It’s a Beautiful Life

I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I’m doing Project Life again this year.

I just love this format and have actually moved away from doing any other type of scrapbooking. It’s just so easy and so quick and simple.
I love being able to snap one picture a day and capture what’s going on without having to worry if I have enough to fill a 2 page spread, or enough journaling to warrant a scrapbook page. I love saving receipts, schoolwork, and other tidbits from life to include in there. (documenting the price of gas, anyone?)

And with my nifty new toy, ahem, phone, I have this really cool application I’m using: Project365. I can snap my picture with the camera on the phone, add it to the app and have a little snippet of journaling to go with the photo. I’ve even added to that by pushing the photos up to the web so I can share with others. (I bought the Pro version, by the way)

And, when I have time, I can go back, print the photos, put them in the Project Life album add the journaling and I’m done!

So cool.

I want to share my photos with you guys, too. But I didn’t want to overwhelm my blog here with the photo-a-day posts. So, I set up a photo-only blog over here.

So, anyway, if you want to subscribe to that photo-a-day blog you can. Or, you can just check occasionally. I think it would be fun to see other people’s ideas for their photo-a-day projects. Some days I have tons of ideas, others, I’m struggling with coming up with an idea for ONE photo!!

You can find the link to the blog up in the top right corner of this blog.

Of course, there are some great websites with some ideas: Capture Your 365 is one. I like that she sends daily emails to remind you, although I’ve not used any of her ideas yet.

Becky Higgins’ Facebook page has some great photo-a-day ideas, too. I sat down last night and went through all of hers and jotted them down in a notebook (my lovely little moleskine) that I can carry around to give me inspiration when I need it.

What about you?

Are you doing a photo-a-day project?

What do you do with your pictures?

Share! Share! I’d love to hear some of your ideas…

del.icio.us Tags: project life,project 365,photo a day,scrapbooking

A little progress

I had high hopes of scrapbooking this past week – or at least getting some scrapbooking in during the past three days. Alas, life did not go according to plan, and neither did my muse. It just wasn’t in me.

And then, I thought to myself that even though I didn’t “feel creative” I should just sit down and piddle a little with the pictures and see if I got inspired. After all, it’s been months since I’ve scrapbooked and I’m still working on 2010 pictures, for Pete’s sake. (whoever Pete is…)

So, I did just that.

Sat down, opened up my software to see where I’d left off, and before you know it, I’d managed to do six pages! That, along with, feeding kids, retrieving dogs who are escaping their invisible fence, troubleshooting my mom’s email account, answering the phone, well, you get the picture.

The days of quiet solitude while I scrap are long gone. But, the nice thing about digital scrapbooking is that I can do just that – scrap in between life’s little interruptions. It doesn’t mean I have to put all the mess away, or pray no one bumps my page in progress. Nope, I just hit the “save” button, take care of the urgent matter, and move right along.

Love it.

Anyway, here are the pages I’ve done: (most of the digital supplies are from the Daily Digi subscription I have. Best investment for high quality digital supplies, I tell ya.)

And as a special treat for you guys – I have uploaded the template for the two pages above to my 4shared account (Creative Memories StoryBook Creator Plus templates) for you to download!

What? A Scrapbooking Post?

I know, I know… those of you who originally started following my blog to see scrapbooking related posts have probably gotten really disappointed in me lately… the scrapbooking has been rather absent. As a matter of fact, if you’re still hanging around, I have a special message for you…

Thank you.

I know I have been rather lax in the scrapbooking department. But, I have no good excuses for you – Life just gets in the way sometimes, you know?

But, the good news is that I have two scrapbooking retreats this fall – one was this past weekend and one is in October. I think I have found my scrapping mojo again – although it took me most of this past weekend to find it!

Here are a few pages I did over the weekend. For those of you who are Creative Memories software users, I’ll post some templates later in the week.

You aren’t going to believe this

But I actually scrapbooked this past weekend!

I know!

Big shock!

I haven’t done it in months and months. I had grand plans at the beginning of summer but they were washed away in a sea of other activities.

My girlfriend came over Saturday night and we hid out in the basement and scrapped and caught up on each other’s lives. It was so great. I really miss that time with my friends and the creative time.

I’m hoping I get to do more of that this fall once we get the school and activity schedules nailed down.

I have been challenging myself to do two things:

Work only from my stash. No shopping trips allowed.
Use some of the many inspiration page layouts I have filed away.

Here are some of the pages I worked on: (along with their inspiration pages)

Here is the inspiration page:

I need to go back and add my journaling to this one. I want to list all the books I’ve read this summer.

And the inspiration page:

Again, needs more journaling. The medicine I’m taking is making me a bit loopy, so I decided to wait and write when my head was more clear.

Inspiration page:

This was my own invention. 🙂 This two-page spread I tried just fiddling with some of the design principles I’ve learned in the past few classes I’ve taken.

This one is still a work in progress. Nothing is even glued down yet, but I love how it’s going so far.

Here is the inspiration page:

I can’t believe all these pictures are from LAST YEAR at this same time! The girls have grown so much. I’ll have new first-day-of-school pictures tomorrow that will quickly go in my pile to scrap.

Friday Scrap Inspiration

I subscribe to, oh, about a million blogs. I don’t read them all every day, but I love to spend a little bit of time each day to read a few blogs. I have some standards – my “Daily Fix” that I read every day – and then a whole host of others that I read when I have time. I have them categorized in Google Reader (do you use this? It is awesome if you’re a regular blog reader) – categories like Cooking & Baking, Scrapbooking, Parenting, etc.

Today, I have been perusing the scrapbooking blogs I subscribe to. I thought I’d share with you some of the layouts I’ve seen that are inspiring me today – giving me ideas and getting those creative juices flowing.

So, grab your cup of tea (or coffee) and sit back and enjoy: (you can click on the images to link back to source blog post)

I just LOVE this spiral with the hearts. Gotta try this.

and this one? LOVE the magazine-style layout.

Same gal did this one, too. Love it. Can’t wait to see more of hers in the future.

If you’re a digital scrapbooker, you should check out Songbird Avenue. Each month, they post a kit for $8 and the proceeds benefit a charity. That’s not why I buy their kits, though. I buy them because they are beautiful. Every single month. I love them. Here’s June’s kit:

I’m also finding colors inspiring today:

The cool teal blue of the water and the hot pink of the float and goggles. Must figure out a way to scrap these pool pictures and make those colors “pop” even more.

What is inspiring you today?

Field Day

When I was a kid, Field Day was something I dreaded. It was sooo hot in South Georgia and the thought of being outside and being forced to participate in sports was the equivalent of being banished to Hell. I used to try to come up with all sorts of reasons why I couldn’t go to school that day (none of which worked) and why I didn’t need to participate. I was not athletic, competitive, coordinated, or heat-tolerant. All of those things added up to making Field Day a miserable experience for me.

My girls, however, have not inherited those traits from me. They, thank goodness, have a love of physical activity and seem to be relatively heat-proof. So, Field Day for them this year was a great time.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that their school put on a fantastic event. I have to hand it to those folks. You can tell that months went into planning the day. There were water events, track and field-type events, coordination challenges, relays… all sorts of things. And there were eighty-bajillion volunteers. Which, I am sure, is part of why things went so well. Thank goodness for involved parents!

SuperMan was off of work so we were able to enjoy watching the girls in most of their events. Here are some highlights:

Finally Scrapbooking Again!

The girls had a Girl Scout event on Saturday and SuperMan was busy with yard work. What’s a girl to do when she has a few hours on her hands and no pressing chores?

Scrapbook!

Exactly!

I had purchased the Jessica Sprague intro to Photoshop class a long time ago and had never sat down to actually take the class. So, Saturday was the day. I had peace and quiet, no interruptions, and some recent pictures to use. I was ready.

Before I share the layouts I made, I have to tell you – if you are considering doing any digi-scrapping and have been intimidated by the sheer power of Photoshop, you are not alone. I have resisted using it for a long time because it just seemed overwhelming to learn. As a matter of fact, I owned it but never used it.

Which, I decided, was really silly.

So, that’s why I purchased Jessica’s class. And it is a great class. I would highly recommend it to anyone. I love the clear and easy descriptions of what to do, how to do it, and the great supplies she includes in her course materials. So, even if you don’t have any digital supplies yet, you can still complete your first pages as part of the class.

Here are some of the pages I’ve made so far. I’m about halfway through the class.

This was my very first layout:

Then, I got all crazy and used a Cathy Zielske template I had from the Design Your Life class I took this winter. I think it turned out well and it was good practice using the things I’d just learned.

This was a “challenge” layout made with a quick page kit. I still need to go back and add some journaling. And this was my Lesson 2 layout. I still haven’t figured out how I am going to do 2-page layouts, but I am sure I can do it. I just don’t know how yet! But that is important to me because I do most of my scrapbooking in 2-page layouts. Like this “Fish” page is just begging for a sister page with the rest of the photos and story.

Ok, more to come. I am on a roll.

Project Life Tuesday (er, Wednesday)

I hope that you enjoyed Kate’s guest post yesterday – and visiting a few new blogs as well! I had great fun hosting Kate and posting on Helen’s blog. We are hoping to do that on a monthly basis, so you’ll be hearing more from those ladies in the future. Let me know what you thought of the swap in the comments. I’d love to hear your impressions!

Here’s my Project Life post – a day late but better late than never:

And the pages are in-progress as well:

I am already working on this week’s pages – I went ahead and printed the pictures I had so far and stuck them in the pages.

You may notice that this week I used a white border on my pictures. I think I like it better than the rounded corners of the week before. I think it sets the pictures off a little.

What do you think?

Finally Finished: Journal Your Christmas

I finally sat down this weekend and finished the Journal Your Christmas album I’d started in December. I really enjoyed the project, I just got bogged down in holiday activities and finishing took a back seat to holiday fun. But, it is finished and I am pleased with my results. I’ll definitely be back next year for another round – now that I know what to expect, I’ll be better prepared, I hope.

Here are some of the most recently finished pages. You can see the rest in the JYC album – the link to which is located to the right of this posting.

Technorati Tags: Journal Your Christmas,December Daily,Scrapbooking,Christmas pictures

My Project Life

I’m starting my Project Life this weekend. I am looking forward to sitting down and putting the book together and getting my first few weeks of pictures in the pages. I am determined that this year I will stay more caught up than last year. So, I am hoping that I can sit down at least once a week (or once every two weeks) and get the pictures printed and the journaling done.

I thought I would share some of the pictures I’ve taken the last two weeks – they aren’t terribly exciting because we’ve had strep running amok in our house for the past few weeks. But that is part of what this project is about, right? Capturing everyday life in all it’s nuances. From the exciting to the mundane.

So, here are some of the shots:

Oh, and here is a great link to an article I read about making your Project Life/365 successful. Great ideas.

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