Project Life Celebratory Blog Hop

Today I am part of the Project Life Celebratory Blog Hop organized by Margie from Nihao, Cupcake! blog. Thanks for including me, Margie!

Today we are celebrating personal Project Life milestones, some of us for getting through 25% of 2013. I wish it would be the case for me as well, but I am still not there. Nevertheless I love this project and proud of every week I am able to document and add to my album. 

Today I am going to share with you my week 13 (last week of March) and to talk a little about my process. First - the finished page. Very simple this week, no inserts at all. 
   

I use Picasa for photo management and light editing. I store my pictures sorted by year, month and event (if they are event pictures). This year I added another level - week. When I am ready to work on Project Life, first I make sure that I downloaded all pictures from my phone to the computer. I go over the pictures from the week and decide what do I want to include and what size I need to print. To help me I draw a page sketch on a piece of paper and write down where I want the pictures, where the journaling will go and all other details that have to be decided before I print the pictures. If there are any inserts for this week I sketch them out as well. I know there are nice printable templates available but I found that a simple piece of paper and a pencil work best for me.

After the decisions are made I crop the 3x4 pictures and create collages with two 3x4 pictures on one 4x6 canvas. This week I decided to put three 4x2 pictures on one 4x6 and use in in 4x6 pocket as is. I adjust the colors, add the pictures to a new Picasa album (look at the screenshot above) and send them for printing (usually at Costco).

Here they are - week 13 printed pictures and my page sketch.

All my page protectors are in the album with random title cards in the left top pocket. I keep the memorabilia from the week in 8.5x11 page protector as a temporary insert. For week 13 I only had our movie tickets.

Time to cut the collages in half, round the corners and add the pictures to their pockets. At this time I look at the pictures and decide if I want to use the title card that is already there or I want another color.

New title card is chosen and the title is cut. 

I follow the same format for all title cards. Name of the month cut with Silhouette Cameo, Lilybee number stickers and two strips of washi tape. This week I used gold washi tape from Darice and American Crafts glitter tape.

On Monday we celebrated Passover Eve. The whole left side is devoted to Passover. I cut 3x4 piece from the Passover paper from Crafting Jewish Style collection, rounded the corners and stitched around three words with golf thread. I wrote down our Passover menu on 4x6 journaling card and added few small embellishments.

Left side all done.

Later in the week we went to watch a movie, all five of us. I didn't take any pictures, instead I found a picture of the movie poster and printed it at home. I added it to one of the title cards together with the movie tickets and two pieces of Tim Holtz film strip ribbon.

 

Here is the right page. This one is more embellished. I used Simple Stories and Basic Grey labels and letter stickers. The Celebrate card is by Recollections from Michael's. It comes as part of a 4x6 pad. I trimmed it a little and rounded the corners. The labels on the pictures next to the Celebrate card are one printable label from Studio Calico cut in half.  After I finished spelling Where is Spring I noticed that Simple Stories letter stickers don't have question mark. I will have to go through my brown letter stickers and find a question mark to add. Otherwise it looks strange.

That's all for week 13 and my post. Now go see what fabulous Michelle from Table for Five has is store for you.

Oh wait, since I was late with the post and I feel bad about it, I decided that giveaway is in order. I have 60 3x4 journaling cards from brand new Jade kit that I will send to one random winner. Leave me a comment to enter the drawing. I will draw a winner next Friday, April 17th.

Thanks for stopping by!

List of blog hop participants:

Margie      http://xnomads.typepad.com

-------------------> Maya        http://mayadahan.blogspot.com  <---- you are here

Michelle    http://www.table-for-five.com/

Kristy      http://kmstewart.blogspot.com

Michelle R  http://MichelleRoger.wordpress.com

Emily        http://mrscraftyadams.blogspot.com

Barbara    www.maynardpl.blogspot.co.uk

Katina        www.lovinglifeslittleblessings.com

Michelle B   www.michellebostinelos.com/blog

Tina         http://tinasscrapcorner.blogspot.com/

Nicole       http://nicolemann.blogspot.ca

Marisol      www.mariclaudibenitez.blogspot.com

Brooke       www.graceandlight.typepad.com

Scruptious   http://eversoscrumptiously.wordpress.com/

Rechelle     http://Levanfamily365.blogspot.com

Kelli        http://whimsikel.blogspot.com

Sonia        http://www.craftshandson.blogspot.com

Shay         http://sbookinshay29.blogspot.com

Rebekah   http://istampscrapcraft.wordpress.com/

Project Life - Week 7

Week 7. Still loving this project. This week I am participating in Michelle's Saturday Project Life Blog Hop. Thanks, Michele for inviting me!

I have two inserts this week. The first has Eli's art work from and the Valentine that he made at school. The second has pictures from the Skate with Heart event.

 Left: left side page
Right: insert #1 (front) with insert #2 and right page picking under

The left page is dedicated to Ella's little "adventure". It took three journaling cards to tell the story. The bottom right pocket has the museum ticket from Ella's school trip. She was invited to join the Fine Arts Pursuit program at our school district. To make the stitching on both cards symmetrical I first poked the holes through the both cards simultaneously. I like how the chevron stitching resonates with the chevron washi tape on the title card.

 

 

Left: insert #1 (back) with left page picking under
Right: insert #2 (front) with right page picking under

For the insert #2 I took a piece of 6x12 cardstock and adhered pictures on both sides of the cardstock. I added my half page to the American Crafts 6x12 page protector and just slid the event program together with the page.  I also added a thin piece of glitter cardstock to the slot with the binder holes.

Insert #2

Left: insert #2 (back) with insert #1 (back) and left page picking under
Right: right page

The right side of the layout is full of everyday pictures - cooking, playing, watching movies, cleaning.

I added a picture of the Valentine gift I made for Eli's bus drivers. The "moments" card is by Simple Stories. On Friday night me and Lila watched Brigadoon at her high school. I chose one picture from the drama club facebook page and stapled our ticket stubs to the journaling card.

So here it is. Don't forget to stop by Michelle's blog tomorrow to see the rest of the blog hop!

Project Life - Week 6

Week 6 was busy. I ended up adding three inserts to the weekly spread.

Left: page + insert #1 (front)
Right: insert #3 and right page picking under

As always, lots of pictures and some journaling cards to tell the story.

 

Ella had a check up visit. I wrote the story on a folded journaling card and added two pictures inside. They are hidden from a plain view but I know they are there.

We had a snow storm and I snapped few pretty pictures. I found a pretty quote and printed it on a grid card. The blue snowflake is from Doodlebug and I have them for years.

Left: insert #1 (back) with the left page picking under
Right: insert #2 (the roller derby program) with insert #3 and right page picking under

This week my MOMS club had a Valentine party. We spent Thursday making chocolate dipped marshmallow and Valentines. Eli wrote his name and used glue dots to add heart shaped mazes to the cards.

Lila participated in her first roller derby bout and I kept the program and the ticket. I trimmed an 8.5x11 page protector and stitched it on the side to fit the program.

Left: insert #2 (back) with insert #1 and left page picking under
Right: insert #3 (front) with right page picking under

The pictures in the insert #3 are from the Roller Derby bout. I took the pictures in the top left corner and bottom left corner. Other three pictures I downloaded from the Facebook album. They were taken by Nick Collura. I decided not to round the corners of the pictures in this insert. I think they look more athletic in this way :)

I wanted to add a QR code with the video from the bout instead of the speech bubble but I can not make my vimeo video work on a smart phone so that will have to wait.

Left: insert #3 (back) with left page picking under
Right: right page

The derby was on Saturday and on Sunday the parents were invited to watch the practice. The pictures on the back side of insert #3 are from the practice. I used gold Colorbok stickers on the front and the back side of this insert.

The right page of the layout has random pictures from the rest of the week and one journaling card. I also included the "chalk" artwork I made for Eli's preschool. It was my first time doing anything like that and I was super happy how it turned out.

I am linking up with Project Life Tuesday over at the Mom Creative.

Project Life is a memory keeping system designed by Becky Higgins.

Project Life - Week 5

Catching up on Project Life. No inserts this week.

Left page: pictures of Eli from the open gym (4x6 collage made in Picasa), 2 pictures of Eli signing, dancing and goofing while we waited for Ella to finish her gymnastics class, picture of me and Eli that Lila took, picture I snapped when picking up the girls from the middle school forensics practice, snipped from the newspaper about our crazy weather.

Right page: picture of the first layout I made in 2013, Eli and Ofir making cookies, Lila at Whole Foods after the dr's appointment, penguin stickers I made for BBYO event with my Silhouette, two pictures from the ice skating exhibition.

This was the week the crossed two months. I decided to cut the outgoing month smaller and add it in the upper left corner. I like how it turned out and will continue to use the same design through the year.

I added some hand stitching to the filler card. It only took me an hour and a half :) 

Weeks 6 and 7 are almost done - the pictures are in the page protectors already. Hope to finish them this week.

I am linking up with Project Life Tuesday over at the Mom Creative.

Project Life is a memory keeping system designed by Becky Higgins.

Project Life - Week 4

No inserts this week! I used the Seafoam core kit and papers and stickers from Amy Tangerine collection.

Ofir took few pictures of the deer that visited out backyard.  They were a little blurry so I added some post processing in Picasa. The green arrows are Fiskars squeeze punch.

We had really busy Thursday. I journaled about what we did on 4x6 journaling card from the kit.

Few special cards this week:

I am linking up with Project Life Tuesday over at the Mom Creative.

Project Life is a memory keeping system designed by Becky Higgins.

Project Life - Week 3

Weekly spread with the insert.

Weekly spread with the back side of the insert.

Flap that hides the "silly" picture from the drama club photo shoot.

This week I designed to mic in some stickers from the Sketchbook collection by Amy Tan. I think it will be a good addition to my album. I added four stickers to one of the title cards from the Seafoam kit to embellish the back side of the flap.

 

A little hand stitching.

Back side of the insert. I made the collage in Picasa and printed it as 8x10. The page protector is trimmed to the 8.5x10 size.

Little heart is hand cut from the American Crafts glitter tape.

I cut a vellum envelope with Silhouette to store the receipts from our visit to IKEA.

I wish I could say it takes me less time now. Not really! But I can say that I enjoy this project tremendously.

I am linking up with Project Life Tuesday over at the Mom Creative.

Project Life is a memory keeping system designed by Becky Higgins.

Project Life - Week 2

Week 2 is done! It took me less time than week 1, so I am hopeful that it will get easier when I will have an established process. My Seafoam kit arrived in the middle of the week and I swapped the printed cards that I planned to use for the premade cards from the kit.

Here is how it looks with all inserts.

Left page. I used letter stickers on the two bottom pictures and journaled right on the top picture. I like the look of the handwriting on the pictures when somebody else is doing it. I am not sure about mine. I didn't decide yet if I will continue to do that or not.

Title card. Similar to last week.

Insert one. I used a regular 8.5x11 page protector from an office supply store. I trimmed Eli's artwork to fit into page protector and added a stripe of Seafoam patterned paper from the digital edition that I printed at home.

Insert one (back) on the left and insert two (Design H) on the right. Ella had her first gymnastics meet on Saturday. I slipped the invitation into the page protector on the left and added two pictures from the meet and a journaling card.

I used Fiskars punch to make the folded file tab and embellished it with small flower sticker.

Insert two (back) and right page. The back of insert two has 3 pictures I took while we were waiting for the food at the restaurant. First they all played our favorite game "Mama, papa, zhaba, zap" and than the girls taught Ofir to play "chopsticks". On Sunday we went to Wisconsin Quilt and Fiber Arts museum. I saved Eli's art work that he made there, trimmed it to 4" and split between two pockets. The arrow "this" (cut out from seafoam journaling card) is pointing from the picture to the artwork.

I used one filler card this week. To spice it up I added hand stitching to the hexagons in yellow and red with green french knots in the center.

 

I am linking up with Project Life Tuesday over at the Mom Creative.

Project Life is a memory keeping system designed by Becky Higgins.