The Century Scrapbook Project: 1912
It seems that being vocal about politics runs in the family.
Plus it seems like some people want Taft to run this year! So I found my connection for this page:
(photo source: notoriousmle.com)
Here's the ustream video about this page and The Century Scrapbook Project - find out how scrapbooking family politics can be interesting and easy:
Welcome to the Hunger Games Scrapbooking Challenge District #9 Grain!
I wasn't exactly sure where to go with the inspiration of "grain" so I looked through some of my older layouts and found themes of cooking, growing, and selected some layouts that just seemed to have a "grain" color. I'll explain each of the layouts and hopefully it will spark something for you to play with so you can create a scrapbooking layout or project inspired by District #9 Grain.
The two top Layouts have a theme of sunrise and sunset - grain farmers kind of live by the sun right?
1. Saturday Morning: I gathered random bits from the foods we eat on Saturday Mornings and included them as part of my page. We don't normally eat a lot of grain products, but if you eat waffles or bread or other grain based products for breakfast, that could be a good topic for a page.
2. Yum. Yum. Extra Yum. The title is inspired by a page in the book Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal - it is one of our favorite bedtime stories. I also included a photo collage of pictures about food in our house - everything from shopping, to cooking to eating and family celebrations.
Here are 9 more layouts that are loosely associated with District #9's Grain Industry:
1. Mac: Backyard Treasure: This layout includes a lot of grain colored patterened paper. I used a square punch on random bits of scraps and then cut them on the diagonal to form the triangles and put them into a pattern. (This layout was based on an original design team page created for Jenni Bowlin's line at this past CHA 2012)
2. Mr. Sunshine & The Night Owls: This layout includes photos of us in our kitchen and is also a nod to the idea of how farmers get up early.
3. Love You: This is another layout that was based on an original design team page created for the Dear Lizzy line from America Crafts from this past CHA 2012. Again, the colors in the patterned papers look a bit like grain colors and the overall page looks like a sunburst.
4. Wasabi: The subject of this page is the green spicy Japanese horseradish - which I absolutely love - but the photo includes sushi rolls made with rice, which I'm pretty sure is actually a grain!
5. Yum Yum Yum! Here's another cooking based page, I used part of the packaging from a Barbie toy for the large Baker Barbie embellishment on the page.
6. October: Here's another grain colored page - and I'm pretty sure that farmers harvest their grain crops in the fall right? So I'm calling this one a grain based page too ;)
7. The Farm: This page is actually about a farm and I know corn isn't technically a grain - but we did do the corn maze for the first time and the hexagon/octagon die cut shapes bring to mind busy bees and being productive in a farming kind of way.
8. Grow: This page could have been included in District 11 Agriculture, but I didn't get it in that post, so I'll include it here - it is about plants after all.
9. My Hero: It is not obvious from this layout, but this photo was taken at Dunkin Donuts - which are made of grains, right?
Ok, so I kind of called it in today; but if you have a GREAT GRAIN IDEA for District #9 please leave a comment or post a link to your project, I would love to see it!
Meantime, if you wish to support this blog, please click on an affiliate link to browse Amazon for supercool scrapbooking and The Hunger Games products:
It is starting to feel like spring and a change of seasons for me means some seasonal scrapbooking:
My grandma used to wear seasonal scarves, I don't normally wear scarves but I do mark the seasons with my scrapbooking projects:
I use Stacy Julian's Library of Memories System so that most of my scrapbook layouts are in the 3 ringed binder 12x12 albums. When a particular section of an album builds up, I'll take out those layouts and put them in a post bound "bump out" album. I have a 12x12 post bound Spring Themed scrapbook album that includes traditional 12x12 scrapbook layouts along with page protectors with spring themed photographs so that the pages are all different and I get to use a lot of my photographs in one album:
I keep a 12x12 framed scrapbook page in my kitchen with the current season's "Bucket List" - its time to update since it is now February and the frame still contains our Fall Bucket List:
After I take the Fall Bucket List Layout out of the frame, it will go into either the "Things We Do - Seasons" part of my Library of Memories Album or it will go into a Fall "bump out" album depending on which album has extra space. I love that making a seasonal scrapbook page or mini book can mark time, especially since I live in Florida and there are no clear changes in the seasons. Making seasonal scrapbooking pages and projects help me and my family to notice and celebrate the seasonal things we do and to establish seasonal traditions in our family.
If you would like to support this blog, please check out the following links for divided page protectors like the ones I used in my Spring 12x12 Scrapbook Album:
These photos are of my husband and my dad at his "cottage" near Bar Harbor, I took these photos back in November 2000.
How is this page inspired by 7 Gypsies?
1. The patterned paper letters, I made these with patterened paper and QuicKutz but I think 7 Gypsies has some patterened letter stickers coming out for Winter CHA 2012.
2. The vintage tag stickers which aren't from 7 Gypsies but definately have that vintage feel.
3. The striped red and white grunge paper is actually from 7 Gypsies.
December Daily - Day 6!
I am happy that even though my life is getting busier - as I know it does in December - I am keeping up with both December Daily and Project Life, here's a peek at both:
I did some party dress shopping - I do not love the shopping process - I wish cute clothes that fit me properly would magically appear in my closet.
I did find 3 dresses for myself and 3 for my daughter so we had a fashion show when I got home:
Here's a ustream video showing my December Daily project and my observation that I am doing more digital scrapbooking pages, especially for this project:
We went primitive tent camping with the Cub Scouts the weekend after Thanksgiving and I took a zillion photos. I did this simple two page layout and was able to fit 18 photos on the spread by cutting the photos into circles.
Lately one of my favorite scrapbooking tools is my set of die cut circles. I have been using my circle dies so much that I have been keeping them in a small lotus bowl on my scrapbooking desk along with my QuicKutz Revolution - I am not sure they are still selling that model, so I have linked the QuicKutz Epic 6 below. I used the circle dies to cut the photos for the Cub Scout Camping Trip 2 page scrapbook layout. I recommend QuicKutz Cookie Cutter Dies or Spellbinders Nestabilities since both include several sizes.
It is my first official week of Project Life. I ordered the Becky Higgins's Style A Page Protectors and the Amber Edition Core Kit and I have it all set up in the album and it is so exciting to have my first week completed!
This past week was seriously eventful {Allison's birthday, the Awesome Octopus 8 Under the Sea Birthday Party, putting up the two Christmas trees and decorations and outdoor lighting, building doll beds, Thanksgiving dinner, and Cub Scout Camping!! All in one week! } so I added a 8x11 photo page holder for extra pictures.
I know there was a sale on the Project Life supplies on Amazon this past week but I think I missed it. I was considering buying another kit to backtrack. I started the Project 365 concept back in January but fell quickly off the wagon. I'm thinking about how to do a year wrap up with that album, but I'm not really sure whether I am going to. I'm not feeling all that motivated to do it, but maybe if I just make a traditional type scrapbook layout for each month. I'm just not sure. I am in the Project Life Community at Big Picture Classes, but haven't spent much time there, maybe I'll check the comments for recommendations about whether to try to backtrack or not. But so far, I'm loving how easy the Project Life supplies makes doing this project.
Hey blog readers: Do you do Project Life? Please comment with any tips for maintaining this project - I'm hoping that I can stay on the Project Life wagon.
I had this idea for making scrapbook layouts. A fun idea that had been brewing for a while. An idea about applying Improv Comedy Principles to Scrapbooking. I took an Improvisational Comedy class last summer and mid-way through the class a burst of inspiration struck and I've been chewing on the concept ever since.
So this past week, I tried it out. It was AWESOME! I made 40 layouts in 7 days. Yes. Forty. That's 5.71 layouts a day. AND it was FUN AND EASY!
I solved my own problem of going into my scrap room and not getting a lot done, having to figure out where to start, and I am very excited about this Improv and Scrapbooking Mash Up. It is fast and fun and I love it.
And I had to stop myself because I could have kept going.
But I stopped and this morning I took photos of the layouts and I'm planning to write about how I did it, more on that coming up soon.
Here's a little peek at one of the Improv-Scrapbooking pages:
That's our family self portrait for this year's Halloween costumes.
Mac's face is hidden by his Ninja weapons; today he earned his PURPLE BELT in Karate - Way To Go Mac!
And Allison is a Skull Fairy and she went to a costume party today and won the Scariest Costume Award - Yay Ally!
I am Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Charlie is going to be Crusty the Clown from The Simpsons - he actually ordered his costume last spring. Go figure.
I'll have more on Improv-Scrapbooking in the near future.
Welcome to this month's Scrapworthy Lives - The Happiness Project Blog Hop!
You should have arrived from "My Creative Days in Beijing" (see below for a complete blog list with links).
This month's theme for the Happiness Project was "Pursue A Passion" - sounds like fun right?
It seems like it should be because I pride myself on pursing things (passions) that make me happy - scrapbooking, picture taking, having adventures with my family, kayaking, practicing Bikram Yoga, taking Improv Classes, and whatever else strikes me at any given time as something fun to do. I'm also proud of the fact that I am able to have balance as a working mom and still take this "me" time.
Do I get it right all the time? Heck no! I have to tweak and re-tweak the routine and how everything fits together and there are some weeks when things fall off the radar. But generally I feel like if I'm juggling 100 balls - I'm keeping the important one ones from dropping - that I'm keeping all the plates spinning (to switch cliche metaphors).
So this month's blog theme of Pursing a Passion should be super fun for me, right? Um sure, but for whatever reason, this topic seems to bring out the angst in me.
Apparently I'm not alone in this reaction. Gretchen Rubin writes "Some people feel overwhelmed by the question "What's Your Passion?" It seems so large and unanswerable that they feel paralyzed." in the chapter titled "Pursue a Passion" in the The Happiness Project book. This is not exactly my reaction, however. Mine is a response from a perspective of being a bit hard on myself for not having already started on the action part of pursing passions - and my brain goes to the goal setting / resolution brain with strict rules. I started writing out my feelings and then wrote a list of those nagging goals:
I printed the journaling out and it goes through all my angst ridden feelings. I pulled a piece of red cardstock - maybe I subconsciously picked the one with the skunk because of how I was feeling a bit stinky about this. I decided to hide the goals and include a page from the actual book - yes I did rip it out. I did some machine stitching on the page but otherwise, it didn't feel like it needed any embellishments, that I wanted it to be straightforward even through some of the writing - and that skunk - were hidden. Here is the finished layout:
So I'm happy to get all that angst out and get back to my happy place. I'm happy with the layout and I'm happy that I wrote the goals down, but also that I put them in an envelope. I've often found that when I do this, I tend to find the list again in a few months or years, and then I feel happy when I see that some of the goals have been accomplished. I am going to schedule some time in to get working on those goals and passions.
In the meantime, I do think I already do a very good job of pursuing passions on a daily basis - take a look at these scrapbook layouts that evidence that:
Proof of Pursuing My Passions In the Layouts: Mountain Climbing; Kayaking with Dolphins; Bikram Yoga; Throwing Parties; Taking Pictures; Seeing the Space Center; Tampa Bay Rays Baseball; Growing Flowers and Vegetables; Day Tripping to Orlando; Researching Our Ancestry; Taking Kids to the Beach; Hula-Hooping; Summer Fun; Road Trips; Playing on the iPhone; Work; Kite Flying; Hanging Out With the Hubby; Traveling to All 50 States; Winter Ski Trips; Girlfriends; Improv Classes: Girl Time with my Girl.
I really do think its important to pursue your passions and I have many; I don't have trouble identifying them; and I do still love to do the same types of things I loved to do when I was 10 years old and I have no trouble at all filling up Saturday afternoons (and the wee hours of most every night). Gretchen Rubin suggests that if you are having trouble identifying your passions ask yourself "What you enjoyed doing as a ten year old or choose to do on a free Saturday afternoon is a strong indication of your passion."
I hope that you are making time for pursuing your passions and that you don't get too tough on yourself when goal setting. I also hope that you enjoyed this post and will enjoy the rest of the blog hop.
Here is a full list of the Happiness Project Scrapworthy Lives Blog Hop sites:
1. My Creative Days in Beijing
2. Kiss and Tell Scrapbooking by Katie Scott
5. Take a Picture and Remember This
Your next stop on the Scrapworthy Lives Happiness Blog Hop is #3 Your Memory Connection.
Some of our old Halloween decorations looked a little tired, so we got the glitter and the glue out and added some pizzaz to them, check it out:
No, I don't normally make apple pies, or any other kind of pies. Normally I'm making a ridiculous amount of scrapbooking projects, just look through my blog archives if you have any question about the quantity of scrapbooking pages I make. Its a crazy lot.
But. Tonight. Allison and I made a pie. An apple pie. In my not-so-humble opinion, it is the LOVELIEST PIE that ever was created!
The photo doesn't even do it justice, it is perfection.
Mmmm. Seriously, it is perfect in every way.
I'm checking "Apple Pie Baking" off my Fall Bucket List - but in truth, I may have to repeat this experience again and again. It was exceptionally satisfying.
And again and again and again.
I'm a bit behind on the Ella Publishing Boot Camp because I came down with the flu this week, but I'm on the mend now and catching up on the challenges. I made this layout by stamping the circles in the horizontal border strip in the bottom third - and then I punched patterned paper to fill in the circles.
I don't often stamp on my pages so this was challenging for me even through it was very simple to accomplish. Trying something new - or something you haven't done in a while - is a good thing.
The circles and the papers I used made me think of the seasons - and that there were more than four circles running all together made me think of the seasons in Florida and how my Floridian children don't really get the experience of the changing seasons like I did growing up in New England.
Journaling: Growing up in New England, I felt very connected with the 4 seasons because it was always very obvious from the weather which season it was. The quote by John Keats "The Human Seasons" which goes "Four seasons fill the measure of a year; there are four seasons in the mind of [humans]". I do think the seasons mimic our lifespan and my kids are Floridians and all the seasons blend together. I do my best to take them to other states to see and feel the seasons, but its hard to know withtout experience."
I sort of ran out of space before I could write something better to end upon; but its ok, I'll maybe put this page near the beginning of a seasons scrapbook & then the rest of the layouts will finish this thought that even though they haven't gotten the seasons here in Florida, we have done many things to fill in this gap and the other layouts will exemplify that.
I also did a scraplift of Nichol Migouirk's boot camp layout:
I tried to do this with stamping - but the patterned papers I already had were close enough - somehow stamping always seems like too much effort for me when it is actually not all that time / effort intensive. Do you stamp on your layouts?
So I'm starting to think about our family's plans for this fall. I used Shimelle's Scrapbooking Starting Points {click here for the starting points link} to make my Fall Family Fun To Do List which I framed and will live in my kitchen (where the summer to do list used to be). Here are some photos of me getting ready for fall and the starting points layout and the finished fall bucket list layout:
Here are some layouts from Falls Past:
What kind of family fun and/or scrapbooking do you have planned for this fall?
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