Project Life: Weeks 1 and 2

To say I am excited to finally be posting this a SERIOUS understatement!  You can not believe the utter joy I feel for having finally completed two weeks worth of my Project Life.  I was so very slow getting started because as you know, I was overwhelmed for awhile due to an overload of inspiration and instead of it kicking my motivation and creativity into gear, it instead left me not even knowing where to begin.  However, this week I set time aside over a 3 day period and made myself focus and get it done.

One area that I do not have a problem and haven't fallen behind on (so far) is printing and inserting my pictures.  It has now become a habit for me that each Sunday morning, I get up and send my photos off to Walgreens to the one hour photo.  My husband and I then pick them up later that day while we are out grocery shopping and as soon as I get the groceries put away, I start cropping, rounding corners and inserting my photos.  All I lack each week then is added any memorablia, journaling and creative little accents.

I want to point out too that I am really trying to keep my Project Life as simplistic as possible when it comes to work that I find tedious.  I do not enjoy editing photos, so.....none of my photos are edited to improve color, lighting, etc. (as of  right now anyway, I will let you know if I ever do edit them in the future).  They are snapped with my very cheap, old point & shoot Sony Cybershot camera.  I will tell you that I honestly can not stand my camera.  I want to throw it out the front door sometimes.  LOL I upload them to my camera and send them off to be printed....that's it!  When I decided to do Project Life, I knew I wanted to get back into paper scrapping so I am really enjoying spending the bulk of my time working more on my creative additions to my pages.  So, I apologize in advance if some of my pictures are not so snazzy, especially the ones where I photograph my pages!  The ones you see here in this post are my 2nd attempt!  I finally decided they would have to be good enough.  Hopefully, I will get better at photographing these shiny page protectors as the year goes on OR my amazing hubby will buy me a better camera.  I am hoping for the latter.  ;)

Now, onto my pages!  Woohoo!  OH, there are just a few little things I still need to do to these pages and that is add a few tiny little staples here and there when my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher comes in next week.  But, that little tiny adjustment was not enough to keep me from sharing these.

WEEK ONE

I use a Pfaff 2144 to sew all of my goodies on.  Sometimes I use a zig zag stitch but most of the time it is just a straight stitch.  I use a regular Sharps 80/20 needle and I have one specifically set aside just for "paper" sewing so I change it out when I want to sew on fabric.

On the red journal card, I went to my daughter's Facebook wall and grabbed something she had posted as a filler for the week.  

When I was at Tokyo restaurant, I grabbed 2 of the chopsticks packages off of the table and then I cut the paper packaging on them so that I had the logo and the address of the restaurant to sew to a journal card.

I tied the orange bow and then just did a stay stitch on top of it using my sewing machine to hold it to the paper and bingo card.

WEEK TWO

I have two grown children who do not live at home anymore and it is important to me that they are included in my Project Life album so I grabbed a few pictures off of one of my daughter's Facebook pages this week.

As a filler, I grabbed The Biggest Loser logo off of the internet and printed it out to use on a journal card.

The "Fight Everyday" was my quote for the week.  I actually wrote the card at the beginning of the week and stuck it up on my fridge for motivation all week.

I also included a quote from my daughter as a filler this week.

We ate dinner out one night at Whataburger and tried their new Spicy Ketchup for the first time.  It was actually my husband's idea to save the peel off top.  I sewed it on a french fry box and the receipt from our meal is tucked in behind the box.

Here are some specific supplies that I used for weeks 1 and 2.

Tree Hugger Flappers	Mini Bingo Card Calendar	Like This Smash Tape
Tab Punch	Customizable Cards No. 3	Mini Road Trip Stamps

I could not find an acceptable place to link you up to the following items online. Most of them are very inexpensive things that I grab while out shopping. I am a very thrifty shopper and hardly ever buy anything regular price!

Colorbok Sticky Journal Stax: Black & White: Michael's on clearance.
Studio G Alphabets (I used 2 different ones): Walmart
Studio G Chalk Pads: Walmart
Studio 112 Die-cut Stickers: Joann's
Studio G Snowflake Stampe: Walmart
Sunny Side Up Doilies: Hobby Lobby {You can find similar ones at your local grocery store or at your local craft storein the baking section)

Here is where you can find my blog post listing the basic (general) supplies that are used throughout most of my album:
An Introduction to Project Life - 2012

For those of you doing Project Life, how is it going for you?  Are you staying caught up?  Link me to your pages if you share them publicly, I LOVE show and tell!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Can You Hear Me Now?

Hi everyone!  I hope everyone has had a fantastic week and is looking forward to their weekend....tomorrow is Friday.  Woohoo!  I guess I am looking forward to our weekend although, we have a motorcycle club meeting on Saturday and then a Super Bowl party to go to on Sunday so....if I am being honest, not so much. I am such a home body that I actually prefer a nice, relaxing weekend with no plans. Especially when I am still recovering from being sick for thirteen days!  It is a super long story so I will try to keep it short and just hit the major details. I woke up on the 20th of January with major pain in my right ear and a feeling like I was underwater where I could hear my breathing and my voice in my own ear.  I was first told a Eusthacian Tube Dysfunction when I went to the minor emergency clinic and put on Mucinex D, Flonase and Zyrtec.  Four days later I still wasn't feeling well so I went to my primary care doctor and was told I had a slight redness in my ear and they had me take Prednisone and an antibiotic for five days while continuing the other medications.  Well, as of Monday I still wasn't feeling well.  I went to see an ENT and he believes it is most likely a jaw issue since there was no fluid in my ear, no drainage, etc.  He put me on an anti-inflammatory and a pain medication.  Finally, some relief has started to set in.  I feel a little bit better each day in regards to the pain and the feeling in my ear as though I am underwater or in a barrel is slightly less.  I am still very nauseated and dizzy however.  I guess my next step is a visit to a dentist to try and figure out if this is in fact something associated with my jaw.  I am worried that the medications are simply masking the issue and I am not really getting well.  However, I am too happy with feeling better to stop taking the medications to find out!  I just keep going to bed each night and waking up the next morning hoping that it will be the day I get to say I am back to being me!

I wanted to just share a few layouts with you today that I have done since I last blogged about my layouts.  I want to make sure and draw your attention though to the kit that I used for this first layout, Rejoice.  The kit is a three designer collaboration that can be purchased this month only at My Scrapbook Art's magazine, Home Is Where The Art Is for only $1.99.  The collaboration kit is called A New Day and was created by Secret Stash, Ziggle Designs and MLE Card.

Here is what this amazing kit looks like:

After February, the kit will go into the designer's stores and will be sold at regular price which will probably be triple that price!  Here is the layout I did using A New Day:

Rejoice

A New Day - 

by Secret Stash, MLE Card and Ziggle Designs (February Art Social at MSA)

My Kindle Fire

Techno Love Bundle by Chelle's Creations

Winter Flavors: Vanilla Spice by Busy Bee Designs

Priceless

Extraordinary Value Bundle by Secret Stash Designs

Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Busy Bee Designs

part of the MScraps Collaboration

I did finally finish my Weeks 1 and 2 of my Project Life album and I am nearly finished with the title page.  Boy does it feel good to part of it completed.  I will blog those soon, I promise because I am sooo excited to share with everyone finally what they look like!

I am off to eat dinner and spend some time with the family.  I hope you all have a great day!  Until next time - hugs!

Project Life: Journal Card Freebie Madness

Wow, I am just in awe at all the fabulous products that are popping up all over scrapping stores, blogs and Pinterest.  I have been trying to get more of a handle on my goals for Project Life and not letting the inspiration overwhelm me and instead looking at all of the ideas out there and turn them into energy to get me more creative.

I thought I would take the time today to share with all of you a dozen or so of these great finds which just happen to be lots and lots of FREE journaling cards!

Just look at these that Gina Miller Designs has as our Facebook Fan freebie for January.  All you have to do is like her fan page!  You can visit her Facebook page HERE.

Emily Merritt is offering up these simple journal cards on her blog, HERE.

These Present Day Journal Cards (8) are also a free download from Ormolu.  You can grab them HERE on their site.

A Week At A Glance Journaling Cards are available from Creativity Promt HERE.

The Splendidly Imperfect Miss M has these adorable journal cards that she created that you can grab for FREE when you like her Facebook page.  You can read up about her Project Life on her blog and find out more about getting the cards HERE.

Valorie Brown has these two AWESOME freebies on her blog HERE.

Wow, just look at these AMAZING freebies from Miss Tiina!  I printed these out yesterday and they are so brilliant and beautiful!  You can grab them on her blog HERE.

Plucky Momo is giving away a free Project Life printable EVERY Friday in 2012!  

Here are previews of her weeks 1 - 3 freebies!  You can click on each image to visit her blog and read more about each freebie!

Just look at these adorable cards that Becky Higgins creative team member Cathy Zielske has created.  You can even see how she has used them in her own album on her blog HERE.

I just love the look of these from Yellow Umbrella Designs!  HERE is a link to her inspirational blog and then each of these freebie images are linked to her blog post which contains information on how to get them.

If you happen to visit these sites and partake in their freebies, leave a little note of thanks.  After all, we want them to know how much we appreciate their work and generosity and maybe they might make more for their fans in the future!  ;)

I am off to go work on finishing up my weeks 1 - 3.  I hope you all have a fabulous day and I will catch ya next time!

New Release Faves

Hi everyone!  It has been awhile since I did a post like this so, I thought I would do a post on some of the amazing, fascinating and gorgeous products I have come across this week at the digi sites I peruse frequently.

At Sweet Shoppe Designs, Boy Crazy by Dani Mogstad

 
At Sweet Shoppe Designs, Eat Cake by Kristin Cronin-Barrow and Krystal Hartley

Also at Sweet Shoppe Designs, Honeybee Mine by Traci Reed

And if any of those kits at Sweet Shoppe are speaking to you - this should push you into a decision.  Julie Billingsley is the featured designer there for January and you get this kit FREE with any $10 purchase through Jan 31!
Forevermore by Julie Billingsley


WOW WOW WOW!  Today- the collection, by Mari Koegelenberg at The Digichick (all this for only $12.46 - I'm not kidding!)

At Scrap Orchard, Pizza Plus Games Bundle by Dream Big Designs

At Scrap Orchard, Art is Freedom by Litabells Designs

Also at Scrap Orchard, Lookin Good by Laura Banasiak

At Pickleberrypop, I Heart U by Fayette Designs and Charlize Creations

Bee Mine by Shabby Miss Jenn

Year of the Dragon by jennck Designs

Someone to Love by River Rose Designs

Well, that is all I have for today.  As if that wasn't plenty to tempt your creativity, right?  I am off to scrap, scrap, scrap this weekend!  I am hoping to get about 5 or 6 pages done and finish up my Project Life title and One Little Word pages.  

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!  Hugs!