Category: project life

Hey there. I have so many things to write about and share here, but let’s get caught up first, shall we?

A lot of different small-ish factors converged at once to bring me to the point where I had to take a break from blogging until things calmed down. The tipping point came when we had to cancel our cable and Internet temporarily, but we are back up and running again and life has generally resumed its former normality.

In the meantime I’ve mostly been keeping up with Project Life, so I thought a good way to recap what’s been going on with us would be to share my spreads.

Here we go.

Week 20 (June 10 – 16)

This week:

>David went on a fishing trip with his dad and brothers, then later that night we gathered to eat what they caught.

>I made my first from-scratch pizza (and ate it instead of the fish because ew).

>Meredith slept better than the previous hellish week, but still had a few rough moments due to teething.

>We went to the wedding of an old church friend and saw a lot of our favorite people we used to see every week when our church was still functioning. My brother and his wife babysat for the first time and Meredith did great with them.

Week 21 (June 17 – 23):

This week:

>For Father’s Day I let David sleep in and we had brunch with his family. A little later we went to see the play my brother directed (Godspell Jr.) followed by dinner with my family and dessert with David’s.

>Meredith turned eleven months old (the blank spot in the bottom right corner is where I’ll eventually place her monthly update once I get around to writing it).

>David’s Aunt Lorraine came to visit from Pennsylvania so we spent a lot of time with his family.

>We went on a one-day road trip to Austin – documented with an insert.

Week 22 (June 24 – 30):

 This week:

>I had book club where we discussed Nicholas and Alexandra.

>Had to lower the crib all the way to the ground.

>We closed on the refinance of our house – always a stressful time (this is our second one).

>I was in charge for two days at work (not my thing).

>Saw my nutritionist and got the ‘OK’ to quit taking the myriad of supplements I’ve been on since before I was pregnant.

>Had a girls’ night with a couple of coworkers. It was the longest I’d been away from Meredith and the first time I’d been to the movies in six months (we saw Rock of Ages).

>Meredith got her hair cut.

Weeks 23 & 24 (July 1 – 14):

This spread is two weeks combined. The first week:

>I made and sent Meredith’s birthday party invitations with the help of my mom and my friend Lauren.

>M. & I went to the neighborhood pool.

>I completely reorganized the nursery to make it more toddler-friendly.

>For the 4th of July David had to work, so Meredith and I walked in our neighborhood’s parade, then spent the afternoon hanging out with my parents and had dinner with David’s family.

The next week is what I’m referring to as “The Lost Week.” We didn’t have cable or internet, we were under severe financial stress, work was busier than ever and I was coming home late every night, it stormed constantly, David and I hardly saw each other and when we did we were arguing.

Thankfully the weekend brought a respite from work and bad weather, and we were able to spend some much-needed quality time. We got back on our feet financially and talked through some things, and now happily all of these issues are in the past.

That brings us closer to the present, although I’m still a week behind. Meredith’s birthday party was last weekend so I’m kind of in recovery mode. But!

Right now…

We’re getting our groove back. I’m carving out time for blogging again and dreaming up projects. I want to finally start working on our house (the bedroom! the office!), set a budget and stick to it, and figure out how to be more active. I’m eating a lot of chocolate. Still reading, all the time reading. Dipping our toes into the water of a new church. Loving my one-year-old, soon-to-be toddler, and growing my marriage.

Glad to be back.

I’m totally caught up, so exciting! I had lots of fun the past two weeks with some new supplies. I love that I feel justified buying things since I know I will actually use them. Choosing what I want is half the fun, too.

Week 18:

As I was putting this week together I thought of it as more of a neutral color scheme, but looking at it here I see that it still has some vibrancy to it. I like that.

We’ve been going to yet another new church for a few weeks now, so I included one of their cards (bottom left). The photo on the bottom right illustrates how Meredith has discovered cabinets and my life is changed forever.

I got a book in the mail from Bookmooch and it was from Hong Kong so I saved the stamps. I ordered it a couple months ago so it was a fun surprise to receive. :)

Love the stamps I ordered from Elise, like the TODAY IS. In that pocket I wrote a little about a rough day I had.

The “I make stuff” card was included in my stamp order, and the little cow button came in the package with my book from Hong Kong. I thought it was so cute!

Another one of my new stamps in action here (although I need to purchase a new stamp pad) and a little about my reading habits these days.

Week 19:

I wanted this week to be a lot brighter than the last. Especially since it was kind of a hard one, so it needed some perking up!

The picture in the top right here turned out pretty blurry but it’s the first one we got of our entire family (including my husband, Meredith, and my brother’s wife) in a long time. It was taken at my brother’s wife’s niece’s birthday party (did you follow that?)

This past week I used my essential oils like never before. I am really starting to get the hang of them and seeing great results.

One day David decided to get crafty with my supplies and I came home to this note. One of his nicknames for me is “Dayleen” – you know, like Brangelina? Yeah, we’re super cool.

In the bottom right pocket you can also see the picture I took of David’s grandparents, who celebrated their 65th anniversary. They’re so cute. The background didn’t go very well here so I cut them out and framed them.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but the top left pocket is kind of fun. We went to Chuck E. Cheese one night and they have this little booth that’s only a token and it takes a “picture” of you and it comes out kind of like a drawing. I stapled a ticket to it and cropped it to fit.

The top right photo is my mom holding Meredith petting a neighbor’s kitty when we went to hang with my parents one night.

I just liked this paper (it’s Amy Tangerine) and added another of Elise’s stamps to it.

The side ponytail is my new go-to hairstyle for Meredith. It naturally goes to the side anyway, and I think it bothers her less – plus it’s super cute. :) The right pocket here is some additional journaling about the weirdness of the week. My favorite technique for adding more personal journaling is folding a piece of pretty paper in half and paper clipping it in.

I’m still loving this project! Anyone else out decide to take it on?

As you can see, I got way behind again. Oops. But now I am caught up! So it’s all good.

Week 14:

Super simple week.

I got some new washi tape so I played with it on the date card. Also got a scalloped circle punch that I used for some journaling. The little cartoon nurse is from a card a coworker made me. The bottom right picture shows the nursery after Meredith finishes playing in it, which is something we do a lot.

The pictures here are mostly from a weekend. Visiting a book store, going running, Meredith being fascinated by the toilet, the book I finished, completed cross stitch project, the May photo a day list (that I am totally failing at), and eating puffies.

Week 15:

Ω

This was the week I figured out how to print my square Instagram photos at Walgreen’s (via Snapfish) using the Diptic app. Pretty happy about that.

Edit: This is how I print square pics right now. On the Diptic app for iPhone (which allows you to create photo mosaics), I purchased a 99 cent addition that has different sizes, including the 4 x 6 ratio. There is one option that has two 3 x 3 squares, and I plug in my square photos there along with a couple 1 x 4 photos that I may or may  not use. This way I can send the completed 4 x 6 mosaic to Walgreen’s, print it at a regular price, and then I just cut out the two square photos on my own. Hope this helps!

It was nurse’s week, so I put in the program to the opening ceremony I attended at work. Got a belated birthday gift from my brother in the mail so I included the note that came with it. Had a cute text convo with my dad that I saved, and we also went to a new church so I put in the nursery summary sheet.

Nothing much different here. An outfit I wore to work, David feeding Meredith, info about essential oils, me with my friend Sara’s new baby boy Dash, a picture Meredith “made” for me, a rare meal out, and the little toe sucker.

Weeks 16 & 17:

I combined these two, but included an insert for Mother’s Day:

I’m not crazy about this layout but at least it’s done.

There is a sweet card a coworker gave me, the business card of the place we went for brunch on Sunday, then on the bottom is Meredith playing with bags of chips and cans of soda in the pantry (seriously one of her favorite things to do), and an incident report from daycare because M. fell and bruised her cheek. I loved that under “action taken” they wrote “given lots of TLC.”

Here’s the spread with the back of the insert.

Meredith’s ten month recap, a note about the book I read, and on the bottom is M. at craft club and then a bit about how we all got so sick.

This was my favorite part because I love my new cross stitch project (and writing directly on photos is so fun), and I got some new paper and stickers. This is just a hint of what’s to come. I’m so inspired again! And I’m so not a supply hoarder – I can’t wait to use what I bought. :)

I’m not completely caught up – still haven’t really started last week, although I do have the pictures printed – but I did power through the previous two weeks so here they are, before I get too far behind in sharing!

Week 12:

Week twelve had a brighter color scheme than is my norm. I like it though. I do try to keep each spread somewhat unified in terms of colors and feel, although it doesn’t always turn out that way. Here I was going for deep pink, orange, yellow, and blue.

The weekly quotes are kind of getting hard to find! I like them to be on the subject of love, life, and home mostly, because that’s what my life revolves around. Plus, they have to be kind of short.

At the beginning of the week we went out to eat for my brother’s birthday at this wine bar called Plonk. I grabbed one of their business cards and took a picture of him with Meredith in front of the sign. Its colors were kind of my jumping off point.

I had two horizontal spaces to fill and only small vertical pictures, but since they were both of Meredith sleeping it worked out to create one long spread. I’ll keep this idea in mind for later because it worked out well!

Of course the monthly Meredith update had to go in. I think once she turns one I’ll drop this. The “craft on” sticker came on the package of the minibook (also pictured) that I ordered from Elise.

I threw this little card together with some leftover supplies from our craft club.

Week 13:

Week thirteen I seriously did not take enough pictures and I had to scramble to fill the space. Need to get back on top of this!

I went to see The Hunger Games with my dad and we asked an employee to take a picture of us. Then Meredith and I got sick for the next few days, so I did a little summary of that and included a business card from the new doctor I went to. I also decided to take a random photo of my dog Cleo in the backyard. The dogs are a big part of our lives too, but they get overshadowed by the baby!

I snapped a picture of Meredith at the doctor, and that “M” is again from the Madewell  catalogue. Oh! The label there on the picture of the backyard is a new punch from Stampin’ Up. I love it.

I had some personal thoughts to add this week so again I journaled on the inside of a piece of patterned paper and clipped it in.

Then I decided to add this little section about crafting because I’ve been doing a lot more of it lately. If I had taken more pictures this section probably would’ve gotten left out, but I’m glad it’s there because it’s a good reflection of the details of my life lately.

On to the next!

So I got kind of behind on this again, and then I realized that I only took about two good pictures during week ten and the next week wasn’t too eventful either, so I decided to be flexible with myself and combined two weeks into one spread with an insert for Easter. Here’s the whole spread with the front of the insert.

On the left side you can see that there is a big blank spot in the top right corner. That’s because David had some family in town and we took a group picture, but it wasn’t taken with my camera and I haven’t received the file yet. I don’t know when I’ll get it, but that’s where it’s going to go when I do. The rest of it has all the normal stuff. That “M” in the bottom left is from the Madewell catalogue.

Here’s the right side. It has a couple of my favorite pictures of me and Meredith, a ticket stub for the movie Blue Like Jazz, some paper from the church bulletin, and a picture + journaling from one of my runs.

This paper is DIY herringbone. I just took a white gel pen and drew it on kraft paper, because I am too cheap to pay for shipping on the nice paper that I like.

Now for the insert – it’s pretty simple. A couple pictures from the egg “hunt,” a family picture (where I look totally weird) from church, and the title is cut out of the church bulletin.

The back has pictures of us watching mini golf happen, plus the great-grandparents. I did the journaling on a shipping tag and cut the heart freehand out of a magazine.

The whole thing came together a lot better than I expected it to. There aren’t a lot of extras here, but that’s okay. I wish I had time to go back and embellish the entire album a little more, but I don’t think that’s going to happen so I’ll just stick to my simple style.

Now here’s to taking more pictures this week!