Top Ten 2016 Crafts

In no particular order, here are my 10 favorite craft projects of 2016!

1. Multicolored Trees -- Christmas card featuring the baby wipe technique

2. Moroccan Butterfly -- I didn't initially love the Moroccan DSP, but look how amazing this card is!

3. Butterfly DSP -- Sweet and simple baby card

4. Dapper Fish -- Love the watercolor resist technique!

5. Week in the Life May 2016 -- Once again I had a blast documenting our week.

6. Mini magazine-stle card holder -- Nice 3D project for my stamp club ladies!

7. Purple Birthday Blooms -- Hands down my favorite card I made in 2016. Totally fell fir the Birthday Blooms stamp set and the color combo of Rich Razzleberry and Sweet Sugarplum.

8. Wildflower Triptych -- Simple card featuring my favorite stamp from SAB 2016 and fun coloring with markers!

 9. Collection of Quilts -- Great way to use all the scrap pieces of DSP. i made multiple versions, but this one was my favorite.

10. Stacked Beasties -- Loved this fun stepped up Halloween card

Project Life August-September 2016

August -- August was a super light month when it came to photos. We didn't do as many activities due to me feeling bad and dropping down to one car again. As for the inserts and journaling cards, I pulled out WRMK's Archived kit. I don't think I've used this kit for at least a year. It was a nice change of pace.

September -- Lots of pictures and activities from September. It was our last chance to fit in a ton of events before the baby arrived. For my inserts, I took the color scheme from the September monthly card and pulled from the Kiwi kit. I love the bright colors and fun designs.

The last week of September is a special thread celebrating the arrival of baby Quentin! I love how this spread turned out! The pops of blue, green, and pink help pull all the pictures together.

Project Life July 2016

July was a big month full of activities before the twins returned to Indiana. I used the PL Kiwi core kit picking out the blue and green colored cards.

Project Life June 2016

June's pages highlight out many activities while the twins were here for the summer. I decided to use WRMK's Bloom kit. The fun bright florals really spoke to me this month.

Page 1 -- Loving the bright florals accenting the first page of June.

Page 2 -- A very pink beach visit page.

Page 3 -- Visit to the Alameda County Fair. I finally found a spot for that "hello" die cut.

Page 4 -- Oakland Zoo Day. I added a few some embellishments including those cute turquoise enamel dots.

Page 5 -- Our trip the Computer History Museum. Love the pics in the Google cars.

Page 6 and 7 -- Our visit to Hiller Aviation Museum. I didn't add any embellishments what so ever...

Page 8 -- Before the Computer History Museum, we had lunch at Nola in Palo Alto. Of course, I had to take pictures of our amazing food.

Week in the Life 2016

2016 is my second year participating in Ali Edwards' Week in the Life. I bought the kit from her site and added only some washi tape. I kept my embellishments simple. I focused more on the pictures and the stories.

Title Pages:

Monday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

Sunday:

Back cover:

Project Life May 2016

May was a bit of a strange month. Arthur and I had a full month of activities and events. But in the middle, I decided to play along and document a Week in the Life. And at the end of the month, the twins arrived in California. Even though I have 8 full pages of pictures and journaling, there's still a week missing from this post because of WITL. Look for that post sometime next week. Just waiting on a few larger prints to arrive to finish the album. The first page includes some random pics and those from the sprinkle I hosted for two friends. I didn't take any pics at the sprinkle, but thankfully another mom friend always takes pics and shares. I was too busy socializing and making sure everything went smoothly!

Page 2 is all about our monthly visit to the Oakland Zoo.This month I caught a few great pics of the elephants, giraffes, and even the lion! We never see him... And I even got Arthur to wave at me from the cars.

Our first beach day of 2016 is documented on page three. It was cold, but not windy! We love going out to the beach and playing in the sand. Hoping to make this a monthly event through September.

Page 4 highlights our first visit to the Chabot Space and Science Center.  A new favorite place for the littles. We loved it so much that I got a membership. We'll be back soon!

Page 5 focuses on another great visit to Fairyland. I caught some great shots this time showing so much personality from Arthur. My favorite is the unintentional artsy shot top left. He loves the "piggy house."

Page 6 includes random pics from a planning committee meeting and following park visit.

Lots of playtime pics on Page 7. And mom sent me a photo of the twins and their friend Tommy right before they came to California.

We conclude with page 8 and the twins' first couple of days in California. This was actually the third time we visited the pool, but the first that I could get out of the pool (clingy toddler) and take some pics.

Project Life April 2016

For this month's pages, I decided to focus on using one of my mini kits. I chose Dear Lizzy's Polka Dot Party. The kit's a bit more feminine than I usually go for, but I think changing it up is a good thing. Page one features pics from our monthly trip to the zoo. I embellished my month card with some washi tape and butterflies. Plus, I added alphas and some word stickers to the photos.

Page 2 highlights our One Bad Mother meetup in Berkeley. I added just a few word stickers to help complete the page.

Page 3 is a collection of park pictures. Apparently we went to a lot of parks in April.

Page 4 is all about our trip the Bay Area Discovery Museum. I went completely different and used a patterned card instead of a journaling card. Of course, I added an identifier sticker to one of the pics.

Page 5 features the Spring Social. I embellished the pics wth some bright flowers and butterflies to keep the same color family.

Page 6 highlights more park photos and random life photos. I added a lot of stickers to this page including some alphas.

Finally, page 7 includes the leftover pics from the months. I often forget to take photos of subjects other than Arthur. I included two food pics in this month!

Project Life March 2016

I embraced March's color scheme of green, brown, and gold. And I kept my embellishments to a minimum. Page one includes pics of my birthday cake (omg so yummy) and some random pics of Arthur. Of course I had to add a few alphas.

Page two collects my favorite vertical pics from the month. I try to stick to Design A page protectors, but sometimes I have great vertical pis to include.

Page three highlights our monthly trip the Oakland Zoo. I finally used some of the leftover safari stickers in my stash. Hard to see in these pics, but definitely noticeable in real life.

Page four starts our trip to Indiana. I finally got a great shot of San Francisco as we took off from the airport. We always seem to be on the wrong side of the plane. I also included a few shots from O'Hare and random pis of Arthur. And I used up a ton of the green heart stickers I had laying around.

Page five includes pics from a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house and our unexpected trip to Muncie for Nick's doctor appointment. I repeated the lime green stickers but used the flowers on this page.

Page six is all about the twins' birthday party. Not the best pics, but they were all action shots in an oddly lit place.

Page seven -- Easter egg dyeing! Loving this page. The pictures are so busy that I didn't use much embellishment at all.

Page eight finishes out the month with pictures from our family Easter dinner. And I got to use some Easter specific cards from the PL Seasons Mini Kit.

Not included: Four pages of pics from the mom's retreat.

Project Life February 2016

February's pages featured a lot of hearts and pink/red. I'm not a huge fan of pink, but I had to highlight the color for the month of love. My goal was to add an embellishment to every picture. The first page highlights our monthly visit to the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose.

Pages 2 and 3 featured pictures from my mom's afternoon out painting. I decided to not embellish the pictures as they are full of color. The clean look works for these pages.

Page 4 is all about the 3rd annual MVPA Valentines Exchange. We've had so much fun going every year and this year was no different. I love all the hearts I added to the page.

Page 5 and 6 collect our random photos from the month. Sometimes it's nice to just have some good photos without a big theme or embellishments.

30 Days of Lists Notebooks

The mom's retreat is coming up in just a few weeks. I always make a few little surprise gifts for the ladies. I originally made these little notebooks to be gifts, but then decided to make them a part of my favorite things gift. I love participating in 30 Days of Lists and thought it would be a cute idea to do a pre-made notebook for the event. 

I started with a variety of papers and paper stacks. I cut 40 pieces down to 4x6 and started glueing them together into a book. From there, I hole punched and added book rings.Now on to the really fun part... I pulled Project Life cards from a variety of kits. These cards at the base for the lists they are going to make. I made sure each card was designed with enough space to write the list title and the list contents. I only needed 30 of the journaling cards. I was left with about 8 blank pages. I went through my PL card stash and pulled some sentiment cards.

I am including a piece of paper with some past 30 Days of Lists topics. That way, the ladies can use those or take the class. But at least they have a starting point. As a finishing touch, I added a few pieces of coordinating washi tape and label on the front. Such a cute little homemade gift and I only bought the book rings. Everything else came directly from my stash.