Category: crafty

  • project life 2014 : weeks 49 – 50

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    Happy Friday! The kids and I have had a fun (although lacking in sleep and too quick) trip to see friends and we are headed home today to settle back into routine. We have a busy January but after that I’m hopeful things will calm down!

    My memory-keeping projects are all still in progress. I’m on track with Project Life, but this weekend I need to wrap up 2014’s album and put together a title page for 2015. I am slowly working on my Week in the Life album, and I plan to share each day here as I complete it. Once that is done I’m going to work on my December Daily album. If it’s summertime before that one gets finished I might just wait till next year to share it. :)

    Anyway! Here is a spread from the first two weeks of December. Since I am doing a specific holiday minibook, I mainly included everyday life stuff here.

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    Not a whole lot to say about it!

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    project life 2014, weeks 49-50 : kapachino

    So that’s that! Happy new year to everyone; be safe and have fun. :)

  • project life 2014 : weeks 47 – 48 (& a blog update)

    Popping in to share a Project Life spread with you today. But before that, let me give you a little blog update…

    The season of life where I am able to post daily is over for the foreseeable future. Work is busy, Liam is mobile, and other personal projects need to take precedence when I do get spare time. So my aim is to post here 2-3 times per week, but it won’t be scheduled.

    You can expect similar content as always: thoughts on motherhood & life updates, tips for working moms, goal setting, memory keeping projects, creative pursuits, natural health topics, things I love, and thoughts on books & reading. Basically anything I’m up to or interested in. :)

    So now onto Project Life, one thing I’m going to keep up with for sure and continue to share.

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    This spread was from November 17 to 30 and included Thanksgiving. I decided right away to do an insert for the holiday so I wouldn’t be jamming in the photos.

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    On the left side I have Liam’s 10-month update, a few cute snapshots, and journaling about one of our Saturdays.

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    Then on the right is a photo from David’s grandfather’s second 90th birthday family dinner, a selfie of me & Liam, Meredith at the dentist, and her posing outside. The journaling is more on dealing with Liam’s constant sickness (although thankfully he has remained well for the last week!).

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    I like this cute card and the sentiment “happy thoughts” was what I wanted to have regarding the situation. :)

    Now onto the Thanksgiving insert:

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    For a title I just stamped onto cardstock and adhered it to a photo of our tabletop. Simple journaling about the day underneath, then a picture of the whole extended family.

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    The back is just more cute photos of the kids. Little details:

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    Here I stamped on a label and put it directly on the page protector.

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    And I added a tab like I do with all my inserts.

    That’s that! I was wondering, what are your memory-keeping plans for 2015? Anyone thinking of starting for the first time?

  • my finished handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    I finished this up last weekend after Thanksgiving, just in time! I may have an addiction to felt needlepoint. New favorite craft for sure. I call this an “heirloom” advent calendar because the materials are high quality and labored over by me with love so I am definitely forcing it on one of my kids when they grow up. :)

    I want to give another shout out to my mother-in-law for getting this for me way back in the spring or summer (an early Christmas gift!) so that I actually had time to make it for this year. I love it so much. If you want one, you can find them here. It requires basic needlepoint, embroidery, and sewing skills. Advanced beginner, I’d say.

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    I wanted to show you the finished project with all the ornaments hung up, but they are actually stored in these cute little pockets like so.

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    Those numbers were embroidered using a chain stitch, which I had never done before but I love it.

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    If you are wondering how the ornaments are hung on the tree (I was) it’s with a stick pin. Then when they are being stored, you just tuck the pin inside (see right, below). I like this method because you can hang them anywhere and there is no ugly velcro to be seen.

    handmade felt heirloom advent calendar

    I have been letting Meredith hang the ornaments (with supervision) and we try to do it in the morning if there is time. I call it the countdown to Christmas.

    We also have a really cool advent book called The Story of Christmas. It has a bunch of little mini books that you read each day, but they are also ornaments so you can hang them on a tree (or somewhere else – we’ve been hanging them on a garland). Each little booklet tells part of the story of Christmas. We have been doing this one in the morning if there is time, or evening at dinner.

    Finally, I have this advent calendar which was the first thing I ever sewed. My mom is using it for Meredith and she has tucked a small gift into each pocket.

    Obviously I love advent calendars. How about you? Do you have one?

  • project life 2014 : weeks 45 – 46 (+ my plans for 2015 & other creative updates)

    I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Ours was very full but so much fun and the kids did great.

    Today I am home with the kiddos and the plan is to get our Christmas decorations up. It might be a 3-day process with a crawling, teething baby and a preschooler who wants to “help” around, but I’m determined to have fun. We have holiday movies lined up and nutrition is kind of out the window for the day. I might venture out to the craft store at some point, but only if I get up the nerve. :)

    I just wanted to share my most recent project life spread with you, and talk a little bit about my plans for next year!

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    These weeks are from November 3 – 16. This was right after week in the life, and I was kind of worn out with photographing so I had very limited photos to work with. It was kind of fun to get some extra journaling and filler cards in though.

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    This photo of Meredith with her cousin Cameron is one of my favorites. They look soooo adorable. I hope they stay such good friends as they grow up (ditto for all of the cousins).

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    I’m really falling for wood veneers like this little heart, below. They are very popular in the scrapbooking world and I see why. I’m not very big into embellishments, but these are my style.

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    I used some of the seafoam core kit, which I haven’t used in a long time. I forgot how much I like some of it.

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    We went to a kids’ birthday party and Meredith was so scared of this giant slide at first. But after observing awhile and then trying out some smaller slides with the help of some bigger kids, she finally conquered the big slide and was going down backwards by the end. That little story is so typical of her and I loved this sequence of photos.

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    A picture of her nursing her baby doll. :) Another wood veneer that I love.

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    And just a little update on Liam’s health. During this entire time he was either sick or recovering from being sick and we saw a couple of doctors. I repeated that “hello” stamp several times during the whole spread and I liked that technique.

    project life weeks 45-56 : kapachino

    So I am still caught up on this project and I love this whole album a lot. It’s that time of year when it’s a good idea to start evaluating how I want to approach it next year. This may be boring, but I actually don’t think I’m going to change anything. Here are my reasons:

    • I’ve stayed caught up this whole year, so obviously my current approach is working.
    • When I look through the album, I really like the simple, consistent, neutral spreads. The stories shine through and our life is documented.
    • I have other projects that I can get more creative with if I feel the urge – like week in the life and my holiday minibook, for starters.
    • The 12×12 size is excellent for getting two weeks’ worth in, and it tells a good story.
    • Life is too crazy right now for me to change anything up, and overall I feel very satisfied with it!

    As for my other mini album projects – they are on my mind a lot but not much work is getting done since Liam’s been sick and the holidays are here. I have my title page done for week in the life, and I’m currently trying to decide exactly how I’m going to approach December daily (or a holiday minibook). I think I’ll have to take a personal day at some point (when I earn back enough PTO) to work on this stuff as it’s not baby/toddler-friendly!

    Other than that, I just finished the advent calendar! I’m very excited about it. I’ll share more soon. Most of my Christmas shopping is done, and wrapping is on the agenda this weekend as well as ordering our holiday cards.

    Happy long weekend! How are you going to spend it?

  • project life 2014 : weeks 43 – 44

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    Weeks 43 – 44 is from October 20 to November 2. I think this is one of my simplest spreads yet. I didn’t have much time to physically put it together so I did a little more digital work ahead of time (using Paislee Press templates and planning with the Project Life app). The only embellishments are a few stamps.

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    I just adore this picture of the kids smiling at each other.

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    The first week was a fairly normal week. Other than my standard “week in review” the only journaling I did was an update on Liam’s health.

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    The second week was week in the life. I decided to just include two of my favorite photos from that week (the one of the whole family and one from Halloween) as well as the QR code which links to Liam crawling for the first time. The three other photos are from the first week, and the handwritten journaling was about the crazy overbooked weekend we had.

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    Then instead of a day-by-day “week in review” I changed the title of the card to “week in the life” and wrote an overview of that project. I mentioned that there will be a separate album for that week, for future reference.

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    project life weeks 43-44 : kapachino

    I do love the simplicity of this spread! I intend to keep my Project Life layouts this way, and then I will do more playing and embellishing with minibooks and other projects.

    I can’t wait to start working on my week in the life album. My supplies are taunting me every time I look at them, but I just haven’t had time to start, other than editing my photos! Hopefully soon though!