Erin Condren Life Planner 2014-15

After weeks of waiting, I finally got my Erin Condren Life planner. I had been wanting one for some time and finally decided to get it. I am so excited!!!

 It came beautifully packaged in mint green tissue paper, I also got some free stickers, and tags.
AND a $10 gift card and and... $15 card on my next purchase. Downfall is I can't use them both at the same time. The $15 one expires next month, and I'm eyeing the teacher planner. The $10 card doesn't have an expiration date, so I might use it or next year's planner.

The planner I got was Candy Lace Mocha Multi and it retails for $50.00, but with the a $10 coupon, I was able to get for $40 plus shipping and tax. It took about 3 weeks for delivery.. longest 3 weeks ever.. but soo worth it!

The planner has a laminated cover that can be removed and is interchangeable. Here's the inside cover and first page, some inspiration in the following pages, and a calendar of the year in a glance.

 Next come the bones of the planner. The month at a glance and a week in a glance. Along with clear ruler, that is detachable and can be moved around as needed. The month at a glance come with a notes section. The week in advance is divided by morning, day, and night. It also has a section for notes and goals.

The planner also comes with lined paper and also decorative white paper for notes or whatever you might want to use it for.

I also comes with stickers that you can use to label your planner. The labels have birthday, game, dr's appt., hair appt., vacation, and also some blank ones.

I seriously love this keep it together pocket and the planner comes with a forget me not perpetual calendar and contacts. You can write birthdays and anniversaries, also important numbers.

It also comes with a plastic zip-lock type pocket with these beautiful tags with my name and that match my planner.

Here's a look at the inside back cover.. and the tabs.

Seriously love my planner and can't wait to use it. I'll try to post a blog post on how I'm using the planner once I get situated with it. I got these pens that a lot of people have been raving about at Target

They are seriously beautiful.. Go on over to Erin Condren and take a look.
Here is a $10 off your first purchase Referral link https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/michellemartinez1030



Happy Planning,
Michelle

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

T.V Console Organization

When my hubby and I first started buying furniture for our house, we bought a huge entertainment center for our living room. After years of using it, we decided it didn't suit our room size or style. Recently, we bought a medium size console. It was big enough for our T.V, but small enough for our space.

It is Cherry wood and I love it's very simple and has plenty of storage room..

The large middle cabinet holds our board games on the first shelf. On the 2nd shelf.. 3 long, skinny, wicker baskets from Target fit perfectly. The baskets hold my husband's video games, my Zumba video and accessories, and the middle basket is empty.

The right side cabinet, holds 3 picture boxes. I am in the process of organizing my photos and most of my pictures were dumped in these 3 boxes, I bought them years ago at Wal-Mart. I had put them in a donation pile, but decided to keep them for this project. The red box holds card games, bingo cards, etc.. The turquoise box holds kid's movies. I'm a teacher and we watch movies sometimes for holidays, etc.. so I keep these movies in their package and separate from our other movies. The green box holds blank CD's and DVD's. The boxes are labeled, so ill remember what I have in them.

On the left side, I put 2 acrylic boxes with our CD's and DVD's. I  labeled them with pretty scrapbook paper. I got these boxes at the Container Store, they are pricey.. but so worth it!!
Here's the.link

Here's a closer look at the inside. Was it hard to throw all the DVD covers.. a little, but it creates so much space. I still need to put together one more box to store the rest of our music and I am also thinking of making CD's of our photos and  putting a box together of all our photos.. but we'll see.
Hope you enjoyed this small organization project.


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

I STILL HAVE A BLOG!!!

Once again, I have fallen behind on blogging.. It's life.. I love documenting my projects that no one really cares about.. except maybe people like me who love to see other people's houses and projects. LOL! Well I'm back. It's already summer and as you know, summer is when I get busy and I have been BUSY!! I have a lot of projects to share. Just wanted to update my blog... Yep Im still here..

LOVE,
Michelle :)