Week in the Life: Tuesday

Tuesday came with not as many photos, but plenty of notes.  Here is how the pages took shape:

Page 1: The weather 4 x 4.

Page 1: The tab

Page 2: The 8 x 3 run-down of the day.

Page 4: A Happy Tuesday meme with my main man, Snoopy (as Joe Cool, of course).  The Fit Bit at almost 15,000 steps when leaving school. The washi tape with the saying "Today was a challenge" on it.  The tape serves to flip a card on the next page.  The Aren't You Lovely? sentiment was printed from a kit from the Project Life app many moons ago.  It is referring to my FitBit, which shows that I killed my daily 10,000 step goal.  

Page 5: Keeping with the stripes theme, I used some We R Memory Keepers cards that I had in my stash.  I also used an Ali Edwards Technique Tuesday card to explain the 4 x 6s on the next page.

This is a card that flips up to something that was said that day.  I wanted to preserve it, but not have it assault me every time I looked at this page.  While it was not a pleasant thing, now that I am doing this weeks later, I am glad to say that the drama has died down a bit.  "She said," washi, and arrow are from Ali's kit.  I created a white frame with my Gelly Roll pen.

Page 6: Some pics from the day.  Love the song!  Gets me pumped.

Page 7: Today's final page.  I made lots of trips back and forth to work, so I thought I would document the tedious nature of the task.  I used one of Ali's stamps as a title for the photo, and I used a 4 x 6 card (I think WRMK) to jot down some other happenings (mainly funny) about the day.  It was so helpful, again, that I had taken notes.  Much would have been forgotten.

Week in the Life: Monday

So, it only took a couple months, but I finally have time and motivation to complete the days of my Week in the Life album for 2015.  Many of the ideas I have used were inspired by albums I have seen posted.  Without further ado, welcome to Monday:

Throughout each day, I tried to repeat a basic theme. I started the day with the weather: a 4 x 4 created with the InstaWeather app.  Yes, you are right.  I did not use a page protector.  What a leap for me!  Ali Edwards used a tab, but mentioned the idea of making a tab with the star washi tape included in the package.  I went with that idea.  On the tabs, I attached a saying, included in the kit, that seemed to go with the day.  I used one of the location icons each time, glued directly to the picture.   

On the flipside of the weather pic is a picture of my entry for the day from Heidi Swapp's Capture Life (Instagram).  In this case, I took a screenshot of my alarm set for 5:30 AM.

This next part is one of the more time-consuming parts.  I tried to do a direct print on to the 8 x 3 card.  It printed crooked, even after I printed over and over to try to get it straight.  So, on future pages, I will be printing a box for each area and just adhering the box.  I had to do that on the very bottom to cover up the majorly crooked area.  I covered the top of the card with some washi, and adhered the wood veneer day of the week.  It fell off a couple times, even with some string adhesive.  This last time, I used glue dots.  Fingers crossed!  

My daily notes helped a lot with journaling this part.  It's been quite a while since this week actually happened, so I am glad that I had taken time to scrawl some notes.

I am attempting to have the next pages include somewhat matching patterned cards that were included with the kit.  I decided to use the daily cards for the date and a meme appropriate for the day of the week.  This day, of course, required some Jimmy Fallon.  

On the flipside, I included a text strand from the beginning of the day and a Facebook post from the day's end. These are part of my everyday.  I used some washi to write on the patterned cards, explaining the photos I included.  The sentiment over my mess of dishes photo came with the Ali Edwards kit.

Lastly, I included a picture of me in my room, taken with my iPhone's timer option.  Also included, a picture of the Epsom salt bath that made the day a little easier to take.

I love that the expressions included in the kit are gold on white, as I am kind of in love with gold at the moment.  I noted that Ali left the perforations alone when she added these to her book, so I decided to do the same.

 The other pages should flow nicely now that I have a basic idea of what I want to do each time.  Stay tuned!

Preparing for Week in the Life

Week in the Life, as I am documenting it, begins Monday.  I am following a lot of what Ali Edwards has in her kit.  She allows for a great deal of personalization, while providing the supplies needed to make a very special documentation of what life is right now.

This is one of two 6 x 8 album choices.

I altered an AE overlay to create my title page using a photo.

I wrote the narrative for the start of my WITL album this week.  I decided to take one of Ali's 4 x 3 cards and create an overlay.  I was going to make a flap, but I liked this idea much better.

She includes a mixture of page protectors that work in a 6 x 8 album.  Accompanying the page protectors are cards that have a variety of possible uses.  I set up Monday with the "Good Morning to You" card, because it's my first contractual day back to school.  There's something about "having" to get up and go in that is a bit different than going in and working on your room little by little.

Ali included some 8 x 3 page protectors and some papers that fit in there nicely.  I liked that she included smaller 4 x 3 cards that shared a color scheme with the longer ones.

Each day I am starting with this 8 x 3 card.  I topped it with washi because I wanted to glue the wood veneer day words to the top, and the top of the card would interfere with how the veneers looked.  The wood veneers are glued to the page protectors.  Here, on Friday, I want to force myself to remember ten things about my class that I learned in the two days I will have had with them.  It was nice to have some cards like that where I already have a purpose for them.

I am planning to use my AccuWeather app on my phone to document the weather for each day as well.  Otherwise, I will allow the photos to decide the design and the story.

Grad-itude

Finally, this weekend saw the making of the graduation thank-you cards!  I had in my mind what I wanted to do, but mass production is so different from making one or two cards.  So I stayed really simple.

On white cardstock, I used the "thank you" sentiment from SU! Wishes Your Way.  The nice thing I learned is that when using the MISTI with this stamp set, I get a much more consistent image.  If I use acrylic blocks, I tend to have "wiggle issues."  Then, I used this Silhouette file made available for free from Cathy Zielske to make the cap.  That was no small adventure.  I think I need to change my blade, because it did a cruddy job of cutting the tassel.  You cannot see this, but I also added some Wink of Stella pen to the tassel.  

And that's it!  Now, they are in the boy's hands for the heartfelt sentiment part of the process.  We have a goal of getting them in the mail this week.

Happy Father's Day 2015

For our guy this year.  In addition to an EBay gift certificate (he loves buying dude clothes on EBay), I made him this card inspired by this pin.  I used some Stampin' Up! and Basic Grey paper, as well as SU! punches to make the bow ties.  The background is embossed with a Stampin' Up! embossing folder, inked, and popped up with Dimensionals.  The sentiment is part of the Hero Arts Celebrate Everyday set. I used Bazzill craft cardstock. Here's a closer look.

The inside is fairly simple.  I used an Ali Edwards Technique Tuesday stamp (Always Adore set)for the message that says it all.  Stamped on white for more pow!  

Here's to all the great dads out there, like the one my kids have!

Summer Fun!

I feel like I am truly enjoying the month of June this year.  I lovingly call it the "Friday of Summer," but sometimes the Friday of Summer flies by.  It's usually due to preparing for a crazy July or filling June with lots of stuff.  We are prepping our firstborn for college, but, honestly, that has been slow and steady as well.

This week was full of some fun cardmaking, dabbled with some scrapbooking that is not-quite-ready for photo ops just yet.

First, some cards among friends.  Our friend, Mama Kate, is moving to Florida.  So we threw her a shoebox swap to celebrate her presence in our lives.  We tried to make a card that captured the moment or captured Kate.  I think we did a great job.  Some of these cards are not "finished," as we wanted to save them for moments when we needed them.  For example, on the US card, one could color in two states from which people are separated.  For the flower card, we left the stitched oval blank to be able to choose the appropriate sentiment.

Tonight, I had some fun stamping with Lawn Fawn.  A friend of mine is going on a trip to Australia with her family as part of her son's band trip.  I felt the need for a card, of course.  I borrowed Kim's Critters from Down Under set as well as some Pinspiration from this crafter.  I also used a bit of the Bon Voyage set.

I used two Spellbinders' dies (rectangles and squares) to create the Polaroid frame.  The black frame is hand-drawn.  I loved using the woodgrain background rather than patterned paper for this one.  I think it really let the image stand out.

Loved mixing Stampin' Up! linen thread with Lawn Fawn's baker's twine.

I cut out the individual pieces with die cuts and colored them with Copics.  For the background, I sponged some Distress Inks on white cardstock.  The kookaburra is popped up.

I tried several different ways to incorporate the boomerang because I thought it was adorable.  Finally snuck it in after my sentiment inside the card.

All in all, it's been a very creative week so far!

A couple of cards

Today, I got to crank out a couple of cards with my buddy, Kim.

Card number one, an anniversary card for my hubs.

I have seen several cards like this on Pinterest, and thought I would try my hand at it.  I used my Silhouette with Impact font.  I searched on the web for a site to count the days (no, I did not sit and count the days...).  I used some newly purchased Starform heart stickers.  The cutout letters are done with Lawn Fawn patterned paper.  I used Bazzill kraft paper and black cardstock for the card, as well as a white gel pen for the border.

Card #2 is for a friend who lost a beloved pet.  

We used a couple of Simon Says Stamp sets for this one.  The cat was from You Are Pawsome. The "Always Remembered" sentiment, as well as a few sentiments on the inside, were from the Pawprints on Our Hearts set.  We used some SU! linen thread, some Basic Grey grunge paper, and some Bazzill kraft cardstock.