Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Project Life 2013 - week 25

What a great week! Let's get to it.

 
On Monday I volunteered in Simone's preschool class for the last time, it was sweet to watch them practicing for their promotion party that's coming up and I was tasked with assembling each child's portfolio and as the journaling says I forced myself not to look at Simone's. I want to wait for that day to see it all. I need to remember to bring my Kleenex.  The title card was kind of a pain, I had the cork paper and wanted to make it look like a cork board on the wall. I had a heck of a time getting that little cut edge on the calendar I made on my Cameo. In the end it worked and I love it!
 
Simone had her first week of swim lessons for the summer, we had our first summer artichoke. Sorry the white text is really hard to read when photographed.  A quote I found on Pinterest that really spoke to me. Instagram updated and added video, so of course we made one while Larry was filling our tank at the gas station. A toy that Simone had to have but we didn't buy, I may go back for it because it was so cute.
 

 
I ordered my first batch of prints from Origrami, and I LOVE them. We took a bike ride last week while Simone was at school, it was great. We took a quick day trip to a new lake and had a picnic lunch. It was lovely, we might go back and camp there. The first day of summer and Simone's water play day at preschool all in the same day.
 
 
I decided to do two small 7x5 inserts this week, the first is of the super moon, did you see it? We did on Saturday and it was awesome! In case you were wondering, that photo below is mine, I shot it with my camera with the longest zoon lens I own.  I used this tutorial on what settings to use and it worked great.  I did take this out of the protector before I photographed it because black just loves to glare from inside plastic.
 
 
Larry brought out the telescope and Simone loved looking at the moon. 
 
 
We had a small-ish gathering of six families that we have spent the past two years in preschool with. It's going to be hard to say goodbye, but hopefully we'll still see each other. Two of the families will continue on with Simone at grammar school so that's great and two will be playing soccer with Simone in the fall.  Six families however, produce a lot of kids, 14 in total, including our one. My two photos from the day are all of the kids. The adults were having too much fun gabbing and eating and I ended up not taking as many adult photos as I should have. The little wooden tab pulls out a tag that has all the kids names on it. Because in 20 years I probably won't be able to remember them.
 
 
The kids all swam and had a blast running throughout the house playing like kids do. They did all sit for just a bit to eat and I snapped this shot of them.
 
 
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great rest of the week.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Project Life 2013 - week 24

I can't believe how close we are to the half way point in the year.  As you can see my volume one album is pretty close to full so I'm hoping that I can squeeze these last three weeks in.



I suppose that half inch thick mini book I made for the Fair a few weeks ago hasn't helped but I'm pretty sure I can make it all work. I'm just focusing on keeping everything flat as best as I can.

I just received 3 packs of the Design F protectors, 1 pack of Design D as well as another album from Amazon this past week so I should be set for supplies for the rest of the year. The album is We Are Memory Keepers, the color is Vanilla. 



On to this week, a whole bunch of Father's Day which I dedicated the whole left side too.  I realized I need to start making more layouts again to contain all these pictures I can't use.  I've been so bad on keeping up with them so I really need to start focusing on them again.


Larry's son was working close enough that they could both meet up in Lake Tahoe on Saturday for a visit so he snapped a picture of them while they were hanging out at the lake.  He came home Sunday around noon so Simone and I were able to give him his gifts and celebrate a bit.  I had decided at the last minute to make something so I sent a message to the older two kids and asked that they take a photo holding a letter.  What they sent back was fantastic! I couldn't have asked for better photos. I snapped Simone's picture on Saturday, the three photos I used are at the bottom and you can see the finished piece that I gave Larry on the top right side.

The card in the center top is from the Moment's collection at Studio Calico, designed by Nicole Reaves.


Since the slots were all used for photos I opted to make the center card flip out to hold the journaling about Fathers Day and a few other pictures from Sunday. I have found this is always a great way to squeeze a bit more in without having to create a whole other insert.


One struggle I had this week was how to fit in the pictures I took at a Japanese Tea Garden we visited. I loved them and they were screaming for super large blow ups but I didn't want to create an insert. I decided to use one as my title card and just add the date right on the photo. Its not quite as big as I wanted it to be but these pictures really need their own layout so that needs to happen ASAP. The rest of the top row was more pictures from that day, the yellow card at the end is also from the Moments set. 

Simone got her much anticipated letter about kindergarten this past week, we've been waiting not so patiently for its arrival.  Her school is year round so luckily we did get the track we wanted just not the time so were hoping for a last minute change on that. I shared a little about the blog feature Shanna did on me last week, I ended up matching my Starbucks cup perfectly and these yummy almonds were devoured in about two days.  A cute photo of Larry and Simone prior to the Father's Day field trip with preschool, the card next to it is also from the Moments set. The last picture was too cute not to use, Simone and I coloring on Saturday and she drew what looks a lot like a set of islands in the Pacific on her forehead!


The little pocket on the bottom left is actually the packaging that Studio Calico uses for their kit stamps. It's new and this one is sized just a smidgen over 3x4 so when it came I thought it would be fun to use here. I trimmed it just a bit so the size was right and covered a few parts of it with cardstock and photos. The little veneer clip was from a kit I purchased from Studio Calico, they aren't sold separately but sure could be. I attached it to the bottom flap with my tiny attacher.



The color on the inside was such a pretty shade I left as much as possible showing, and made sure to leave the Yes Please phrase, it went so well with my picture.

So if you have any of these make sure you hold on to them, my mind is spinning with ideas of what to do with the little ones too.



I hope you have a great rest of the week!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Project Life 2013 - week 23

Another week where I really had to edit down the photos to only the ones I really loved or the stories I really wanted to tell.  Sometimes you just can't fit it all in and that's okay.

Here is the full spread



My poor UPS man came to deliver my June Studio Calico kit Monday night at 9:15pm, which is crazy that he was still out there but since I hadn't done my title card yet it worked out. I was able to pull one of the new Moments cards by my friend Nicole Reaves to use for it.  The rest of this side was made up of the photos that I just couldn't hit delete on and really wanted to include.  Larry snapped the shot of Simone at the park and I love the way it turned out, I did edit it with several filters from Rad Lab. A lunch out for us, hitting the gym, a little outdoor reading session (finished this is less than two days. Not as good as the first but it was still a good read). The food trucks come to town once a month and we made sure to hit it up this month, it was crazy busy and a fun night out. An impromptu trip to the movies with some preschool friends (it was really good), Simone plays doctor all the time and her bears are usually the patients when we aren't available. She's been telling us this joke nonstop and it cracks her up every time, this card is from the Midnight core kit that I purchased digitally and modified a bit so I could add my own text.


The right side focuses mainly on our wicked hot weather Friday and Saturday. I decided to experiment with the heat, and if my husband and brother in law hadn't decided to finish cooking the egg on the stove I would have had taken another shot of it at the end of the day. Party Poopers! Saturday was really hot so we made some shade and just sat in the pool for a few hours.  My brother made a quick overnight stop at our house and treated me to a night out to see Les Miserables. It was AMAZING! What a great night. He left Sunday after breakfast but it was so awesome to see him. The card at the bottom middle is also from the digital Midnight core kit, I modified it a bit so it would fit the horizontal card slot.


Thankfully our weather is back down where it should be so were enjoying some time outside since were not melting. I hope you have a great rest of the week.

Monday, June 10, 2013

The nicest thing ever...

The nicest thing happened to me today and I wanted to share.


The lovely Shanna Noel did a little feature of me on her blog and there's even a little contest for a chance to win a Studio Calico gift card!

I met Shanna in person for the first time back in March (after meeting online awhile back) and since then she's been such a great friend and supporter of mine. She has been such an inspiration to me creatively and I'm touched by her encouragement and support.

I hope you'll check it out. You can see the post here.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Project Life 2013 - week 22

Not a super inspiring week for me, a lot of struggles trying to make it cohesive and it took a lot longer to decide where each photo would go. Some weeks its super clear, others are not.  There were so many different ways to lay it out, I think I just got too involved with picking the 'right' way I let it bog me down.

Anyway, here it is...



I was sitting outside in the backyard the other evening and Simone walked out wearing a pair of my reading glasses. The first image of the scowl was all her, the other three were coaxed by me, because I knew it would be perfect for the Hipster line. Saturday we hit the library summer reading kick off party and they had a giant Lego area and yes she was wearing pearls. I needed to fill a slot so I cropped a bit of water from a pool shot and added the glitter thickers, I needed some yellow on this side so it worked. I got this new sweatshirt the other day when they were having a online sale, its probably the softest one I've ever had and I love it. The bottom half is all photos from both Saturday and Sunday, crazy hot temps here this past weekend meant lots of pool time. There's even a video of Larry and Simone cannonballing from the top deck on that QR code.


The title card was more Studio Calico Atlantic sequins, this time just the yellow, blue and silver. Looking at it now if I had added another row on top that was the same as the bottom row it would have made arrows.  I'll have to try that again sometime. For Memorial Day I found these images online, it rained here that day so it was an inside quiet day for us. We finally made it there for lunch, Larry wasn't very impressed.  I was able to meet up with a friend at Hobby Lobby again this past week, it was nice to finally meet in person. It was share day at school last Friday and Simone took in her Doctor Kit. I wanted to snap a picture of her with it and she was not having it. The image on the left was classic, I did finally get a descent shot and the contrast was great. The card I used came in the April Studio Calico Project Life kit. We stayed after school on Friday to play in the spray park. We ordered a hot tub later that day too and had some amazing roadside lunch on the way home. The California Life card was made by Shanna Noel and was part of a class kit she gave out at a recent class I took with her. Lastly a new favorite scent that came in my latest Glossybox shipment, its lovely and fresh, perfect for summer.


I've got a visitor coming this weekend and we have a fun night planned on Saturday so I'm excited for that. I hope you have a great rest of the week too.