Category: crafty

I am finally finished putting together the spread for July. I’m so behind and I’m not loving doing it this way. The first half of July was still first trimester haziness and then towards the end I emerged from that and began to feel better, but we were super busy. David’s grandmother passed away so we had a lot of family stuff going on, and Meredith had her birthday and party. So far in August I’ve been feeling great (hence the blogging I’ve been able to do) but it’s taking awhile to get all areas of my life on track like they used to be. The scrapbooking schedule is not a priority, in other words.

So here it is. There are two inserts: one has Instagram photos I took on Meredith’s actual birthday and on the back are photos from her party which was the following weekend. For those I relied almost solely on my mom’s iPhone pictures so I trimmed them down and mounted them on paper to fit into the square pockets. The second insert is this blog post and I chose to leave the back blank.

There are many reasons that a monthly spread isn’t working for me, but one of them is that although I’m not taking a TON of photos these days I still have more than can fit, and too many of them are vertical iPhone photos. So this layout is mainly pictures with three chunks of journaling about big events: Meredith’s toddler phases, Gigi’s death, and a pregnancy update.

In putting this together I tried to keep it really simple and easy. A little stamping and similar labels on all the vertical photos to keep them coordinated. I used mostly neutrals on all the papers since there was color enough in the pictures.

Same thing happening on the right side.

Here is the insert for the sort-of day in the life I did on Meredith’s birthday. If I had taken better notes I would have included the times on the photos but I didn’t, so I didn’t.

This is just a closeup of the tab I used for the insert. Nothing exciting but it says it all.

And photos from Meredith’s party. There were a lot more but these give a decent overview. I just wish we had more pics of the rest of the people that were there.

So that’s that! Next weekend I’m going to attempt to get another layout done that includes just the first half of August. My goals with this project starting now are to take more horizontal pictures and to get back to bi-weekly spreads.

 

 

For awhile there the last thing I wanted to do was work on this project. I barely took pictures or notes, which is why this single spread encompasses five weeks; the end of May and all of June. I’m totally fine with that and just happy to get anything down. I put this together in two sessions: one to get the basic layout and papers in place, and two to add journaling and finish up.

So this is from May 27 to June 30. Not a lot happened other than finding out I’m pregnant and getting through the days. Other than one picture of a picnic with a friend, these are all updates about Meredith and journaling.

When I first got this positive test my husband even made the comment, “I’m sure this will be documented to death.” Funny that this picture is the only one I took. That’s just how tired I’ve been.

I love this picture of Meredith with an armful of stuff. Lately she won’t go anywhere without it all.

And another one of my favorite pictures of her. It really captures her happiness (and love of dirt). Like I wrote, she reminds me every day why pregnancy is worth it. :)

So I am sort of “caught up” with this now, but I don’t think I will be able to go back to 2-week spreads just yet. We are dealing with a lot of toddler issues and transitions with Meredith that I want to get straightened out and it is taking all my time and energy! I am going to try to keep up a monthly spread for now until I get back into my groove. We’ll see how it goes. :)

This is from May 13-26, and I really love how it turned out.

During the first week David was out of town so Meredith and I were in survival mode. He sent me a photo of himself by the Mississippi River which I was so happy to include. The 4×6 journaling card is all about our experience with him gone. The 3×4 journaling card includes other little things that happened during the week.

I took this photo of Meredith and I to send David while he was gone and I love it.

On the right side we have an assortment of other things that happened during this time. Cousins eating sno-cones, a story about coming home from work on Saturday and how Meredith greeted me, her reading books with my mom while I was at my own book club, sitting at the table like a big girl, and some happy mail.

I broke out my sewing machine to use on Project Life for the first time to sew down this coffee cozy from Whole Foods.

You guys. Check out this drawing that David made of Meredith while he was at work one day. It has her pigtails, her cloth diaper, and she’s holding her favorite jacket and stuffed animal. Her eyes may be a little scary looking but it’s still sooo hilarious.

Next to it is a photo of her standing in time out (star added to protect her dignity). I journaled around the edge about how much I hate the whole discipline thing.

I skipped day in the life during May because I didn’t have the energy. Needing to keep things simple for now and that’s okay! I’m always just so happy to see it done.

Supplies used: Seafoam core kit, SMASH tape

Tools used: Design A pocket pages, staz-on ink, Office Depot date stamp, EliseJoy stamps, Technique Tuesday Just Awesome tabs stamp, Sharpie pen, American Crafts slick writer, Fiskars paper trimmer, Fiskars corner rounder, Tombow adhesive