Project Life January 2015 Part 2

January - 2nd half This year I am doing my spreads monthly instead of weekly. This has freed me so much. i don't have to stress about getting the right amount or orientation of pictures for each week. And I can group like photos (e.g. preschool photos throughout the month) if I want to. I have also decided to take my color cues from the Echo Park Through the Year month cards. January's color scheme is blue and gray. I sorted through some of my giant stash of PL cards for gray and blue. And I sorted through my embellishment stash for similarly hued pieces.

Page five features some great shots from the Children's Museum and preschool. Plus I threw in a foggy photo of our street.  I am doing "Currently" cards at least twice a month. I want to include those into my spreads and this page was perfect for that addition. The alphas on the street photo are shiny silver.

Page six grouped all the photos from the Winter Social. I want to keep all those pics together in one page. All I added was a journaling card to tell about the event.

Page seven includes some random photos and the few good ones from our Safari Run visit. I chose to journal about that visit as it was our first to the place. Other than that, I added some word stickers and a few enamel dots.

Page eight features some random around the house pictures, but the highlight is my ticket to see Tim Minchin in concert. So excited to be able to get a babysitter and attend. I also decide to include my little monthly wrap-card on this page. I highlighted my books read and some other fun stats.

Page nine details my progress on my OLW word. I included my monthly intentions on a journaling card. The other pockets highlight some of the areas that I worked on. For embellishment, I added some washi tape.

Page ten finishes out January with highlights from our trip to the Oakland Zoo. We have a membership so we go often. I added just a few cute pictures and some word stickers for embellishment. I threw in my Currently card as an added bonus.

Supplies:

• Echo Park Through the Year
• WRMK Dreamy
• Random alphas and embellishments

Project Life 2014 W15-16

Week 15 This week was huge!  We flew back from Indiana and had our mom's group's Easter social.  We had so many great pictures that I had to include an insert page (design H).

In terms of my design, I went simple yet colorful.  I pulled out a ton of spring themed cards from the Seasons Mini Kit to accent our colorful pictures.  I grabbed the kit on clearance thinking I would like a few cards.  I found that I love the entire kit.  A great investment. The embellishments stayed on the cards.  I didn't want to alter the pictures.  My favorite added feature is the plane and heart stamp on the first page.  I've used that stamp at least 5 times already and love love love it!  Overall, this spread is a great example of my style: clean and simple.

Supplies:

• PL Seasons Mini Kit
• PL Days of the Week stickers
• SU Travel Themed Stamp Set (retired)
• Stickabilitiies alphas
• Recollections stamp set
• My Mind's Eye die cuts
• Michael's camera stamp
• WRMK Dreamy Kit

Week 16

Week 16 is all about Arthur turning 6 months old and fun Easter pics.  We didn't do much, but I still managed to get some pics from our week.

I went with a yellow, blue, and gray color scheme for the week.  Seafoam was the first kit I purchased and yet it gets pushed to the side in favor of others.  I need to remind myself to use it more often.  I do like the simple geometric card design.  I accented the pictures with a few stickers.  Another clean and simple layout.

Supplies:

• PL Seafoam Kit
• PL Days of the Week Stickers
• Studio Calico Alphas
• Basic Grey Enamel dots
• Heidi Swapp stickers
• PL Baby Neutral Kit
• Recollections I Love You stickers

Archives: Project Life 2014 -- Weeks 13 and 14

Originally published on April 12th, 2014Week 13

Family Album: Weeks 13 and 14 were all about documenting our trip back to Indiana.  I loved adding the little embellishment tags and sparkly stars here and there throughout the spread.  I didn't want to clutter the photos too much, but felt they needed a little something.

As to the pictures themselves, I love adding in more pictures of Arthur with other people.  I got some great shots of him with my sister, father, mom, grandpa, and grandma.  So cute!

Supplies:

• SU Sent with Love DSP and embellishments
• Studio Calico alphabet stickers
• Random travel themed stamps

Week 14

Family Album: The second week of our trip back to Indiana.  This time I used some of my new Heidi Swapp stamps ("hello" and "together") and some great alphabets to label some pictures.  I also caught some great pictures of Arthur with his Grandma and Papa, Uncle, brothers, and new baby friends.

Supplies:

• WRMK Albums Made Easy Dreamy cards
• Enamel dots
• Heidi Swapp stamps
• Studio Calico alphabets
• Heidi Swapp stickers

Archives: Cards #33

Originally published on March 16th, 2014Crafting: 

• PL Swaps (easter eggs, scraps, rainbow) -- I love the use of washi tape on the rainbow cards.  For the scraps swap, I decided to make pocket cards with washi tape.  And the easter egg cards made use of my SU Birds of Feather DSP.

• Book of lists notebook -- Tons are people are participating in the 30 Days of Lists this March, but I just don't have the time or energy to commit to that.  Instead, I thought I would create a notebook, decorate it, and then have various lists.  The idea is to do a list a week (or so).  I love putting my own spin on the project.  I ran across this perfect little binder on clearance at Target the other day.  I set about cutting cardstock and patterned paper down to the sizes I would need.  When it comes time to make a list, I'll select a topic, pick a stamp set to decorate (and any embellishments), and cut a piece of white cardstock for the actual list.  I love that it's ready to be used.  I don't have to start from scratch every time!

• PL W9-10 -- I finished these weeks yesterday.  Check out my blog post here.
• Punch Guide -- I also made a handy guide to all my punches using some random blank playing cards (from old teaching supplies).  I got the idea from Pinterest and immediately put it on my to make board.  This will definitely come in handy when I need to figure out the best punch to use or the relative sizes.  No more digging through the drawer!
• Stamp Guide -- Making my punch guide led me to want to create on for all my stamps.  I have so many now (both loose and SU boxes) that I often forget what I have.  I spend way too much time digging through all of them to get ideas.  So, I decided to stamp all my stamps onto white cardstock to act as a handy guide.  There are separate pages for Christmas, Holidays, Sentiments, Occasions, and Misc.  I'm only partially done, but this is going to be great when I'm finished.

Shopping Scores: 

• Steals.com box -- During steals.com's big archive sale, I ordered a mystery box. This is what came.  I'd say that 70% of the box will be used by me.  The paper stack is great.  I love the alphabet stickers and small tags.  The chipboards will get a lot of use.  The jewels will probably get use, but I need to find the best adhesive for them.  The ribbon isn't my style at all and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to use the watercolor products.  Overall, a really good buy.

• Target randomness -- I grabbed the 3x4 and 4x6 Dreamy sets by WRMK.  I also found two containers that are the perfect size for holding greeting cards.  The zebra print wasn't my first choice, but they work.  And I found some great little stickers and embellishment pieces in the One Stop bins.

• Peachy Cheap -- Another daily deal site I found a few weeks ago.  This time I grabbed an entire set of enamel dots from Basic Grey.  I couldn't wait to use them, hence the missing dots.

• Birthday gifts -- This week I received the last of my birthday gifts from J's parents.  I love the paper stacks and am super excited to use the PL theme packs.  The Americana pack is even cuter in person.

• PL Swap and Sale FB Group -- I've been a part this group for a few weeks now, but most of the items don't appeal to me.  I had been marginally searching for the PL Kiwi set.  Ever time it came up for sale, someone snatched it up right away.  I finally caught a listing at the right time.  I received my 1/3 of the kit yesterday.  Love love love the cards I received!  I also received my scrap swap back.  I'd say that over half of these cards will be used.  There's only a few that don't fit my style (looking at you cowboy card).

• Stampin' Up order -- I ordered my March order early as I will not be in town for the monthly stamp club.  We are doing a huge DSP share so I bought three packs to share.  Plus one other member and I are buying two of the larger color collection DSPs to share so I bought the Regals.  Lastly, I grabbed the 2012-2014 In color DSP as it was one sale.  For my Saleabration item I grabbed the Petal Parade stamp set.  I've seen some great examples to copy.

• Michaels -- Last week I grabbed the Baby Boy Mini Kit on clearance, some purple washi tape (how did I not have any purple?), and a cute little stamp set on sale.  Today they were starting a huge paper crafting sale and bonus extra sale this afternoon.  I had to take advantage of both sales.  I was also looking to pick up some items for the mom's group Easter party next month.  I managed to get most of the party items and some basics for me (white and black cardstock, trimmer blades).

Project: Somehow I agreed to help organize an Easter Party for our mom's group.  The group is starting a babysitting co-op and we plan on having a quarterly social.  The Easter Party will be our first big event.  The original idea was just to get together and have an egg hunt, but babies aren't so great at the hunting.  Instead, we are putting together baskets filled with baby-appropriate toys, shaker eggs to play with, and a few arts and crafts.  Parents pay us back a set amount.  We are also using the leftover money to make baskets for charity.I picked up a ton of the arts and crafts supplies today at Michaels.  We are waiting a week to gauge our RSVP amount before we commit to buying the toys (we have to buy in dozen units). I hope everyone decides to come as we have some great plans!  Overachiever that I am, I've already started on some of the items.