Project Life - Week of January 23 - 29, 2012...

With each new week I am learning things about Project Life. I can't get over how much fun it is, trying to capture little details of our everyday life! This week again, I tackled it a little at a time, as the week evolved, and then at the end of the week, I added the finishing touches and journaling.

Here's my spread for January 23 - 29 (click on image to enlarge)...



Closeup of left side...
This week I worked a lot on developing my new system for keeping track of both my work and personal life. The "think, create, record" bit was a sleeve around one of the new journals I bought at Target for the aforementioned system. :0) The wolf/peace collage is a photo of an art journal page from the week. The bottom left corner is a piece of a Papaya Art Calendar, with alpha stickers attached to spell dream. They were red, so I colored them black with a sharpie.


Closeup of right side...

Highlights here are Michael's handwriting on the little brown bag with the purple napkin stitched in. It's a personal reminder for him of a special memory of the week. In the top right corner is an email from Renee that I wanted to remember. It's about attending a special retreat in September. More to come on that. I cut a piece of a calendar photo to create the 4x6 backdrop. My fave photo of the week is the black and white of Willie. It captures the peaceful feeling that surrounded our whole week.

I'm absolutely in love with Project Life. To find out more about it, click here.

Now I'm off to start on Project 12 for January. I've been struggling with how to incorporate Project 12 into my Project Life album; but I have an idea. I will let you know how it works out! For more info on what Project 12 is, click here to go to it's creator's blog - Davinie Fiero.

Thanks for visiting and for your comments. I really appreciate them!

Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews at Scrapping The Music...

The new song is up at Scrapping The Music! It's "I'm Alive" by Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews! I hope you will want to come and play with us! Here's how my layout turned out...

I just love driving the quiet roads of northern Minnesota. I go up there every month or two to see clients, and it's a wonderful time for reflection. There's something so peaceful about it. On the particular day that I took this picture, there had just been a sun shower and the sky was brilliant and sparkly!

I used some of my Studio Calico Field Guide kit, plus Julie Balzer's Clouds Stencil, and some lemondrop twine from The Twinery. The little orange bird is a rub-on from Paper House, and the splatters are OA Sprinklers.

The design team did some seriously inspiring work for this challenge! Click here to check it out. I hope you will want to play along with us!

Tomorrow I will be back with Project Life Week 5. Thanks so much for visiting!

Right Now...

I'm playing along with the Studio Calico CHA-Ganza Online crop this weekend, and having tons of fun!

I've also been meaning to work on some of the Log Your Memory Time Capsule prompts, so I decided to combine the two, and here's the result...
The Log Your Memory prompt is part of the "Projects and Pursuits" section. It answers the question about what kind of journal(s) your keep. I go back and forth between having tons of journals going at once, or just a few. These are the ones I've got going right now. If you want to know more about the LYM Time Capsule prompts, click here.

The two CHA-Ganza challenges I played along with on this are 1. Use a doily, and 2. Use stitching for texture. Check out the challenges here.

Now I'm off to work on this week's Project Life, and hopefully, find time to do some more CHA-Ganza challenges too. What are you up to this weekend?

Thanks so much for visiting my friends!

A Year In The Life of an Art Journal...

I'm so excited to be playing along with "A Year In The Life of an Art Journal" again this year! The theme for 2012 is "Whatever and Whatnot;" and they are working this year to bridge the gap between scrapbooking and art journaling, which sounds pretty cool to me!

Here are the basics for the first prompt:

THE PROMPT: Word
ie: along the lines of One Little Word, choose one word that embodies the way you want your year to be LIVED.
THE STUFF: Imagery
ie: Use images, clippings... all to create the FEELING of the word you choose.
THE TECHNIQUE: PAINT/DOODLE
ie: paint and doodle on your images to further create the emotion of your word.

Sound like fun? I thought so too. Here's how my page turned out (click on image to see the details)...
The word I chose for this year is "Peace." Sometimes I feel like the world is spinning around me and I can't keep up! (Maybe I've mentioned that before?) HA. 2011 was a difficult one. I felt like I was missing my inner peace; and I want to bring it back. So, peace is my word for 2012.

Imagery includes clouds (using Julie Balzer's stencil), a wolf (cut from a greeting card); a butterfly and meditating woman (from O magazine); a moose at a mountain lake (from a thrifted photography book); and the large daisy (cut from a cocktail napkin). There are lots of little images too, snuck in with stamps and rubons. My favorite part is the bubbles. I've never drawn bubbles before, and it was fun to give it a try. When I get stressed, I sometimes imagine my worry being encased in a bubble and floating away; so it seemed appropriate to add them to this page.

The doodling part was done with a small paintbrush and acrylic paint mixed with gesso, to make it stand out against the dark background.

If you want to find out more about the "A Year In The Life of an Art Journal" prompts, click here!

Thanks so much for visiting my friends! I appreciate you!!!

Stamp Carving 101 and Project Life Week 5...

I've got lots to share today and I'm so excited about it! I'm taking Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's "Stamp Carving 101" workshop and I'm having tons of fun! I've always wanted to make my own stamps, and Julie's teaching style makes it seem so easy!

Here's my very first stamp, along with some Project Life journal cards that I made with it....
I used "Moo Carve" and I really like it. It's rubbery, like one of those white erasers. It's also super thick so it's easy to hang onto when stamping.

We are on lesson three already, and each one gets progressively more involved. I will share more soon!

and now, on to Project Life Week 4! It was a busy week, full of social events, activities and projects.

I tried something new this week - I worked on my layout a little each day. I LOVED doing it that way, and plan to continue! It made it much easier for me! At the end of the week, I just added some finishing touches and I was done - yeayyy!

Here's how the layout turned out (click on image to see it larger)...


Closeup of left side...Special things to note: I included a copy of a beautiful ATC that my sister Renee made for me awhile ago. I love it so much I keep it displayed in my scraproom; and it was a perfect fit to honor Martin Luther King day. I also included a post-it note from Michael that was waiting for me when I returned from my Scrap Retreat! (I asked his permission first tho - thanks sweetheart!) I also included one of my new heart-stamped cards, along with the advertisement for Julie's class. The pink quote is a free printable.

Closeup of right side...
Things to note here: I copied a Netflix envelope to back the photo of the series I am watching (Damages - love it!). The black and white building is a postcard from a place I went for lunch this week. I also LOVE that Michael agreed to write the journaling for the 21st - yeayyy! The black and white tape is 7 Gypsies paper tape - one of my go-to styles. The green tongue photo is my fave of the week! HA. Michael sent it to me via iphone, along with the photo of the fun-dip he was enjoying at work. :0)

So, that's it for this week! Thanks for visiting and I will see you again soon!

"I Feel Good" at Scrapping The Music!

Happy Monday everyone! The new song is up at Scrapping the Music, and it's James Brown's "I Feel Good"! I had so much fun doing my layout - I gave it a little twist on the lyrics. Here's how it turned out...

Come on over to the STM blog (Click here) to see what I had to say about it and find out more about the challenge. Hope to see you there!!!

Project Life Week #3: January 9 - 15, 2012...

I finished another week of Project Life my friends, and I am telling you this project is fun, fun, FUN!

Here's how it turned out...
My main activity for the week was a scrapbook retreat with my girlfriends, so there is a lot about that; but also some random photos of everyday life, combined with lots of misc. stuff.

Closeup of left side (click to enlarge)...
I included the little Geico Gecko cuz, well, I like him! And I am thinking little bits of pop culture are great to include, cuz looking back on them will be fun as the years go by! The photo of Johnny (our cat) is a black and white that I altered by painting the background and highlighting his eyes. Also noted was the arrival of two new magazine subscriptions (I just cut the subscription card in half and it fit perfectly!), the daily weather (I got my notepad at Blick, but it's also available online here), the sticker from my latest Cocoa Daisy kit, and a cat food refill day photo (grin). The Georgia O'Keefe quote came from O Magazine.

Closeup of right side...
The photos of my retreat center came from the web. Also included a photo of a text I got from Michael while I was gone, a scan of my new iphone case (LOVE), my morning clif bar package, and a couple of art projects I created. The journaling card on the bottom left is from the Clementine kit, and the one second from the right on the bottom is from the Cobalt kit.

If you are doing Project Life this year - how is it going for you? I'd love to hear!

Thanks for visiting!

Heaven is Beneath our Feet...

Hi everyone! I've got a couple of quick shares for you today. The first one is a layout I created while at my girls scrap retreat last weekend. It was inspired by the quote, which I got from my friend Lynn - thanks Lynn! The photo of the tulips was taken by Michael...


I used a combination of elements from my Cocoa Daisy December and January kits, plus some bits from my stash. The blue clouds were cut from the back side of the Sunshine paper and glued onto the front.


The next one is last week's Scrapping The Music project, which I can't believe I forgot to share with you! Ack - what is wrong with me??? Oh well, anyhoo, it was inspired by the Selena Gomez song "Who Says"...
I love the line in the song that says "It's like a work of art that never gets to see the light." It makes me think of so many women I've known (including me in the past) who can't see their own beauty because of someone pushing them down. That inspired me to make this art journal page to celebrate the beauty that is in all of us!!!

I finished my Week Three of Project Life and once again had a BLAST doing it! What a fun project!!! I will share soon.

I wish you a wonderful weekend my friends! And p.s. There's still time to join this week's challenge at Scrapping the Music! Click here to check it out - you won't be sorry!

The New Challenge is up at Scrapping The Music!

Hey there everyone! The new challenge at Scrapping The Music this week is the song "Care" by Kid Rock! I chose this one cuz I love it, and I thought the lyrics were perfect for Martin Luther King day, which we celebrate today here in the United States. I loved making this layout! Here's how it turned out...

The big photo of the earth came from my Living Earth iphone app. The middle photo is one I took on one of our neighborhood walks, and the bottom one is of me meeting our new niece Georgie for the first time. I used my Studio Calico "Field Guide" kit for this one, plus bits and pieces from my stash.

Come on over to the Scrapping The Music Blog to check out the challenge! I hope you will want to play along!!!

I've been at a Scrap Retreat for the past four days and had so much fun! I will be back soon with some things to share from the retreat, plus a Project Life post.

Thanks so much for visiting and see you again soon!

Project Life Week #2: January 2 - 8, 2012...

This was a significant week for me, and it was a challenge to capture it in a Project Life layout that I'd actually want to look at. If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you may remember that my mom was killed in a car crash almost a year ago now. Here's the post I wrote about it back then. This past week Michael and I flew to California for the conclusion of the court proceedings in her case. It was both a very difficult week and also a good week because it brought some closure to what has been a painful process. The Orange County Register did a really nice job with an article about it that you can see here.

In the end, I am really happy with how the layout turned out, and I'm really excited to share it with you! Here we go...

This week I used the the Clementine kit, memorabilia and stuff from my stash.


Here's a closeup of the left side...
Noted: A meeting I attended at Interact Center (I love the look of their sign and building); Lunch at the Veggie Grill in California (people were blurred out for privacy), Scrapping The Music's first week of 2012, Michael's current novel, and the beginning of Nat Kalbach's online creativity summit.

The January Calendar is a free printable from Owl Barn. The journaling spot is one that folds open for lots of writing space. The quote on the grey striped paper is from the Fray - it seemed appropriate for this week.


Here's a closeup of the right side...
Noted: a new favorite eating spot, my sister Renee's new condo, a trip to Blick, and our hotel room in California.

The pink and white striped background on the top left is actually the toilet paper wrapper from our hotel! HA. It was just so cute I had to use it. The image of the brownie torte is from the internet. I also included our keycard from the hotel (it's grey and white) - again - too beautiful to pass up. The "faith" bingo card is from Jenni Bowlin. I tucked a copy of my victim impact statement and the newspaper article behind the Los Angeles postcard. Then I don't have to see it each time I look at the spread; but it's there if I ever want to.

Thanks so much for visiting and for your comments - I really appreciate them!

Answering Your Project Life Questions...

Hi everyone!
I want to thank you all for your response to my first week of Project Life! I want to take some time to respond to your questions and comments.

Keep in mind that I am just a beginner at this, and I know I will be tweaking my system as I go along!

Candy Bryant said:
Interesting that you chose Monday through Sunday.
I'm pretty sure the rest of the Project Lifers' work Sunday through Saturday. I do! Especially since the first was Sunday.
It's true - starting on Monday was a bit awkward since the first was on a Sunday, but here's the scoop: My brain just tends to see weeks as starting on Monday. I work full-time, so my work week starts on Monday and ends on Friday, with the weekend finishing out my week. Also, I use a MyAgenda planner, which also (conveniently for me!) starts weeks on Monday. My Project Life just follows that pattern.

Dawn asked:
Was wondering how you will decide what items and photos to put in your Project life and which ones for art journal? Now that I'm doing both for the first time would love to see your thoughts on this.
My approach to this is that Project Life gets first dibs, if that makes sense. I've been taking photos and collecting "stuff" randomly. The photos stay on my computer organized by date, and the "stuff" goes in a pile, unsorted. Then, when it comes time to put together my Project Life page, I choose the item(s) that best tell the story of my week and use those. I look at what's left after I'm done; and either put it in my art journal or throw it away.

Ravenous Rae said:
I had no idea your song journal pages were so small! Interesting to see the actual size!!
My song journal pages are actually 12" x 12". I just took photos of them and printed them out 2" x 2" for my Project Life layout. I thought the photos were a good way to tell the story of my week.

Marcia asked:
Are you planning to add things every day of the whole year?
I'm planning to represent my whole year, but not necessarily add things each day. I have to take a loose approach to this project or it could drive me crazy! My plan as of right now, is to average a week to each two-page spread, but that could change as I go along. If I miss a day, or a week I'm not going to worry. This is definitely an experiment for me!

I hope this helps! I'm working on a post for Project Life, week #2. It should be ready by tomorrow some time. Thanks so much for visiting, and I will see you then!

The New Challenge is up at Scrapping The Music!

Hi everyone! I'm working on my Q & A post, but in the meantime, I want to let you know that the new challenge is up at Scrapping The Music!

The song is "Who Says" by Selena Gomez. The lyrics are full of inspiration for scrapping! The challenge goes until Sunday evening, so head on over to check it out! We'd love to have you play along!

See you again soon!

Q & A Post Coming...

Hi everyone!
Thanks for your kind response to my first Project Life post! I just want to let you know that I will be away from blogland for a few days tending to some family business, but when I return I will do a post answering the questions you've been posting.

Please feel free to add more questions to this post or the Project Life post, and I will do my best to answer them when I return.

Have a great weekend!

Project Life Week #1: December 26, 2011 - January 1, 2012

I finished my first week of Project Life and it was so much fun! I feel like I have a whole new medium to play with. I don't usually work with a grid that much, plus having all of these little pieces to fit together feels like a game! I actually lost track of time on Sunday night and stayed up all night! All of a sudden the sun was coming up and I wasn't even tired! HA.

Anyhoo, here's how my layout turned out...


Closeup of the left side...

Closeup of the right side...
This week I used the Cobalt kit, plus items from my stash. Deb Duty had asked if I was going to use both Clementine and Cobalt in the same book, and the answer is yes! I loved them both so much I had to buy them both! So I will be mixing and matching. Thanks for the question Deb!

I was especially excited to use some of my new Ormolu flair badges. I used a Fact or Fiction Days of the Week on the left side, and a numbers on the right side. Miscellaneous ephemera included Caribou coffee sleeve, sticker from my new shelving unit (on the bottom of the bright rainbow-colored journaling tag), and two candy wrappers - one from Christmas Candy and one came with my new Noel Mignon kit.

This is my first blogpost about Project Life, so I'm still trying to figure out the best things to include. If you have any questions, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them!

If you have started Project Life - how is it going? Are you having fun???

Thanks for visiting and I will see you again very soon!

Scrapping The Music is Live....

I'm so excited because the first challenge of 2012 is up at Scrapping The Music! The song this week is "Piece of My Heart" by Janis Joplin. It's a classic rocker with great lyrics for scrapping!

Here's how my layout turned out...
I've been thinking alot about STM lately, and how much it means to me. I'm so excited to be back, and I'm really hoping we bring some fun inspiration to our participants! It seemed like the perfect time to put my feelings in a layout!

The photo is a collage of some of my earliest Scrapping The Music layouts. (click on the image to see more details). They include the first one I ever did as a participant; the first one I won a challenge with, and the first one I did as a design team member, plus a couple of other personal favorites.

I hope you want to play along with us! Click here to check it out! There's a fun prize, a video of the song, and all of the other design team members layouts!

Hope to see you there!

Happy New Year!!! - It's Time for Project Life!

2012 is finally here and I couldn't be more excited about it. New Year's Eve is my favorite holiday, and it feels extra-good this year to be letting go of the current year and welcoming a new one.

This is my first official Project Life post - yeayyyyy! I've been waiting to start this endeavor for months now, and it's so much fun to finally get started.

Here's how my title/intro page turned out...

It was even more fun to put together than I hoped it would be. I loved playing with the colors, pulling things from my own stash to complement the PL products. I used the Clementine kit, plus magazine cut outs, rub-ons, stamps, and various embellies. I think color is going to be my driving factor with these pages.


Here's how my Project Life station looks...
The tall white organizer thing (I think it's from Making Memories?) on the left is holding the Clementine Patterned Papers, and other papers that I'm planning to use for this project. The little drawers on the bottom hold various chipboard and sticker numbers that will be good to add dates to the pages.

Next to that is a box (from Stampin' Up but I think it's discontinued), that holds alpha and number stamps, and various stickers and rubons.

The two tiny boxes are two sets of alpha stamps, and next to that is a Cigar Box with yet another set of alpha stamps.

Here's how I set up the Project Life Kit...
In front I have the official Project Life core kits. Cobalt on the left, and Clementine on the right. I took the cards out of their individual boxes, and sorted them by type. Journaling in the back, and filler-type cards in the front.

I tipped the box lids upside down and used them to store miscellaneous Non-Project Life journaling cards, plus labels and other doo-dads that I hope will come in handy.

I'm going to keep this set up right there on my desk along with my album, so I can work on it in bits and pieces if I want.

I will let you know how it works! If you are starting (or already doing) Project Life - I'd love to see how you are organizing your supplies! Please feel free to link us up!

HAPPY NEW YEAR my friends! Thanks so much for visiting my blog!!! I really appreciate each one of you!!!