December Daily Update

Still waiting on a few last items to put together my foundation pages. I ordered the December Daily kit from Bananafish Studio, and am so excited for it to arrive. I have quite a few pages ready to go, over the past few weeks I chose the papers I plan to use, gathered embellishments, stamped some numbers, etc. Here are a few shots of my project in the planning stages:

Choosing the papers. Definitely inspired by Elise Blaha with lots of patterned papers. I made mine 5x7 so they will be easy to make enlargements. Loved last year's 6x8 size too, especially after looking back at it.

Love the planning stages. So much fun.

Having fun gathering and stamping some numbers. The stamps are from the 7 gypsies Numero stamp set, the little cut out numbers are Teresa Collins, and the big number tags are 7 gypsies Paddington tags.

Remember I said I like storing little embellishments for projects in muffin tins? These are from Goodwill.

99 cents each!

More little items I might use. 



Stamping some tags is always fun. I love the imperfection of them! These are Ali Edwards Good Cheer stamps

Yay! I finally got my Technique Tuesday Studio AE stamp set in the mail, and I ordered the December Daily one with it. More numbers! Be still my heart! I love it!

Love December. Love December Daily. Even have our tree up; not decorated but loving having twinkle lights going on in the house. Really fun story about my daughter seeing the tree for the first time, but that's for another post.

Had to play with the new set! Love it!

How are your preparations coming along? While waiting I put the finishing touches on last year's--it was my first year and I got a late start. I think I started with the album about a week into December but had been using my phone to take photos and make notes of each day. So even if you are on the fence about it, it is still totally do-able. I did about 75% of it last year but had that last 25% unfinished. I just said "enough" and there are a few days missing. I'm still very happy with it, and it helps going into this year knowing that it is okay if I miss a few days. For me it is the whole project, missing days and all that tell the story and help capture bits of what makes December special.

If I don't have another post until after Thanksgiving, I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! And have fun with your own preparations! Share a link if you would like!



Big Picture shout out and other cool stuff

I gotta say I really love Big Picture Classes. It all started back in 2008 when I was just getting started scrapbooking again. I say again, because really I started scrapbooking as we think of it today in probably 1994 or so, with my sister Katrina. We even went to Pebbles in my Pocket back in the day. I only did a little, but loved seeing all the layouts Katrina did. Hers rocked!

So after I got married the scrapbooking bug hit. I had my photos and wanted to do something with them. I couldn't figure out my style, until I found Stacy Julian and Cathy Zielske and the girls at Simple Scrapbooks. It just clicked. So imagine my delight when I found out about Big Picture Classes just in time to take Design Your Life, by Cathy Z! I was thrilled and signed up immediately. That class basically taught me how to scrapbook, and needless to say, I totally loved it!

Since then I have taken quite a few other classes and have enjoyed those as well. Stacy Julian's Library of Memories--now Photo Freedom--totally changed the way I organize my photos and layouts, and just goes right along with how I scrap. She is teaching a new class this year: Twelve.

And the good news? Cathy Z has since turned Design Your Life into a Self Paced class, and you can get all the content for just $59. And the even better news? BPC is celebrating 6 years and you can grab this class for HALF OFF! Totally awesome! Or you can pick one of the other self paced classes. I know I will. Click here to find out more. Code expires Nov 20th.

Also, just heard about this today: Jessica Sprague is offering a FREE Holiday class. So cool! I will definitely be signing up for that one too. Click here to find out more. I have taken classes from her site before and really liked them. Stories in Hand was a free one I took, as well as Candice Stringham's photography classes which I highly recommend.

Enjoy! And Happy 6th Birthday BPC!

Christmas Cards and Adventures in a Do it Yourself Family Photo Shoot

Like many people I struggle with Christmas cards, and many years just skip them entirely. But since I am doing December Daily this year, I am in the preparing early mode and I found a card I liked from Paper Coterie. The bonus was a code for $30 off! So it totally paid off to do a search for a coupon code before ordering. Love that! And the card is customizable, you can play with the layouts, fonts, words, even word art. I'm excited to get these, I hope they work out. I rented a lens a few weeks ago and we tried some do it yourself family photographs with a tripod and remote shutter release. So no, they aren't totally professional, but they were fun. Here are just a few.

Gotta love an old red barn + October morning light. A cute subject really helps too :)

M&M's helped, and I'm totally ok with them being in the photo

Just picked her up and played. Love these moments

Love that she has her little pink dog in the photo.

Tried having a chalkboard with 2011 on it. She really didn't want to sit still. 

So we played and jumped

And ran back and forth. Gotta love multiple shots on self timer mode!



Things I might want to try next time:

• smaller bag of M&M's. I know I said I am okay with it but maybe a smaller bag would be good.
• try to get at least one more person to help. Maybe bribe them with a large bag of M&M's?
• photo props: saw a photographer at the barn and she had a cute vintage chair and a great old quilt. maybe more things to play with that also look cool.

Any other ideas for do it yourself family photo shoots? Would love to hear what others have done.

Gettin a little messy

More December Daily and holiday preparations. Tonight I even put some Christmas music on my iPhone. And what better way to prepare than to make a few tags?

Had fun tonight playing around with some Zing! plus Ali Edwards stamps from Technique Tuesday. Confession: my first go round with the Zing! but I loved it! Totally fun. I took Ella Publishing's Boot Camp this fall and one of the things I really wanted to try was stamping/embossing/resist technqiues taught by Nicole Magourik. Over the past two months, I bought a heat gun, some white zing, UTEE, a craft mat, Versamark and a blending tool. I have tried out the UTEE and the heat tool and that was pretty cool. Tonight Ali Edwards tweeted she tried out the Zing! so that gave me the motivation to try it out. Not as hard and scary as I thought! My advice: just go with it and have fun. I like trying out techniques on tags like this because who cares if you mess up? Just get messy and have fun.



10 Things: November Edition. Vintage Inspiration List

This past spring I took Jenni Bowlin's class at Big Picture Classes, and it opened up a whole new world for me. Gotta say I loved it. I was always a little intimidated by going into antique shops, but after this class it is one of my favorite things to do when I have a little play time. One of the things she suggested was to make a top 10 list of things that inspire us. I am not sure I shared mine in class, so this is what I have so far.

1. Old typewriters and typography.

2. Letters and numbers.

3. Storage containers of all kinds: my favorite are vintage locker baskets and egg baskets.

4. Flower frogs: love having these around to hold up photos, invitations, cards, etc.

5. Wooden boxes, especially tool boxes. See number three.

6. Cute little salt and pepper shakers. Awesome storage for glass glitter. Which was something I never thought I would use until this class and now I love it. And they look so cute on my shelf. Also in the glass category would have to be old Ball jars. I have a green one I just love. It has my "stories of the year" project in it (from Pinterest)

7. Chalkboards. Maybe it's because we had a giant chalkboard in our attic where I would play "teacher" for hours as a kid. I just love chalkboards. Here I am using a vintage chalkboard as an inspiration board.

8. Vintage cookie cutters, pie tart tins, little jello molds, muffin tins. I think it is all the silver. I have always loved silver, but that's another story. And I think it is because I love food. I store embellishments in these and also use them for "beyond the page" projects, like these pie tart tin refrigerator magnets.

9. Old postcards and photos. Especially when they are pictures of my Grandma laughing as she fell down with roller skates on. That is one of my all time favorites. See inspiration board above. I like using the postcards in my minibooks. I found a bunch at an estate sale and have had fun using them.

10. Office and school supplies, yardsticks and vintage cameras. And whatever else jumps out at me that day!

Looking back I would never have thought of using these a year ago. I love how as we learn things our styles can evolve. I wouldn't say I'm totally vintage. Definitely a mix of modern + vintage items. Still love my IKEA and where would I be without the Container Store?

What are some of your favorite vintage items to use either as storage or in your scrapbooking?

For more 10 things on the 10th check out http://www.shimelle.com/paper/1287/10-things-november-2011/

Wordless Wednesday: For the Love of Fall