Do your kids share any of your favorites? 

Thanks for stopping by!

*For those who are not aware, there is no caffeine or coffee in this drink so don’t judge.

Still Chugging Along!

Whoa!  The past few weeks have flown by here.  Our house was packed without incident (yay!) and we have gotten settled into our house with minimal furniture.  My Jeep was shipped back to the USA, as well, and now we are a one vehicle family for a bit. 

I am still taking a photo a day for my Project Life album and even adding my journaling cards as well.  So 5 weeks in and I am still going strong!  I am writing my photo for each day down in my planner and just yesterday I downloaded a free photo editing program, Photoscape, so I can at least get my photos resized and edited to be uploaded to Shutterfly.  Photoshop Elements is just toooooo big to download to my netbook.  Even Photoscape, which is significantly smaller, slows my computer down.

Here are a few of my daily photos:

My cat enjoys the morning sunshine.  I think she is going to miss the huge windows.

Our nearly empty living room after the first day of the movers packing us up.

A little bit of excitement one Saturday in our normally quiet town.  Some faulty solar panels triggered a smoke alarm and the fire department spent about 2 hours taking care of it.  Thankfully, no one was living in the home yet and it appears there is no damage to the house. 

Next week we go on our very last European trip and I am looking forward to the destination but not the 10 hour train ride back!  It makes for an extra long day for everyone.  However, the train tickets are super affordable since the girls ride for free and you just don’t get that option when you purchase airfare tickets.  We reserve seats with a table so that helps with leg room and we all sit together. 

That’s all I got for now.  Thanks for stopping by today and have a great weekend!

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. 

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:

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!

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. 

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

Thanks for stopping by today!