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 :)

January Home Projects

Hola!! Like always I have been busy and taking on much more than I should.. lol!! I have been working on projects here and there on weekends and in between laundry, etc, etc... I want to share some of the projects I worked on in the month of January.
       My husband and I are tackling our # 1 nemesis- PAPER!! Mail, files, bills, etc... This is an ongoing process that we are still trying to deal with. One thing we have done to help with the chaos is I got all our owner's manuals from the various places in the house and put them together in a binder.

I love Target binders.. they are so colorful and pretty!! I got some plastic folders with tabs and separated the manuals into categories.. Kitchen, appliances, lawn. electronics, sports/outdoor.

I

It has been working ok.. only it is a bit bulky that I might have to separate into 2 binders. But it serves it's purpose.

Another project happened while I was putting away all my Christmas dishes in the china cabinet in the kitchen. While the hutch was fairly organized..

But the two drawers in the cabinet were a different story. They had become full- on JUNK drawers!!!

I emptied out and cleaned out the drawers. I got rid of all the ugly, old dish towels, folded the rest up nicely and got to work on my second drawer. I had these plastic containers that I had collected during my days as a store cashier. They held the sour strip candy and they were just to sturdy and nice to throw away.. so I cleaned them and saved them.

I also had these small plastic containers, I bought last year to hold the crayons for nephews party. The end result was awesome.. everything fit like a glove and I managed to put back everything in the drawer.. nice and neatly of course. I even had room to put my collection of scentsy bars in the back.

This might not seem like a big project, but any little project that can help you're life feel more in order is worth it. For the past two years or so, my husband and I have been working at organizing our lives.. it's overwhelming sometimes but drawer by drawer, closet by closet, we are finally getting organized. It's a work in progress and keeping it in working, organizational order is another chore in it self.. but I truly love our new organized way of living.. How have you organized your life??

Till later,
Michelle...

2014 Goals

         It's already been a month into the new year and I have been busy with work, life, etc. We started meal planning and it's been a chore, but it's been very  worth it. We've saved a lot of money and are eating healthier. I've also been a bit lazy.. my office is still in chaos and the little projects I said I would during the winter month are still undone..
          This year I don't have a list resolutions..this year I have some goals I want to accomplish by the time this year is over. Here are my goals broken down into four categories... BLOG, PERSONAL, CRAFTY/SCRAPBOOKING, HOME PROJECTS..

PERSONAL
1. Organize finances and budget
2.  Meal plan and budget food
3. Organize my time more ( get a planner)
4. Simplify
5. Go to Church more and read the BIBLE.
6. Eat healthier/ exercise
7. Concentrate more on my Thirty-one business
8. Start an ETSY shop
9. Start adoption process/still hoping to conceive
10. Spend more time with my family
11. Incorporate a movie/ game night during the week
12. Limit t.v/ ipad use

BLOG
1. Blog more often.. at least once a week
2. Get a brand new design for my blog
3. Start a teaching blog or incorporate a section/ day/ for my school stuff/ adventures
4. Organize ideas of things I want to include in the blog and a schedule of what/ when I want to put up blog posts.

CRAFTING/SCRAPBOOKING
1.Catch-up on Project Life & finish albums
2. Finally finish my niece's graduation album
3. Start my nephew's baby album
4. Finish scrapbook pages from my old albums
5. Organize scrapbook pages
6. Make spine label

HOME
1. Build front porch
2. Start master bath Reno
3. New washer/dryer
4. Finish organizing lower kitchen cabinets
5. Clear out extra bedroom
6. Organize and finish office
7. Start working on charging station
8. New bedding/ curtains/accessories for master bedroom
9. Organize files, CD's, & photos
10. Paint living room
11. Remove carpet, install flooring.
12. Finish guest bathroom
13. Move LR ceiling fan to master bedroom and buy new living room ceiling fan
14. Re-Organize pantry ( ugh.. one day... i'll get it right!!)
15. Organize MB closet
16. Clean back deck
17. Organize shed
18. Work on yard... grass, plants,trees..build a BBQ area/pit
19. Organize, drawers, entertainment center, and coffee tables in living room

There are other things I want to tackle like organizing/ decorating my hubby's office, organizing my classroom,  renovating my mom's living room/kitchen, and also organizing some areas of my mom's home.. things I want to do for the blog. I also want to do more holiday decor.. already a huge fail with Valentine's day.. Well please come along with me this year as I go through my lists. What are your goals for 2014?


Have an awesome day, 
HUGS... Michelle

BLOGIDAYS WEEK 2

Today I am going to revisit my Christmas planner. You can read all about it here. I had been working on this project since last summer. Finally last Christmas I put my planner to use and let me tell you I don't know how I got along without it. It has helped me stay organized and on budget. Right now I am in the process of updating our planner.. putting in new addresses, adding new people to lists, etc... I'm waiting on a few addresses I requested and hopefully be able to print my newly updated pages by tomorrow. I also want to add a new tab since this year we are hosting Christmas dinner. I have a party planning binder, where I keep a section for holiday parties, but I feel that this should be together with all the other Christmas plans. Do You have a Christmas planner?? What do you include in your planner?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS PLANNING!!

LOVE<3  M

Michelle

BLOGIDAYS WEEK 1

Hello!!! Hope you all had a very blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving!!  I am rested, very full, and extremely BLESSED!! I am thankful for my family, my home, my job, my health, and especially my wonderful hubby!

I am going to attempt to do a daily blog of my holiday prep and ideas. So far we have taken out the Christmas Decor, put up the tree, which I have yet to decorate. I still have some things I plan to do/make/buy. Plus this year, we are planning Christmas dinner at our house. I have so many plans and ideas I want to share, so stay tuned!! 

Seasons Greetings....

Michelle