Project Life Update and End of School Craft/Gift

I cannot believe this is the eighth week I have been consistently doing Project Life as a {somewhat} Picture of the Day project.  I am really enjoying/becoming obsessed with it.  I believe the last layout I posted was the one my son completed with my help.  The week after that was his dad's turn.  Here are the shots I got from the man:

It took over a week to convince the hubs that the journaling in his writing was important to me.  I feel pretty accomplished, as he was NOT comfortable writing stuff down.

After that week, I regained the role of archivist:

I used some 12 x 12 papers from Simple Stories for some of the larger 4 x 6 areas.  I also used my new Techinique Tuesday journaling cards from Ali Edwards.  Love them, the fact that they go great horizontally or vertically, and are reversible (you shall see how I used both sides.

Here's a close up of the flap technique that I used yet again:

Also of note: my photo was one that I chose to be 4 x 3, as it was a screen shot from my phone and was not about to crop well in the alternate orientation needed.  I needed quite a bit of journaling space, so the flap worked splendidly as I wrote about a "Holy Spirit moment" that day.

This past week, I dipped in to the Rain edition digitals that I have from AC digitals.  Instant love.

I also used a Close to My Heart 4 x 6 Flip Flap for the additional pics of Fun Run.  It has an adhesive strip and fits perfectly in the layout.  Note the "Summer is Awesome" stamp, again Technique Tuesday Ali Edwards, a gift from crafting bud and fellow teacher, Ann Cox, in celebration of the end of the school year.

This week, I also made a cute little present, CASED from a couple of great blog posts out there.  

As a teacher, I love Sharpies, so I thought these might bring smiles.

I also attended a Stamp-A-Stack at Karen Kelly's where I made fun and fabulous one-layer cards using washi tape and fun stamps.  This was an awesomely creative week!  And school is officially out!  

Next week, my son takes his band trip to NYC.  He has not been away from home for a week since Scout camp at age 10.  I am anticipating this will go better, but who knows?  Stay tuned.  He is supposed to send me a photo a day.

National Scrapbooking Day

With fervor I participated in the Creative Crop through Big Picture Scrapbooking.  If you have not signed up for your free membership, you are missing out!  There is a totally free Project Life Community on there!  Plus, the Creative Crop is a free day of challenges (with prizes) every year. They had chats throughout the day with some great designers.

So, one of the things I did that day was create a cool flap for one of my PL pages, thanks to a challenge by Aly Dosdall.

Because one pic for a visit to Chuck E Cheese is never enough.  I used tacky tape to secure a 3 x 4 flap cut from a PL page protector (an older one), and then secured it with some chevron tacky tape from Queen and Co.  A great way to add pics to a page without making a gigantic layout.

This next layout was to document a significant relationship in my life for which I am grateful.  The wonderful Stephanie Howell inspired us to come up with a simple story in a simple layout.

I could have chosen several, but I started with my elder son and me. Love that kid more than oxygen.  

This next page was a triple challenge whammy.  1. Stray from your "comfort zone" in some way (May Flaum inspired). 2. Incorporate arrows in your journaling (the fabulous Ali Edwards, of course). 3. Use the given sketch as a springboard (provided by the talented Donna Jannuzzi).

Patterned paper mixes with patterned paper: definitely out of my zone.  And journaling on patterned paper...yeah.  I stayed somewhat true to the sketch provided.  You will note the incorporation of arrows in a few spots.

We were asked to fill out an I Statement list by Stacy Julian. This was to get the creative juices flowing as to what stories need to be told.  Here is my list:

We were also challenged to create a summer "bucket list."  Here's my take on Tami Morrison's challenge:

We were given an option to use the Fuzel app, and I fell in love with that one by the amazing Angie Lucas.  We were also encouraged to use recent pics from our phones.  No prob!

Needless to say, I knocked off a great deal in a 48-hour period.  So grateful to all of the awesome designers who presented the challenges to us!

In which the 16 year old became the archivist...

All I had to say was, "Hey, how about you take a photo a day next week?"  Here's is Iggy P.'s Project Life Week. Click for a larger view.

Oh yeah, there was a trip to the Scrapbooking Studio on National Scrapbooking Day.  I happened upon these 4 x 3 and 4 x 6 cards from Sn@p Studio by Simple Stories.  How perfect were they for a young man's page?  He also visited the scrapbook store and picked out his very own Thickers for the page!  I had so much fun reading his stuff and seeing what pics he would choose for the week.  Next week: his dad will be contributing.

PL and Freebies Galore!

I have been a craftinista as of late.  I will share a few things at a time so as not to overwhelm.

First, a Project Life update.  Here are the layouts I created to document Max's First Communion (click on each for larger versions).

Page 1 with an 8 x 8 insert (page 1.5, if you will...) of a letter written by Max; A Day to Remember and Extraordinary Day cards made available through this site.

Page 2, using a smaller, but more versatile PL divided page protector, Design G.  Title card for page available through this creative designer.

The flipside of Design G.  I broke in to some of my AC Digitals Midnight Edition for this page.  I also used the 6 x 12 page protector from PL, but cut a smidge from it so that it was accessible.

And guess who designed these cards?  Yours truly!  Can you believe it?  Max LOVES this psalm and walks around singing it.  I had to incorporate it somehow.  Here is the .pdf for them.  Enjoy!

This strayed a bit from my POD pacing, but I knew this week would render lots of photos.  That's the awesome thing about PL. It is so versatile and totally up to the crafter as to what road you take.