Project Life-February 2014

I am finally posting my February 2014 Project Life spreads. First off... I know, I know... February is spelled wrong, I left out the r and I didn't realize it till later.. eh.. what are u gonna do that's life and I left it like that. For this spread I used the Clementine edition, some of the Kraft edition, and some cards that came with the Studio Calico Kit. I used design A for this spread.

Here's the first side.. A screen shot of the T.V during Bruno Mars Super Bowl Half-time Performance. Also, some collages, I made on the Pic Frame App of the 100 days of school celebrations at our school. I also included a screen shot of the weather on my phone.

The next part of the spread featured a funny pic of my friend's little boy, who had gotten dirty playing outside and as my friend  was changing him, he covered his face and was embarrassed,  lol! My aunt sent me a text and pic of the screen while she watched the Beatles on T.V. I included a sticker with a quote of one of their songs. I have had that sticker in my stash forever.. glad I was finally able to use it and it fit perfectly with my color scheme on the page. I also included some pictures of my father-in-law's 68th birthday. His birthday is on February 10, so I got creative and used the 10 of hearts card and put the word FEB using silver glitter letters.

My 2nd spread is Valentine's Day week. I used a card from a MAMBI holiday edition, and also more of the  KRAFT and CLEMENTINE editions. I used Design A for these layouts.

 The first part of the spread, I put some Valentines Day cards from my students and family.. easy and simple, just cut what I needed to size.

The second part of the spread, I included a picture of my niece's first Valentines Day and also her 2-month old photo. I also included my cousin's daughter's first birthday party pic and a collage of our friends' visit. This was also a pretty simple layout and I love the way it turned out. 

I did Include one insert this week.. On February 16, we Baptised by niece's baby girl, Mallery. So I decided this special occasion needed its own layout. I used design C. and some Jolee's boutique stickers and some pretty floral paper I had in my stash.

The only thing is I need to add labels on this spread to document who's who..

My last spread in February has more pink, I used some cards from a previous Studio Calico kit, 5th & Frolic edition kit, and Azure edition for the design H page protector insert.

The first part of the spread is all about my aunt's birthday and her birthday flowers. That week was also my dad's birthday. I also included a favorite picture I took of my class that week. Also very simple layout,

I couldn't fix the orientation of this pic, but this id the design H insert I added of Dr. Seuss birthday celebrations at our school.. I liked that the colors in the Azure edition, match with the whole feel of Dr. Seuss theme. I included a regular 4x6 photo, a 4x6 photo collage, and an instagram-sized photo collage.

The other side of the design h documents a trip we took to Fredricksburg, Tx. I used mostly photos in this spread and the title is cut from a magazine.. very primitive, but it works for me. I used some Azure edition cards.

I'm still loving this project so much.. Are u still loving Project Life??


With Love,
Michelle

Project Life- January 2014

I know that it's already July.. but I wanted to start sharing my project life in order from the beginning. I have been working on my 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, & 2014 concurrently. With the exception of some embellishments and some journaling, I have actually kept up with my 2014 Project Life. Here's the first few pages of my album.

My approach to project life this year is that I am just taking pictures and putting them chronologically. That's it! If I chose to put one picture or several of one event/day is up to me and how I want the page to look. Like I mentioned I am using a mix of different kits, materials from my stash, etc. For January, I mostly used the Seafoam edition. I mixed in some cards from the Studio Calico kit, and some stuff from a simple stories celebration kit. 

The 1st half of the spread is a New Year's Day BBQ we had with my family. The title are white glitter thickers and the snowflake is an old Jolee's Boutique dimensional sticker.

The 2nd half of the spread is January 3-11. I included some pictures of my niece's baby girl Mallery, a pic of some adoption info we got in the mail, a facebook post about my nephew's 2nd birthday, and my friend Corina's birthday. Pretty basic.. I did use a Martha Stewart label for journaling on the photo on the upper left corner.

The second spread in January, I used the same colors and incorporated the same seafoam kit. I did add a little black because I wanted to include the "Everyday is a Blesssing" card from Studio Calico. 

The 1st half is about a training my husband went to in Huntsville. We took the pics off facebook and there were a lot of pics that we wanted to include. I decided to make a whole spread of the event. Again, I used the seafoam edition and glitter snowflake from Jolee's Boutique. My hubby did the journaling for this page.

In the 2nd half, I incorporate more black. I include a calendar, a haul I never posted, and a facebook post. I used design A for all these pages. I did have one insert this month.. My nephew's 2nd birthday party. There were a lot pictures and memorabilia that I wanted to include. I used design C and E, and I used the bright theme colors of the party to embellish my pages. 

I hope you all like my first full month share.. there will be more to come soon!

With Love, 

Michelle

Loving Scrapbooking Again

GET A CUP OF COFFEE OR GLASS OF WINE.. THIS IS A LONG ONE...
If you sit and look at my scrapbooks, you'll notice that almost all my scrapbooks stop in 2009. That's the year I got sick and just lost all interest in everything, including scrapbooking. In 2010 I was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer and things just got worse. I rarely have pictures of that year and in my scrapbooking life.. 2010 is known as the lost year. I am an organized person by nature, so when I tried to go back to scrapbooking I was frustrated and overwhelmed and just gave up. I have been a long time fan of Becky Higgins. I liked the idea of her first kit.. Project 365, but I never ordered it. It was not until 2011 that I decided to try it and by the middle of the year decided to let go of "regular" scrapbooking and make project life my exclusive way of memory keeping.
Fast forward to now and I am behind..... way behind on my project life.  All my albums are started, but none are finished. Every year is different, there are years I start with full force and others that I am so overwhelmed with the previous year that I can even begin to think about the next year. As I look at my albums, they are all different. I started doing the photo-a-day thing exclusively with the Amber edition kit in 2011. The next year (2012), I started doing a weekly spread, mixing the Amber and Cobalt edition kits with my regular scrapbooking supplies. That album was never finished either. In 2013, my motivation fizzled, I rarely took pics and the old feeling of .. "Why am I doing this?" popped into my head.  But.. I refuse to give up and I am determined to finish my albums. Here are some things I am doing to help me finish my 2011, 2012, & 2013 albums. I also decided to go back and do 2010.. Project Life style. That year was hard, but that's life and it has to be documented in someway.

1. JUST LET GO!!!!!! My albums don't have to be like everyone else's. Becky Higgin's developed these albums to make our lives easier, help us create memories for our families without guilt..  while still enjoying our lives to share in even more memories.. Project Life is not complicated, WE make it complicated. Project Life.. is what YOU make it.. it's your memories.

2.EVALUATE!! On Creative Live.. Becky Higgins said to evaluate what we have as far as our memories and have a plan for the end in mind.. That helped a lot and I'm planning a blog post on that soon...

3. ORGANIZATION...I've tried this before.. sketching my pages a la Marci Penner, but things would never end up as planned, I would forget to order prints.. OH THE PICTURES..... That was a chore and disaster in it self... To help me with my 2014 Project Life, I am using the COLLECT APP.. I love it!!!!!   I keep a "TO PRINT" folder of the pictures I need, which ensures I don't forget to order any photo again. After I order the pictures, I put them in the folder by year and month. I am really liking the monthly spreads, it less daunting for me than the weekly spreads.

4. $$ MULA$$$.... Scrapbooking in general can be expensive... But the best advice I can offer is Wait for sales. I have been buying my pictures through Shutterfly. Every month or so they have the 101 pictures for free and I take advantage. I also bought my kits on sale. BIG Bummer is that I missed out on THE JUST ADD COLOR KIT... still kicking myself on that one.. hopefully it will come back soon..

THE PLAN FOR 2014...

Like I mentioned I am doing a monthly spread, I am using snipets from different kits, my goal is to use a different kit or paper pad each month.. keeping the month in the same color scheme for a more cohesive look. I have always wanted to do mini albums like Cathy Zelsike's 30 days of grateful, or Ali Edward's Day in the Life/ Week in the Life, and December Daily.. I want to incorporate these elements into my Project Life somehow.. Don't know if I'll do it every year,but it's my plan for now.

THE KITS...

I already have the Amber edition and Cobalt editions, but last year  I bought the Seafoam edition and enrolled in the Studio Calico Project Life monthly subscription. Since I didn't do much scrapbooking, I still have those.. intact.. lol!

 I have since bought a whole bunch of BH themed kits, mini kits,and 4 more core kits. Top row left.. 5th & Frolic, Kraft, Sea foam, Azure, Midnight, and Clementine.. I keep forgetting I bought clementine in 2012. I have my eye on the Sunshine edition, Cinnamon edition, and others...lol!  I want to get one of the new stampin' up project life kits as well.

I'm very excited.. i'm falling in love all over again...
I (heart) you.. scrapbooking!!

Love, 
Michelle

Plans for Project Life

I have been fighting a very nasty flu bug- which has kept me from doing many of the things I had planned on doing. It has even kept me from work these past few days. But I have some thoughts/ideas on project life and some of the supplies I want to use.
First of all let me just say that I am VERY behind... and you know what.. it doesn't matter- at least not to me!! I'm gonna start fresh and work on my 2012 albums as I go. My approach this year is going to be different, go with the flow type of thing. I tried doing the weekly thing and there were weeks that it worked and others that didn't- it just depends-that's life! So If I have enough pictures to cover the whole week, I will include a weekly layout, if not a monthly layout will do just fine, and if I have a lot of pictures of a certain day or event that will be a layout. I have the idea in my head.. just see how it works out.
As far as my supplies, I still want to use 12x12 black leather albums from We R Memory Keepers. Like these: I LOVE them....

 Source: We r Memory Keepers

I also plan on using Becky Higgins Seafoam kit- It's beautiful!!! And I can't wait to order it. 

Source: Becky Higgins

I also want to use the Marcy Penner Planner pages, last year I used a notebook, but I found that I strayed from it very soon. Hopefully these will help me be more organized. I'm also looking into an app to help me keep my journaling up to date and my pictures organized. I'm still researching which app is best for me, I've seen a lot of suggestions like DAY ONE, PROJECT365, and EVERNOTE. Here are the Marcy Penner pages I have been rambling about.

Source: Marcy Penner

I'm also on the waiting list for the STUDIO CALICO Project Life subscription.. Still waiting on that to see what it's all about. Here are some other tools that are on my wish list.. First is this awesome punch from WE R MEMORY KEEPERS that punches out 3x4 sizes, which perfectly into the Project life page protectors. 

AWESOME!!!

Another tool I've had my eye on is this chomper thing or similar ( don't know the exact name) but it's also from WE R MEMORY KEEPERS...

That's the plan... Still want to order my prints from Shutterfly or Snapfish. Wish me Luck..


GOOD LUCK,
Michelle

Summer Progress & Project Life Process

Hi there!! Well Surprisingly, I managed to finish some of the things I had on my list...

My Clean-Up List

1. Clean and Organize pantry

2. Finish organizing lower kitchen cabinets

3.Clean and organize laundry area

4. Start cleaning spare room.

The only thing that I really wasn't able to do was to start cleaning the spare room, that will be a big task. But i'm hoping I'll get to it this weekend. My other list-" the fun one", I was not as productive. I did about 3 weeks of project life, and I created the printables for my Christmas planner, and that's about it. I'm hoping to start working on my niece's senior album again and finally finish it. And..of course I'll show you the finished product.
I have been doing project life for the last year and a half. I  attempted to start in 2010, but that was a very hard year and so many things got in the way.. as a matter a fact I stopped scrapbooking all together and my scrapbooks all stop in 2009. I'm slowly catching up or finding ways to document that year in my life that I "missed". My biggest problem is that I procrastinate in buying the project life core kit, as a matter a fact, I have yet to buy one for this year, I am patiently waiting for the kits to come back in stock.  But technically I am doing project life- I am taking photos, saving memorabilia, and journaling. First I made a calendar for each month of the year, this has served as a mini journal where I write notes and talk about my day.

 I took an idea from the Library of memories and used a photo storage album to corral all  my printed photos and memorabilia.

 After I collected and sorted all my stuff, I wanted to organize everything and see how it would work together. I had a small notebook from Wal-mart  and decided to use it as a guide to put together my pages when I finally get my Becky Higgins core kit.

I draw out the design A  page protector and each week, I sit down and design my pages including inserts where I use different size/ design page protectors. It might seem  a bit daunting, but honestly it works for me and keeps me on track. I have been on pinterest, and other blogs and some people are using planning sheets by Marci Penner- Genius!! I'll probably do that next year- since I don't wanna switch gears in the middle of the year. I have found blogs and YouTube channels of scrapbookers doing project life and man  did I have an A-HA moment. Here I am, waiting for the core kits to become available and people are mixing things up and using supplies they already have and making these albums truly their own. I had a few cards, journaling cards, and card stock left over from the AMBER EDITION kit, I bought last year and gathered some of my other supplies and started putting some layouts together..

.

I'm kinda of proud of them and liked how fast they came together. You'll notice that the pages are in a beautiful orange clementine album- this will not be their permanent home. This will be a working binder after I have enough pages, they will move into a black leather We r Memory Keepers album, just like the 2011 editions.

I am still planning on buying both the clementine and cobalt core kits. My hope is that I'll have left over supplies to start my 2013 project life. I love this project and I hope to do it for many years to come...


Michelle


*Project Life is a product created by Becky Higgins. It can be as elaborate or as simple as you want. The project is yours to make documenting life simple, easy, beautiful, and fun. If you want to learn more click on the Project Life button on the right. 

Back to REALITY.........

Hello, again ! My sweetie and I just came back from a 3-day cruise to the BAHAMAS!!! For the last 4 days and 3 nights this was our home away from home: The Norwegian Sky!!

I had never been on a cruise, so I was a bit nervous...well alot nervous. But everything went well and we loved it and hope to do it again someday. But I'm glad to be back- there's really no place like home, even if it involves cleaning and laundry. What's really making me super happy is all the memorabilia we got for our Project Life album. From the airplane flight, our overnight stay in Miami, the cruise itself, and the airplane flight back, I have ticket stubs, maps, itineraries, etc..  I loved that the crew took pictures of the passengers as they boarded  the ship, and throughout the cruise and were available for purchase. We have great souvenir pictures of us boarding the ship, arriving at the Great Stirrup Cay, and all dressed up at dinner. I love that I have them, all the memorabilia, and all the other pictures we took with our camera, my iPhone, and the hubby's cell phone. I'm hoping to put them together within the next few days of so... I'll let you know how that goes. I also want to go over my Project Life process. It's a little weird, but it's worked for me. It's especially for those who are on a budget and are buying things little by little.

It was truly a memorable and well deserved vacation. But now we are back to our regular schedules- or trying to at least! Lots of laundry to do, to-do lists to make, and restock our house with food and necessities. I miss you Bahamas... hope to see you again one day....

Michelle