Week 4

Here are my pages for week 4.  On this page I added in a few 'filler' photos, such as the daffodils and the Spag Bol. 

Both of my girls went horse riding and I had a ton of photos, so I cut down a page protector and added that in with a photo of me in the kitchen!  I am making a real effort to include some photos of me in this album by handing over the camera to someone else.   On the side of the page I added a piece of 'Just the Edge' by Bazzill.



The next photo shows the reverse of the cut down page protector.

This is the second of the 'normal' ages and shows another of our teas that week - Cottage Pie and a piece of cardboard from a Gingerbread House my girls were making.

It also shows my mum helping with my ironng and the Young Voices concert which my daughters took part in.

Up-date

My Project Life journey continues!  I love it!

I love that I can add bits and pieces of  life - of receipts, tags, papers etc.

I love that I can scrap it as the week progresses.

I love that I am creating something that I will cherish at the end of the year.

I love that the whole family is involved in this project.

I love that I am carrying my camera everywhere I go to capture moments that would otherwise have been lost in time.

I love that I am writing down things that my kids say that otherwise I wouldn't have recorded.

I love that I am taking a ton of photos.

I am up to date with my album I just haven't got round to taking photos and blogging which I am planning to do in the next few days.

I have done a few 12 x 12 pages but am mainly focusing on PL. 

This page is quite simple, but I have added a lot of bits of paper that I want to use up.  I haven't added the journaling yet, but it is about my daughter learning to ride her bike.

I love this next one!  When my son was younger he was really into Power Rangers.  He was convinced he was one and would go around the shops with me in his dressing up outfit shouting 'hi-ya' to anyone and everyone!  Another of his favourite hobbies was play dough and his photo captures both of those things.  I collected the badges from a magazine and the zip pull on the bottom of the layout is from an old lunch box.

Tag - February

I'm not a huge tag person but when I received a challenge from a friend in the US, I couldn't resist.  Tim Holtz on his blog is creating various tags throughout the year and I was challenged to create the February one.  I don't have a lot of Tim's products so I used what I had to hand.  I painted a brown tag white and stamped hearts with red ink.  I then made the rosette out of chipboard and scrunched up paper.

I then inked a chipboard heart and covered it with red stickles.  I added ribbon along the bottom with a heart ribbon charm and finished it off with a piece of Bazzill Just the Edge on the top and some mini alpha stickers.

Considering this is my first ever tag, I'm quite pleased with it and I had fun making it.

Project Life - Week 2

Week 2

We had some lovely sunsets this week so one of those featured in my album, as did a picture that my daughter drew.  On the reverse of the drawing I inserted a letter which she had written at school as part of her World War 2 topic.

On the next page there are photos of the first bunch of tulips I have bought this year, a fun games night and a walk that we did on the Sunday.

Week 3

Page one was of a trip I did to Chester Zoo with my kids School and my son playing on his DS.  I added in a picture my daugher had drawm and a piece of packaging I had received.

On the second page are more photos but I have had to pixelate some information out to protect the privacy of some friends.

The 'One Little week' insert is a download from Ali Edwards blog.

Project Life



 I am doing Project Life this year.  I thought very hard about whether I should go ahead with it as I feel as though I have so many photos and stories to scrap that I won't have time to fit this in as well.  But now I am into week 5 I must say I am totally addicted and love it!  I am already loving  going back through the album to read the stories of what we have done so far this year.  So here is my introduction page.  I am going to add in other pictures of the children soon.

I was very excited to get started on this project and had all my stuff organised and read to go. 


I bought some digital numbers by Ali Edwards here as I think there will be so versatile and added one into the pocket for Week 1.  Here is the full page spread.

The first page was the New Year celebrations in London and what we did on New Year's day.

The second page detailed how my daughters love to make cakes.  I added in some journaling and it was done.

Love it!

Remainder of December Daily Album

Here are some more of my December Daily pages. 

Day 16 was just a simple page with a few snowmen at the bottom.

Day 17 tells of my daughters first horse riding lesson.  I didn't take photos at the stables because the light was bad and I didn't want to scare the horses by using flash, but I recorded the story in the journaling.

On the 18th I hadn't taken any photos and then there was a knock on the door and the Rotary carol wagon was outside.  I grabbed the children and my camera and managed to get a few photos.  They are quite blurred but I'm not bothered about it - I decorated the page with a few stickers and a glittered white star from my stash.

Day 19 was of my son's Ju Jitsu display.  I have blanked out the face of his friend for privacy.  On the opposite page to this, in my album I have blown up a photo to 8.5 x 11 and added text to the bottom, but there are lots of other kids shown on that so I can't share it.

Day 20 was another simple page about the first Christmas in our new kitchen.

My daughter and a friend made some mince pies on the 21st.

Day 22 was another baking day, this time with a cake mix that I bought from Tesco.  I saved the wrapper from it and laminated it as a page divider.

Day 23 was my son asleep in our bed - sweet!

Christmas Eve!  I took this photo in the evening when the excitement was growing.  I blew it up and sits on the opposite page to the the next photo down.

These photos are just a snap shot of things we did on the day.

Christmas Day.

I blew up one photo again which shows the hustle and bustle of Christmas morning.

The opposite page again, is photos of a letter from santa and opening presents.

Completing this album was a bit of a struggle.  My computer broke, I ran out of ink and life got in the way but I am really pleased that I ploughed on and completed it.  The resulting album contains lots of memories, photos, drawings, clippings and other memories that I will treasure for years to come.  If you haven't done this project before, I highly recommend it. 

Jo

December Daily

Christmas seems such a long time ago now, but I will keep posting the pages from my December Daily.

Day 13

I took this one at a fairly quiet moment and it is one of my favourite of the holidays.  I jazzed it up a bit with some tartan ribbon.



Day 14

I did consider not puting this photo in my album because it is horizontal, but I decided that I really wanted to tell the story so in it went.  I covered the whole of the page in paper and added in some bits and pieces, rather than trying to stick to the template that I have used before.

Day 15

I didn't take any photos on the 15th and so I just stuck in this receipe card from Waitrose and journalled about the magazines that I like to read at Christmas.

I am planning on being back tomorrow with more from my album.

Jo

December Daily

Over the last few days I have been working towards getting my December Daily finished and I'm nearly there.  I've just got some journaling left for Christmas Day and then it's done.  Here are a couple of photos of pages I've finished.

Day 8

This is of my daughter and my mum and I kept it really simple.  The orange colour was a challenge and I did consider converting it to black and white, but I wanted to use up the snowflake paper which I've had for a while which is by Fancy Pants.  I added some Scenic Route word stickers, Flair by American Crafts and ribbon by Love Elsie.

Day 9

This is of my son playing around with a Santa hat.  It doesn't bother me that half of it isn't on the photo - I think his expression is fab!  I've added the journaling directly onto the photo.  I was getting a bit bored with the template that I had created so I decided to shake things up a bit with the rest of the album.   

I covered up the '9' on the bottom of the page with the paper (Fancy Pants) and added a glittery number on the top.  The Santa hat is one which came in a pack of 3 from a local garden centre and the sentiment at the bottom is from My Minds Eye.

Day 10

Sorry the photo isn't straight (too much mulled wine!)  The 10th was a really busy day and I had more that one photo that I wanted to add to my album.  I printed this photo of  8.5 x 11 and added the text directly onto it. 

On the second page I made a template in Photoshop and dropped in four photos of the day.  I added three buttons from Love Elsie on the top and a 'tree' sticker on the bottom and that was that.


Day 11

This day was tricky as I didn't take any photographs.  I went shopping and didn't take my camera.  What I did have was this menu from the restaurant so I added that in and cut up a box which held candy canes and added that in as well.  I then added in bits of paper which I had spare.

Day 12

Today was my youngest daughters birthday.  The colours totally clashed in this photo so I converted it to black and white and added in some 'newsprint' paper.  Onto this I added a few stickers by Scenic Route.

I will post more of the ages soon but in the meantime would love to hear what you think.

Jo

Happy New Year!

A very Happy New Year to everyone - I hope it is filled with health and happiness for you all.

I have nearly finished my December Daily album, there is just a little bit of journaling and embellishing to do and that will be that.  I have really enjoyed putting the album together again this year although there have been challenges regarding my computer breaking down and then ink running out.  However, I'm so glad I persevered.  I haven't taken photos of the pages yet but will do so when the light is a bit better and get it posted later in the week.

In the meantime, I am starting Project Life. I have my album set up and in the kitchen, where it is going to live.  I reckon that if it is out and in plain sight then I will do it throught the week and just print of photos at the weekend.  This is the first time I have done it so I just need to find a way that works for me - any suggestions will be appreciated.

Jo x

December Daily - Day 7

This is day 7.  It is of my son in the school nativity play.  I have placed a star in the middle of the photo merely to hide a childs face - it isn't staying there!  The photo is a bit blurry as it was taken without the flash but I love the colour in it and it truly reflects what I saw at the time.  The play was called 'Out of Darkness, Christmas Light' and I cut the title out of the programme and sewed it onto the photo. I have another programme which I have inserted into into a page protector which I cut down and sewed to size.  Here it is in the album:

I have put the ribbon over the name of the child who designed the drawing for the sake of privacy.

Hope you like it.

Jo

December Daily - Day 5

I've had a totally manic time during the last two weeks. There has been so much going on with the kids that I haven't had any time for scrapping.

Then, when I finally did get around to scrapping, my computer broke and then when that was sorted out my ink ran out! Aargh!!!

Fortunately I printed a few photos before my ink so I'll concentrate on those for now.

I am determined to finish this album as I absolutely love this project and I just love looking back at the albums I've created in previous years. I have been keeping a note of what we have been doing and keeping bits and bobs to place in my page protectors for when I finally get my photos.

In the meantime here is day 5. I got my box of baubles down from the attic just to check they were still in tact after the work we've had done on the house. I love seeing these every year. I added the journaling at the side. The journaling says

'Today the decorations came out of the attic ready to go on the tree. I love getting them out each year and I especially love seeing the decorations I bought for the children. Every year they have a new one which reflects them or what they have enjoyed throughout the year. I call our main tree my memory tree as each ornament holds a special memory.'

On our main tree there are also a lot of decorations I bought on trips abroad and the memories come flooding back each year.

Day 4

Sunday was a chilled out day when we finished the decorations on the tree and the kids did their homework. I really wasn't sure what my story for the day would be and then I thought that I photograph what is going on right now, regardless of it being December - and that was homework! So here is my eldest daughter working away in our kitchen with the tree in the background.


I've kept the scrapping to a minimum on this page as I don't really think it needs any more. I may add a bit more bling after I've added my journaling.

Hope you like it.

Jo

Trimming the Tree - Day 3

This afternoon we trimmed our first tree. It came down out of the attic in its' bag, which was covered in dust, unfurled and finally looked totally magical in all it's glory. I love how trees go from looking so dusty and boring to looking totally 'wow!'.

I haven't scrapped the photo yet, but thought you may like to see what I've done with it. I up-loaded it into Photoshop and added the title and text.



I'll post the scrapped page when it's done.

Today I had my hair done so I decided to scrap that. There is a school Christmas Fair I'm going to later but as it is usually soooo busy I don't think I'll take my camera - so here is my offering today - moi with a new hair do!


I'm adding journalling to my album after I've blogged - just in case you were wondering.

December has arrived!

Yay, December is here! I just love Christmas but I'm not quite in the spirit yet as I'm just getting over all the building work. I also love December because of the December Daily album.

When the kids got up early this morning out came the Advent Calendars and, yet again (!) explaining that it was only 1 chocolate a day!

Here is my scrapping for day 1.

Catch up!

Well, I really can't believe my last post was in July - time flies.

We have finally finished the extension - yay! We have a lovely brand new kitchen and lots of extra space that we are using all the time.





The above photo was taken on the 8th October before we had the floor put in and before it was totally finished - the washing machine is not a permanent fixture right there!

This is what it looks like with the floor in.


We are so pleased with it and the fact that it is finished before Christmas.

In other news, since July we have a new bike rider in the house.


We met up with good friends who live in America.



We had fun visiting Grandma.


The attic has gone from this:




To this:




and the bathroom in the attic has gone from this;





to this



I have been working on my December Daily Album which I am doing again this year. I have chosen an 8.5 x 11 format as I had a spare album hanging around. I am using the same templates as I did last year.


I am adding in some other bits and pieces like these


and these


I can't wait to get started on this album and have been looking back through the others I have done for inspiration.

Let me know what you think.