On Saturday, I completed two months of project life and two layouts. This is surely my most productive day of scrapping in years, or perhaps, ever. It feels good to make some headway and I'm always so happy when I'm in the process. It's such an undertaking to actually start though.

These are simple layouts...which is fine...but I need to find a way back to the journaling I used to love so much. That's my hurdle now. I used to be really good at that part and somewhere along the way, I lost it.

(It really is all that crooked/wonky...and it was intentional - promise!)

January and February 2014. I'm not doing a spread a week though it worked out to about the same number of spreads. I'm just starting at the beginning and slotting in photos/drawings/stories in sequence. Basically no structure at all. Every year, I think I've figured out how I want to do this and every year, I prove myself wrong. These are so simple I almost didn't bother sharing but figured I'd compromise by just grouping them into a single collage. In a couple of days, I'll try to knock out March (and hope for the best that I actually make it through the entire year.)

new in the shop

I just added the Wonky Monogram Journaling Cards to the shop. These are individual 3x4" color jpg files. The kit also includes black transparent png files that can be recolored and ten wonky spots that can be added to the cards to provide a good spot for journaling.

I used the black png files to create this layout, as well as the 3x4 Monthlies, a digital kraft I shared on my blog a few years ago (download here,) and a quote freebie I shared in my most recent newsletter.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Izzy's list

Her list to tackle upon waking up (read bottom to top...because that's how she rolls:)

first stretch then
brush my teeth
then get dressed
then get ready for school
then go to school

things

• Daylight Savings can bite me
• I'm so sad that True Detective is over. Fastest 8 weeks ever.
• I have swung so wildly from OMG SO HAPPY, to HOW CAN THINGS GET ANY WORSE the past few weeks that I'm sea sick
• I've been working two days a week (or less depending on the whims of Mather Nature this winter) at my dad's print shop and it's been so good, because, paper. I remember how I fell in love with it all those years ago when I would spend time there playing with custom notepads made just for me and those letraset rub-ons. Sigh. I started in October and it's worked so perfectly for me.
• In December, I started working for My Favorite Things as well. And also, wonderful. The products are top notch (I'm kind of loving my die cutting machine and learning to stamp!) and the people are AMAZING. I'm a lucky girl.
• The box of Lucky Charms that I bought for myself and hid (to eat when the kids were at school or, um, during late-night work sessions) was totally worth it.
• My new Mac is so pretty. I didn't realize how much harder I was working on my old computer. 

• I've been scrapbooking a bit here and there and even though it takes me ages to pull a layout together (it used to take me 15 minutes! what the hell happened?) I'm enjoying it. Maybe it's taking me a long time because I'm tackling really time consuming techniques. Like hand-stitching in ombre with 6 different floss colors.

• Some of them are fast though. (There's a paper Jake wrote for school about having Zack for a brother tucked inside that flip up. It's pretty much the sweetest thing ever but not for me to share.)

• I did that layout based on this:

• I loved the colors of that design too though so I took some filler card inspiration that I had saved ages ago (and I don't have the source, which is SO unlike me so if you recognize the patterns, please let me know!) and made these. You can download them here.

• I have a little printable freebie (in 5x7" and 3"4") that I'll share in my newsletter tomorrow. If you're a fan of Downton Abbey, you might like it :) (sidebar: Carson + Hughes trumps any other couple on the show. Please, please, please make that happen next season.) You can sign up for the newsletter over in the sidebar if you're interested!
• And how are all of you?