Everyday telling of a story

Project Life Blog Hop - March edition

Welcome to the March Blog Hop for Project Life!

Today I'm sharing with you my latest completed week, WEEK 5. Yes, I know I am behind but I've written this post to encourage those of you, who like me, are falling behind on this project.

This is the first page of my week 5:

One of the key things for me in trying to finish this project is by keeping things simple. Although I love browsing other blogs for PL ideas and techniques, I accept the fact that if I don't have time for anything fancy that week, it's perfectly alright with me.

In week 5, I had a lot of pictures and not so much journaling and that's ok too. A label on a picture or memorabilia can speak for itself so I don't always include journaling for each thing.

This is the second page:

Again, very simple but with lots of photos. I like that I dedicated this whole page to weekend photos. This is what our weekend looked like for each member of our family that particular week and I did some extensive journaling on a folding journaling card.

Here's the entire 2-page spread:

That was week 5 and this is what week 6 looks like right now.

First page:

This is waiting for some journaling but the photos are printed. Sometimes in between laundry loads I will take 10-15 minutes and do some journaling, embellish a photo or move photos around my page to my liking. Almost all the time, I select my journaling cards and put them in pockets ahead of time. I like matchy pages so I stick with monochromatic colours for each week but that's just me :)

Here's page 2:

In this page as you can see, there are lots of little sticky notes. I've seen lots of PLers do it and I immediately loved the idea. Those sticky notes help me remember about what to journal, what memorabilia to include and it helps visualize the placement of each thing in its pocket. I move those sticky notes aroud quite a bit and the photos as well.

And I just want to share with you one little tip that might help you keep track of those weeks that you have yet to document in your project life album. When I started this project, I came across this weekly chart found at MommyTracked.com. It has become a tool that I use every week and I jot down details of my day, pictures taken, quotes, journaling ideas and things overheard.

Here's a picture of my chart from week 9.

Each week contains different details depending on the stories I want to tell each day. I keep this chart on the main floor besides my computer and jot down things during my day as they happen. This will be my reference guide when I'm ready to tackle that specific week.

Well this is all I got for today. If you have fallen behind on project life, I encourage you to keep taking photos, collect your memorabilia and doing a chart like mine to have the info ready for you when you have some spare time to do some catching up. But remember that this is supposed to be fun and don't stress out about it. Keep things simple and you can always go back and embellish a little more. Posting my finished pages on my blog keeps me accountable but if that stresses you out, then don't. After all, you are doing this project for yourself and for your family to enjoy.

Thanks for reading this far and next on the Blog Hop is Sharon

If you'd like to see the other blogs, here's the list of all the participants:

Jill http://jillconyers.com/

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com

Donna www.joyfullydonna.blogspot.com

Tamara  http://tamararoach.blogspot.com.au/

Natalie http://dalys2012.wordpress.com

Devon http://www.youhadmeatneurotic.com

Alissa http://lifeonlakeland.wordpress.com/

April http://capturethememories.blogspot.com

Noelia  www.noeliaevangelista.typepad.com  >>>YOU ARE HERE

Sharon  http://projectsofmylife.wordpress.com/ >>>GO HERE NEXT

Jennifer http://vogtstories.blogspot.com

Sarah http://documentingchaos.wordpress.com/

Arlene http://craftymomma-ph.blogspot.com/2012/02/project-life-2012.html

 

 

 

 

Project Life 2012 : week 4

I know we're starting week 7 but what can I say? I'm still finding my groove. I must say that week 4 has been 99% completed for almost 2 weeks but I procrastinated with the embellishments.

So here's the first spread:

Joshua was sick for most of the week, so we didn't do much outside the house. I did enjoy having him with me for a little while, we cuddled a lot and took afternoon naps together.

Here's the second spread:

Joshua was feeling much better heading into the weekend. We skyped with the cousins in Montreal, I baked some chocolate chip cookies. Dan was away every single evening that week for work related events and dinners except for Friday night so we went out on Friday night for some Italian. I love having a picture of Dan and I in here. I was inspired by fellow PLers to do a monthly family picture or a monthly couples' picture. I think I might try both.

Here's the complete week:

I'm still tyring to find a better way to photograph PL with the page protectors. Do you have any tips? I'd love to hear about them.

All my pictures are printed for week 5 and it's 80% finished. I might get it done by the end of the week or at my usual time, on Sunday evenings. Thanks for reading!

 

Project Life 2012 : week 3

Finally I'm able to post my week 3.

I know week 5 just ended and I'm slightly behind, but I'm trying not to feel pressured to keep up with everyone else and get all stressed out about it. As long as I enjoy doing PL, I know I will continue to do it, once it feels like a chore, then it's not fun anymore and I will most likely drop out.

Looking back, week 3 has a theme of where I'm going this year spiritually. I started a Bible reading plan called Discipleship Journal. Hopefully I will be able to read the Bible in one year, something I've never done before. Dan received a beautiful black hardcover ESV Bible at a conference he attended last year and he gave it to me because I needed one in that version. I so love that Bible, it's so beautiful and artistic. On the cover there's what looks to be splattered paint in gold (representing the glory of God) and red (representing the blood of Christ). It's the second picture from the top.

Here's the first spread:

The second spread documents quiet evenings activities.

Here's the entire 2-page spread:

So that's week 3.

Week 4 is in progress and I'm having fun. Last night my daughter Danelia asked something about Project Life and she referred to it as "our project life". I was happy to know that she considers this project to be a family thing and not just a project mom is having fun with. My little Joshua is also very interested in knowing which ephemera items and pictures will make the cut for that week.

I will be posting week 4 this week so come back soon.

Project Life Blog Hop :: my scrap area

This blog hop is to showcase Project Life participants like myself and how they're approaching this project. The topics will vary from one blog to the other so I invite you to join in the fun and hop along!

The post I want to share with you today will be about my craft area where I put together my pages for my Project Life album. My craft area is in my open concept basement where I share it with my laundry area and the kids tv/play area. I have to apologize for the poor quality pictures, I will eventually learn how to better use my camera :)

Ok let's start!

This is an overview of my scrap area:

My work area is shaped as a "C". The pictures below are in the left work area. Here you can see several colanders that hold embellishments, a caddy with markers, stapler, scissors etc, the Clementine core kit sits on my table. I also collect here the ephemera that might go into the album, printed photos (I'm finishing up week 3 and will be posting it tomorrow) and I also have a "Week at a glance" chart that I downloaded for free from "Mommytracked" This is a great way for me to keep track of all family activities. The chart is so pretty, you can even include it in your album. On this end of the work area sits my Project Life album, wide open.

What I also use is a checklist of "Everyday Photos" made by Rebecca Cooper. You can download it HERE

I also like "the Mom Creative" 100 bits of life for PL. You can download that one HERE

Here's the MM carousel and against the wall I have four wooden boxes that hold ribbon, stamps, minis and more embellishments.

This next picture is the middle on the desk, it's the longer side. Here I have 2 binders open, one with alphas and the other one with stickers, rub-ons and so on.

This is the end of the work area where the printer is. Here I have more stickers and also pattern papers that I'm using for my PL.

This next picture is where I keep all my PL page protectors. I think I bought every single kind of page protectors but not sure if I'll end up using them for this project. They are stored in one my drawers.

Well, thanks for reading this far. I'm really enjoying Project Life, this is my first attempt and I like that it doesn't have to be too complicated for the average scrapper like myself. I would love to see how your scrap areas are set up for PL.

Next on the list of Project Life blog hop participants is April

You can visit her blog HERE

This is the list of all the participants for the Project Life Blog Hop:

Jill http://jillconyers.com/

Margie http://xnomads.typepad.com

DonnaB http://donnasprojectlife.blogspot.com

Sharon http://projectsofmylife.wordpress.com/

Noelia http://noeliaevangelista.typepad.com   >> YOU ARE HERE

April http://capturethememories.blogspot.com

Brooke http://everysnapshot.com/

Lynn http://crafty-creativity.blogspot.com

Donna http://joyfullydonna.blogspot.com

 

 

Project Life 2012 : week 2

I've been waiting for a little bit of sunshine around here to take some photos of my PL week 2. But I couldn't wait any longer because it's another one of those grey days around here. So far, PL has been very doable for me. I find that I've been adjusting it to my liking instead of being dictated by it. For example, if one day, I didn't take a picture of a certain object that I wanted to tell a story about, well, I document the story but I will take the picture the next day. I don't take pictures every day, I just couldn't do that. It would be too overwhelming for me and I would fall off the wagon quickly.

So here's a look at what our week looked like Monday through Sunday.

There's lots of food pictures: snacks, breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

There's is also a couple of inserts. The first one is a picture of the movie Tintin that has a popcorn baggie on the back and inside the baggie I included a small tag that tells the story of that day when Josh and I went to see the movie. The Tintin insert is a 6x6 so I have to stitch it once I make room on my desk for my sewing machine. I made a small note about that on a sticky note.

The second insert is an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet protector that is holding two documents the children brough home that week. The front is an award certificate to Joshua for always bringing his school library books on Wednesdays from September all the way to the month of December. I think I partially deserve that award ;)

The back of that sheet protector has Danelia's pre-report update on one of her classes, careers. I'm very proud of her about this because she's been doing so great in each project, that her teacher has asked to keep each and every project she's done so she can have it as an example to show future classes/students. This mom is very proud.

The last page has a combination of pictures of food and routines such as homework. I also included a picture of some flowers my husband sent me when I was having a bit of a blue day. I stapled the card that came with the flowers to a journaling card. I thought it was funny that the florist wrote from DAD instead of DAN.

I loved working on this week. I love that I was able to have a good balance of pictures and a few pieces of memorabilia such as the David's tea insert which is a paper bag, the Boston Pizza logo that was on a little box of a chocolate dessert, the flowers card, the popcorn baggie and my children's school documents . Those little bits and pieces are what make this album so real.

Can't wait to get started on week 3. I have my pictures taken but don't know yet which ones will make it into the album, I have quite a few to chose from, I noticed there was a theme going on last week so I think it will be fun to put the pages together.

 

Project Life 2012 : week 1

This is my very first time trying Project Life and all I gotta say is that I'm loving it! Take pictures, journal, embellish if I'm in the mood and stick the elements in the pockets. That's all there is to it but it's so much fun! I will do weekly double-spreads from Monday to Sunday. This first one will be from Sunday to Sunday because I wanted to include January 1st. I had a hard time photographing these pages because of the page protectors but once I find a way to do it properly, it will look better, I promise.

My week 1 was mostly spent in Montreal during our Christmas holidays so I documented that on my first page:

The second page was all about coming back home, unpacking, replenishing our fridge, some purging and organizing and a picture of Joshua excited that he could finally assemble the legos he got as Christmas presents:

I still have six pictures that I want to add to this week but I'm waiting for 6x12 photo pockets that I ordered. Three pictures are from New Year's Eve into the New Year (we partied with the kids until 3AM!) and the other three are from the children playing with their cousins in the snow.

There's another story I might want to add about Danelia's Church retreat as soon as I get some pictures from her Youth leader. But other than that, this week is complete and I will call it good. For my week 2 all my pictures are printed so all I gotta do is journal and embellish a little.

Thank you for looking at my week 1, come back soon for week 2. If you are doing Project Life, I'd love to see your pages for inspiration.

 

Noelia

waiting for December...

I've been excited about December for a couple of weeks now.

Back in 2007, I did a Christmas Journal to document our daily lives and Christmas related activities we did up until Christmas Day. I loved doing it and regret not having it done for 2008.  Then again in 2009, I did another Christmas Journal and even though that one is not completed (missing a couple of pictures and stories) I'm hoping to set aside a couple of hours to finish it up this month. 

So I'm doing a Christmas Journal for 2010 once again and I'm really excited about it. The idea came from Ali Edwards, my favourite scrapbooker and story teller. I've been reading her blog daily for years and I always go back for inspiration. 

So I will do my daily journal and post pictures of it here. I have a list of things the children want to do for Christmas, some are new things, some are oldies but goodies. 

Christmas is by far my favourite Holiday. Can't wait!

 

Christmas Journal - Days 8 & 9

I'm starting to feel a little under pressure to finish my Christmas shopping this week. It must be done. I leave for Montreal this upcoming Saturday, God willing, and when I arrive there I don't want to be shopping around for last minute gifts. I just want to be done before I leave and I'm feeling a little stressed out. Because of that, Dan has decided to help with the Christmas shopping this year. He's been such a great help and has already knocked off 6 presents off the list!

I am conveniently fitting in some scrapbooking time during the daytime. I finished day 9 yesterday so I have a pic to share.

This is day 8, I went shopping with Dan and Joshua for his winter gear. They were announcing the first snow fall of the season and we realized that Joshua wasn't ready for it. So we went to Gap for his jacket, I always buy his snowsuit there because I've been doing so for the past 2 winters. They didn't have snow pants for Joshua, only jackets, so we bought one, always the "warmest" that's what they call it. We found a cute furry hat to go with it and found snowpants and boots elsewhere. I gathered all the labels from his winter clothing and made a page with it and called it good.

Day 9 is journaling of community service we did with our Home Church. We organized a Christmas party for a small neighbourhood complex here in Oakville. My journaling describes the event and underneath the journaling I tucked in a photo of a family I met that night.

I'm four days behind but I've been documenting and taking pictures so I'm confident I will be able to catch up with my project. The real test will be while I'll be in Montreal. I will bring my supplies and scrap a little each day, maybe I will get the kids involved in the process :) I can't wait to be in Montreal with my family, I need them so much right now and I can't wait to see baby Josef!

 

Christmas Journal - Days 3,4,5,6 & 7

I did a lot of catching up last Thursday for my Christmas Journal. Once I got started I couldn't stop! Each little page in my album is making me so happy. Each day brings a special story waiting to be told. 

Here's December 3rd:

Here's December 4th:

December 5th was a lot of journaling:

December 6 & 7:

 December 8 is completed except 9th is not so I will post as soon as I get a picture of the double spread. I'm loving December so far and it's gotten so cold all of a sudden! I gotta get myself a winter jacket and boots and Dan needs a hat, Danelia needs boots too. The only one that is totally prepared for winter is Josh. I started my Christmas shopping but I'm not even close to being done. I wish I could buy GC's for everyone but my family in Montreal are not into that, too bad!

Anyway, gotta get back to my dinner preparations for tonight. We're having a wonderful couple over for dinner and I'm using the oven to make some nice salmon :) Really looking forward to that!

 

Christmas Journal - Day 1&2

I'm having fun with my Christmas journal! Yesterday I played a little bit of catching up with my journal, I needed to get it off the ground and I did! Days 1 and 2 are done and the days after that are documented and photos have been taken. I will print more pictures tonight and get a couple more pages done, I'm feeling so inspired to create right now!

Here's day 1: Ode to the cheapo chocolate advent calendar. Cheap but it works!

 Here's Day 2: A brand new Starbucks travel mug...not just a regular one but one with handles! And cute to boot!

I'm having a lazy day today and I'm enjoying it very much!

Christmas Journal

This year I will be doing a Christmas Journal. This concept is to basically document our Christmas with words and pictures from December 1st leading up to Christmas day. I did a Christmas Journal back in 2007, you can see it here. I really enjoyed documenting our daily lives during the festivities, the everyday mundane stuff as well as the more exciting Christmas related activities. Anything goes in this little journal and that's why I love it because it's a beautiful recollection of how we live our lives and how we exist. 

This is my 2009 Christmas Journal. 

 It's a 4x6  Heidi Swapp mirror album that I originally purchased last year for this same project. What actually happened is that I bought materials with this album to make my Christmas Journal for 2008 but never assembled it and thus the project collected dust. I still recorded our December of 2008 except I don't have a journal for it, I'm sure a double 12x12 spread will work just as good. So here's my album, I plan to follow through this year and it's assembled but it only has the basic stuff, no embellishments just papers and a few transparencies. I will embellish and print pictures as I go. I might post daily or I might post a couple of days together, don't know yet. But for right now I already have the theme/material for today (the kids got their chocolate calendars) took the picture and all I have to do is print it and journal it. Oh and another fun thing that happened today was Dan got a cool Santa hat with a Canadiens' logo on it that his friend bought for him from Montreal. He had a couple of friends come over for a Canadiens vs Leafs game. I can' wait  to have the finished product. I want to keep it simple and let the photos speak for themselves as opposed to having this album filled with embellishments galore. Keeping it simple, that's my motto.

Laters peeps

In books!

Today I want to share a layout that has been sitting at my desk for quite a while. This layout was inspired by a book I was reading. It's called "Ministries of Mercy".

The first thing I loved about this book cover was the colours. The red and black/grey combo was really appealing to me. Second thing I noticed was the design and grid and how parts of the title fitted in each nook of the grid. I also loved all the white space and how the title was positioned at the bottom left of the book. With this book as an inspiration I started designing my page and this is the end result:

This page is about my daughter and I bonding over some shopping! First, I wanted to stay with the monochromatic colour combo of the book. I used a grey background as my base and mounted a white cardstock square and positioned it a little to the left and I also shifted all my elements to the left for added interest. I used red accents and embellishments. I printed my journaling on grey cardstock in red ink and printed my photo in B&W to keep with the monochromatic colours. I used a JB mini bingo card and stamped around number #13 for Danelia's age :) Embellished with a SU crocheted flower mounted on a metal rim tag and used Danelia's lululemon clothes' tag to stamp the date. The last thing I drew was the grid with an archival red ink pen.

I really enjoyed doing this page. What took the longest was buying the red ink pen, I was too lazy to go to Michael's and because of that it took me forever to finish this page ha! Thanks for reading.

a treasured friendship

I made this layout to honour my friendship with Kathryn. She's been a friend of mine for a few years now and to say that I love her dearly would be a huge understatement. This page is to highlight not only our friendship but our love of photography, can you believe how perfect we are for each other? She's awesome and so wise. 

For this page I lifted one of Ali Edwards' designs from one of her books, I've been enjoying going through my idea books lately and getting in the mood to scrap. Right  now it's crunch time for Big Trout Lake logistics. We are shipping all of our supplies and food for our Camp this Saturday and there are tons of things to do still. Once all of that rush is over, I'm hoping to get another page done before I go to BTL. 

 

Alright, this girl needs her beauty sleep ;)

 

P.S Yes the journaling in the lo is crooked and it's driving me CRAZY! Darn OCD! hahaha

long weekends are the best

It was Victoria Day weekend here in Canada and I'm still enjoying the last few hours of this evening with a tall glass of icy cold lemonade. what a glorious day it was! Perfect for an outdoor lunch in the deck and burger grilling. I even got to try a new potato salad recipe and it was delicious! I tried a pasta recipe as well but that one was a little too bland for my taste. Dan spent most of today outdoors doing some yard work and also cleaning out the garage. He put aside a lot of things we no longer need so we can donate it. He even had time to relax and lie down on the fresh cut grass with his ipod. The kids played outdoors a lot too. I'm so glad the weather is so nice because they will be spending more time outdoors instead of playing wii too much!

I got a lot done this weekend creatively speaking. I scrapbooked another page. I've been enjoying getting my feet or maybe only my toes wet into the world of hybrid scrapbooking. I watched this tutorial on Jessica Sprague's site and was immediately inspired to try this technique for myself. I did this in Word because I'm still intimidated by Photoshop Elements. Here's the semi-completed page after I printed the journaling and circle that Jessica taught in her lesson.

And this is the finished result.

I simply used the journaling from a post from last year, adjusted it and stamped, added rub-ons and scallop edges. I'm happy to have been able to tell this story, it feels good to finally have this one done. And now that I look at this page, I can compare how much he's changed since last year. This story is about Joshua's first soccer game and how he refused to go on the field and play. He just wanted to hang out with us and watch but then at the next game he joined his friends and it went better and better each time. This past Saturday was his first game of this season and wow what a difference a whole year makes! He was excited, a bit shy at first but when it was time for him to play he was fast and furious. He ran so fast that he kept slipping and falling because the field was wet from the rain from the previous night. I'm sure new soccer cleats will fix that. Dan and I thought it was hilarious to watch him run so fast. Some other parents even giggled and made comments that he was so fast. He just kept running after the ball but not touching it! He developed a new way of running which is kind of hard to describe but it was sort of like his chest/torso ran ahead of his legs and his arms would barely move, it was totally cute, I think he knew that.

Well right now, I have the house to myself. Dan and the kids biked to the park and I proposed that they bring a little picnic so they don't have to rush back home for dinner. I packed a few peanut butter and banana sandwiches and some juice and I sent them off. A little peace and quiet for mommy was needed, God bless Dan for his willingness to play with the children even when he's tired too. 

a little bit of this a little bit of that

For some reason today feels like a Monday but the weekend is almost here which is always a reason to celebrate. Dan is going away this weekend with Danelia on a youth retreat like they did last fall. They leave on Friday evening with all the youth and come back on Sunday which means that it's going to be a Mother and Son weekend. What will we do? I have a few plans but not sure yet of what Josh would like to do. One thing I know for sure is that we will snuggle together at bedtime :)

I haven't posted much details about my ingrown toe nail here because quite frankly it's too gross to talk about it. But it's very sore and I finally got an appt with a surgeon to see what can be done about it. I've been limping for over a month and things are not getting better despite my doctor's efforts to convince me that it will heal by itself and that I should give it time...yeah, but enough is enough. So I'm very thankful that she got me this appt. 

 

Here's a page I did in February for Valentine's Day but never got around to posting it because I though there was something lacking to it. But I'm done with it and ready to move on to another page. It's simple and I'm ok with that. I notice I'm a "flat" scrapper, not much dimension the most I would add perhaps is a brad or the occasional chipboard. I'm working on another page right now so I've been having fun. I'm also looking into having a Stampin' Up party because I want to buy some 3 ring albums. I'll probably do something in May. 

I better do some cleaning this morning because I've done nothing but watch Lost episodes. I've decided to get hooked on one show only and this is the one. I've heard so much about it that I caved in and a friend of mine has all 4 seasons so I just finished season 1. I know I'm behind but at the rate I'm going I'll be all caught up in no time.

 

scrap related

Seems like these days I don't post anything scrappy but that's about to change! I got my scrap on last evening and ended up with this lo. I've seen this design countless of times before and it seems to work. This is a lo of Jessica, my sponsored child. I wanted to make this page for her binder where I keep all her letters and photos. This was the first photo I received of her almost 4 years ago. It's my first 8.5x11 and I liked working with this size.

I also altered this pocket calendar for my purse last month. It's one of those inexpensive ones that had kitties on so I decided to beautify it going with a b&w combo. Very simple and uncomplicated. 

I've been totally overwhelmed by my messy messy scrap area. It's unruly and I never get it all tidy. The good news is that I managed to purge/sort/organize my stickers, alphas, rubons and embellies in binders. This system works for me except nothing inside the binders made sense, until now :)

What I'm struggling with right now is keeping my work area clean of clutter. I need to put my pages into albums and I haven't yet purchased them. I think I want to go with AC cloth binders with 3 rings if I can order them from a LSS. I also like the Stampin' Up! linen ones in mellow moss.

That's about all I got for now. Dan took the morning off to go skating with Joshua's class and after that we have a lunch date just the two of us...

 

layout about my mom

Yesterday I got a newsletter from Hambly about a special pink kit for Breast Cancer awareness month. All their proceeds go to Susan G. Komen Foundation, what a great thing to do. 

I was inspired to do a layout about my mom that is a two-time breast cancer survivor. She's my everything, words can't describe how much I love her and no layout could ever do her justice.

*click on it to make it larger*

 

This is a great cause and so dear to my heart. I think it's great that manufacturers are supporting such organizations. I wish someday we can have a cancer-free future for ourselves, our daughters and grand-daughters...that is my hope.

a week in the life project

We had a good weekend here. Not much to report. 

Went to a friend's baby shower on Saturday. Good times and good food. 

Sunday, went to Church in the morning and in the afternoon Dan and Danelia played soccer with some friends from Church. I started a book this weekend. I'm a little late reading The Shack. I meant to read it this summer but I was too busy. A friend loaned it to me and I just started it. I'd be interested in knowing if any of you have read it and if you liked it or not.

I was reading on Ali's blog that she's going to do a Week in the life project and invited all her blog readers to join in. I'm definitely joining in. You can read more about it here. 

I will be posting pictures and notes/reflections as I go about my week.

Have a Happy Monday

scrappy stuff

I finally got the happy mail I've been waiting for! I haven't ordered any scrapping products since last fall I believe so I placed a few orders for stuff that I liked. Not even sure if it was from Summer CHA 08 or previous ones but who cares, I loved the stuff!

First, let me start with a RAK that I won over at YMBD Scrapbooking: Gorgeous fall tags, perfect accents for cards or lo's.

Then I got some patterned papers and MM letter stickers from A Million Little Things and SIStv.

I also ordered some embellishments and rub-ons. 

I bought some minis since I've been wanting to do our Prince Edward Island vacation from this summer.

I ordered some stuff from Papier Valise as well. Very cool stuff on that site!

And I saved the best for last: Ali's latest book about minis! I Love it!     

I read that some people don't like it because it doesn't have exclusive Ali's work and I agree that having Ali's work alone would be divine BUT because my second favourite designer Maria Grace Abuzman is published in the book too, I loved it! Totally love the book! 

creating a little

I've been able to get back into creating a little lately so I'll share what I've been up to.

Remember this mini I made? Well it was collecting dust for the last few months and not one single entry was made but I'm determined to have one entry for each month of 2008. I'm way behind but thanks to my blog and the pictures I take, I know what I've been doing every month so I can catch up and still do entries months later. 

 

So this in my May entry "flavours". I went to several places for dinner with friends that month and we love trying new places. Torn papers are all from magazines, I'm forever in love with mags and shredding everything no matter how old it gets. 

 

 

This is an Art Journal entry "hello hello" I did last week. I was feeling Autumn in the air with the beginning of the school year and all so I was inspired by that. Once again, all shredded magazine papers, some Hambly rubs and water colour. Ever since I took a class with Sarah Bowen where she thought water colours and magazines techniques I've been hooked.

 

I haven't created in such a long time I was feeling a little rusty but it brought me such joy to be playing once again. 

Art makes my heart happy.

About non-scrappy things, Danelia had a good first week at school and Joshua will start gradually this week. Today is his first unofficial day/half class but won't be taking the school bus until Friday. Dan is away all of this week for work. He's in Calgary for work and will be returning on Friday evening. I'll miss my baby :(

I'm eagerly anticipating some mail, the scrappy kind!

mini love

I've been enjoying working with minis lately.
I made this one back in January to document my monthly life and events.
It can be just one page per month so I can have something to look back at the end of the year.

I also made this mini with some corrugated plastic. I haven't embellished the front cover but I might do this when the mini is done. In here, I'm just putting stuff I do, stuff I say, stuff I like. Anything goes. This is where I put my blog banner page. This page is about my love of scarves.

And this last mini I just did for a little project that I'm working on. More of a weekly recording of getting where I want to go in life in regards with my health and weight. I only did the cover.

That's it for now. I'm hoping to create a little more today :)