Project Life 2012 - Week 51 (and a little sewing)

Hello Week 51...I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...another week of many many photos. Well, it was the week before Christmas, after all :)

Someone please remind me to never ever ever get this far behind again! Thank goodness most weeks are just a normal, two page spread...I just couldn't keep up the pace :) 

This week has multiple inserts (again), so I've slipped a piece of white cardstock under the insert for photographic purposes...and I've also blurred some faces(where I forgot to ask permission to publish).

Week 51 was all about movies and Christmas catchups, last days of school, and more Christmas parties (no wonder my bathroom scales are groaning at me right now LOL)

I've used various sizes of Project Life inserts, and they have proven to be invaluable in getting ALL these photos into the album...must order some more ;)

                                 

So that was Week 51, thankfully off my desk....bring on Week 52 (typed with very little enthusiasm, but much determination to finish it before the clock strikes midnight tonight!)

I had the urge to sew a little, in between PL pages, and my Mystery Block of the Month Block Six was just the thing!

The block was designed by Kate Spain, and is called Town Square. I am really loving having these blocks to work on each month...they are quick, fun and the Vintage Modern fabric is to die for! The Fat Quarter Shop include SO much fabric for each months block, that I have already started at least two other projects using the leftovers...gotta love that :)

Off to print photos...again!

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2012 - Week 50

Hello Week 50...a week with lots and lots of photos to include. So many photos, in fact, that I've added an insert in the middle again :)

 I've used the PL Clementine kit for all the pocket pages, and added splashes of colour to match the freebie digital downlaods from AC Digitals that I've printed (see previous post for details). The insert is Design G, and is almost as big as the regular Design A page that I usually use.

Flip over the insert (which I used to document the end of year school disco photos), and you'll see the back, which I've used for the Perth Christmas Pageant photos.

Then there's another Design A page to document the second part of the week.

Phew...that's a lot of photos. Feels great to have them all in together, and another very busy week documented.

Apologies if you're not so into PL and I'm boring you to death LOL ...I have lots more stitchy fabric-y things to show you soon, but want to start the new year as up-to-date as possible :)  Bear with me just a little longer?
For those PLers...I read online somewhere that the new pre-ordered kits are shipping from Craft House in New Zealand on January 3rd...YIPPPEEEEEEEE! So excited to be starting another year of Project Life (and proud to say I have survived a whole 52 weeks without giving up LOL)!

Off to print more photos ;)

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2012 - Week 49

Hello Week 49...the start of a very busy Christmas period in our house, and where I totally dropped the ball as far as keeping up with my PL is concerned LOL.

I made this weeks spread unashamedly RED, both to herald the beginning of Christmas, and because I had lots of yummy red papers and embellishments sitting on my desk ;)

I used some papers and stickers from October Afternoons Make it Merry collection (totally love the subway art print on the title card!)  and also made use of some of the freebies I told you about a while back, from AC Digital. I added some artwork from Merryn, and a cheeky note to Santa, explaining that he may need to help my husband out with his Christmas shopping this year ;)

 (please excuse the photo glare...it is SO SO hot here today, and I couldn't find a great spot for photos) I love the striped paper from Echo Park Essential Dots collection (it's the back of the dotty paper)...it screams Christmas and candy canes to me...so very festive.

So that was Week 49, where the Christmas chaos really began :)

I then went back to Week 48 and added a Pocket Page Insert H, to include the "putting up the Christmas tree" photos...

...love that you can always add extras later if you feel the need!

So I'm slowly clawing my way back to being on top of Project Life. With the end of the year coming very quickly and a new PL album to begin, I am hoping to be totally caught up. My air conditioner is on, my chocolate is by my side, and I'm all set for another late night of PLing...bring it on!

TTFN xxx

Remember me?

Hello hello...remember me?

You could be forgiven for thinking I'd fallen off the face of the planet, or given up blogging altogether...it's been a while ;) I've written lots of blog posts in my head though...does that count?

It's been a busy Christmas season around here, full of all the things that make Christmas wonderful...lots of family time, wonderful food, catchups with friends, school wind-ups and not a whole lot of non-Christmas related crafting...but that's the way December goes :)

This year, I did manage to send out some handmade Christmas cards, and they mostly looked like this...

I challenged myself to make them with what I had in my stash, and that worked out rather well :) I had a JUMBO roll of red polkadot ribbon, so that was my starting point, and used no less than four stamps on the front alone...that is a BIG stamping effort from me :)

Of course, I totally underestimated how many cards I would need, and was still stamping my heart out right up to Christmas...LOL! I also created matching tags for my gifts, and would hate to count how many of those tags I actually made...hundreds!

I may not stamp anything for a few months now...stamp overload :)

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and are enjoying the" after Christmas down time"...I know I am! Lots of creativity beginning to swirl around in my head, and lots of Project Life and December Daily catching up to do in the meantime...wish me luck!

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2012 - Week 48

A little late on my Project Life...seems to be the story of my life this week :)

We started Week 48 with a trip to Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, after Riley fell from a rather large tree. Funnily enough, I "Instagramed" a photo of him in the tree earlier in the day, so it only seemed fitting to have follow-up shots ;)

I wrote the story in detail on a couple of the PL long journaling cards and tucked it into the pocket for future reading.

I didn't want to devote the whole weeks spread  to the broken arm (even though that did take up most of my week!) so added a few other bits and pieces...Christmas card making, a baby shower, Lydia's drawing on our little chalkboard :)

Since Saturday was December 1st ( the day we decorate our house for Christmas) I probably should make an additional page or two to include those photos...when I get a spare minute?

The "silly season"  is kicking into overdrive this week with lots of end of year activities, another appointment at PMH for Riley's new plaster, school disco, work every day for me and too many "bring-a-plates" to mention...lucky I love Christmas, huh?

How are you going with it all? Are you feeling totally out of control, or in a calm state of organised bliss? I'm balancing somewhere in between ;)

Have a great one

TTFN xxx

A heads up...

Head over to the new AC Digitals website for your Project Life freebies...

...perfect to use over the next couple of weeks in the lead up to Christmas. Mine are printed off and ready to go ;)

TTFN xxx

Another day, another card...and a start on December Daily

Do you find that it's easier to create when your desk is clean? Or when your desk is a mess?

 Me? I can go either way :) At the moment my workspace is trashed, but rather than clean it up I made another card instead, using some of the materials that were cluttering it up...like the Studio Calico card kit and the Amy Tangerine rosettes I used for yesterdays card. This time I added some Liquid Pearls to highlight the pattern in the background paper, and attached the "thank you" button from the kit on top of the rosette. Stitching around the outside seemed like a natural thing to do ;)

I also made a start on December Daily...

                                     

...and am feeling very thankful for simplicity right about now. Printing out a single 4x6 photo for each day is making the process nice and quick. I stuck the photo on, embellished a little with stamps and washi tape, and wrote my journaling straight on...too easy :)

Same formula for Day 2...

...this time recording my newest Christmas obsession, Jim Shore Santas. I numbered each Santa in the photo, and documented where they came from in my journaling.

Doing December Daily alongside Project Life is quite different...I'm feeling a lot less pressure to record every Christmas detail in DD, as anything I miss I can put in Project Life. I think a year of taking lots and lots of photos is also paying off...it's become an automatic response to pick up my camera and record the details.

So far, so good ...how are you doing?

TTFN xxx

Hello.

So I'm a little bit behind on my Studio Calico cardmaking ;)

Five cards per month doesn't seem like many, but with everything else going on around here I totally lacked  the motivation to work on anything much last week...a teenager with a broken limb is enough to suck the mojo out of anyone, I think LOL.

 Thankfully, said teenager is learning to cope a little better and has returned to school, and I feel a little crafting urge returning...amazing how that works ;)

Everything on this card is from Octobers card kit, Roller Rink, except the faux woodgrain rosette in the centre...it's by Amy Tangerine for American Crafts.

There's a little bit of stitching there too...I find it hard to make anything without adding a bit of stitching :)

I guess I had better update my To-Do List for December...how quickly did that come around? It also occurs to me that today is December 3rd, and I haven't made a start on recording December Daily yet...ooops! That had better be next on the list :)

Have a great day

TTFN xxx

One very special gift.

Amidst the craziness of the past week or so , I haven't had a chance to show you a very very special something that arrived, very much by surprise, in my mailbox from my dear friend Hope. How my heart leapt when I opened my package! Look what was inside!

Hope was a bit sneaky about this gorgeous little quilt :) I knew she was making teeny tiny little Farmers Wife blocks, based on the book that we are both working our way through. These blocks are so miniature...the finished size of each block is 4cm square...and they are ridiculously cute. Hope is using Rose Parade fabrics like me, but pairing them with black dots (LOVE!) and other bright prints.

 I also knew that she was making this miniature quilt as a gift for someone, and I had expressed my surprise that she could bear to part with such a gorgeous creation...I know I couldn't :) She even showed me a sneaky peek on Instagram, but wouldn't show me more until the recipient had received her parcel...no matter how much I begged :)

Imagine my delight when I spied a photo on Instagram of the parcel tracking, showing that the parcel had arrived in...Western Australia,(!!!)  and the caption below advising that it was headed to...ME!!! SQUEAL!

I couldn't wait to get home and open my gorgeous little mini....which was waiting for me in my mailbox!  It is quite simply, the most beautiful, meticulously pieced, precious little 8 inches square that I have ever seen. I have since spent literally hours, marvelling at the workmanship of this lovely little piece which we have dubbed "Liquorice Allsorts" for it's black middle, lolly colours and striped binding :)

If you'd like to see more details about the construction, visit Hope's lovely blog here.

Words can't describe how grateful I am, both for my lovely gift and my even more lovely friend.

The sincere friends of this world are as ship lights in the stormiest of nights.
Giotto di Bondone

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2012 - Week 47

Hello Week 47...another week in my ever growing Project Life album.

This week was all about school camp (again!), bubble blowing, XBox Live and quilt baskets...

...homework projects, guitar performances, fishpond nets and car crashes :(

Not such a great week in the grand scheme of things...little did I know that the week to follow (ie THIS week) would get somewhat worse. I used mostly the Clementine PL kit for this layout....all the oranges and pinks. I've also started on an insert to include as well, documenting a most thoughtful and beautiful gift which I received during this week...it deserves a page all of it's own!

So that was Week 47.

Stay tuned for Week 48...a week in which my daredevil son fell many many metres from a very large tree and ended the day in Princess Margaret Hospital. I kid you not.

And while I'd love to show you the photos, I can't...because I just deleted the whole lot off my camera....arrrrggghhhh!  Luckily, I had printed off a few during this week, and there are also a few on my trusty iPhone....watch this space :)

They say bad luck comes in threes, right?

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2012 - Week 46

Hello Week 46...which doesn't really sound so bad, until you subtract 46 from 52, and realise that there are only 6 weeks left of 2012.

Yes. Really.

 Now I've given you a good scare LOL, here is the week that was...

 ...a week created using Simple Stories Snap Life goodies. I may have to order some more at the rate I'm going...love it!

Try to ignore the horrid photo of me staring at you from the middle of the page...I was thinking that my hair growing situation had turned a corner...that is, a not-so-bad hair day for the first time in ages....so I took a photo. Turns out I was wrong :) I'm almost ready to get it cut short again...my patience has almost run out!

And that was our week :)

Thanks so much for visiting...hope you're having a great one so far!

TTFN xxx

The Sweetest Thing

One of the joys of parenthood is sharing whatever bugs and germs the children bring home...usually after you've nursed them back to health! That's where I'm at today...finally child free after a stretch of days-off-school and broken-nights-sleep, and I am up to my neck in tissues and throat lozenges. Blah.

After unsuccessfully trying to attack my rather long to-do list, I decided to sit myself and my tissue box at my craft desk and see where the mood took me. Looking at the scrapbook layout I created, you may see the inspiration the tissues provided? LOL

Lots of white on white....although to be fair, white-on-white seems to be my current favourite where scrapbooking is concerned :) I laid out paper doilies on white cardstock, and carefully stitched them in place with white thread.

 I stitched around the outside of the white cardstock with black thread, to mimic the Amy Tangerine letter stickers in the title. The cute little house and heart stickers came in my Studio Calico kit, and I created little tags to stick them on, then threaded them onto grey twine.

The photo is from our shoot by Sharon Manning Photography last year. Not a single piece of patterned paper was used in the creation of this layout, and not a single polkadot or bright colour either.

I know. I really must be feeling sick.

TTFN xxx

December Daily - decisions and beginnings :)

December Daily. It's something that's been on my mind a bit lately :)

I've been making albums to document our December happenings for quite a few years now, and it has become, in itself, one of our family December traditions.

 With Project Life in the mix this year, I've tossed around how to approach documenting our December memories quite a lot.  Should I incorporate DD into PL? Should I keep them totally seperate? Should I ditch December Daily altogether? I even put it out there to you guys, and had some interesting feedback, and lots of food-for-thought (thank you for your comments and suggestions!)

In the end, it has come down to my Christmas-obsessed daughter Lydia, who was horrified by the thought of no December Daily! (why does that NOT surprise me? LOL)

So, in the interests of keeping things super simple this year, here is my start...

..to say I love the October Afternoon Holiday Style paper on the front cover is an understatement :) I hand cut the cream base title plate to fit the album, and added the word sticker "December" from Simple Stories Snap Life and some small grey alphas to spell out "twenty twelve". A bit hard to see, but I stitched around the perimeter of the paper, too.

The filler pages are all plain ivory cardstock, stamped with variations of Ali Edwards' Today You Journaling Frames stamps across the bottom...I may or may not add a little embellishing as I complete each page. I've sized the pages specifically to fit a 4x6 photo at the top...keeping it nice and simple and manageable.

The numbers for each day are going to be placed directly onto the photo, and I'll be using the stickers below...

...which are part of a Mint Twist sticker sheet by Kaisercraft. I'll probably make a title page with the Holiday Style journal cards, and may even pop one into the album every now and then...depending on how many photos I end up with ;)

So that's the plan. I wonder what the reality will be?

Watch this space :)

TTFN xxx

Project Life 2012 - Week 45

Hello Project Life Week 45...another week of everyday observations and lots of iPhone photos :)

 This week I've used Pink Paislee's Spring Jubilee papers as the base for my layout...fresh yellow, musky pink and pale turquoise...sigh, so pretty :)

 I discovered a Laura Ashley shop in this week, which had me all kinds of excited! As a teenager, I was obsessed with home decor and interior design, and my major crush was Laura Ashley. When we arrived home, I pulled out my Laura Ashley Home Furnishing books for a little trip down memory lane, including her annual from 1987 which was my favourite...and yes, I still have it!

My purchases included a very cute dress printed with green apples (sqeeeeal!), a birdie skirt and a red hat...love.

 Each week I'm trying to include at least some journal cards from the Project Life kits that I have...condensing them down into one box is my goal! Then I may just give myself permission to buy another kit...just maybe :)

I added a few extra embellishments this week...like the banner from Amy Tangerine below. Again, trying to use up some supplies!

So that's another week done, and another week closer to Christmas...eeek!

The proof that the year has flown by? Yesterday I had the pleasure of lunch and chatter with some of the participants from the photography class I did with Sharon Manning earlier in the year...

...May, in fact. Now that is scary...it seems like just last month! It was so lovely to see these girls, hear all about Sharon's trip to France and Italy (jealous much?) and talk just a little bit about photography. Must get some practice in before our next catchup ;)

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday

TTFN xxx