Project Life: Week 7

I'm back again with another Project Life spread.  Unfortunately, this week's spread doesn't make my heart go pitter patter.  But I keep on thinking about what Jamie shared with me about how much I will appreciate these pages later on...no matter what they look like.  I am seriously enjoying this project!

 

Thank you to those who have left comments so far (see this post).  I know there are more of you looking at my blog.  Come on, don't be shy--unless you are a spam commenter who thinks I should buy jewerly or purses!

Comments Please

If you are seeing this post, would you mind leaving me a quick comment? 

 

I'm curious to know how many readers I have.

 

Thank you, Christina

Father's Day

Happy Tuesday, oops!  I mean Wednesday!  Wow!  Where have I been?

 

Like I said, I have been scrapbooking here and there.  I had a lot of fun creating this page about Father's Day.

 

I have been knitting a cardigan for Jeralyn.  I am making good progress on it.  Currently, I am knitting the first sleeve.  I'll talk more about that project when I take some pictures.  I'm excited about this one!

Sunshine Girl

Hello!  Happy President's Day!  Ha! 

 

I actually have been scrapbooking here and there, I just haven't had time to post.  I have a moment while Daddy and Jeralyn are playing outside (and dinner is in the oven/slow-cooker)...so here I am!  Actually, I take that back--they are back inside! 

 

This page makes me wish it was summer!

 

Project Life: Week 6

Hello!  So this is my favorite Project Life spread so far!  I think I'm starting to get a feel for what I want it to look like.  Yay!  I really like how it turned out!  I also tried to focus more on journaling this week.  I don't know why, but I'm terrible at journaling day-to-day stuff.  So I need to focus on making that more of a priority.  Like maybe even write down each day (like at in the evening) what we did that day so I can remember it when I'm working on these pages.

 

Mother's Day

Happy Saturday to you!  I'm enjoying the weekend so far and I hope you are too!  This past week I have been participating in a Beachbody challenge and doing Chalene Johnson's Turbo Fire workout.  I'm having a great time and I can tell my body is getting a great workout!  I love endorphins!  

And I found my creativity again this week, which makes me very happy!  Yay!

I finished this layout this morning:

Well, I'm off to be creative!  Have a blessed weekend!

Project life: Week 5

Hello!  I'm back with another week of Project Life: digital style.  I wanted to send a shout out and thank you to my friend Jamie for reminding me about the purpose of Project Life and scrapbooking in general.  (Jamie, thank you!)  She reminded me that no matter what my pages look like, that I will be so glad I did them later down the road when we look through the albums.  Yes!  It's SO true!  I have a lot of completed scrapbooks, some of them were done in the old-school Creative Memories style, but I love looking through them.  Jamie's comment encouraged me so much!

 I am actually enjoying Project Life so much that I am tempted to use it to catch up on 2012.  Ha!  I like how simple the process is (thus far) and how I can't wait until the week is over so I can process photos and get started.  With my limited time now to sit down and do such things, it's a great way to still capture memories through scrapbooking.

I feel like I did a lot of scrapbooking of last year's photos already by doing the Weekly Baby Journal for Jeralyn, but there are some memories I want to do separate pages for.  But I am starting to feel quite overwhelmed with all of the memories and photos still left for 2012.  I know some of you are probably chuckling at me, but I am so used to being more caught up than this!  Ha!  Oh well, I would rather be making memories with my family than stuck in front of a computer all the time.

Until next time...

Easter

I did it!  I scrapped a real scrapbook page!  Whoop!  And now I'm going to see if I can muster up more creativity!  Have a blessed Sunday!

Project Life: Week 4

I have a confession to make: I have no desire to scrapbook right now!  Oh NO!!  I'm more interested in Project Life and knitting right now.  And reading.  I have tried so many times to scrapbook this week and nothing comes to me.  Do you ever have those times?  Please tell me I'm not alone!  I wish the desire would show up again because I am getting behind.  I wish I would have started Project Life last year because I think it would have helped me scrap all of the darling photos I would like to scrap.  I think what I need to do is really really cut back on what I scrap and just scrap those photos that mean the MOST.  I can do this!  I will conquer this.  Ha!

And even with Project Life I still feel like my pages are boring.  But to be honest, I am welcoming the simplicity.  It just works for me right now.

Well, I must sign off now and get creative with a poopy diaper!

Project Life: Week 3

Hello!  How are you keeping up with your Project Life so far?  So far I don't feel like I'm behind, but there are other things I'm getting behind on.  Oh well.  I have to say that I'm feeling some relief by doing this project because I know pictures are getting scrapped!

I realized that I forgot to change last week's spread to "week 2".  Look at the previous post and you will notice my mistake.  Oops!  I found another mistake I will need to fix too.  I'm figuring all of this out.  Good thing I'm starting out simple!  I still don't feel confident...but I'm getting there.  I think I need to build up my supplies.  But I will not go back and change these pages...no way.

Another thing I'm noticing is that I am terrible at journaling about our week.  I feel like I don't know what I want to say.  So many some weeks will be more like lists of what we did.  That's sort of what I did for this week.  I'll get there!

Project Life: Week 2

I'm back with Week 2 of Project Life.  I had these two pages on my Photoshop desktop for days.  I don't feel confident about this project.  I don't feel like I've found my style with it yet.  I know I'll get there though. I was looking at a gallery of Project Life pages on Designer Digitals and I really like how some have totally gone out of the box and have done their own version of it.  But I think I will stay on the path I have started and continue on since I do like the original templates for Project Life.

Project Life: Week 1

So Blogger is still being bad.  I can't post pictures like I normally do, but thankfully Photobucket exists!

 

I'm still trying to figure out how I want to do this project.  I have a few templates ready to use. I also want to stay consistent with the embellishments.  I have always enjoyed seeing how Susan does Project Life.  Her approach is simple and clean.  I appreciate that because if I'm going to do something like this, I need simple and clean because I don't have a lot of extra time.  I'm excited about this project because we take so many pictures and there is no way I can highlight them in a separate scrapbook page all of the time.  So this is a great way to still have the photos on a page, but without going too crazy!  Ha!  I may change things a bit as I go along until I find my groove.  I like this first week, but I'm not completely settled.  And I really hope I don't get too behind.  I am just so excited!

 

Products used:

 

3x4 Calendar cards 2013

 

Circle Messages Vol. 1

 

Hello Life Boxes Brushes

 

Beach Outline Banners and Stamps 

 

Pocket Pages Layered Templates No.4

 



 

Food

Hello! Happy New Year!  I know...I'm late!  I have really good excuses though!  *smile*

Yesterday I tried to post some Project Life pages, but Blogger was being bad, so maybe I'll try again today.  But for now I have something else on my mind.  I've been comtemplating for a long, long time whether I want to "go there" about this subject on my blog.  I feel so strongly about this right now, so I'm going to step onto my soap box for a moment and share what's on my heart.  This is probably the first time I have "gone there" and it may be the last--who knows!

Anyway, here it goes...

I am so tired of all of the dieting mentalities and opinions out there on food.  There are SO many opinions on what food is good, bad, will make you live longer, will make you healther, will make you stronger, will fill you up, bring you down, cheer you up, make you fatter, make you thin, make you feel like you have more energy--and blah, blah, blah.  I feel like my mind and eyes have been poisoned by all of it. 

People, it's just food!  Sure, food has healing components (if that's even the word), but it's NOT our healer.  Sure, you will probably feel better after eating a grilled chicken salad instead of a juicy burger with fries (although you may still be hungry after the salad--that's just my experience). 

I feel like my head hurts at times from all of the confusing information out there about food. 

Why am I even talking about this?  Because lately I have been struggling with it.  Again.  Again?  Yes, years ago I really struggled with food stuff.  I wasted SO much time reading and researching about eating, dieting, losing weight, yada, yada.  And finally I realized that what I needed was to listen to my body and also be aware of portion.  Oh, and to exercise--which just means movement.  But recently I have allowed myself to go down that path of worrying about food again.  It's been actually a miserable experience.  So today I have decided to let it all go...again. 

I have seen countless people go on diets, only to gain all of the weight back.  You know what my theory is?  They weren't eating what they really enjoyed, so that's why the diet failed.  It won't last.  Deprivation kicks in and then when you are around that food you start to go crazy.  I've been there.  I've done that.  Over the years I have given myself permission to eat all sorts of foods.  Nothing is bad.  Sometimes I even eat pie/cake for breakfast.  Sometimes I even make pie for dinner.  I'm not kidding! 

As soon as people start labeling food as "good" and "bad" I just want to plug my ears and run.  You can certainly eat what you enjoy, but what it comes down to is portions.  I do track what I eat.  I need to visualize it.  I need to see it.  It's just how I am and it works for me.

I don't even know how to tie this into what I have talked about on this blog before.  I could tie it to the fact that you have to be you and like what YOU like to eat and not allow the unwavering opinions throw you off course.  I could tie it to the fact that everyone is different (I'm talking body size/composition) and how comparing ourselves is only destructive. 

I do like to feel good about myself.  So I track what I eat and I exercise.  I like that.  But I don't like when I start to dig too deep and find myself lost in the dieting mentality.  So I'm climbing my way back up through and finding air again.  Thank you, LORD!

So here I go...back to being balanced, back to enjoying ALL foods, and back to being ME!

Sweet Girl

Hello!  I don't have much to report, just wanted to share this page:

 

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.