Monthly Journal

Remember how I said I wanted to do monthly journal pages once Jeralyn turned a year old?  Well, I had these great intentions of doing so, but then time got away from me.  I absolutely loved doing the weekly journal because she changed SO much the first year, and literally each week she did new things and learned new skills--and I have it all captured in photos/words.  I'm SO thankful I kept up with it!  Well, a few months after she turned 1 year, I realized I hadn't done much as far as continuing with her journal, so I made myself sit down and type out what I could remember her doing since she turned a year old.  I'm SO glad I did!  And because we take a gazillion photos, it's easy to look back and see what she was doing.

 

I'm not sure how long I will do a monthly journal/scrapbook page...but my goal will be at least until her second birthday.  And then I will re-evaluate.  And I'm trying to make these pages as simple as possible.  I will use only ONE photo, which means I will pick my favorite photo of her from the month (this could be difficult) and use that as center stage for the page.  This is the first month:

 

 

 

I have a draft in my email account that I use to type my journal notes.  It started out as a list.  Last night I sat down and expounded upon the list, creating sentences and eventually one paragraph.  This is similar to what I did for her weekly journal.  It's a lot of reading, but hopefully one day she will appreciate it. 

 

Actually, the other day I let her look through her journal.  She was just having fun turning the pages, but she did notice things, like "kitty".  It's so cute to see her enjoying her baby album!

 

I also still plan to do a digital version of Project Life.  And then after that and monthly pages, I may not do too many separate scrapbook pages along with that.  I'm not sure.  I want to simplify, simplify, simplify because I don't have a LOT of time...but I need some time to be creative.  I was telling Quent that I don't feel like myself if I don't scrapbook.  Ha!  It's a very important outlet.  *wink*

Family Photo

Happy Monday to you!

 

A few days ago I started this page (another 8-1/2x11) and I just couldn't get it to work for me.  I had to walk away and I'm glad I did.  Sweet shoppe Design is having a Bargain Bites 50% sale through this month.  I'm not sure how often it changes, but the designers pick what they want in the sale and it changes throughout December.  I really liked Zoe Pearns' kit called Tis the Season.  Sometimes a page just needs something new to work with--and then it all comes together!  And of course I had to change some of the colors on the paper/elements using the hue/saturation tool because I wanted more pink.  I love how this turned out!

 

This was a picture my mom helped take back in March.

 

Ski Baby

Hello!  It's hard to believe it's almost 2 weeks until Christmas!  And 2 weeks from my birthday!  Whoa!  And I'm still in denial that it's actually December.  Anywho...here's a page I finished up yesterday morning.  It holds one of my favorite pictures we have of Jeralyn.  I just want to kiss her sweet little lips!  And her pointed finger!  She's so CUTE!

 

Gray with snowflakes

Does that describe your December?  It does as of yesterday, except it wasn't gray, it was partly cloudy.  It's nice to have a little snow, and it's beautiful on the mountains!

 

I've really been into gray as of late.  I realize I like to scrapbook on a neutral background.  This last week my "go to" has been gray.  And the wonderful thing about digital scrapbooking is that you can change any colored paper to gray because of the hue/saturation.

 

For these pages I used Katie Pertiet's Bunny Slope.

 

 

Sun Shine

It's been awhile since I've made an 8-1/2x11 page.  I'm working on another one, but I got stuck.  I've actually been scrapbooking a little bit here and there the last few days; it's been nice!

 

 

I have an update on the play kitchen we were going to build for Jeralyn.  Turns out it was going to be quite spendy.  We went to the hardware store to pick up a few items for the project.  After about 20 minutes we tallied up how much the items were in the basket I was carrying and we looked at one another like, "uhhh..."  It was then that we decided to just buy her a kitchen.  It was going to be cheaper AND already made, just have to put it together.  And free shipping!  Who can turn that down (especially when you live in Alaska!)?  So we put everything back and went home.  It was disappointing, but we felt good about our decision.

 

Guess what?  I'm almost done with one of the knitting projects I have been working on!!  Yeah!!  All I have to do is bind off and figure out what the directions are trying to say about stretching it out.

 

I have also decided that I am going to do Project Life.  And it will be digital.  I will post more details about that soon.

 

I have more pages to share...soon!

Tears

Hello!  Happy Monday (but it feels like Tuesday).  I can't believe we are in the last month of this year!  Crazy!

 

Here's a page I created last week:

 

 

 

Have you done Project Life?  I'm considering doing it for next year, but I'm wondering if it's something I will actually be able to keep up with and/or if it's even worth it.  How do you know what supplies you want to use?  Or do you just get the kit and then stick to that?  Right now it seems overwhelming and complicated to me.  I have considered doing it digitally, but I was also thinking the traditional way might be fun, too.



Play Kitchen Sketch

So this isn't a stamping, scrapbooking, or knitting project, but it is a project...a building project.  Quent and I are going to make Jeralyn a play kitchen.  We don't want to go too crazy with Christmas gifts for our little girl, but it's almost hard not to.  Oops!  Originally, we were going to get her a couple of books (she LOVES books), a couple of stocking stuffers, a scooter car thing, and maybe some Duplos.  Well, I scratched the Duplos idea when we were recently visiting at my inlaws.  My 22 month old nephew has a play kitchen and Jeralyn just loved it!  She played with it and it's accessories a lot!  He has Duplos too, but she just tossed them around.  Haha!  Maybe for her birthday...  So I started looking for some kitchens on Amazon.  They tend to be rather spendy, so I had to keep on searching.  My dear friend Carrie suggested that maybe we could build our own.  I think I honestly laughed out loud when she told me that.  Maybe if I was sipping water I would have spit it out--it was one of those reactions.  Me?  Build a play kitchen?  My husband is waaaay to busy for that.  The excuses flowed.  She encouraged me to look on Pinterest for ideas.  Haha...maybe.  But I did!  And soon I was in this whirlwind of DIY (do it yourself) play kitchens.  Now I'm obsessed!  I'm glad I took Carrie's advice because now we are on our way to building this thing.  After looking at ideas on Pinterest I sketched this out:

 

It's not to scale, but it's close.

We will be transforming this entertainment stand into the kitchen.  Tonight we will start cutting and maybe start painting real soon.  I will take a lot of pics and show the progression.  Stay tuned!

 

P.S. That basket is where I keep my current knitting projects and knitting tools.  And it's stored most of our DVDs, which I moved to some shelves yesterday.  It all lives downstairs in our "family room".

Knitting here and there

I currently have 3 knitting projects going.  Here are some glimpses:

 

A beaded shawl.  Probably one of the most challenging projects I've done.  I was intimidated at first because I never did beading with knitting, but it's been surprisingly easy.  There are 300+ stitches each row and it's lace thread, so this is taking awhile (aka forever).  The picture doesn't really do justice to the beauty.

I knit this Christmas stocking for Jeralyn.  I'm NOT a sock knitter, but this was a fun project (and there was only ONE--I don't like knitting socks because you finish one and then have to do another--unless...oh never mind).  I simplified the project by just doing two colors, where the original pattern calls for 3 colors.  I should have taken a picture next to a penny to show scale.  You can find the FREE pattern here.  It took me about 2 days to knit this, but it would have been less time if I didn't have to pull out the toe part two times.  The 3rd time is a charm, right?  I really like this simple pattern.  I will probably use it for future children (future--when that time comes).  *smile*  Oh, and I just bought some purple sequins that I will sew onto the purple.  I will take more/better pictures (showing scale) once it's truly completed.

 

How about you?  Any projects you are trying to finish up this year?

Sweetie

Hello!  I just wanted to stop by to post this page.  Happy Thanksgiving [to those in the states]!

 

Sittin' Pretty

Hello!  I hope you all had a good week and are ready for the week ahead!  I'm ready to celebrate Thanksgiving Day and eat some turkey!  Yum!  I have so many things to be thankful for...so many people to be thankful for... 

 

I didn't create much in the scrapbooking realm this week, but my fingers have been busy with knitting.  I'm not used to having knitting "deadlines", but with Christmas right around the corner, the pressure is on!  I enjoy it though!  This is the time of year where the weather and less light create a perfect situation to sit, knit, and drink some warm tea or coffee with creamer.  I'm loving it!  Oh, and I can't forget to watch a movie either!  I need something for my eyes and ears to focus on while knitting.  I guess I like to involve all of my senses.  And lately I have been watching the Little House on the Prairie seasons (for probably the 20th time).  But today I think I must take a break from knitting just to give my wrists some relief.  I tend to get a knitting "injury" in my left wrist if I knit too much.  So sad!  Ha!

 

So maybe some scrapping will take place instead!

 

I created this page about a week ago:

 

My lil sunshine

This layout was inspired by a layout Kaleigh Wiles did from Designer Digitals.  She is such an inspiration to me when it comes to scrapbooking.  I just really enjoy her stuff!  And now her Studio-D templates are available and they are really a lot of fun.  I didn't use her template for this page though.  And speaking of Designer Digitals, they are having a 30% off sale for a week for their quarterly sale.  I took advantage of it today.  I had a bunch of stuff in my cart and was in disbelief when I saw the total.  Yikes!  I thought, "There must be something wrong with their site calculator!"  Ha!  So I had to take some stuff out and figure out what I really wanted.  Cough.

 

 

 

And can I say once again how extremely difficult it is to not scrapbook every picture of my little cutie pie?!  I had to skip over some pictures because they don't really exemplify anything except that she's just so stinkin' cute!  There are thousands of pictures that I have to pick from, so I am trying to make the wisest choices.  Ha!

Love this girl

I bet if I would have scrapped this page back in February/March of this year I would have been very emotional because it was a very emotional time right after my lovely appendectomy (surgery to remove my ruptured appendix).  It wasn't fun at all.  But the hardest part about it was being away from Jeralyn.  She did great, but I did NOT like being away from her when I stayed in the hospital.  It was a short time of 5-6 days, but at the time it felt like forever.  My body went through so much at the time and because of the medications, antibiotics, and just not feeling well, my body stopped producing for my nursing baby.  And then all of that combined with hormones because of all of that stopping--well, I was just a mess!  And then I couldn't lift her for 6 weeks!  When the doctor told me that I just started crying. 

 

 

But you know what?  It could have been so much worse!  When I was about 21 weeks pregnant I woke up in the middle of the night with extreme pain on my right side.  Quent was gone and the pain was so bad that I had to hunch over when I walked.  After maybe 2 days (have I ever mentioned that I'm quite stubborn?), I sent a prayer request out to family/friends and within a very short time the pain subsided.  At the time I (and my doctor) attributed it to round ligament pain, but honestly, I think it was my appendix.  I think it was doing something.  I am so thankful that God stopped all of that and held it together for me.  I don't even want to know what that would have been like to have a ruptured appendix during pregnancy.  So I count my blessings!

Grandpa

Hello!  Happy Monday!  I worked on this page this morning...

 

 

I'm feeling terribly behind *chuckle* on scrapbooking.  I look at all of the photos and think, "HOW am I going to pick my favorites?"  How?  I don't know, but I will figure something out.  I'm sort of going in chronological order, but also going with the flow.  Does that make sense?  I'm not in a rush by any means.  I want to capture those memories through photos that mean the most.  But even that's hard. Hmmm...

 

I feel like this blog has turned into "this is what I scrapped" and "this is where I'm at with scrapping photos" and blah, blah, blah.  I want it to be more.  So I'm trying to define what "more" means.

 

So in the mean time I will leave you with something I wrote out on paper and have it in my bathroom to remind me:

 

Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain.  1 Cor. 15:58

Weeks 50, 51, & 52

Guess what???  I'm done scrapping her baby journal pages!!  Woot!  Woot!  And these last few pages had a turquoise them--oops!  I guess I just like the color.  *shrugs*

 

So I have officially decided to do a monthly journal for her second year.  There's just so many things that I want to write down and capture with journaling.  I debated about doing it because I hadn't been writing things down after her birthday.  But I started writing down things from memory the other day and I think I have a good foundation to work off of now.  Instead of doing a collage of pictures I will just pick one picture per page and then journal about what happened in her month.  I'm excited to get started!  But I'm also excited that I have completed the first year for her baby journal/album!   Yeah!

 

Weeks 47 & 48

Only 4 more page left for the weekly journal.  Well, it's 5 including her birthday.  Ok, so 4 pages.  I'm thinking 'outloud' here.  I scrapped these pages today while listening to Chrismas music.  Christmas music?  Yup, that's right!  And it made me quite giddy, too!  Which I needed today.  Nothing more to report...

 

Weeks 43 & 44

Hello!  Persnickety Prints sale over the weekend motivated me to get a little more caught up with scrapbooking Jeralyn's weekly journal.  I'm so close to being done.  I could have scrapbooked more, but I think my brain needed a break.  But I was able to send a good chunk of pages to be printed, so I am happy about that!  Here are a couple of pages I created:

 

 

Have a super awesome morning, afternoon, evening or whatever time of the day it is for you!

Insecurity and people-pleasing

I think it's time for a 'soap box' post...or a muse if you want to call it that. 

Recently I have been learning some things about myself.  And some of the things I have learned have been surprising to me.  Like for instance, I have felt uncomfortable in situations recently that I thought I was over, and I have felt insecure (in an odd way) because of not being able to please a person's expectations.  I thought I was confident in my introvertedness, and I thought I was over being a people pleaser.  Apparently not.  So...it's time to grow, learn, and change.  I know I'm not the only one who has dealt with insecurity and a lack of confidence, so I thought I would share.  Sometimes in the sharing I learn as well.

Years ago, God showed me all of the things I was putting my security in--things like people, jobs, looks, etc.  He began to shake all of those areas of my life so much that I realized that none of those wonderful things were substantial foundations to put my confidence.  I realized that the only sure footing was in God--in His foundation.  And from there I went on a journey of getting to know who I was in Christ.  In the end I found that I actually liked myself.  I learned what I genuinely liked.  I am secure because of Christ. 

So why all of a sudden this change?  Why do I see my confidence sinking a bit?  Maybe I lost my footing a bit.  Or maybe I need a tune-up.  Or maybe these are new areas.  Or maybe they have always been there and now God is shining His light upon them so we can take care of it. 

I know who I am; I know what I like.  I need not to compare myself with others.  For example: I don't like hand-motion songs (ie patty-cake).  It's not my thing.  (Did I just hear someone gasp?)  So when I go to story-time and everyone is doing, "Where is thumb-kin..." I want to pull the lever and sink into the floor.  It's not me.  I can sing and dance with Jeralyn all day, but please don't make me do hand-motion songs.  But when I'm sitting in that library and most of the other moms are singing and motioning along, I feel uncomfortable.  I feel so out of place.  Like I don't belong.  But WHY do I care?  Why do I care that I'm not following everyone else?  I'm not the only one not doing it, but even if I was, why should I be uncomfortable?  I want to not care.  I want to be ok with being me; and being me in those situations is smiling and watching everyone else enjoying themselves.  I need to come to terms with this.  YOU may like the silly songs.  THEY may like the silly songs.  I like the songs, I just don't like the hand-motions.  So just because YOU and THEY like it doesn't mean I have to.  See what I'm saying? 

I like the color orange. YOU like the color blue.  THEY like the color yellow.  We are all different.  I have to be me and you have to be you.  They have to be they.  I am not they or you... I am ME!

And about the people pleasing.  I know there are people in my life that want me to be a certain someone to them.  Expectations.  But I cannot fulfill those expectations.  And because I cannot fulfill those expectations I feel like I'm letting them down.  And then the people pleaser wells up inside of me.  And then I worry.  And then I feel like there's this battle.  I thought I was over this.  I am not responsible for someone else's happiness.  We all have to choose to be happy all on our own.  It's a choice; no one can make you.  So I have to disect this ugly people-pleasing mindset and just say NO!  I'm learning.  I want to be FREE to be me.  When we allow others to be who they are and release them from any expectations, there is freedom...then there is this beautiful, flowing spring of unconditional love. 

If we could all just be who we are and release ourselves from the ugly expectations of others, this world would be a better place!  It's poison to ourselves and to others when we allow ourselves to choose to be insecure and worry about people pleasing.  Let me be me and you can be you.

Let's be ourselves. Let's stop being uncomfortable and just face the facts. 

Okay?  Okay!

*stepping off soap box*

I'll post more pages soon!

Week 42

Wow!  I'm posting 2 days in a row!  I remember the days when I would post every.single.day.  That was "before Jeralyn".  Anyway, I wanted to share about a page I worked on this morning while Quent took Jeralyn on a hike (what a great husband/daddy!).  I'm waaaaay behind on her baby journal, but I have things organized pretty well so that I can just come back on the computer and know where I left off without feeling terribly overwhelmed.  Yesterday, my creative juices started churning again.  So that along with some motivation to get involved in a sale that Persnickety Prints is having, I thought it would be good to complete some of these journal pages.  So this morning I played!  But I felt myself getting stuck in the creative rut again.  This is my first draft:

 

I don't like it.  I don't care for it.  But I was ready to settle so I could continue on.  I took a break and when I came back I just knew I had to change something.  The pictures were too big on the page, so I shrunk them and then I felt like the creative juices could flow again.  It's amazing what one little change can do!

 

 

And this is my final draft!  I love it!  I love the blend of colors and all of the fun details.  I'm SO glad I took a break and changed things because now I'm truly satisfied!  Yeah!

 

 

Recently I found myself stuck on whether or not to continue some type of journaling for Jeralyn.  I thought about doing a monthly journal after she turned 1 year, but now that she's almost 14 months and I haven't been keeping track of much of anything since then, I'm thinking I won't do a journal for each month.  But I'm still having a mental debate over it.  I don't want to miss anything about her changes/growth at this time!  I need to make a decision fast!

I'm back...

It's been awhile since I have posted!  Sorry!!  We were on a 2-1/2 week vacation to the Midwest and I've been having creative lulls.  I was also stuck on a page and I wasn't willing to go forward until I finished it.  But now the page is completed and maybe the creative juices will be able to flow again.

 

This is a page I did about my surgery I had earlier this year.  I really like how soft it turned out because it was definitely a sensitive experience.  Whew!  I'm glad appendicitus is a one-time-event thing.  I named it "unplanned circumstances".

And this was the page I had a hard time finishing.  Let's just say this color combo isn't my favorite (must remember that for future photos!).  I thought about graying everything out and only having the avocado green in the picture, but I didn't want to take the time to do that.  I should have though because I spent way too much time trying to make the color combo look right.  Ugh!  Oh well, it's DONE!

 

I've been listening to a few Beth Moore studies on youtube.  I've been real encouraged!  It's been really good to spend more time in the Word each day!  I follow a devotional called Manna for Moms.  I also listen to Joyce Meyer from time to time.  It's been really good!

 

As far as the knitting goes, I have a few projects in the works, but only working on one currently.  Recently I tossed around the idea of learning to crochet, but I'm not sure I want to add yet another thing to my life--I already have enough to do and so little time! 

 

And I'm also thinking about becoming a Stampin' Up! demonstrator again.  But that's yet another thing I'm not sure I want to add to my life right now.  I need a social outlet...something besides story-time and going to the pool...something for me!  Ha!

 

Enjoy your day!  Enjoy the sun!  The rain!  The snow!  Or all of the above like we are!

1st Bite

It's hard to believe that about 9 months ago Jeralyn starting eating solids for the first time!  My how fast time flies!  She is a good little eater, but she's not big into eating meat--unless it has BBQ sauce on it--like her Aunt Natasha!

 

I have been scrapbooking a little here and there.  I got my digital assembly line lined up for her baby journal pages that I would like to finish--soon!  And yet again I'm having a hard time deciding what pictures to scrap since there are SO many!  I think the next photos on the docket are going to be when I was in the hospital.  And when we had family visiting.  And...