“Love You”

Leap Day!  A day that comes only once every 4 years.  I remember when I was a kid, my bus driver, Mary Annes’, birthday was on Leap Day.  I remember being so enamored by that.  A birthday only once every 4 years?  Of course, that doesn’t stop you from turning a year older.  I always thought it was pretty special.  And was kinda jealous because I had a summer birthday.  Summer birthdays stink, especially if they’re in August!  The worst of all!  But it is Feb 29, and this year because our cabinet shop schedule is so full, we’re thankful for the extra day.  Now if only (as my husband said this morning) we could figure a way to fit a few extra days into March, we’d be good! 

Another special day in February is Valentine’s Day.  I always love Valentine’s Day products, I mean, they’re pink!  And I really like pink.  But I’ll admit, I’m not a good “theme” scrapbooker.  I rarely use products in a theme context.  However, I was drooling over this Crate Paper Paper Heart Collection.  I was fortunate enough to get it at my local(ish) Craft Warehouse over the weekend.  And on sale no less since it was after Valentines Day.  I love shopping like that!   The colors and patterns are so pretty, but I knew I’d have to take it out of context.  I don’t think I have any Valentines photos this year.  But I did have these photos of A dressed as a ballerina, just waiting for the right papers. 

Because the page was going in a flat direction, I used some foam tape to add dimension to the page.  In multiple layers so I had a lot of dimension.  Much better!  Oh, and that strip of grey chevron with the pink scallop, that was the SKU strip of the paper that I cut off.  That’s another favorite thing of mine to do to stretch the paper/budget.  I often use the flip side of the paper to get extra contrast.  And the scalloped piece of chevron is a piece of the 6x6 paper from the coordinating pad.  Even though it’s the 25% scale, it still works perfectly with the 12x12 papers!

Supplies:  Crate Paper (paper, die cuts, title), The Twinery, Bo Bunny (bling)

“Love to Learn”

Many of you know this, because that’s how you know me, but I’m a hopeless addict to Club Creating Keepsakes.  It’s an online community, but it’s more than that, it’s my friends.  I’ve met some incredible people and made some exceptional friendships.  Part of the community is challenges that we all offer up for each other.  One of the Moderators Erika started a Thanksliving challenge in which we were to make thankful statements in a journal.  Then, once a month we are to use one of those statements to create a page using a design concept.  The February challenge (which has some great design info in it if you’re interested) was to choose something to carry the weight of your page.  For me, that’s easy, it’s almost always my story or photos, depending on the photos and the story to tell.  This one was the story.  My Thanksliving statement was that I was so thankful we could all do school together via homeschooling and how thankful I was that I’m learning to, and actually, call me silly, but I have so very much enjoyed about Phonics through this first grade curriculum.  Yes, I grew up in a school district that sadly didn't do a good job.

I had a hard time with this one because of the dominate color of the photos, that blue green is a color I don’t have much of, but I thought of everything I had, this Basic Grey Oliver worked best.  Along with some Basic Grey epoxy gears, I was set!  Oddly enough, this page is almost all Basic Grey, a company that I have a fair amount of stash of, but I rarely use. 

Supplie:  Basic Grey (paper, epoxy embellishments, alphas), Kaiser Craft (ledger letters), Buttons Galore (buttons) misc (floss)

 

Reminder Alert – be sure to upload your completed LO of the February sketch by tomorrow for your chance for the prize!!

One Little Word

I decided this year that I would join the whole One Little Word thing in a bigger way.  Last year I chose a word, JOY.  It was fitting.  This year, I needed a different word.  I went back and forth between several words.  I really wanted something that encompassed my need to focus on completing tasks fully and well.  Not half heartedly, not being distracted.  I also need to be more organized.  I had bounced around a few different words, then one day, I asked the kids to do something.  They went about it in a complete half hearted manner.  I looked at them and said “Effort.  Put in effort.”  We use that word a lot in our house.  Then it hit me….EFFORT….the things I struggle with and want to do better are the things that I must put EFFORT into.  So EFFORT it is.  I’ve been meaning to cut the word out in 12” letters and put it in our school room too.  It needs to be a family word.  But alas, I haven’t done it….maybe I should apply my one little word to this!  LOL

(For those of you who don’t know what One Little Word is, it was started by someone who didn’t really care for the whole new years resolution thing, but she wanted to simplify it and make it something that could actually be attained the entire year.  So she chose just one little word and made it her focus for that year.  She scrapbooked about it.  I think this was 5 years ago now (something like that) and it’s taken off like crazy and lots of people are doing it now.  I think it is a great alternative to a resolution which, lets face it, we all lose track of after a week!)

So today, I wanted to show you one of my pages for this album.  Yes, I’ve been a little low on stuff to share lately.  I’ve been working on stuff for the March challenge, and other things that I submitted and I’m not sure if I can share or not until after March 2nd.  Anyway, I’m going to share this today.

For the product, I used the new My Minds Eye Follow Your Heart by Rhonna Farrer.  I bought it because it’s so very pretty, but it’s really not my scrapping style.  But, I did think that this would be the perfect use for it!  I can use this 6x6 pad in this format happily and I know I have something fun and different to work with to hopefully keep my excitement up the whole year.

Supplies:  My Minds Eye, digital templates by Ali Edwards (Big Picture Classes), The Twinery, Paper Trey Ink (button die), misc flower

Photo 365 for iPhone

Hey everyone.  I apologize for a late post today, but you see, the reason for my post being late will be beneficial for some of you!  I had to work this morning in the shop, which meant it was my chance to do my catch up of listening to the Paperclipping Roundtable podcast.   (It’s a free pod cast all about scrapbooking – and let me just say, it’s a wonderful way to get in two to three workouts a week when I don’t feel like going – listening on my MP3 player has really helped that 2 1/2 mile jog go quicker).  Well, today I was listening and I heard about this totally awesome app called Photo 365.  (If you search for it in the App Store, be sure to do Photo 365 because you can come across some not too reputable stuff of which I will not mention here, yes, I learned the hard way).   Well, I downloaded it to my iPhone and played with it a bit this afternoon. 

If you remember yesterday, I mentioned I wasn’t doing the whole Project Life or P365 thing.  Not my gig.  I do love the concept and think it would be very cool to have the photographic journal but there are many reasons I haven’t done it.  First, a very boring life.  But just as much (probably more) is that with my SLR camera, I shoot RAW.  It means lots more editing.  I’ve tried for two Januarys to jump on the P365 bandwagon and I never make it past the end of the month.  Keeping the photos organized and edited was just too overwhelming to me, especially when, like I said yesterday, I document our lives well by completing a layout on average one a day anyway. 

But this, this little app, it’s awesome!  First thing, it will allow you to set a reminder!  I set mine for 1 PM.  Everyday at 1 PM it will chime at me “hey you forgetful ditz – be sure to take a picture today!” 

Now, I think I’ve decided to give this a shot.  This will mean iPhone photos.  It will mean I have to let go of control of great pictures with my SLR.  But that will be okay (I think).  For the purpose of this, photos that I won’t be scrapping, I’m okay with it.  In the context of this project, I’m okay with it.  (And I think I can probably transfer other photos onto the phone that I take with my iPhone then add them in if I get a good picture with my SLR that I want to use).

So, when you open the app, the calendar is what you see.  Tap the date and you can either take a picture for the day, or you can link a picture from your photo roll.  The photo shows up on the calendar.

(These really aren’t my pictures of the day, but you can see what your calendar will look like).

The other super cool thing about it besides easy organization is that you can journal into the metadata of the image and it supposedly stays with the picture!  I haven’t checked the transportability of it yet, but it’s definitely there with the photo in the app.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with these yet, if I’ll print them all as 4x6s to put into a regular album or maybe do like a digital photo book, but for now, this is a super easy way (and not mentally overwhelming) to tackle the P365 if you want to try it.  It is set up to share to Facebook and Twitter if you do that, but I have no intention to use that feature, so I can’t tell you more about it.

App Name:  Photo 365

Cost:  $.99 in App Store for Apple iPhone

 

*UPDATE**  I’m onto day two now.  And I’m even more sold on this than ever!  LOL….I really like the easy organization, and I just found that you can designate more than one photo per day as well!  Only one shows up in the calendar (the first assigned to the day by default), but they both appear when you tap the date on the calendar.  I’m excited to do this now, and I do believe I can follow through with this easy to use approach.  I’m still thinking through how I’ll go about printing the photos, but I’ll update that later when I have enough to do a full LO with.

Life Notes Album

There is a new craze in the memory keeping world.  It’s Project Life by Becky Higgins LLC.  It’s a brilliant concept that is adaptable to various different approaches, either photo a day or any way you want to use it.  I’ve not purchased because for me, the whole picture a day thing, yeah, that isn’t going to happen.  And honestly, our lives are so routine and boring, I feel documenting it all in photos is completely overkill.  But there were some things I wanted to record that I knew probably just weren’t going to make it into an album as a page.  The other reason I haven’t jumped on the picture a day thing is because I do usually do a scrapbook page a day.  I feel like our life is well documented, and I love combining the creative aspect with the storytelling, so for me, I’m sticking to what I’m doing.

But I also knew that there were some tidbits in life that are probably going to be forgotten. And I did want to capture those.  I’ve been thinking for a while of how to implement this little “system” I had in my head.  A SMASHbook?  No, I like consistency in size, shape and pages of albums and journals.  A recipe box with cards in it to write down the stories?  No, again I want it all to be consistent so all our memories are stored together.  So I knew that the album and divided page protectors was the route I was going to have to take.  So yesterday, I downloaded some Elle’s Studio journal tags from Jessica Sprague and printed them on 4x6 cards.  Then I wrote down the two stories I’ve had in my head that I wanted to be sure to document.  I figure with this approach, I can still add the occasional photo or memorabilia with it, but I’m not committed to anything, and I haven’t invested a large amount of money if I don’t follow through.

Also in this album are the Big Envelopes.  Remember the post a few days ago?  Well, I wanted to show you what I did with them.  I had originally put them in an album from that year, but then I pulled them out and put them in this album of journaled bits.  We’ll see if they stay or go back.  Anyway – I pulled out some of my Thickers.  I’m horrible at using the numbers, so I thought this was the perfect application to use those pricier bits of goodness that I otherwise neglect. 

And as if on cue, preparing for a post about documenting the little things in life…….DS walks up and put this UNO Moo piece right where I was taking a picture.  I left it because for once I thought it was appropriate!  LOL….(He does this often – he then quickly pulled his hand back thinking I’d be disappointed because he knows he’s not supposed to do that LOL….but for once, it was okay).

I printed extra of the journal cards and put them in a polyethylene back that I adhered to the front cover.  That way, I know where everything will be when I want to jot down a silly little story.

“Feel Like A Native”

I’ve always wanted to do a page about driving in the snow.  When we moved here over ten years ago, driving in the snow was one of my big fears.  I grew up north of Seattle, when it snows there, the world shuts down.  Everyone panics and no one knows what to do.  It’s quite entertaining now actually after living in the snow for so long.  During the winter, I pretty much have to drive a mountain pass everytime I go anywhere.  I’ve adjusted just fine.  Although, the first few times were a *tad* on the stressful side LOL.  But as with anything, practice does a lot.  Now I’ve completely adjusted to driving on the snow and fell like I always have. The other day, I was fortunate enough to be heading out before the snow plows cleared our road of the 5 or so inches of snow.  So I stopped, pulled out my iPhone and snapped a picture.  Perfect!

Now, to explain the title, we weren’t born here, so we are considered “transplants”  I so wish I was a native, I don’t like being a transplant (or worse still, a “coastie”).  I want to be a native, but even people who moved here 30 years ago aren’t natives.  Sigh….I can dream though right?

I did a fun thing for this page to give it a little more interest, something I don’t usually do….I did a rustic pleat on a couple doilies to put under the photo.  Then I misted them.  Just them, not the whole page.  But the white was too stark with the paper.  I didn’t have any circle doilies, so I used the top part of hearts.  Worked great!

Supplies:  Pink Paislee (paper), American Crafts (thickers letters), Kaiser Craft (mini alphas), The Twinery (twine), Lindy’s Stamp Gang (mist), Misc (cardstock, ink)

“Just the Two of Us”

About two weeks ago my mom sent me an envelope full of photos.  I have to say, she trusts the USPS more than I do LOL, but I was very happy to get them regardless of how they arrived.  I had these photos of my husband and I taken back in April of 1999, before we were married.  I don’t use a lot of blue, so I found these hard to work with as the dominate colors to me was blue.  But I did see notice that the tulips are red and yellow.  I thought that the yellow paper really pulled out the yellow in the tulips, and because the background paper and the foreground paper are both from the same line, I knew the colors would compliment each other.  It all fell together from there! 

Oh, and can I just say that I’ve now added twine to my repertoire of budget friendly embellishments.   I used about two cents worth of twine on this page and it really added a lot. 

Supplies:  My Minds Eye (paper, die cut title), Prima (flowers) misc (flowers, rhinestone) The Twinery Twine

Big Envelopes–Product Review

For a long time now I’ve been saving certain pieces of my kids art.  I don’t want to put them into a box, I know I’d be tempted to toss them someday.  And while I don’t save a lot (maybe 3 pieces a month), it adds up fast.  I do make some layouts featuring their art, but that’s not necessary for all of them.  I’d been keeping them in a file from Creative Memories, but I had to move where I stored it because it didn’t fit in my new scrap area.  Then I saw that Amazon again had the Becky Higgins Big Envelope pages in stock.  Now, I’m certainly not one of the fanatical fans of Becky Higgins, but I do think she had developed a good product.  I’ve only bought the album in the past and I wasn’t overly thrilled with the quality.  So I had low expectations when I ordered these, but I knew they would be the perfect item to get save my kids’ art into our albums without having to do a layout about them. 

And if I didn’t say this, I love Amazon Prime!  Be still my heart….order on Friday and it’s in my ho-dunk town on Monday!  Absolute sweetness!!!

Here are some pictures of the Big Envelopes.  I did put a 12x12 layout in it so you could more easily see the depth of the envelope.  It fit, but barely, it was a very flat layout and it took some serious manipulation to fit it, so I certainly would not recommend these for storage options. 

The back of the envelope.  Simple, nice appearance.

 

This shows how they lay over the page protectors in this Doodlebug album.  They are slightly smaller than the page protectors.  I plan to put them in the back of my albums, and they’ll be nice and stable.

 

All in all, I think these are a plenty fair enough quality for the price and value for the quality.  I am going to put them to use and then decide if I want to order more.  

Pretty Clothespins!

I was just doing some online window shopping hoping to find some new CHA release goodies and stumbled across these super cute little clothes pins.  Now, I believe these are small with the intent to be used on scrapbook pages.  But they are cute!!!  I looked at them and though…hmmmm…they’re screen printed, but I bet I could achieve the same look with a rub-on, so I tried!

 

I raided three new clothes pins from my laundry room.  About 20 cents worth them. 

Then I pulled out some old rub-ons that I knew I’d never finish.

Cut to size of clothes pin, and place.  Begin to rub.

To keep them from opening and messing up the rub-on, place a second clothes pin inside the one you’re working on.  That will make it stay closed even when you apply pressure of the rubbing.

Viola!

Now,  honestly, I don’t know what I will do with these cute little buggers.  I think my clothes are indifferent to if they have a pretty clothes pin on them or not.   But I’m happy that I used up some of this package or rub-ons that has been taunting me for the last three years!!   I think next time I go to the craft store, I’m going to see if I can find some of the miniature clothespins, because I’m sure this would be pretty cute!

Have a great weekend!

Skip Counting Flip Chart

Some days as parents are more fulfilling than others.  I think we’ve all been there even if we don’t have kids, just in life, there are some days that are more fulfilling.  Somedays you just know you’re doing the right thing. I’m typing this knowing Wednesday night knowing the post will go up Thursday, so forgive me if I bounce back and forth between “times”.  But I’m sitting here tonight after I worked on a project for school today.  I realized today after writing on our white board for the, um, must be 98th time this school year our numbers for skip counting that I should make a skip counting book!  Insert *DUH* here (yes, there is a reason my friends call me Aman*DUH*).  So I set off to make it.  And I finished it, quite pleased with the result.

But before I show it to you, I have to tell you about the fulfilling part of the evening.  We were tucking the kids in bed, and we implemented a new reading time when C has to read to Dad each night.  Well, being the first night, we forgot until we were already in bed.  So I got the book and brought it to them.  As they were reading, I noticed that Dad pronounced “a” differently than I do.  Both ways are correct, it’s just a matter of formality.  But it was a fantastic time to talk about how we code for phonics and why and all that good stuff.  It was just a moment that hit me of one of the big reasons I love homeschooling.  When we started this gig, I didn’t realize how much it would matter, but now that we are in it, I LOVE that I know exactly what the kids are learning.  As teacher, I know what, where, why, who and how.  It makes life a classroom!  And I love that!  I didn’t know this would be part of the scenario, but it is!  And it’s one of the best things! (But in reality, I have about four reasons that are all #1 in my book as to why I homeschool LOL). 

Anyway, onto the skip number chart.  Skip counting is the new “term” they use for what we called “counting by 2” etc when I was a kid.  Always gotta be changing things and making them more smart.  Whatever that means.  We’ve been skip counting by 7s!  Yikes – bet you can’t do that out of second nature.  So a flip chart is super important I decided after I wrote and erased for the way-too-many-ith time today the numbers.   Really, why didn’t I think of this sooner????  (I don’t really want you to answer LOL).

But being as how my blog here is mostly about scrapping, I couldn’t just make the chart boring if I was going to share it here.  I had to make the cover a little bit fancy, but not over the top because I knew it would be used constantly and, well, frankly abused. 

Supplies:  Simple Stories Elementary, misc cardstock (8.5 x 11) & misc rings

If you’d like to download the chart, I did the hard part for you!  You can download it here Skip Counting Chart.  Print the pages on 8.5x11 cardstock, cut in half vertically (at 4.25”).  I punched the holes with my Bind It All even though I didn’t have any o-wires that large and used just binder rings.  The chart includes skip counting by 2 (to 100), 3 (to 60), 4 (to 80), 5 (to 100), 6 (to 100+), 7 (to 100+), 8 (to 80), 9 (to 90) 10 (to 1,000) and 1,000 (to 10,000)

Fossil Digging

Back in October, our homeschool group went to a place called Stonerose Interpretive Center   for some fossil digging.  It was more like fossil breaking, but what then 6 year old boy wouldn’t like intentionally breaking rocks with a hammer and chisel?  I know my boy loved it!  I took several pictures, but this was really the only one I liked.  And while I love white space, I’m currently having an internal struggle with using too much of it (as in one photo on a 12x12 page) and also I just can’t go overly crazy on technique and stuff to fill space because to me, the page should be about the photo and story, not the stuff.   So I’ve been using 8.5 x 11 pages a lot lately.  It’s the perfect solution for such troubles, and I love that I can still slip them in my 3 ring albums (although, I’ve been doing so many lately, I think I’m going to buy an 8.5 x 11 binder because it would be cheaper).

This is the Simple Stories Elementary Kit (and some of the initial elementary products).  The kit comes with transparency photo overlays.  I don’t know why, but I have a hard time putting them over my photo (probably because my photographic style is to fill the frame, so in doing so, it would cover a crucial part of the photo – like if I were to put it at the top, I would have covered my sons face).  But I found it a great use to put behind the photo as a layered element.  Great!!

Supplies:  Simple Stories, Misc (buttons, bling, cardstock, floss)

A Scrappy Valentines

Okay, now I do love my chocolate.  But sometimes, there are a few treats that might be as good as a piece of chocolate (at least on the days that I’m watching my calories LOL).  Take a look at this visual goodness!!  Isn’t it a fun treat for a scrapper?

And here’s a little tag I made.  I saw the idea as a premade one for sale at twopeasinabucket.com  But for $4, I made my own.  About 12 cents in materials and 20 minutes. 

I’m all over the board today, and have one random tip.  We made some Valentine cards with my kids yesterday.  When I started making them, there were supposed to be 16 kids at the party.  By the time we finished, the list had doubled and I was wishing we had gone more simple!  But I did use a little trick I wanted to share.  I’m sure it’s not original, it’s too simple to be an original thought.  When you have multiple cuts to make that need to be spaced evenly, I apply a bit of ATG adhesive to the backside of my die, adhere it to one of the plates and then use that for quick placement for the cuts.

I just have to share this picture, I love how she is sticking her tongue out in concentration as she signed all her cards!  Made me smile.

Alright, enough of my randomness, have a great Valentines Day!

What a Splash!!

We’ve been working long hard hours here lately, so last week we decided we had to take an impromptu trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  We’d been there before a couple years ago, but were looking forward to going back again since the kids would both be big enough to both leave the kiddie pool.  It was a BLAST!  So much fun to do as a family.  The only disappointing part is that, well, there’s water involved (and lots of it) and photographing is hard!  I just couldn’t stomach the idea of a cheap disposable waterproof camera because I have a nice camera, so I risked it and took my old SLR into the park.  However, there was a reason I replaced it……it doesn’t work well anymore.  The final couple hours we played, I let the kids stay in just the kiddie pool (which they thought was a blast because of all the gizmos) and I took pictures in there.  The rest of the time, I was camera-less (which I think made my husband very happy!)  Anyway, here’s a few pictures. 

Animation of the 1,000 gallon dump bucket!

My tips for Great Wolf if you want to go: 

• Go during the slow times, mid-week, during the school year if possible.  The rates are about half and the park is more enjoyable because there are less people.
• If you want to eat on campus, eat breakfast in the buffet (it’s pretty pricey though) and get dinner off campus.  The food was nothing to write home about, especially for the price. (however, add the breakfast package to your reservations online when you make reservations, it will save you at least $15).
• If you have small children, bring your own lifejacket.  Being able to see your bright pink lifejacket in a sea of navy blue is very helpful to keep an eye on your kid.
• If you have small children (under two) PLEASE keep a lifejacket on them at ALL times.  I can’t tell you how many times I saw babies get knocked down and go underwater because they didn’t have a lifejacket on.  Oh, it made me mad!!!  Please – put a lifejacket (a good one – I’m a huge fan of Stearns, not cheap ones – they fit much better) on at ALL times.
• Keep your credit card “open” at check-in so you can use your wrist band for payment instead of having to carry cash around the facility.  That was super handy.
• Ask for a room away from the elevator.  There is a game called Magi-quest (or something like that) and on the first 4 or 5 floors there is a station near the elevators.  It is always hopping with kids and is quite noisy.