Currently

Working on: A Week in the Life 2011. Really really want to get it done before this year's big event in April. It's a huge project but a good one. If you have no idea what I'm talking about check it out here. The dates are April 23-29.

Procrastinating: Paring down 1,611 photos that I took last year for Week in the Life.

Eating: Shame spoons. A spoonful of peanut butter and chocolate chips. It's a homemade Reese's cup on a spoon. Oh so good, especially with all natural peanut butter and really dark chocolate.

Listening to: A Thousand Years by Christina Perri. Breaking Dawn soundtrack. For some reason I can put this song on repeat for like a half hour.

Wishing: That I could be 50 pounds thinner by eating shame spoons. Yeah, I will have to work on that.

Hoping: To have a good weekend. Hoping you do too and that you get lots of scrapping time too!

Have a good weekend! If I get my Week in the Life done and posted, we'll celebrate with shame spoons! Until then here are a few sneak peeks.

Currents inspired by Tina Azmus

Take 12 in 2012: March edition

Hello March. Hello spring. Hello busy days. Hello Take 12, which is the monthly challenge to take twelve photos on the 12th of each month (or sometime around there) and turn it into a layout or something like that. Check out Ella Publishing for more information and to post your layout as well.

This month I decided to vary the page protectors. I had been going with Design F and Design E, which you can see in my January post here. These 4x4 sized pocket pages from We Are Memory Keepers were so much easier to use with Instagrams. I just used some patterned paper to help fill in the spots and of course that giant number 12 as a title (I am using a set from Ali Edwards).

I also used a journaling card from Cathy Zielske, just modified it to work with my 4x4 size.

Here I used the journaling card to share a story from the day.

And I am continuing to use the metal office tags and another digital file from Ali Edwards. This one says 12 good times. I love using paper from my stash along with the kit. To number the photos I used the white numbers from my Clementine Project Life kit from Becky Higgins.

So there it is! Pretty simple but fun. I used some Instagrams and a few from my regular camera after I got home at night. I also borrowed some pictures that my husband took of their adventures at the park. I processed those and my DSLR photos in a fun Polaroid iMac app called Instant. It's the most fun I've had processing photos ever. I just love it.

The bluebonnets were from my iPhone. Took a few minutes on my way home to capture a bit of the fields of blue I drive by all day. It's really gorgeous right now and it felt really good to take time and enjoy a few moments. And if you are wondering about my February Take 12? Well, it's in process. Like a lot of my projects! But it's fun. I love adding this to my Project Life. Really really. 

10 things that make me happy

Last night I was on a roll. Finally got some time to download a few items I wanted on Designer Digitals when I saw Cathy Zielske has a template out--her 100th! And it is called 100 things. Love love love Cathy's designs and you know what, I need this. We've been very stressed out and what better way to deal with stress than list the things that bring you happiness, love, joy, all that good stuff.

Okay, so instead of letting that template sit on my hard drive and collect cyber dust, I need to get started. 

Drumroll please.

1. My family. 
2. Naptimes that actually work.
3. Cold fountain Diet Coke on snowman poo ice.
4. Laughter. 
5. My daughter feeding me cereal and squealing with laughter. Looking her in the eyes and laughing right back. Cherishing simple moments like that.
6. Playing around with photos, words and paper. Capturing moments and emotions. Taking note of the little things.
7. Learning. I love learning new things and love it when the results start to match the vision I had in the first place.
8. The mountains. I really love the cool breezes of mountain air, the views, the sound of the quaking aspen leaves blowing in the wind. I love waking up and going for a hike. I think a trip to the mountains is calling me.
9. Whole wheat pancakes with peanut butter and real maple syrup on top. And it has to be warm!
10. The cool side of the pillow over my eyes at night. Taking time to rest.

Laughter. I love this. Blurry photo and all.

Cherishing moments with my girlie. Two binkies and all.

10 things is found on Shimelle's blog. People from all over share 10 things on the 10th of each month. Any 10 things. It's pretty cool what people share. I try to post when I can. Check it out here. 

Product Picks: Office Themed Goodness

Okay, so last post I revealed my love of office supplies. I may be a disorganized mess but at least I have cute notepads! Something I am really excited about are several new lines of my favorite companies coming out with office themed products. Here are two in no particular order:

October Afternoon 9-5 

This is the cutest collection. I am really hoping my local Archivers will have it, otherwise I will be watching closely for it to be available at various online retailers. Here are some of my favorite parts of the collection. I also love their label stickers as well as the tin pins. Click on the link above to go directly to the whole collection.

This is the Here & Now Chapter. Looks like a mini book in the making!

These are called Tidbits. Take note, these are adorable and so versatile!

Here are the Doo-Dads. Love the photos/stories enclosed. Love using library cards. Then add the little cassette tape? That is just awesome.

And my latest obsession: Washi tape! I absolutely love this stuff and am so excited about companies coming out with more of it. I like ribbon to some extent, but this stuff is way more me. What I love on these are the pattern, also the date: you can write on it! And I love the days of the week one. Perfect for Project Life, Week in the Life or A Day in the Life or lots of other projects.

If I had to pick just one of the patterned papers from the line it would be Coffee Break: the B side. Yep, I'm a B side scrapper too. This will go great in my current Project Life.

Studio Calico Take Note

This is a beautiful new line and should be available soon at Studio Calico.

 This is just a gorgeous collection. The papers are so beautiful, I can't wait to get my hands on it!
I love the label card paper. Also the floral with the grey background and the blue lattice. 

And what would an office be without paperclips? Hello cute! Hello great addition to my projects!

For the love of badges these are so cute! I am loving using flair buttons or badges in my Project Life. They slip right in the page protectors and create emphasis without eating up white space.

And the finale: the potty people! I adore these! Super cute.

Can you tell I'm excited about these? These are really fun. Go check out these lines. You will love them too. Thank you Studio Calico and October Afternoon for designing such awesome products!

As I have been looking into it, there are a lot of options out there right now with an office theme, as well as actual office products. Heidi Swapp's new line is actually using file folders kind of as a mini-book of sorts. It is called Memory File and looks amazing. I think that might be its own post if I can get my hands on some of it, or maybe just start using some of the ones I have on hand from the office supply store.

I found a post that Melissa Stinson did (the Scrappy Jedi)- about office products. You can check that out here. I have known about shipping tags, but hello library card happiness! Just love that idea. Seriously, go check out her blog. It is awesome.

One quick note: I just saw that Amazon has Project Life style A page protectors in stock. I am really loving Project Life. It is a great approach for me right now and I am having a lot of fun with it. I would say grab them while you can!

You can also check out my Pinterest boards: Scrapbooking Product Love and Project Life for more inspiration. Also note all of these products are just things I am hoping to add to my stash!

Project Life: January 2012 Part 1

Love doing Project Life in a monthly format. I am using the monthly badges from Marcy Penner to title each month, then I just add what inspires me each month. For this spread, I used it to capture some of the earlier part of January. 

Here is the two page spread. 

Left side: you can see the Marcy Penner badge. Really love those. Hopefully she will be able to restock soon. I am really wanting the weekday badges but they were already sold out. One thing I am learning about finding goodies online is you gotta be fast! Just like Bananafishstudio goodies. Those go very fast but I think she is going to be restocking more frequently. In any case, you can still get digital cards, etc from both, like the second card in the middle row is a digital card from Bananafishstudio.

Here is the right side. More Paislee Press cards (the story). Also some Smashtape and other washi tape. More Martha Stewart labels from Staples. Also I am loving using the Jenni Bowlin Fiskars mini tab punch. For an office product loving geek it is the equivalent to the way some people use butterfly punches. I could use it on just about every layout and be totally happy. (I also bought the Jenni Bowlin butterfly punch and love it too! ) More office supplies with the metal circle tab. Seriously, if you get bored with Hobby Lobby just run next door to Staples and you will be so happy!

A few close ups: I love using Ali Edwards stamps and also digital stamps/brushes. Used both in this shot. And yes, I am using these on every page too! I am a Studio AE member and absolutely love it. And I have quite a bit of the digital products as well. Just an overall huge fan of Ali. I love that she can make a random picture of my daughter watching Cars suddenly look cool. Oh and another tip: if you just run out of things to put in the pockets, look to your patterned paper stash or some memorabilia. I think it helps the eye rest to have some patterned paper in there. You can also order patterned paper to match the Project Life kit you may be using. This is the kit I am using: Clementine.

Here's a close up of that mini tab punch from Jenni Bowlin / Fiskars. Use it on scraps of chevron paper for just the perfect touch.

Here is the digital card from Bananafishstudio. It's a png file, she even has a video of how to use it on her blog. Check it out here. 

So there we go. Even though it is March and I am finally posting January, it's all good. Because "Raarr!" 2012 here we come! See, it's never too late to start and it's always okay to scrap out of order! Do what inspires you and what works for you! And a little behind the scenes: I am working on a bunch of the spreads all the time, but I really like to sit down and finish a spread once in a while! Feels great!

Project Life by Becky Higgins is a set of cool divided page protectors, kits and more to help capture our photos and stories in an easy to use format. It can be whatever you want it to be. Check out her site to learn more. I also recommend checking out the Design Team. They totally rock. And also there is a free Project Life Community at Big Picture Classes. 

A Day in the Life: the Me Edition part 2

Just a quick update to share my A Day in the Life template pages. I used this template from Ali Edwards on Designer Digitals. You can get it here. You can see my Part 1 here.

As you can see I used my iPhone for the pictures. Easy and fun. Captured the bed-head hair and all. 

I used this template to capture most of my day, mainly the getting ready and working hours, at least what I can share of it. Lots of time on the road. Trying to drink more water and less Diet Coke. Bathroom stops. I've been seeing lots of those cool arrow signs, so I pulled over to get a pic. More Sonic stops. Gas prices. The best hand-dryers ever. Photo of the gum I chew with my One Little Word on it. Coming home to my family is the best part. Love seeing her smiling face.

This is an 8.5 x 11 template and I just printed them at home and put them in a page protector back to back between my other two Project Life pocket pages. Here is a look at it all together.

The front of the template is on the right.

This is the second page of the template here on the left.

And finally, here are some glimpses of the daily sheet. You can get it here from Ali Edwards. It's an 8.5x11 sheet, one side has all the times of the day and space to write. The other side is divided into things like observations, overheard, favorite moment, etc. Loved using this.

So there it is. I love doing a project like this but sometimes it can be overwhelming. I just try to have fun with it and capture what I can, what I feel like at that moment. Seeing it all together has made me realize different things. Overall I am just thankful for my life and my family. Thankful to be me. Good to include ourselves in our scrapbooks.

I'm glad I did this and it has gotten me thinking about finishing my Week in the Life project because Ali will be doing it again this year in April. The dates she is doing it is April 23-29th but you can always do any week that works for you. I am going to try to do it. For more info on Ali's Day in the Life check here.