Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Week 37 of Project Life

Week 37 and I love this week.


I used Crate Paper Pretty Party, OA Woodland Park and Studio Calico Classic Vol. 2. I love Studio Calico's classic lines. They have such great neutrals that work really well for pairing with some of the busier and more colourful papers I love to use.


Left side.


I really love the simpler title cards I've been making lately. And I love using Thickers for them. They sure make for a bulky album, but they're so pretty and I have a serious Thickers addiction and it helps me actually use them.


This was only a month and a half ago but it seems so much longer. Andy started crawling shortly after this and is just a crawling machine now.


I love arrows so much. I want to use them on everything! And that I Love stamp from the Studio Calico/ Two Peas Pieces of Me Class kit is the most amazing stamp ever. It's definitely stained forever because I've used it so many times.


I love that washi tape with the people holding hands. It's an older one from Amy Tangerine and so, so hard to find. A really generous Pea sent me a partial roll for free. It was so nice of her and I've been using it sparingly as it's all I have.


Right side.


Elle's Studio makes really great stamps. I have 2- the "Love this Moment" one and "Notes" that I used above. They are both very perfect for Project Life.


DH went to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival. He's really good at taking pictures when he goes places and sending them to me. He did the journalling himself. I so love having his voice a part of our album.


Love those wood veneer banners from MME Everyday Fun line.


Mad props to anyone that has more than one child. We babysat our youngest niece and nephew one day and all the kids were so good, but man is it a lot of work!

Looking at the spread now, I see where I have too similar things side by side that should be spread out. I also think I should have put the 4x6 photo with "TIFF" in Thickers on the bottom right because it's too similar and close to the title page. I would love to work this week on making the spread slightly more uniform.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Week 36 of Project Life

I don't think I can accurately express how much I love Project Life. My whole life I have been an incredibly nostalgic person and I have always loved photographs. Project Life has provided me with the most incredible way to have both of these in my life every day. I hope I can keep up with this system of memory keeping for many years to come. I have no idea if my son will want or appreciate the albums when he is older, but I know for a fact that DH and I will love looking at them in the future.


Week 36 used mostly OA Woodland Park and some Studio Calico Classic Vol. 2 and Crate Paper Pretty Party. Embellishments were the usual suspects of loads of washi, shipping tags, wood veneers, stamps and  buttons, brads, and bling.



I love using banners for my title cards and probably half of the weeks have them.


I gave away the days of the week stamp from the September kit to someone, but stamped it a bunch of times in a slew of colours first so I could attach it to photos and journal cards. Love the way it looks,


That might be the creepiest photo of a baby ever and I love it. He wasn't actually mad like his eyes would suggest. I still laugh every time I see that photo.


Right side. Lots of Woodland Park letter stickers over here.


I can't believe I didn't like Woodland Park when I first saw it. When I looked at it all again shortly before it arrived in stores, I fell in love and decided I had to have it all. Luckily, I got an awesome deal on Scrapbook Steals for most of the line. Love it!


That chevron stamp that came in the Studio Calico Pop Off the Page class kit is one of my favourite stamps ever. I use it a ton!




Washi tape has to be my number one used product in Project Life other than patterned paper. It is so versatile and so very pretty. I don't think I could ever have enough.


Love the iPhone app PicFx for its awesome bokeh effects. I use it a lot. I think it might have cost $2, but it was definitely worth the money. There are so, so many filters in it!

I use an American Crafts precision pen .3 for all of my journalling, but I'm not super happy with it. What is your favourite journalling pen?

Week 39 & 40 of Project Life


I decided to put both weeks 39 and 40 together on a 2 page spread. I didn't have as many photos as usual. I've done this a few times this year and it's also helped me to keep it to one album.



I almost killed the September Studio Calico kit and 2 add-ons, so I used my scraps to do this week. I loved the way it turned out and I officially killed the kit, so I'm extra happy.


I'm am more than slightly embarrassed that the first time my son pulled himself up to standing was on a case of beer. We're white trash, what can I say. :)


I loved the way this week's title card turned out. I stamped the chevron background stamp with Prima chalk in white onto grey cardstock then cut out the speech bubbles from one of the exclusive papers. 


I used some Martha Stewart for Avery labels above that were not part of the kit as well as a MME arrow stamp.


Love those mistable arrows. I think I only actually misted them once as I loved how they looked plain.


 Loved the brads that came in the kit. Those numbers came in handy. I think I used them all but 2?


At first I wasn't too sure about those Amy Tangerine letter stickers, but I ended up really liking them and used them a ton!


Our niece's first birthday party had to have pink and lots of it. I used paper, letter sticker, and label from OA Cakewalk and a glitter photo corner from Martha Stewart.


Right side.


I used the  number brads for the days of the month above. I'm also loving the Amy Tangerine date stamp. I love date stamps in general though!

Well that's another one in the books. I'm really glad I'm getting these all posted. Maybe I can get 2 up tomorrow? I had grand plans to do more today, but ended up spending lots of quality time with DH and the baby... not that I'm complaining. Love spending time with my family.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

On Week 41 of Project Life

I am going to start this post with apologizing for my photos of the pages. Some of them appear blurry. I photographed about 10 weeks of layouts today and I think my legs were quivering from standing over the pages for so long and some are blurry. I am working on a better way to photograph them so that they look their best. Please bare with me and my sketchy photos. :)


I am so in love with Dear Lizzy Fifth & Frolic! I just had to use it again this week along with Crate Paper On Trend. They go so, so well together!



Left side- lots of pink and turquoise- my two favourite colours.



I really like how simple this week's title card is. I usually spend the most time each week trying to come up with a new and creative title card. I'm thinking for 2013 I might just do a variation on what I have done this week.

Love Becky Higgins grid cards for making my own journalling cards. Just a bit of stamping and washi and they're ready to be filled in.

Also, that's one of my favourite photos of Anderson. I love the shape of his head. Adorable.


I love, love, love MME enamel dots. I want to use them forever!


Canadian Thanksgiving was this week. We were supposed to have dinner with my in-laws- 11 people in total. Then due to some falling ill, our dinner dropped down to 4 of us. We still had a tasty dinner.

Studio Calico stamps on the right and a Twine & Ink vellum speech bubble on the left (beneath the 32 weeks). I wasn't very happy with how the '32 weeks' turned out, but oh well, I can't be happy with everything I put into this album. It's better to be done than perfect.


I love just putting a label with a bit of journalling on 4x6 photos. I rarely include them in my spreads and since the rest of my slots are so embellished, I feel they look a bit plain without the label.


Right side. I really love how the colours and embellishments are balanced on this page.


Love the Dear Lizzy banners. I still have some from the Neapolitan line, but had to get the Fifth & Frolic one too, it was just too pretty. And I love those gold letter stickers. I am on a big gold kick right now.

Sometimes I have a hard time putting pictures in my Project Life album that I don't think are "important" enough. Normally, I would not have included the photos of the dogs in the car or my son's puppy shoes, but I'm so glad I did. Little things like these all add up to make our lives what they are, so they should be included in our albums as much as possible. I need to remember this.


Those woodgrain Sotheby's Thickers? They are my favourite Thickers ever. They are so amazing. I saw on the Studio Calico message board that they are hoping to have them in the shop for the December reveal at the end of November. I am so excited. I will definitely be getting a few packs!

I'm so glad Fifth and Frolic had another piece of paper with polaroids on it. it was one of my faves from the last line. This one was perfect for this hilarious photo of Ruby Sky. 


I love that washi that was in the October Studio Calico kit. It reminds me of a primary school printer and is perfect for journalling on.


Even though there is pink in the paper I used for this slot, I don't feel like it's too girly. I have no idea why, but for how pink and frilly the Dear Lizzy lines are, I have actually used quite a bit for layouts of my son and they work so well with boys I find.

Well that's all for this week. I am going hoping to start Week 43 tonight and upload 2 more older weeks tomorrow. 

On Week 42 of Project Life

So it has been way too long since I've blogged. I've vowed to be much better and will be uploading past spreads every day this week. I still have weeks 43 and 44 to do, but I just got the photos developed today, so will be working on that during the week.


For this week, I mostly used papers from Dear Lizzy Fifth & Frolic and Crate Paper On Trend as well as a bit from Studio Calico Hey Day and Studio Calico Pretty Party. I loved how they all looked together.


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Embellishments were from Studio Calico's September and October kits, as well as Studio Calico wood veneers, Thickers, and washi from my stash



I used lots of repetition this week using MME enamel dots, Amy Tangerine puffy stickers and wood veneers in so many of the slots.



That pink chevron polaroid frame is a Studio Calico stamp that I used with Hero Arts neon pink ink. I loved how it looked. It's such a vibrant pink.


I tend to keep my 3x4 slots pretty simple with just a square photo held on with washi and a label with the date and a brief description. It doesn't take me very long to do this, but I love the way it looks!



I did lots of stamping this week. Mostly Studio Calico, but I love that Elle's Studio "The Best" stamp and use it a ton.


I always sew on my layouts, but I hardly ever do on Project Life because it feels like a lot of work for such small bits. I thought I would try it this week and I love the way it looks! It really didn't take me much time at all, so I'm sure I'll be breaking out the sewing machine a lot more.


My sewing machine is an old one from the 1950's that my mom found for me on Kijiji (like Craigslist). It was $25 and can stitch over Thickers! I really didn't think it would be able to handle it, but I'm so happy it can.


For the leaves, I used some old (maybe 10 years) stamps that my sister gave me. I thought they were perfect for this photo from a fall walk Andy and I went on.

Becky Higgins announced this past week that not only has she teamed up with American Crafts and Project Life products are going to be available at other retailers other than Amazon, but starting in January, there will be a Studio Calico Project Life kit. I only hesitated for about a minute before signing up.



I am so excited about this kit. I love using my own stash to create my weekly spreads, but I think I will be a much more efficient PL'er when I use a set amount of product each week. January can't come fast enough!