Category: project life

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

I am still so happy to be keeping up with this project. As I was taking these photos Meredith was looking through last year’s album. She came across a picture of herself wearing her favorite jacket and she pointed at it squealing, “my jacket!” (although it sounds more like “muh shackee!”). It was incredibly cute and made me so happy to be keeping these memories in a way that she can already appreciate.

These weeks I had a lot of photos. They included my day in the life plus Mother’s Day, and apparently I was picture happy during that time as well. I had to seriously edit which ones I included because I wanted to leave space for journaling. I thought about splitting it up into two spreads but didn’t want to get behind.

Week 18

It was a normal week. There was a cold front. We went on our pizza outing, took a visit to a state park, went to a friend’s 30th birthday party, and I sung during the service for the first time in our new church. Starbucks had their frappuccino happy hour so I indulged quite a lot (and made gold). Meredith became interested in my makeup. I was reading The Accidental Tourist for book club.

I took a video of Meredith “reading” to herself. Best.

I kept the same format as last month for day in the life. I included my notes page in the binder as well but didn’t take photos of it this time.

Week 19:

Another fairly normal week with a crazy weekend. My parents got M. a new tricycle to keep at their house. She learned how to make coffee using the Keurig. We had pizza with my father-in-law one night. David won a bunch of money on a lottery scratch-off ticket. He had flowers sent to my work for Mother’s Day. The weekend included a baby shower for my friend Melody, a birthday party (with pony rides and carnival games!) for my friend Sara’s kids, and all kinds of family gatherings for Mother’s Day. I got my quilt laid out and finished the audiobook Abhorsen.

Took a video of Meredith riding the pony. She was way less excited than I was. :)

I said I took a bunch of extra photos these weeks, and most of them I just left out but there was one that I wanted to include but it just didn’t fit. So I adhered a tab to the top and slipped it in behind the journaling. Whenever I include a tab it will alert me that something is hiding there just waiting to be pulled out.

Supplies used: Seafoam core kit, SMASH tape, Finding Nana calendar printable, Avery clear index tabs, Avery kraft label

Tools used: Design A pocket pages, staz-on ink, Office Depot date stamp, EliseJoy stamps, Studio Calico exclusive Day by Day class stamps, Stampin’ Up heart, circle, & tag punch, Technique Tuesday Just Awesome tabs stamp, Sharpie pen, American Crafts slick writer, Fiskars paper trimmer, Fiskars corner rounder, Tombow adhesive

Hey look, I’m somehow still caught up with Project Life! This spread is from April 15-28. These weeks were pretty normal ones around here.

Week 16:

We had dinner with David’s parents a couple times and Meredith had a blast going through family photos. She was teething and had a lot of trouble sleeping, so I was kind of a zombie for most of the week. I read a lot and finished Wild by Cheryl Strayed. We started a weekly experiment of visiting a new local pizza place each week to find our favorite. We visited my mom at her school’s garage sale and played at a local park. David and I went on a movie date to see Olympus Has Fallen. I went to book club and we celebrated my sister-in-law’s and David’s grandmother’s birthdays.

I love this new (for me) detail for simple journaling on photos.

Week 17:

It was a rough week at work because I made a couple of (minor) errors and I had to be in charge. We had really nice evenings all week, playing at home and visiting David’s brother’s family. We went to a new pizza place. It rained all weekend and Meredith took a 4-hour nap allowing me to finish my quilt cutting and the woven wall hanging. We celebrated my nephew Lucas’s 4th birthday with a pirate party at the park. We also celebrated my brother’s birthday with a family lunch at his new house.

I took an action photo of everyone playing outside at my brother-in-law’s house and just wrote directly on the photo to say what was happening. I love love love this and will be doing it again!

Below is one of my favorite photos so I put it in twice for emphasis. It’s super blurry because it was in dim lighting and using the forward-facing iPhone camera, but just look at how much love there is between us. :) Meredith does this thing now where she just starts rubbing her face on mine and pushing into me and we call it “playing faces.” It’s the absolute best.

In this pocket is a little envelope and inside I tucked in some hidden journaling. Throughout my albums if I include a paper clip it almost always means you can open up what’s inside.

Just a little summary of our weekend here.

I think this is one of my favorite spreads. :)

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Supplies used: Seafoam core kit, Freckled Fawn washi tape, Studio Calico letter stickers

Tools used: Design A pocket pages, staz-on ink, Office Depot date stamp, EliseJoy stamps, PromptShop stamp, Studio Calico exclusive Day by Day class stamps, Stampin’ Up heart stamp, Sharpie pen, American Crafts slick writer, Fiskars paper trimmer, Fiskars corner rounder, Tombow adhesive

Here’s my Project Life spread for the week of April 8-14, which was the week I was home on vacation. It ended up being a fairly colorful layout which is fun. I have a lot of very neutral layouts as well but they all go together.

I included an insert for our trip to the zoo because we took a lot of pictures that day and they were so cute.

On the left side is the mini loom and the start of my woven wall hanging, an Instax outtake, my brother and Meredith as well as a little journaling about how we visited him on his birthday, a filler card, and photos of my cross stitch progress and my crafting desk where I spent a lot of time.

I kept the insert super simple. Just photos, a short journaling card with prompts, and tickets.

Here’s the back of it. I used a Smash fabric tab to distinguish it as an insert.

On the right side is photos of Meredith’s and my organized closets, another filler card (I didn’t take many vertical pictures this week for a change), and my painted toes relaxing.

We spent some time with family and Meredith and her cousin Cameron had a blast driving this motorized toy car around. I got an adorable video of it, too.

Here I taped in the ticket from our date to see the play my brother directed.

And lastly, another simple journaling card detailing all the stuff I got done that week. Washi tape was a special edition from Freckled Fawn.

Thought: I love my simple style of layouts, but one thing I want to incorporate more as far as embellishment goes is stamps and writing directly on photos. It is in keeping with the style but adds just a little more interest without being distracting. (Take this and this for example.) I just ordered these stamps and a bunch more of these (I already have a few) and I’m excited to put them to use!

Second thought: In the future I am going to start listing the supplies and tools I use at the bottom of each post, just in case it can help someone out there.

Week 14, April 1-7. Still love this project!

I pretty much just had photos from two events: my brother, his wife, and their niece Stella came over for a playdate one evening, and on the weekend we visited a local wildlife refuge. The one other picture, of Meredith in the stroller, came from my mom who took her to the dog park one day.

I thought about combining this week with the next, but since that was my vacation week I knew I’d have plenty of photos from that to stand on its own and I didn’t want to cram. So I looked for ways to fill the pockets.

On the left I included my April goals, which I’m doing every month, a journaling card about the play date, and an incident report form from daycare.

On the right I journaled about our trip to the refuge, included the April calendar card, a quote from Meredith, a card I got in the mail, and another “week in review” card to write about other things that happened.

I like these quote cards for recording new things Meredith is learning to say.

The card was from a VP at the hospital where I work because I caught a potential medication error and reported it. Pretty cool to get a handwritten note like this.

The “week in review” card is a staple for me. I do them lots of different ways but they’re perfect for writing about little things that don’t warrant a photo or a card of their own.

On to the next! I’m on the verge of getting behind again so this weekend I have some work to do. :)