MFT March Release Countdown Day 4

I'm two-for-two so far in my quest to create something for each day of the March countdown (thanks so much for all of the kind comments yesterday, by the way.) I'm calling that a win.

Today, I repurposed the new Window Die-namics to create this grid design. I backed the grid with acetate, filled it with paper-punched confetti, and added a vellum back to the pocket so that those pops of color would be visible from the inside as well. The sentiments that I added to the front are from the Free with $60 Die-namics - Happy Trio (you'll see those later in the countdown.)

On the inside, I stamped a sentiment from the Totally Happy stamp set - I'll be using that one a TON.

You can see everything that is being debuted today, and for the remaining three days, on the MFT blog. There are some fantastic new pet-themed products that animal lovers will find irresistible. Be sure to leave a comment if you'd like to be entered into the random drawing for the daily $75 voucher!

InLinkz.com

MFT March Release Countdown Day 5

So, I've been working for My Favorite Things now for well over a year now (!) and though I've dabbled with the products and card-making in general, I've struggled with finding the time to actually make stuff. Every month, I see the new goodies, get all excited about playing with them, and then promptly run up against the next new month of new designs. Where does the time go?

This month, I've decided, is THE MONTH that I will change things and actually attempt to play along for each day of the countdown. Be gentle, I'm a scrapbooker first and a card maker-in-training.

For this card, I started with the new Blueprints 23. The Blueprints line is awesome because each includes four sketches for assembling cards with the included pieces. I began by selecting one of the sketches, and die cut a few of the elements. Where the sketch had a trio of holes down the center panel (easy to create with the three-holed die that is included!) I used the Circle Scribble Flowers Die-namics to cut the shapes, inlaying those die-cut Scribbles within the holes. A couple of stamped and die-cut leaves, the stamped sentiment, and I was done! I'll be honest, trying to take a photo (why is this so much harder than with a layout?) may have taken longer than assembling the card.

You can see everything that is being debuted today, and for the next four days, on the MFT blog. If you like what you see, make sure to leave a comment as they are awesome and give away a $75 voucher for every day of the countdown.

InLinkz.com

Blog Tour

Last week, I was tagged by the incredible Melanie to participate in a blog hop spotlighting our favorite scrapbookers. I said yes because I can't turn her down and I've been itching to get back into a blogging routine now that the kids are back in school!

1. What am I working on right now?
Too much and not enough. I'm bouncing from project to project but not finishing anything. I have multiple things in the works for my etsy shop that may or may not ever see the light of day. Personally, I'm on my third year of project life. I haven't finished a year yet...sigh. I've said it before (and was totally wrong) but I think this year, I have a laid-back system I can stick with. I still love creating traditional pages though and am struggling trying to figure out how I want to balance the two.

2. How long does it take me to create a project?
A layout? Usually two to three hours. I was much faster when I was strictly text and paper but now that I occasionally add some bits and bobs, the fiddling adds considerable time. I've been doing some card making recently (using the scraps from a layout) and that takes 30-60 minutes. I am building a nice stash to gift to my grandma at Christmas though - she's a card sending fool :)

3. What are my favorite things to create with at the moment?
Still paper. It will forever and always be paper. 75% card stock, please. Since I've started working for My Favorite Things, I've been doing LOTS of die cutting too though and even though I will never give up hand cutting, those nifty little dies do make quick work of neat little elements (and make those mass-production projects a lot more enjoyable! Halloween treats in the works...)

4. How does my writing/creating process work?
It doesn't work very well anymore. Back when it was working, it worked because I did it every single day. I drew sketches. I jotted down layout ideas. I wrote journaling...long, meaningful, expansive journaling. There was a time, a long time actually, that I was making a new layout daily. I know I'll never get back to that point but one or two a week sure would be nice. When it worked, I would look at my sketches, my photos, my journaling, and mix-and-match them all together until I had something that worked. Late nights nursing are wonderful for this kind of work. I'll never have those nights back though so I need to figure out what will fill that gap for me now.

5. How do I become inspired and stay inspired?
By working at it. The more consistently I push through the "dry" times, the more productive I am. I go back and look at the pages I've ripped from magazines, things I've pinned...the oldest stuff is the most inspiring so I always scroll to the end and work up to the newer stuff. Right now, I'm not inspired - I'm pushing though!

6. What is my signature style?
At one time, it was clean, graphic, heavily influenced by type, and journaling-centered. Now, I'm not so sure I have a signature style. Once upon a time, I think my work was recognizable - friends could pick it out of a gallery without looking at the name. Now, it's just random. And that's OK as long as I'm happy with the finished project. It's a process.

Does it seem like I'm longing for the good old days? I totally am. I've been trying so hard lately to get back to that time but the golden days, for me, took awhile to achieve. I need to remind myself of that *now.* Simply answering these questions has me more focused though - ready to work, consistently, on re-discovering that sweet spot.
___________________________

Melanie is undoubtedly one of my favorites for her clean, graphic layouts full of meaning (and have you SEEN her photography?!?) I can't choose her though (sad face) and two other favorites have already been chosen (I clearly have excellent taste) but I feel exceptionally lucky to be tagging the person I am today. Elizabeth inspires me by the way she thinks about journaling in new and interesting ways. I love the way she applies design principals in completely unique ways. She's killer at iPhonography. And she should share more scrapbooking on her blog ;)

kicking and screaming

I can't quite put my finger on it but this summer, didn't really feel like summer. It kind of slipped away from me in a way it never has before. Some of it, surely, was the fact that the weather kind of sucked. I like heat and this summer didn't provide that in a way that satisfied. What it did provide, in excess, was rain, multiple hail storms, and a lot of branches to pick up. I had a kid that decided to embrace sleeping in and that robbed us of the early morning park trips we've loved so much in the past. My eldest heading to middle school surely contributed to the malaise as well.

I usually embrace fall and the return to school and schedule but this year, fall is going to have to drag me kicking and screaming. We're a week into the school year and I'm still finding my footing. It will come...just more haltingly than in years past.

I have been having some fun doing a little scrapping recently. I've got the itch again but the time to scratch it comes in fits and starts.

Izzy celebrated a birthday.

As did Zack.

Jake did too (just two days ago, as a matter of fact) but that one hasn't been commemorated just yet.

This girl is something else.

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!

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?

project lifin'

I've documented about half of 2013 and would like to finish it up and move forward with 2014 in the same, simplified manner I adopted late in the year. One of the things I did in my 2013 album that I really loved and want to duplicate this year is the title page.

For each of the kids, I created a flip up card insert with their photo on the outside, and inside, a mini questionnaire. I love that it not only captures their likes and goals but also, their handwriting and signature. I tweaked this list for my version. I added/subtracted a couple of things and shrunk it down to fit my baseball card style pockets.

So, tomorrow, I'll work on these with them. I don't know when they will actually be turned into my 2014 PL opener, but it WILL happen.

Someday.

project life weeks 40:43

a template share

Eons ago, I bookmarked this book on Amazon solely for the cover design (though it looks like a really cool book to actually have, as well!) I knew at some point, I wanted to create a layout based on that configuration of diamonds and triangles. Finally, this morning, I set aside some time and did it.

I saved the base template as a layered psd so you can try it out as well. Grab the template here. The fonts I used are simplified but if you want to download use the same, the script is Signerica Fat and the sans serif is NeoRetroFill.

I decided to use a few photos from Halloween. It was dark and I was just using my phone so they are blurry and grainy but since the template focuses on slices and snippets, it was a good match. All of the digital elements (with the exception of that bit of gold leaf which is from Pixel & Co's DSD blog hop kit, Piccadilly) are from Paislee Press' Spellbound.

on the bandwagon...off the bandwagon...and then back on

Listen, I love the idea of project life. I love the variety of options available and the beautiful approaches people take in completing it. And I tried, I did, to do my own version of something like that. I struggled and kept up for a little bit but in the end, that just doesn't work for me. Basically, I gave up on it but then, a few weeks ago, I found Izzy oohing and aahing and "I remembering" over this:

and I knew that somehow, someway, I had to keep this up.

This morning, I knocked out four weeks worth of PL in about 3 hours. Start to finish. Selecting and printing photos, brief captions, the barest of embellishments. You guys, I think I can do this. Finally. I'm not sure it's worth sharing all four weeks because it's pretty boring. Not kidding. I'm not saying I'll stick with this photo + kraft look Every. Single. Week. but it's working for me now and I'll definitely continue in this vein while I plow my way through the backlog (not necessarily going to do all the weeks between when I fizzled out and the present but we'll see what happens.)

"hello" brush from STUDIO CALICO | dot card from STUDIO PEBBLES

heart brush from AC | hearts + "let's do this" from LLP

flip up on center right has more journaling...QR code is a link to Jake's VP speech

star and paper from PAISLEY PRESS here and here

I almost never pull out my "real" camera anymore. I'd estimate 95% of the time, I'm using my phone camera. It's terrible. But I figure for project life, I'm sticking with phone photos. That's it. No looking back. If I have a dSLR photo I have to use, I'll scrap it with a regular layout (and as little as that's happening these days, I think I may add layouts right into my PL album!)

So my process now:

1. I have my Dropbox app set to automatically back up my phone photos to my computer (which is AWESOME because the file name is the date/time the photo was taken.) Having the file name set to the date makes it so easy to quickly browse through and choose photos from the week.
2. Momento is perfect for quickly refreshing my memory (via, instagram, twitter and facebook updates) about what was happening during the week. I'm getting better about using the note feature too (which is how I remembered that quote that I found + loved in week 37 and my current playlist for week 39.)
3. I have easy templates set up for the week card as well as the caption cards (adding the social media icons for text taken directly from a tweet, facebook status or instagram upload - here's a good font for those.) I simply plugged in the text - copy and paste for many of them, and printed on kraft cardstock. 
4. Figure out where there are still holes to fill, and add what works. 
5. Cut, slide into the sleeve pockets and embellish in the most minor of ways.

One of the appeals of project life, for me, was the inclusion on kid art and little bits and pieces of life "stuff." I'm sure it will work it's way into the actual spread here and there but mainly, I'm just adding a regular letter size page protector every four weeks or so and sliding in the stuff I can't bear to part with (dated on the back, of course.)

So this is what worked for me this time. I'm hoping to spend another few hours this weekend getting current for October and then, possibly, work backwards into the months I've missed. It's maybe basic and boring but I'm going with "timeless." And done.