Scrapbooking in 2012

I’m still deciding on what I want to do with regards to my family scrapbook for 2012. I am vacillating between doing an all-digital album and doing what I’ve done the past two years – a combination of Project Life pages and digital pages tucked in between. That’s worked pretty well so far and I’m thinking that may be what I do again.

I like the way those albums have turned out… I get to have the ephemera of everyday life along with the pretty scrapbooked pages all in one place. But they are BIG albums – take a lot of space – and I’m wondering if maybe I want to do an all-digital solution this year. The book will be smaller if I do a digital book, but I’ll lose that touchy-feely stuff.

I have time, though, to think it through. Last year, I was in the same dilemma, so I just gathered all my stuff, as usual, and then when I finally made my decision (I think it was in March) I just had to order the Project Life supplies and get started.

I’m thinking I’m going to go with the same format as the last two years. I like being able to include the kids’ school work and miscellaneous things from our days – brochures, calendars, church bulletins, and the like.

Right now, I’m focusing on finishing the 2011 album!

And my December album. That one will be all digital pages – but I’m putting them in an 8.5×11 book with page protectors. The 8×8 December album last year was just too small for my tastes and 12×12 seems a little overkill for one month’s worth of memories. I found a red 8.5×11 album in my stash that I had purchased for another project, so I’m going to use it.

I’m hoping to show you some pictures from that album later this week and then I’ll have everything printed up all nice & pretty over on scrappingsimply.com. I love their processing (and pricing) and prefer the finish to what I get on my printer at home.

As far as other scrapbooking projects for 2012?

I’m taking Move More | Eat Well over on Big Picture Classes. So far, I love it. Loving the project, the inspiration and the camaraderie of the message boards. Lots of folks doing the same thing I am – trying to get fit and eat right.

Other than that, I have no big plans for scrapbooking in 2012. As busy as life is right now, that’ll probably be all I can handle… unless the irresistible project happens to present itself.

One never knows…

Scrapbook Tuesday (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Journal Your Christmas – are you in? (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
More Scrappin’ (hooray) (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)

Journal Your Christmas/December Daily

I decided this year to do my own version of a Christmas Album. I’ve done Journal Your Christmas for the past two years and have watched Ali Edwards do her December Daily with awe… this year, I decided to do my own combination of the two – a little of each. I think it will keep things fresh for me, both from a creative perspective and from a content perspective.

I started taking pictures on Dec 1, but didn’t really start on my album until yesterday. (just too busy) I have, however, a plan and a general approach in mind.

I began by listing things I want to be sure I capture – so far, I am at 25 things and that is without Shimelle’s prompts, so I know I will come up with plenty more thanks to her creativity.

Here’s my list in case you are looking for some inspiration yourself:

Letters to Santa
Letters to our Elf on the Shelf
Christmas Card (I plan to add in the cards we receive as well – maybe at the end of the album)
Baking & favorite recipes
Decorations (especially new ones or things that have a history or special meaning)
Holiday parties
Craft projects
Self portrait
Family picture
Visit by my brother & his family (this will be a big bunch of pictures, I’m sure)
Shopping & my shopping lists
Receipts & packing slips
the kids’ Christmas trees & the family tree
Grocery lists & menus for the special meals
Weather
Pinterest – things that have inspired me (and that I’ve actually done!)
Wrapping
Wrapping paper
Goodie bags for friends/family/teachers
Advent calendars
“Joy is…” and have everyone complete the sentence
“I’m loving …” things I’m finding special this year
Instagram photos/posts
TV Specials
Special events/traditions (like our annual trip to Lake Lanier Islands’ Magical Nights of Lights)

That’s it so far! But, with all of that, I’m looking at a pretty hefty album!

I’m planning to make a small album this year, size-wise. I have decided to do 5×8 as the page size. I have some extra 5×8 page protectors from a recipe book project and I will use those up. Not decided yet on the actual album, though. I had planned to use a 5×8 album I had from Staples (nothing fancy) but after coming up with my ideas I think it may not be big enough.

I may just end up binding the album with ribbon or clip rings… and coming up with a homemade cover.

I’m going semi-digital with some handmade/paper accents. I’m planning to print everything at home (note to self: buy ink!) and use white cardstock as my base and then go from there.

I bought the December Daily overlays that Ali Edwards uses and I’m loving being able to use those as the base for the page of the day. My plan is to have the left-hand page be journaling and smaller photos/memorabilia and then the right-hand page be the overlay with a full-page picture. We’ll see how that works, but here is a sample of the first two pages I have created.(still in progress) They will not be facing each other, but you get the general idea.

I plan to share more sneak peeks on the blog as I go. I’m hoping to work a little each day but I know that, realistically, I will probably end up doing like I have done in years’ past and do my journaling here (or on a file on the PC) and then catching up with multiple pages on the weekend.

Are you doing anything to capture your holiday memories this year? Even if you don’t do anything but keep a journal of your activities and thoughts, I encourage you to! As I said in my journaling above, these Christmas albums usually end up being my favorite ones to go back and look at later.

I’ll share more with you soon. Right now, I’m off to finish the Christmas shopping!

Scrapbook Tuesday

More pages to share with you today – not much scrapping last week, and probably not much again this week, but I’m off next week and hoping to get a little time carved out to scrap some.

These are from our trip to NC in October. I still have a lot of pictures to crop and do something with – we took over 400 in four days!

more to come! as soon as I have time to get to them!

Journal Your Christmas – are you in?

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time – at least a year, anyway – you know that I have a yearly project that I do to capture our memories of Christmastime…

It’s a self-paced class offered by Shimelle on her website and is an online class which consists of daily email prompts and suggestions for creating your own scrapbook or journal to capture your holiday memories.

The first year I participated (2009) I created a combination of traditional and digital pages – here are some examples:

Cover of the album & first page

One of the prompts was to capture the weather:

And here are a few digital pages I did:

You can view more of these pages over on my flickr pages.

And the second year (2010) are here –

They are digital – which I liked because I could keep up with the prompts more easily. I also used my blog to write a lot of what I would later put in my journal as I took the time to do the actual scrapbooking.

Looking back at the pages, I am getting really excited about getting started on this project again. I am going to start scouring the digital scrapbooking websites to find a good kit that has some pretty pages and embellishments to use. I think this year I will print the whole thing as a bound book (last year I printed the pages and slipped them into page protectors just in case I wanted to add anything that was last minute and non-digital content).

One of the things I like about Shimelle’s class is that, while the prompts are similar from year to year, I have found that my albums are so different each year. Depending on what is going on in our lives, with the kids and our friends and family, and what traditions or memories are resonating with me for the year.

This year, I’m hoping to get the girls more involved – maybe let them do some of the journaling and capturing their thoughts about the holidays.

There are quite a few other holiday scrapbooking projects – December Daily (Ali Edwards), 12 Days of Christmas (Big Picture Classes), etc. – but I find that Shimelle’s seems to inspire me the most. I love the fact that her prompts are not simply scrapbook-focused prompts. I can journal, write a blog post, take pictures, whatever. If that is all I do, I’ve still captured the story. If I decide to take it further and make a scrapbook out of it, then that is even better, but it’s not necessary.

I also like the self-paced aspect. I don’t feel like I HAVE to do something every day… I can do as I have time and am inspired. Both years, I’ve found that I tended to do two or three pages at once and then nothing for a few days. But you couldn’t tell when the project was finished because the prompts are so diverse.

So, what are you going to do this year? Anything? How will you capture your family’s holiday memories past and present?

I’ll be sharing my progress over the next month or so – if you are doing a holiday memory project, I’d love to see what you’re working on, too! Post your blog link in the comments and if I have enough, maybe we’ll start a weekly link up to share!

Scrapbook Tuesday (thoughtsalonglifeshighway.com)
Journal Your Christmas (all the posts from last year)

Scrapbook Tuesday

Okay, I’ll admit I haven’t done a very good job of keeping up with the whole Project Life thing – it just seems like, well, LIFE gets in the way of doing the project!

But, I have been busily scrapbooking again. Enjoying using the new StoryBook Creator 4.0 software (I love it!) and scrapping the pictures from our recent adventures.

Additionally, since I’ve given up on the whole Project Life thingy, I’ve decided to do my 2011 pictures in digital pages – so that gives me tons of pictures (and stories!) to capture… Now, instead of being overwhelmed and feeling like a loser for not doing anything with my PL album, I’m feeling energized and inspired to get some scrapbooking done again!

Here are some pages I did this past week… loving the fact that digital scrapping means no mess and it’s so easy to do a page or two here and there without a big production.

Anyhow – here are the pages – enough rambling!

More Scrappin’ (hooray)

I actually scrapbooked this weekend!!

Now, don’t get all excited.

I didn’t pull out paper and glue and scrapbook, scrapbook.

That would be shocking – especially since I haven’t done that in almost nine months or more…

But I did digital scrapbook.

And that counts, right?

I spent a good bit of time on Saturday doing some scrapping and it was simply heavenly. Watched a marathon of the Dog Whisperer and scrapped my heart out. I loved it.

Here are some of the pages I’ve done:

I’ve got more in process, but not quite ready to show you yet.

Just a little bit of scrappin’

I’ve been so busy lately – busy and sick – but this week was the first week where I actually felt like my old self again – and had my old energy levels back. Which is such an awesome thing! I missed being the Energizer Bunny of the house and it was so nice to get that back again.

And one of the things the new energy levels allowed me to do was to sneak in a little scrapbooking in the evenings.

I haven’t done a lot and a couple of the pages need some more work but I’m planning to spend a good portion of my weekend either knitting or scrapping – I’m in a crafty sort of mood. Besides, it’s supposed to be chilly and I think staying inside is a good idea.

That’s my story, anyway, and I’m stickin’ to it.

So, here are the pages I’ve been working on –

As you know, I’m working on a Project Life album – or I started one, anyway – but I am seriously considering making my 2011 family album a completely digital one – maybe even ordering a book of just the digital pages. I’ve never done that before, but since I’m doing the majority of the pages digitally anyway, I think I just might go that route this year.

I’m also working on some other little projects – Christmas cards and a Christmas gift surprise for some of my family – but I won’t be sharing those on the blog right now. Don’t want to spoil the surprise!

Crawling out from under a rock

Sorry for the silence on the blog lately. I have been sick with a rotten case of bronchitis for the past week. It came on rather suddenly and pretty much knocked me off my feet for a week. I’m on the second round of antibiotics now and am starting to finally feel more like myself again.

No menu plan this week. I kinda sorta have a plan, but really am leaving it open as it will depend a lot on how I’m feeling.

I did manage to do a tiny little bit of scrapbooking last weekend – I got two pages (somewhat) done – think I may tweak them a little more before I’m finished with them, but thought I’d share with you anyway. The other four pages I can’t remember if I shared with you already or not, so I thought I’d share them today.

I downloaded the newest version of Creative Memories’ StoryBook Creator(4.0) and am in love. It is the best of the old SBC+ and Photoshop Elements all in one. Lots more power, lots more flexibility but the same user friendliness that CM products are known for.

I can’t wait to spend more time in the software and play around a bit. One of the things I have discovered that I REALLY love is the fact that it handles all my non-CM content so much better than before. I just pointed the software to the folder where all my digital content is and presto! it was available in the software. No more creating packages and all that jazz. That was one of my biggest headaches with the old CM software because I have A LOT of digital content. So this makes me really, really happy. Worth the price of the upgrade alone.

I’ll continue to play around and try to get a review posted soon. If any of you are using the CM software, let me know what you think!

A perfect Saturday

I have had the “itch” to scrapbook for weeks now. But life has been too hectic with the beginning of school and the other things we’ve had going on. Scrapbooking, unfortunately, has taken a back seat to the rest of life.

The good thing about this is that there has been plenty of fodder for the scrapbook!

The bad thing is that there hasn’t been much time to capture those memories!

SuperMan helped me take care of that today, though. He knew I was dying to scrapbook, so he granted me a “retreat” day. I was able to sit at my computer for most of the day – organizing files, sorting through pictures, unzipping purchased kits, and finishing up some of the digi-scrapping classes I’ve purchased but never finished.

It was glorious.

And, I learned a lot, got a lot organized, and even managed to do some pages!

I’m really proud of myself because these are ALL from PSE. After finishing the classes, I decided I needed to challenge myself and put the new skills to work (before I forgot them!)

And I don’t think I did too shabby. I have a lot to learn, but PSE seems to be so powerful that it is enticing me to do more and more and more…

Learning the keyboard shortcuts sure makes things quick! That is one of the things that drives me crazy about the CM software. It seems to lack the shortcuts that an experienced digi-scrapper would look for. While it is a fantastic program for beginners (and is, indeed, how I learned to digi-scrap) I find it frustrating now because I can’t make it do some things I want it to do. Granted, I can’t figure out how to get PSE to do some things either, but I think that is more operator knowledge than software limitation.

I feel like I’m still wobbly – like I’m learning how to ride a bike again – but I know that soon I’ll be zooming along… especially if I can sneak a few more of these “retreat” days into my schedule!

Anyway, I’m sure you are curious to see my pages – or I hope you are, because I’m going to share them with you!

I’m planning to use 12×12 page protectors and just slip these in my 2011 Project Life album right along with the weekly pages. That is what I did last year and I think it worked out well. That way I get a little of both types of scrapbooking without feeling deprived either way! I tried my hand at using a template for this page (the others are all my own invention) I’m not sure if it was easier or not – It was nice to have the framework to start with, but then I had to get creative to make it work for me. I fiddled a little with it (they had the journaling where I have the title, for instance) but I think the overall result is nice.

I made a 24×12 page – for a double page spread. Of course, now I have no idea how I am going to print the darn thing. Do any of you PSE experts know what I can do with it to get 2 12×12 pages out of it? HELP!

Well, that’s it. My eyes are tired and my back is telling me it is time to sit in a different position for a while.

More fun next time, folks.

Up, Up and Away!

I posted camera phone shot yesterday of a hot air balloon that flew over our mountain yesterday morning as I was taking the kids to school. I didn’t have my trusty camera in the car (shame on me!) but I was able to grab a quick shot with my phone.

This morning they were back again, soaring over the mountain. I was alerted to their presence by Buster, who HATES the sound of the burner and thinks the balloon is some type of monster from the sky that is going to eat him up. He is really a scaredy-dog, that one.

So, I went outside to see where the balloon was – imagine my surprise when I saw the chase truck driving down the street in front of my house!

Oh my! It’s going to land in our subdivision! I ran inside, grabbed my shoes, my good camera, and SuperMan.

By the time we got halfway down the street, it was obvious that the breeze was not going to let them land in the cul-de-sac after all. So, up they went, back into the air and over the trees to head to the next possible landing spot – the cul-de-sac in the neighborhood adjacent to ours.

It was so pretty – and Buster was so scared!

They were waving at everyone who had come outside to see them.

And then they were headed back down to attempt another landing.

What a nice way to start the day – soaring above the mountain – I would LOVE to do that one day… even have my own balloon. I’ve always loved flying and even contemplated taking flying lessons once when I was in college (and broke with no way to pay for flying lessons!)

I took SuperMan on a hot air balloon trip once years ago. I managed to arrange a super-secret anniversary present one year. My brother and his family live in the Pacific Northwest and he helped me to arrange a sunrise balloon ride as an anniversary present. All I told SuperMan was that we had to get up at 4AM and the directions to the place we had to go(a farm/field in the middle of nowhere).

(OLD OLD OLD scrapbook pages from 2003!!! Look at how young we were!)

It was awesome. We had such a good time. I was enraptured by the peacefulness of gliding just above the treetops, floating along without a sound (except the blasts of the heater) and gazing at the countryside below.

It was one of those experiences that I’ll remember forever – and one day I will figure out how to fit another trip like that into our lives. Hmmm… maybe for our 20th? It’s not that far away…

Well, I hope you have a wonderful Friday. I’m off to get my to-do list for work checked off so that I can get my to-do list for home checked off shortly after that and then I can relax and enjoy the weekend (maybe scrap a little?)

I am planning to finish Jessica Sprague’s Up & Running and Now We’re Rockin’ with Photoshop classes this weekend. I’ve been piddling with them, but I want to spend some concentrated time on them so that I actually internalize the concepts and skills (and get my money’s worth from the classes!)

If I get to actually DO this, I’ll share some of my pages!