December Daily Update

As usual, this month has flown by and totally gotten away from me.  I think my goal for 2013 is going to be better time management. I need it! 

I am still trucking along with my December Daily album but I will have to play catch up after Christmas.  I am going to work on it more today.  I am halfway through the month though so at least I am not starting at the beginning.

I took these photos over a week ago and haven’t had any time to get them added to the blog.  I changed my format after a week of feeling uninspired.  I picked up a Snap! album from Archivers and I love the everything about these albums.  So far I have left the cover plain.  I don’t think I will be adding anything to it.

My title page is simple:

Days 1 & 2:

My December Daily albums tend to be repetitive.  I always end up putting the photo in the same place and then adding simple journaling.

Day 3:

This year I am adding quotes and song lyrics to my album.  This idea for the Elf quote came from the Write.Click.Scrapbook. blog and I loved it.  My mom is letting me borrow her Silhouette so this projects is easy. 

I will share some more pages, eventually.  I need to make a list of things to do and stick with it.  I really am terrible with time management these days.  I have let so many things slide that I normally wouldn’t and I end up being angry with myself.  Grrr!  It is such a terrible cycle to be stuck in.

Merry Christmas!

Beautiful Sisters Layout

It has been nearly 6 weeks since I have completed a layout and while I was missing my scrapping time, I was busy and just couldn’t get to it.  We returned from a trip to Disneyland Paris last week and I was ready to jump back in.  I had a box of new supplies waiting for me from Emma’s Paperie when we got home full of Echo Park’s This & That Graceful along with some fun ribbons and the new Dear Lizzy line as well. 

Club CK posted a 1 hour recipe challenge and I knew I wanted to play along this week.  I remembered the cute sketch from Frosted Designs and pulled my supplies together and got to work.  I loved using this sketch and the gorgeous Echo Park papers.  I even used my sewing machine and stitched a quick border along the page and a zigzag stitch around the circle.  The yellow ribbon is from Maya Road and I just love it!  I bought a bunch of colors. 

I think this was the perfect challenge to jump back into scrapping.  I better spend more time on my hobby before all my stuff is packed up for a few months!  We are waiting for JG to get his orders so we can schedule the movers and then get our airline tickets to fly back to the USA.  Ohhhhh boy, I cannot wait to be back in the states..only 3 more months left here! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Not Too Spooky

I made this layout using the Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesdays Sketch #34.  I stuck pretty true to the sketch only changing up the photo sizes and rather than adding a banner I across the middle I swirled a bit of twine. 

I have been waiting to scrap these photos from this past Halloween and I knew this was the perfect sketch for them. The photos make me smile!  I let the girls choose their own costumes and they picked a rather boyish monster and dragon so I just added tutus to girly them up a bit.  They were cute and many people remembered them when we went around trick or treating on Halloween. 

I used Bella Blvd.’s Too Cute To Spook papers along with Making Memories corrugated alpha and Cosmo Crickets Tiny Type stickers as well.

Don’t forget about the giveaway I have open here.   I extended the deadline to tomorrow and if I get to 50 followers (I am just one away) I will draw 2 winners!  So go become a follower of my blog and comment on the post to enter to win so fun scrappy goodies!

Travel Journals/Scrapbooks

If you read my blog regularly (or at least when I post something) you know that we travel a bit since we have been fortunate enough to live in Germany for the past few years.  When we first started taking amazing trips I would take tons of pictures, save a few bits of ephemera, and print a bunch of photos a few times a year.  97% of those photos are still sitting in their orange packaging and I have bags of ephemera sitting around waiting to be used or recycled!  That is such a terrible thing for me since I want to be able to easily look back at a trip and re-live it for a few minutes.  I am swimming in a sea of travel photo guilt!

Last April Ali Edwards added an online, self paced class called “Scrapbook on the Road” and it has forever changed the way I document our vacations!  Honestly, it is the best online class I have taken because I have applied the concept several times since I have taken the class and it was only $14.  The concept is simple and requires a little bit of pre-planning before you leave as you get the guts of the travel journal put together before you leave. 

I put my first travel journal together in record time before we left for a week long trip to Belgium, The Netherlands and a quick stop in Frankfurt and remembered Ali’s advice and guidance as we went along.  I took the time to document our adventures every day and enjoyed doing so as we all settled into our hotel room for the night.  I took tons of photos.  I saved our story.  When I came home I simply needed to upload my photos and print them to add to the journal.  This process, for the very first time, made me excited to tackle all the photos we had taken and finally complete our story!  Of course not every photo I print makes it into the travel journal but I have a plan for the leftovers.

This is a pile of stuff I had collected and was sorting through in our hotel room and below is part of the finished spread as it continues on to the other pages.

I have made all of the albums 6x8 inches and it is a great size for me.  It leaves room to add 5x7 collages or 2 4x6 prints on a single page. I am currently putting together the journal for our trip to Barcelona.

I don’t make a journal for every trip since we often just sneak away for a weekend but I still need a place to save some of our memories so I picked up the International Smash Folio.  I love this, too!  It is so much fun gluing things down and just making some quick and simple notes about our day, random things we saw or things that I love!  I will probably add a few wallet sized photos in here but don’t see this becoming a project for lots of photos but mostly just a place for random observations and ephemera.

Since I have solutions for current trips I still have to tackle the older photos sitting in a box.  I have been thinking of purchasing some of Becky Higgins’ Project Life products for a few months so I could quickly get the photos organized and out of boxes.  I finally took the plunge and ordered the Clementine Core Kit.  Of course, I was a little late to the game and I am currently waiting for the divided page protectors to come back in stock so I can begin this project.  I am looking forward finally getting our story told!

This post just ended up being much longer than I planned!  I have so much to say about this topic though since I have struggled with scrapbooking our travel photos because I have always felt overwhelmed.  I do believe photos need to be printed and shared.  I am glad that I have been printing as we go along rather than waiting for a reason to print them.  I just want to get it all under control before we move back to the United States.

What type of photos do you struggle with?  How do you document  your travels?  I would love to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by today!

The Best Laid Plans….

Well, I wanted to share my December Daily album today, or at least parts of it, but I just don’t have enough sunlight or energy for that matter to get photos taken. The prints arrived from Shutterfly on Thursday and I had most of the photos added that night and finished it up on Friday.  I spent a little bit of time adding journaling where it was needed and now my book is complete!

However, it is overcast here today and I have come down with a cold that just has my energy level depleted.  Lolo came down with the cold last weekend and a week later she still has a lingering cough and sore throat.  Aubrey, JG and I all started to come down with the same symptoms on Saturday and I am worn out!  Hopefully this passes quickly so I can get on with my life!

I do have one page and it didn’t really photograph well but I do like the way the pages came together and this might be my favorite day for the entire December Daily album.  It is a little bit hybrid but mostly paper layout using bits of Echo Park and some older Ali Edwards products from Designer Digitals.

I also have a layout using the photo from our visit with Santa.  This photo also went into the December Daily album but I loved the photo so I made a 12x12 layout to go into our regular album.  I received the fantastic Echo Park Holly Jolly Christmas products from my Club CK Secret Santa, Jodi!  I love these papers so much!  So happy with a nice mix of traditional/non-traditional Christmas colors. 

I do hope everyone had a great weekend and that Monday is nice to you!

Where has January Gone?

So it is 24 days into 2012 and things are moving along for us!  We have been busy finalizing our last few trips here in Europe before we move back to the USA in July, squeezing in a quick trip to Prague, looking at lots of dates for shipping our household goods and vehicle back, checking into local schools for the starting dates and vacations....the list just goes on and on. 

JG received his assignment notification about 2 weeks ago and we will be heading to Kentucky!  I am rather excited as I haven't lived on the eastern side of the US since I left home in 1998!  A few years in Idaho, then a few more in Washington State and 4 years in Germany and I miss being close to my family.  Now we can drive to visit them rather than fly.  Of course, that means we have to fly to see JG's parents in California but we can deal with that.  It is hard having family all over the US though as someone always feels slighted when we plan our vacations.  We cannot possibly visit everyone so maybe now people will actually come visit us.  I love my family but it sure would be nice if we were not the only ones expected to make the trips to vist as airfare for 4 is expensive and since my oldest starts school this fall we have to plan around the school vacations as well. 

I have had a few minutes to get my craft on this month and have been working on layouts, cards and crocheting a baby blanket.  I have a ton of photos to get scrapped or at the very least into albums and that is one project I need to attack before we move!  I am looking into picking up some of Becky Higgins' Project Life products just for this purpose because it should make for quick photo organization...however, that is a whole separate subject.

I made this layout for a recent Club CK 1-Hour Challenge where we were to bust out our scoring boards and use it to make something for the layout.  The papers and most of the embellishments are by October Afternoon for this one.  The ribbon isn't quite as uneven as it looks in the photo because I cannot take a straight close up photo of a layout!  Grrr.  I need to slow down a bit. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  I am going to make an honest effort to blog regularly again.

Her Smile

 

I always get sad looking back on pictures of the girls.  Lolo’s sweet smile just melts my heart.  She was just 5 weeks old when this photo was taken in May 2008.  Time is moving at lightning speed and my heart is begging for it to slow down. 

I played along with Frosted Designs Sketch Along Tuesdays Layout Sketch 22 from August 23rd.  I am just under the noon deadline and glad that I played along.  I changed up the circle part of the sketch but kept the cluster of embellishments and the flourish.  I hand stitched the flourish's and used stickles on the top of the white flowers to make them stand out.  I printed a quote I found online onto a transparency and added it below the cluster.  It reads “Her smile beams like sunshine, which fills our hearts with love.” 

 

 

Here is the original sketch:

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

Sketch Blog Hop

Welcome!  If you are following along with the blog hop you should have arrived here from Adele’s blog.  If you are just stopping by you want to join in on all the fun and inspiration from 22 more creative friends you can go to Amanda’s blog and start at the beginning.

Here is the sketch that we all used:


And here is my layout based on the sketch:



I changed up the orientation of the photos and moved the title but I stuck to the basic design as far as the placement of the papers and embellies.  This is the second layout I have made with the My Minds Eye American Made line they released a few months ago.  I don’t have many photos of myself in uniform so I do cherish the ones that I do have and wanted to get these put away.

I used some pretty ribbons to soften the page and some black Rainboots Thickers (my most favorite font of all the Thickers) for the title.  The flower is punched circles from tissue paper and I used a little bit of Stickles to help define the edges.



How about a prize for making it halfway through the blog hop?  Just become a follower if you are not already and leave a comment on this post.  I will select a winner early Monday morning and post the winner in a new post.  If you are a Club CKer leave your board name and I will convo you if you are the winner. 

Thanks for stopping by.  Your next stop on the blog hop is the talented Heather.  If you like the sketch and want to play along you can link up your own project on Amanda's blog for a chance to win another prize!