Project Life 2014 - Week 51 (December 15th - December 21st)

I am blogging a Project Life spread, can you believe it?!? Its a Christmas miracle!! Haha

I have been terrible about sharing my weekly spreads on the blog and I promise I will try harder with my 2015 album to share (that starts next week already, isn't that crazy?!) Anyways..we have been looking thru the album lately and, even though I am pretty far behind in my spreads, it brings us so much joy to sit down as a family and look through our year!

Today I am sharing last weeks (Week 51) spread that I just completed (and absolutely LOVE!) its festive and full of my little man..so to me, perfection ;) Enjoy!!

Here is the 2 page spread with both inserts:

this week we split our time between the farm and my hometown as we spent the long weekend with my family, celebrating our christmas together..

here is the 2 page spread with the inserts removed:

a closer look at the left hand side page:

and the right hand side page:

for my first insert, I cut a page protector in half and just used the 3 - 3x4 slots to put in each of our first christmas photos with Santa! I love this so much, seeing all three of us together. I think I will still put a small label on each photo to identify us and our years but, for now I just wrote it on the photo for the blog!

for the second insert, I used a 5x7 of Hudson after his nap that I just loved and had to include

and the back of the insert is a photo of Hudson and my nieces, after they exchanged their Christmas presents to each other on Sunday..I so, so SO love seeing these three together!!

I have many weeks to catch up on for our 2014 album but I am so motivated now that I have been able to keep caught up throughout November and December! This album starts with our first week on January, waiting on baby..and ends with him celebrating his first Christmas..such a special year to capture in one place.

Now today, my mom is on her way to the farm and Santa will be on his way tonight to deliver goodies to all the good boys and girls..Merry Christmas everyone..

These are a few of my favourite things..

Hey guys!

I know it has been a very long time since I shared or discussed anything crafty on here but, to be honest, I haven't made a single thing since I packed up my belongings last October for our move here to the farmhouse! Every box was placed in the basement, renovations began and then Hudson came along and before I knew it..crafting had gone by the wayside :( But now, I'm itching to set my studio back up and get into the swing of things, especially with the holidays around the corner!

Now, I don't know about you but I am a huge sucker for holiday crafting supplies. I buy them up like candy and admire them year round..yes, I am that kind of person ;) Anyways, I have been anxiously awaiting the new holiday stamp catalogues these last few weeks so imagine my delight when I realized today was the day for the new 2014 Stampin Up holiday booklet! I love this company and buy their holiday stamps every year and this year? Wow they created some AMAZING sets! I giddily flipped thru their book and my wish list just kept going, and going, and going. I thought I would share with you a few of my favourite things from Stampin Up today, I know its only August but, the holidays will be here before you know it!

I love this image so much. The beautiful papers and homemade tags just feel so cozy! I love this page from the catalogue so much that I created a 3x4 just for this weeks PL spread. Now, that might sound silly to you but for me, Project Life is about what goes on in our daily lives. Documenting the ordinary and the extraordinary. Holiday crafting is a big thing for me and remembering days like today are what its all about in my album!!

Okay, so on to a few of the gorgeous goodies that have my mind swirling with ideas!

Okay so probably one of the things that really excited me was the new Project Life Cards by Stampin Up, they feature Fall & Christmas themed cards to really help wrap up your albums these final months of 2014. Here is a closer look!

On the left is the Card Collection and on the right is the Accessory Pack full of printed transparencies, labels, enamel dots..you name it!! And they also have come out with a Project Life Holiday stamp set!! I absolutely love it! They also came out with the stamp set in digital brushes you can download..genius!

And finally, 2 more stamp sets that I am very excited to start using

The gratitude for days stamp set will be my weekly prompt to stop and think about what I am truly grateful for that week. Its a practice I have realized I need to begin doing to sometimes remind myself of how blessed I truly am.

And the seasonally scattered stamps? How gorgeous are they!?!

All in all, I found inspiration on every single page and LOVE what they came out with for this coming holiday season. If you want to check out the PDF for yourself, hop on over to there site here and take a gander!

Every year I take our holiday photo and order our Christmas cards to mail out to family and friends. This year, however, I am tackling the job myself! Creating homemade cards for friends and family will be a little labour of love that I am looking forward to starting! Hope I have inspired you today to get those crafting supplies out and create something today!!

Project Life - Week 22

{click on the photos to enlarge them and make them a little bit clearer}

Week 22 is in the books!! No, I am not caught up {not even close} but since I'm so far behind and just choosing weeks at random to complete, I figured this past week was as good as anywhere to begin! Last week was a very full week, nothing truly out of the ordinary but I have 3 inserts along with my main pages!! The inserts I chose focus on us opening up the cabin, the construction going on in the dome home, my chicken Eleanor, my niece's 1st birthday party and a beautiful evening in the meadow with my hubby.

So, lets get started! Here is the full main spread:

Because we had snow last week {who gets snow at the end of May?!?} I had to make a photo of it the title page for this week, then I included photos of how muddy my garden ended up being..it was devasting but I am happy to report that most of my garden survived!!

On the right hand side is a mish mash of photos taken throughout the week. I stole a shot of my baby, Jake, sleeping on the porch and just because I love it as much as I do, I included it in my spread. I also included random shots taken throughout with the week that I loved and ended it with a photo of my niece and I at her first birthday party.

The first insert is all about Adam & I opening up the cabin. Its a tradition I love because it signals the beginning of summer {and triggers a flood of childhood memories} and so I felt it was very important to include it in the album.

On the backside of Insert 1 I included photos of all the construction work that went on during that week as well as wrote a little blurb about my feelings on the construction, etc. I am so happy it is underway but I have to be honest, it can ber very overwhelming and frustrating and, again, I wanted to make note of that because I want to be able to look back at this album years down the line and remember what life was truly like for us during this time!

Insert 2 is really just two 8x8 photos of chickens..lol. The first one is of Eleanor sitting on my shoulder and the backside is Eleanors first big adventure outside..because it all happened last week, it went in to the album!

Insert 1

Insert 2

Insert 3..my youngest niece turns 1 on June 7th and her birthday party was this past weekend. I drove home just for the party and I am so glad I did. The shots I was able to grab were fantastic and truly something I'll want to keep forever. I know that this is NOT the last of these photos, I think I will be doing some traditional layouts with these photos as well

On the reverse side of this insert, I included a bunch of photos from Saturday night, when I got home from my nieces party. I jumped in the sprayer with Adam and rode around for a couple of hours and in that time period we saw the most amazing rainbow and came across a beautiful meadow with a pond that shimmered in the setting sun, so we stopped, took photos and they went right in to this album!

And that was week 22 of Project Life!! I love this project so much and I cannot wait to look back and see what happened every single week of our first year of marriage...such a cool memory keeper!! Have a great Tuesday everyone, we are battling nasty, nasty winds here so I think today will be a crafty type of day ;)

Project Life Week 5

I figured since I am so far behind in PL (but still determined to get er done) I'm going to have myself a party and do weeks at random! Sound good? I chose to work on Week 5 the other day for 2 reasons:

1) Week 5 was my Birthday week {yay!}, and
2) Week 5 was the week we left for Hawaii

This week included an insert just because there were just so many pictures that I didn't want to disclude

Let's take a closer peek at the left hand side first

There really is no order to my photos this week, they are pretty much a jumble of the wonderful vacation we had and I didn't want to leave any of them out! I also included a postcard we picked up in Hawaii, just because I loved it :) In the "This Week" journalling card I documented what we did each day for our first week in Hawaii but in simple terms..not a lot of documentation going on this week

On the Right hand side:

On the right hand side I included photos of some of our stops or favorite scenic views as well as a photo of the farmers market and luau we went to on my birthday. In the journalling cards I went in to further detail about our week in Hawaii as well as my top 5 favorite details of the week! So fun!

The insert I included for the week was mainly photo based, minus a journalling card that was stamped with the days of the week:

The reverse side of the insert:

And that my friends is Week 5 in the books! Its such a great feeling to get these memories/photographs down and in the album. Especially now when I am so far behind on this project! But, I do have to admit, its kind of fun to go back in to the first 1/3 of the year and relish the memories again!! How are you doing with your PL albums?

Project Life Week 1 & Cover Page

Oh yeah - I'm that far behind..

I just received my Big Pack of Design A Page Protectors in the mail 2 weeks ago and have been setting things up since and slowly getting caught up {I have 13 weeks to work on, gulp}. But, I am determined to get it done, get caught up and keep this project going. Every time I start a project like this, I never see it through. This time though, I have a purpose..a lifetime record of what our first year of marriage entailed is exactly what I want Project Life to be, and for that reason alone, I will not give up.

Thankfully, I followed Michelles advice and bought a day planner where I have written every little thing down that I thought would matter {thank God for this!} and I have photographed every minute in our lives that I could, right down to the food I have been making for my farmer ;)

Now, Project Life used to mean to me that I needed a family - what else was I going to record? I was dead wrong. I so wish I would have done this project over the last few years..just to see how my life has changed!! But, I'm doing it for 2012 and I'm so excited to keep taking the photographs, jot down the memories and finally put it together into my album{s} so that we can look through it for years to come!! As with any project, this week I felt a little rusty in my scrapping skills and not 100% happy with the result - and thats okay. Its just important that I got it together! Settling in to my own Project Life style will take some time and I will get there..and, on December 31st when I look back over this album, I'll also be able to see how my style changed through the year...and thats pretty exciting too!

Okay, so here is my Cover Page:

I wanted to keep it fairly simple & let the photos speak for themselves. I used a couple of our engagement photos and a wedding photo that I love of ours to tell the story of what our album is about

Week 1 was filled with goal setting for the year, baking, cooking, burning day in the yard, concrete work for the boys and finally setting up our bbq on the deck!!

Here's a closer look of the left hand side:

All products used were either Project Life, Martha Stewart or some random pieces from my stash. I was so excited when I found this misc. stamp set that had fun sayings to add to my insert cards

A closer look of the right hand side:

On the right hand side I made a note discussing my very first "burning day" experience as well as filled in another card with specifics of what each day in that particular week entailed {again, thank God I kept a day planner for this or else I would have never remembered any of it!}

And that, folks is {finally} my first week completed of Project Life!! Only 12 more weeks to go to be caught up...ugh  ;) Have a great Tuesday everyone!!!

love,

 dawn

Total & Utter Randomness...

Hey Everyone!!

I hope you all had an amazingly wonderful weekend!! Preferably in an area that did not get hit by that freak winter storm??!? (Okay yes, it is the middle of January..but you CANNOT drop 20 degrees in 1 day and not complain!!) I had plans of coming home to the city to visit my family yesterday but due to the storm, I stayed at the farm an extra night and came home today. Needless to say, I am missing my hubs back at the farm now but quite cosy in my old bedroom at the folks' house for a few days while I fill up on good 'ol city vibes ;)

Speaking of which, matter #1 I wanted to take care of was to stop by the photo centre where I have been sending all of my Project Life photos so I could get down to documenting my first 2 weeks of January..upon arriving at said photo centre I was informed that my photos were nowhere to be found..nowhere. Even though I received a confirmation email 5 days ago that my order was complete...nadda...ugh. So, I have resubmitted my order to a different photo centre and will be picking these up this week before returning home!! I really can't wait!
Any of you out there attempting PL without the Design A Photo Protectors?!? I have read that others are printing their photos and jotting down notes so that when the protectors are back in stock next month, they can begin documenting their PL...I don't know about you but I know myself and, if I don't work on it now, I never will!! So, with that in mind I have taken to writing down my notes in my daily agenda, plus sticking my photos in to a photo sleeve that holds 6 horizontal 4x6 photos to simulate the Design A protectors..giving me an idea of how it will actually look upon completion next month. I think this idea kind of rocks (definitely rocking my world) but...what are you doing til they are back in stock?!?
Speaking of Project Life, today while driving home on roads such as these:

I happened to look to my left and you will never guess what was flying next to my drivers side window:

Yup, a snowy owl!! Just flying right alongside me....how cool is that?!? I couldn't believe it!! I, of course, immediately called Adam to let him know what I had just experienced (he, of course, did not find it as life altering as I had, but thats okay). This experience is definitely going in my Project Life this week and although I did not take my own photo of him..I will definitely print one and add it to my album!

Although I haven't created a layout for PL yet, the photos, the documenting and the "being mindful of the everyday" have been amazing. I cannot wait to get our lives down on these pages to document and remember for the rest of our lives.

Well its getting late here so I should get my sleepy self to bed...hope you all had a wonderful start to your weeks..Happy Crafting everyone!!

love,

 dawn