Project Life | Week 12 & 13

Project Life update! Here's my week's 12 & 13, click to view larger. 

Spring is always a busy time of year for most, I think. I'm finding myself being a bit more flexible with this project, going more in the direction of a weekly overview instead of day by day. At first I was fighting this and now, I'm embracing it, realizing IT IS OK! :) Anywho, hope you enjoy and please do share how you're doing on your Project Life or a 365 or 52 project your working on! 

Project Life | Week 10 & 11

Hey everyone! Here's my week's 10 & 11 as promised! Whoo hoo! 

Week 10: You can see I'm missing a photo here on this layout, that's because I forgot my phone and had no way of taking pictures when we went out to an extended family dinner, so I'm waiting on photos from my sister-in-law to get this on fully completed. 

Sun- Tues photos

Wed - Sat photos

And another 6x12 insert with 6 photos from our weekend road trip to the lake/st. paddy's parade. 

Week 11:

A very sparse week in the way of words and somewhat even photos... definitely a challenging week... I'm starting to realize the true benefit of taking those few minutes each day to jot something down and have a photo in mind that I've taken that day or plan to take the next day. There's something to be said for not waiting until the end of the week (for me anyway). I know there will likely be more weeks like this one, but I'm feeling reenergized and refocused on this project. I stumbled upon a new resource over the weekend: captureyour365.com. Although I haven't taken time to explore the actual site too much, I  did sign up for the daily emails that give inspiration/ideas for your photo-a-day project. Very helpful if you are struggling with an idea for the day or you're just looking for a new idea, so check it out. 

Here's the left side of week 11 

and the right side of week 11. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Project Life | Catching Up

Hello! YES, I am still alive!!! My sincerest apologies for being the biggest blog slacker ever! The saddest part is that I have no decent excuse. The good news is that I have not been a Project Life slacker... I have been faithfully keeping up with it, just not done a good job at taking pictures and posting them. :( But, I am catching up with that today and will do my absolute best to keep up with it going forward... because I love sharing and inspiring you in your own Project Life or other creative journey! :) 

So, here is... Week 7 

In the bottom right photo spot, I usually put Tuesday's photo, but for this Tuesday I just wrote out a conversation between my son and I and didn't have a photo that went with it, and when I saw that the back side of that spot from week 6 was this, I liked the way it looked and just went with it. So, don't feel like you have to have something "significant" filling each spot if you don't have anything to put there, just "make something up", take the pressure off... 

I put in another 6x12 insert in this week. My daughter painted her hand and did this handprint all on her own... I loved how she did each finger a different color and new instantly it had to go in PL! I paired it with a photo of her being goofy and a strip of one of the sheets of patterned paper that came with the kit. 

On the back side of the 6 x12 I put in a portion of one of the 22 paintings Noelle did over that weekend. 

Week 8: 

A few weeks back I bought Ali's digital journaling blocks... one set of long journalers and one of the 4x6 sets. I was excited to use the 4x6 set this week and love how it adds into PL perfectly! Definitely looking forward to using more of these in the future. On this one I wrote our the kids' bedtime routine and put it next to the photo of Daddy reading them bedtime stories (part of the routine). 

Close up of Sun-Tues

Close up of Wed-Sat

Week 9: 

One thing I like to do sometimes if my photo turns out off lighting wise or even sometimes if it's blurry I'll turn it black and white which makes it more artsy-looking instead of looking like an obvious bad photo. So, now the secret's out... and you should try it to! ;) 

Close up of Sun-Tues

Close up of Wed-Sat 

Come back on Tuesday when I'll share week 10 & 11! 

Project Life | Week 6

Welcome to Project Life Week 6! Yippee! It's late, but it's here so better late than never, right!?! My little boy celebrated his 3rd birthday on Saturday, so much of the week I focused on things about him, things he likes, little quirks, etc... I am wanting to also include an insert with more details about him at this point in time. I purchased volume 1 of Ali's long journalers and am hoping to get some time this week/weekend to put one of those together to add! 

Here's a look at Sun-Tues... the far right journaling block is Parker's stamping artwork that he did while I was working on writing some journaling! :) 

and Wed-Sat... 

Project Life | Week 5

Here's my Project Life Week 5! 

Sun-Tues... We got even MORE snow this week! The top right photo is of our under cabinet TV in our kitchen showing the blizzard warning, the bottom right is of my dear, sweet, hard working husband who spent nearly 24 hours solid out plowing the white stuff! 

Wed-Sat... A few of the things we did/enjoyed the 2nd half of the week... while we had cabin fever (minus Friday when we finally got out to go to the store!) :) 

I also did a little insert page from a photo I took of my 2 kiddos that turned out well and a journal entry I put into my Momento iPhone app on Friday. 

On the back side I slid in a family portrait Noelle drew at church. The big guy with 6 arms is Daddy, the one to the right is Mommy with the crazy hair, Noelle is on the other side of Daddy & that's little brother Parker with the long arms! :) 

Linking to:

PS. How do you like my new little blog button over there ----> "Be Intentional" found here. Thought it quite appropriate and a good reminder since Intentional is my One Little Word this year! :)

Project Life | Week 4

Project Life Week 4!!! Wow, I can hardly believe it! This year is flying by already! 

One of the things that I think is essential for this project is having a camera with you at all times, whether that be a little point and shoot you keep in your purse or your cell phone, without something portable that you can have with you all the time, you won't be able to capture spur of the moment shots. 6 of my 7 photos this week were taken with my iPhone, including photos taken at the library, in our car and inside Target. It's so fun to be able to capture those little things of everyday life that often get overlooked or may seem unimportant at the time, but it's those little things that are what take up the majority of our days and moments and are so worthy of documenting! So, here's a look at week 4! 

Because I included Wednesday & Thursday's journaling on one block & I didn't have a photo or any memorabilia I wanted to put there, I used an extra filler card on the 2nd half of the week. 

Sunday - Tuesday

Wednesday - Saturday

For my Wednesday shot I used an idea from Becky's Blog about using Google Maps to map where you live. I then just took a photo of the screen with my iPhone to get this POTD! Thanks Becky!

And thank you for stopping by today! I'm linking up to Project Life Tuesday on The Mom Creative.

Project Life | Week 3

Project Life... week 3! Yippee... still LOVING this project, more and more as I go I think! There are some days I think "What in the world am I going to capture today and then at some point later on something happens and I'll think "aha!" this can be my POTD! :) I'm wondering if this is going to get easier or harder as the year goes on... although I am sure that some weeks will be easier than others (like this week was). Such a great & doable project and the great thing is you don't have to do a photo a day, there are SO many fabulous different ways you can use this album! For lots of ideas visit Becky's site.

So here is the first part of week 3. 

We've gotten a lot of snow the past couple of weeks and I've taken quite a few photos, so I decided to insert an American Crafts 6x12 page protector with some of those additional photos & a journaling block I made out of some lined paper I had in my stash.

And here is the 2nd page of week 3. On the bottom left 4x6 block I slipped in part of the hot chocolate packet that says "Making Warm Chocolatey Memories". I loved it and knew that it needed to be included... how fun is it going to be to look back at that in 10-20 years (or more) and see how the graphics and things have changed over time. I also included a ticket from the arcade/play place we went to on Saturday for a birthday party... loving including these little bits!

Just a side note: If you happen to look closely & you notice the stamped dates look a bit odd, well that's because  I somehow got confused on what date it was! ;) I had to go back and "fix" them so they showed the correct dates with the correct days. Ooops! 

Linking to: 

Project Life | Week 2

Hello! I'm here to share my Project Life Week 2 with you! This week I included a few "bits of life" rather than just photos/journaling blocks. I included the card that came with the flowers my hubby surprised me with and our receipt from the grocery store. 

Sunday's photo spot was actually a sheet of paper my daughter was practicing writing on. 

On Wednesday I took a photo of the gas pump that showed how much gas is and how much we spent. 

Linked to: 

Project Life Tuesday

Can I just first start off by saying... I LOVE PROJECT LIFE!!! Seriously, this is my first year doing it and I have to say, it is so manageable, so doable, so fantastic... totally loving this new (to me) way of scrap booking our family's daily life! You would think that with taking a photo a day I would have more photos than normal so far, and maybe I do but, it feels like the ones I have taken have more meaning and it's also given me permission to stop when it's been a moment or event that I could become snap happy. Granted, there are certainly events/times/moments where you definitely want to be snap happy, but in other moments, those first few photos you took... were probably plenty to capture the memory. Wait... did I just say you can take too many photos? :) Well, I know I can and snapping a lot of photos (for me) can mean I'm not present in the moment and I feel that Project Life already has given me the freedom to put the camera down after a bit and just enjoy life. (Probably not what you thought you were going to hear). So, here's my example... Thursday afternoon we had beautiful weather here in Kansas. The kids and I spent an hour outside enjoying the much needed fresh air (as I shared in Sunday's post). I was definitely snapping a lot of pictures and I certainly got some great shots, but after a little while I thought... Ya know, I think I've taken plenty, I know I have at least 2 or 3 good ones to choose from for my album, so, I'm just going to enjoy this moment. Knowing what I'm going to do with those photos already, gives me the freedom to stop and enjoy life. And the other few that turned out good I had already started planning a separate layout for them. I never do this... I rarely take photos with a plan already in place for doing something with them. Project Life has given me that plan in a simple, easy, doable format! Whoo hoo for Project Life... now... on to my first week's layout! ;) 

Entire layout (click photo to make it larger). 

Left Side (Sunday-Tuesday)

Right Side (Wednesday-Saturday) 

I hope that if you are doing Project Life yourself you will share your pages with me... it's so much fun to get ideas and inspiration from each other. Also, come join me and a ton of others at the Big Picture Classes Project Life FREE Community. And, share your pages on Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative! If you are on the fence about PL, I hope that I've convinced you that you can do it! :) It's not too late to start! And, if you aren't planning on doing one, I hope you'll follow along with me anyway! :) 

A few things...

So... it's here... 2011! Can you believe it? 2010 was a great year for our family, but I have a feeling 2011 is going to be even better. A new year is such an exciting time isn't it? This year I think I'm the most excited than I have ever been... at least in a while. I feel like this year I have a real vision for what I want to be different and some tangible/measurable ways to do that. Although I still have a bit of work to do in some areas, I feel like I'm well on my way in other areas. 

If you follow Ali's blog you have certainly heard of the One Little Word idea. I have chosen a word for the past several years and this year was no exception. My word this year is intentional. It is my desire to be more intentional in many areas of my life, actually now that I think about it, every area of my life. The two biggest though are time and relationships... intentional with how I spend my time and more intentional with the relationships/friendships in my life. I'm taking Ali's One Little Word class at Big Picture Classes and I can tell already that I have a greater awareness of my word this year than I have in the past. 

I also want to be more intentional with my scrap booking. Last year I had a goal of completing 75 layouts... and I did accomplish that goal (although I did lose count about 1/2 way through the year!). This year I want to spend more time on bigger more significant projects. These projects have always intimidated me in the past, but I'm quite excited about them this year. One of these is the One Little Word class as it spans the entire year, but I am also doing Becky Higgins' Project Life doing the Picture a Day approach and I'm also signed up for 2 of Jessica Sprague's Photoshop Elements classes in order to learn my way around the software that I got for Christmas (thanks again Mom!) :) 

I'm quite excited about this transformation/transition in my scrap booking... and am excited to be learning so many new things and taking on some new challenges. I also hope to share more often on my blog... but we'll see... it's not a goal this year just a desire. I do hope you will check back though and follow along with me in 2011! 

On a side note: I have not yet finished my December Daily... whooops... I've gotten so excited about these new projects that the DD has gone on the back burner. I am realizing that I really need to keep up with projects like that in the moment, because it kind of loses its excitement come December 26th! :) LOL! I do intend to finish it still, but am already thinking ahead to this year and thinking I may go all digital (if I learn Photoshop well enough this year) or just include it with my Project Life and call it good... we'll see! :)