kismet art

My Boy and My Girl

A couple of layouts I finished in July- this one is Ben, age 5:And Emma at one week:  Trying to use some of my favorite "old" photos. 

 

the 4 of us

Still my favorite photo from my Week in the Life project, just had to use it one more time for a layout.

Week in the Life- Tuesday Pages

Hello Tuesday, much like Monday, only different:Our special Tuesday friend:   Each family member has their own page of photos representative of them, this first one is about Dave:  Some of Emma's artwork:   

  
 More pages tomorrow.

Week in the Life- Some Thoughts and My Monday Pages

A week in our life is over and the bits and pieces and photos and words that made that week what it was is are now all together in one album. That album is almost 2 1/2 inches thick.  It weighs over 7 pounds. It holds 246 photos (chosen from the 622 photos taken), 21 layouts, ephemera, several notes, and countless words.  It represents hours of taking photos, editing photos, uploading photos, choosing photos, printing photos, trimming and mounting photos.  Time spent cutting paper to fit each pocket, to write things down, to gather items, to glue, and organize, and to reflect on all that happened during that one week.  

And to me and my family this project is priceless.   

Do I regret any of the time spent on this project?  No.  Everything was not perfect.  There were days I forgot to take notes, or the camera battery died, or I forgot the camera altogether, or everyone got tired of having their photo taken.  But after giving up by day two last year (I had stopped taking photos) this year despite those minor blips I kept going and I am really glad I didn't let my own self get in the way.

Do I have ideas of how I would do any of this differently?  Yes, and they are written down on the last page.  What I love about this project is that there is no right or wrong way to go about documenting it or putting it together.  And I love that so many people are sharing how this process worked for them and how their finished projects look... I have so many ideas for how I will do this project differently, which leads me to my next question:

Will I do this project again next year? YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

Thanks Ali, I love this project and I am so glad for all that you shared and all that everyone else who played along and created their own Week in the Life has shared too. 

So here is a look at Monday- Opening page is an 8x10 family portrait of the 4 of us taken with the self-timer on my camera in the "big bed":Each day begins with one of these divided page protectors, the name of the day, the date and some notes about what we did that day, there are extra photos, letters, notes, etc. on the back side: I used a variety of sizes of page protectors, 12x12, 8 1/2 by 11, baseball card sleeves, some multi-pocket with 4x6 or 5x7 openings.  I wish I had watched Ali's tutorial on making ATC sized photos on a 5x7 photo so I wouldn't have had to print so many, and cut so many, photos (I was saved by the fact that I had 100 free prints at Costco plus a coupon for 9 cent prints).  Instead I printed most of my photos as 4x6 and then trimmed them to 2x3- and a lot of them I cut in half and put the two halves together side by side in the baseball card sleeves- I ended up liking the look of this more than I imagined and used it often throughout the album.  Here is an example of those cut in half photos with a page about our daily breakfast routine:Each day in the album has at least one 12x12 layout, I printed several 5x7 photos and used them on the layouts, the larger pages were nice for telling a longer story:The daily mess, pre-clean-up:   Another 12x12 layout, this one about my van and my feelings about driving it:   Here is one of the 4x6 pages, each one has a few photos and a little bit of detailed journaling:   

More to come tomorrow. 

my garden girl

One of my all-time favorite photos of Emma, it so fits her personality.

1st Date- Photo Not Included

A layout I made about my first date with Dave (almost 20 years ago)- because I didn't have a photo from that actual date (those were the days of film cameras, not a time when you could snap a quick photo on your phone of the cute boy you were with and upload it to the social network of your choice for all your friends to comment on) I used one from a date we went on a few months later.  Proof that we were young once.  Proof that we went on dates.  Proof that I used to dress up.  Proof that we were meant to be.  And a story I can remember tiny details from because it is now written down.

Film strip and Ticket stub- Tim Holtz, Threading Water punch from Fiskars, Heart by Heidi Swapp, Title stickers- vinyl Thickers by American Crafts, and the back sides of this patterned paper and this patterned paper from October Afternoon.

And a fun side note- I had a layout featured last week on the Write. Click. Scrapbook. site- that was a treat!

Love Bingo

A little 8x8 love decor I made while at the coast last month- I used a vintage Bingo card and one of Emma's old pink plastic bird barrettes to add some whimsy.  

And as the sentiment professes, Love is all you need, but I am not one to pass up a good foot rub, some time to go out with-out the kids, new lipstick, the "occasional" scrapbook supply purchase, etc. etc.  

But none of the "stuff" is quite as good as that love.

Scrap Monkey

One of my favorite projects from the coast trip- I took these photos of Emma at the beginning of this month- she has always been a little monkey when it comes to my supplies and I am glad I took a moment to write down this story:

 

Retreat

Went on a 2 1/2 day scrapbooking vacation at the Oregon Coast with 4 friends, relaxed, created, laughed, listened to music, read, watched movies, ate fabulous food, drank fabulous beverages, listened to the ocean, watched the ocean, was glad I was inside while the rain came down, and created that 2 inch stack of projects pictured above.  Just what I needed.  More to come this week...

 

Ornament Swap

This holiday season I participated in an ornament swap with some of the ladies on the Cocoa Daisy website.  This lovely, sparkly Noel ornament came to our house over the weekend all the way from South Africa!  Sofia, we love it and it was so fun to receive your package, my son loved the cool postage stamps too.                      This was my 2- sided felt tag ornament- it traveled to Florida (hi Vanessa!).                  

A fun little project to participate in and I'm hoping to do it again next year (and see if some of my local friends want to do a swap too!)