Summer Wrap-up 2012

Here I am, the last Saturday of my summer vacation. It seems that once school starts, life moves 100 miles an hour. I have been back at work for a week, in meetings, working on our rooms, lesson plans..etc. But to me, it's when we have our have the kiddos in the classroom that I truly feel that summer is truly over!! I love my job, but I love summer...
This Summer was AWESOME... here's a wrap-up of Summer 2012.

June

Our niece graduated from High School- so proud of her!!

My Aunt Oralia retired after 35 years as an educator. We celebrated with a Hawaiian luau. I was fun!!

Also these cute boys got to meet...Awwww!! Love this pic!! It looks like Xavier is introducing himself to Joey.  Gotta post the other pics- So Cute!!

Did I mention we had THREE parties on the weekend of my aunts retirement party!!

My sweet momma's birthday and we also celebrated my little cousin Tino's 5th birthday a bit early. So sweet to have my grandma's three great-grandsons together!!

Our trip to the Bahamas!!!!

The annual trip to County Line BBQ for our great friend Adrian's birthday!

July

My nephew's 15th birthday!!!

Celebrated the 4TH with a BBQ with family!!

Participated in my first PINTEREST challenge

SNEAK PEAK!!! Finally built our shed barn!! More info on that later!!

Our trip to Austin/ New Braunfels to visit family & where I found lots of great finds at the thrift stores.

August

Ate lots of new, healthier recipes, saving those for a rainy day :)

Also tried some yummy drinks!! Also saving for a rainy day.

And... we celebrated Xavier's 1st birthday! And I created my first birthday hat- LOVE the way it turned out..

As far as my Summer to do list, here's how I did

House Stuff

Put up blinds & curtain rod in the kitchen

Make no-sew curtain for kitchen window
Clean and organize under kitchen sink  Still need to get some organizational stuff to finish it up!
Clean and organize kitchen drawers
Clean and organize upper kitchen cabinets

Clean and organize pantry

Clean and organize lower kitchen cabinets

Clean and organize laundry area-  Still need to get some baskets, and other things to finish this space. 

Clean and organize bookcase in office

Organize and rearrange office furniture

Clean and organize Marc's desk

Clean and organize master closet

Organize under sink in guest bath

Paint guest bath & redecorate

Remove carpet and paint master bath ( yes, we have carpet in the guest bath, not by choice, YUCK!)

Empty guestroom and put stuff in barn- I still working on this, slowly taking stuff to the barn and slowly reclaiming our home!

Put up the light fixtures we bought in the office, hall, and laundry room

Repave front walkway

Organize craft closet

Craft Stuff

Finish my niece's senior album- A monster of a project I was not able to.....but I'm so close to finishing!!

Get caught up with PROJECT LIFE

Make a treasure box for school

Get caught up with regular scrapbooking!

Spray paint some stuff for kitchen!!Still need to paint a few more things, but got the stuff I had wanted to do   

Paint & line drawers of old desk, also new knobs!!

Make labels for album spines

Decorate clothespins and make art for laundry room

Make wreath for classroom- Just bought the stuff to make wreath- will show SOON!!

Make a Christmas Planner - I've created the pages for my planner, just need to tweak and print!

I'm pretty happy with the progress on my list. Now that school is starting, I know I will post a lot less.I'm still putting the finishing touches on some summer projects, that I can't wait to show you. Also some pics of my classroom and other school projects. For all the teachers have a great year and God bless!!

Michelle

Mini- Summer Weekly To-Do List

Hola! Here's a short post for y'all...  It's often said not to tell people your plans, cause more than likely they will fall through AND that's exactly what happened....WOMP, WOMP, WOMP :(
Due largely in part to our central air going kaput and having to be replaced. NOT GOOD in this 100+ degree Texas weather. But all is good now AND we finally got our shed, which I am now renaming the barn cause it's huge!! Can't wait to organize and personalize it...my little heart is skipping a beat!! YES, I am that excited about my shed.. um barn!!
Here's my little list: You'll notice there's no crafts, fun list.

Put up blinds & curtain rod
Make no-sew curtains
Clean and organize under kitchen sink
Clean and organize kitchen drawers
Organize and rearrange office furniture

We were really busy taking stuff to the barn and dealing with the whole central- air drama, but still we were able to do a lot, and the hubby helped. Glad to report he is feeling much better! Pics of our barn will come later...  :) And next week we are headed to ATX to visit family and also sneak in a little trip to (fingers crossed) IKEA!!!

Summer To-Do List Update

Here's wishing everyone had a great 4th of July!!

We spent the evening watching fireworks and eating hotdogs in our backyard. Nothing like family and summer fun- great combination!
So here's how I did with my weekly To-Do list

THE ORGANIZATION/ CLEANING LIST

1.  Clean and organize upper kitchen cabinets

2.  Start cleaning up spare room

3.  Clean up bookcase & expedits in office. Also stuff on floor.

4.  Clean and Organize Marc's desk

YES!! I was able to do almost everything on my list. I finished organizing my upper cabinets, I cleaned up my book case, and Marc is finishing cleaning up his desk as we speak...um I as I type, I mean. I also tackled the spare room and should finish by today or tomorrow. I still need to reorganize and re-arrange the expedits in my office.

THE CRAFTY (FUN) LIST

1. Work on my niece's senior album

2.  Work on project life

3.  Make 1-2 scrapbook pages

4.  Put together Christmas planner

Yes, I stayed up way past my bedtime two nights this week, working on my niece's senior album. All I need to do is print some photos and journaling blocks, and finish the title page. I'm also waiting on some pictures from her graduation and some big envelopes from Becky Higgins and I'm done. I also organized all my project life memorabilia. It had been collecting on a shelf and I put everything together according to date, along with pictures. My Christmas planner is still not printed and extra scrapbook pages have not been created... :(
Gotta say I'm a little disappointed... & I also want to start making activities for school. And the crafty things are just not getting done. So, my very good friend, Corina and I are going to meet every Wednesday until school begins to make activities for centers and small group instruction. It will also give us a chance/excuse to pig out and watch all those scary ghost/paranormal shows on SYFY. LOL!  While we work of course, it will be our own "Make and Take Wednesdays"....I also want to take a day off on Fridays from all the organizing and cleaning and craft for a good 2-3 hours or more & see how it goes.  Well I'm going to go have dinner and work on my pinterest challenge project. Tune in on Tuesday to see how it went, keep your  fingers (& toes) crossed! Asta Luego... Thanks!

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..

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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.