Take Twelve - December

I've been busy lately. Making layouts, playing with new beautiful products, making cards and than making more and more cards. I have a lot of scrappy things to share but didn't have an energy to do so. Friday shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School left me shaken, heartbroken and scared. If it is difficult for me to pick myself up I can not imagine what does it mean for the Newtown residents, teachers, friends and the families. I don't have anything smart to say, in fact I am writing this paragraph for more than an hour. There are many beautiful and thoughtful posts like this one and this and this and this. The last one also gives a link to the organizations that accept donations for the victims families. At least something that I can do. I will also hug my kids even more than I do now and I will tell them that they are loved. 

 December 12th was a regular Wednesday. School for the kids, errands for me. It was the fifth night of Hanukkah. We ate dinner together, lit the candles, ate sufganiyout. The kids of our friends came over for dinner. That's it. The last picture shows little drawings Ella made using burned matches and toothpicks. I bought her a charcoal pencils since then.

I still need few layouts to complete but now I already believe that I will have12 monthly layouts. I really enjoyed this project and I am thinking about 2013. Take 13? ;-) I don't know yet. I am thinking about Project Life but I am terrified of falling off the wagon after first few weeks. Are you planning to do a year long project in 2013?

Take Twelve layouts - August and September

Two more layouts to add to my Take Twelve album. The August layout is about our camping trip. (I know it is not really camping since we slept in a cabin with showers and kitchen but it is as close to any camping experience as I will get). The journaling is from this blog post.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), dies (Lifestyle Crafts), patterned paper, stickers (Simple Stories)

 

September layout follows a day in the life of a toddler. The journaling is from this blog post.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), dies (Lifestyle Crafts), patterned paper, stickers (Bella Blvd.)

 

Take Twelve 2012:

January

February

March

April

May

June 

And here is something fun to share - Kimberly from Scrap It Girl is having a great giveaway on her blog. And while you are there, check the current challenge. Super easy this month, you just need some buttons. And who doesn't have buttons??

Take Twelve - March and June layouts

I can say it now - Take Twelve is my favorite scrapbooking project. My most favorite part? It looks like I am able to keep up!! Not always I am making layouts the same weeks as I take the pictures but I am making them. So far I made 8 layouts, I am missing July but my pictures are printed and cropped and they wait patiently for me in a neat pile. I think the secret of my success is that I made it simple, really simple.

• double 12x12 layouts.
• square pictures. The size varies from 3" to almost 4", depending how I print them.
• American Crafts white cardstock for the base.
• Lifestyle Crafts Diesel alphabet dies for the titles cut from American Crafts colored cardstock. 
• 1.5" strip of patterned paper under the title.
• printed journaling using Traveling Typewriter font.
• three very small embellishments or embellishment clusters.

Every month I pick another color of the cardstock for the title and I change the placement of the pictures.

Here is my March layout. I wrote about the pictures back in March.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), patterned paper (Basic Grey), canvas tag (Basic Grey), alphabet dies and diecut machine (Lifestyle Crafts), glimmer mist (Tattered Angels), buttons (American Crafts), heart punch (Fiskars)

I made the yoyo flowers from misted fabric.

 

June layout next. the journaling is from my blog post in June. (I just love that I can go back to my blog and just copy the journaling!). Another super simple layout.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), patterned paper, stickers (American Crafts), alphabet dies and diecut machine (Lifestyle Crafts), adhesive sequins (Pebbles)

 

Things I need to improve: figure out a way to take better pictures of the double layouts!! I had to straighten the pictures in Picasa and that makes them blurry :( 

Today I finished the September layout, I will practice taking better pictures and post it soon together with the August layout.

Take twelve 2012:

January

February

March (this post)

April

May

June (this post)

July (wip)

August (coming soon)

September  (coming soon)

Switching gears now. It was a while since I bought a scrapbooking kit so I am super excited to play with my new Jenni Bowlin September kit. Isn't it lovely?

I took this photo with instagram. It is the first app I installed on my new smart phone. Yes, I joined the civilization and got me a smartphone. Now I am trying to find my way in the sea of filters, hashtags and what else. Do you instagram?

Take Twelve - September

September 12th sneaked up on me and caught me unprepared. I wasn't sure what pictures I want to take and that made me think about other things I am not prepared for, like Rosh HaShanah that is coming this Sunday (gasp) and Eli's 4th birthday this coming Thursday. That gave me an idea to devote my September's photos to Eli. Now it sounds like the obvious thing to do since I devoted July photos to Ella, so I don't know why I was even considering other options.

1.  Milk and cereal for breakfast.

2.  Morning bike ride in the driveway before the school bus comes.

3.  Zoom! Zoom! He is getting fast!

4.  9:45am - the school bus had arrived.

5.  3:30pm - Eli's new afternoon school has the best playground.

6.  Time to go home.

7.  Afternoon snack - yogurt with M&M's.

8.  Much needed haircut.

9.  First time in a big chair by himself.

10. Backyard ride on Power Wheels Kawasaki.

11. Bath time. 

12. Everything is more fun with Thomas and Percy.

Guess what pictures I will be taking in November?

Take Twelve - August

Summer .... Lake ... Sand ... Campfire ... S'mores

It just happened that August 12th was the first day of our 4 fabulous days at the Camp Indian Sands. I went with a group of moms from my local MOMS club - just moms and the kids. The kids had the best time playing by the lake, canoeing, making crafts, singing songs by the campfire and making s'mores. I had the best time just relaxing and doing absolutely nothing.

Note: the pictures are actually from August 13th since we spent August 12th packing fro the trip, shopping and driving. I feel ok with that because I did not forget to take my 12 pictures but deliberately chose to take them the next day in the camp.

Take Twelve - July

Busy busy times here. No time for blog and even (gasp) no time for scrapbooking! But it's all good - summer kids activities, birthday sleepover, meals with friends and even a travel adventure with a girlfriend. I'll try to do a recap post later but now I have only few hours left before our next guests come so I wanted to share my Take Twelve pictures from July. I decided to use one of the prompts and do only portraits. Truth to be said the pictures are from two days - 12th and 13th. 13th was Ella's birthday so I feel like it justifies the exception to the rule. My baby girl turned 11 .... My sweet and cuddly baby is turning into fierce young lady...

 

The pictures are taken with our new D5100. I am still shooting on auto but really want to learn more. And I decided I need a nice bag to carry it. I have low shoulders so it has to be crossbody. I don't want it to be too bulky. It should fit the camera, one additional lens, the flash (when I will learn how to use it) and my personal stuff - purse, notebook, cellphone ... I am looking into Epiphanie bags. Any recommendations?

Take Twelve - June

I feel like just yesterday I was cropping May 12th photos and look, it is time to share my June 12th photos. I decided to go this month with the suggested theme of outdoors. We live in a north suburb of Milwaukee in a very green area with plenty of beautiful views. Ella is taking an outdoor drawing camp this week and their Tuesday location was at Riveredge Nature Preserve. I never been there before and I was happy to discover another beautiful place just 30 minutes from our home. I took 2 pictures of the ponds and a picture of Ella's class marching into the prairie. While waiting for Ella I stopped at Alterra coffee shop in Grafton and snapped a picture of the building, the view of Milwaukee river just behind the building and a row of gorgeous peonies. In the afternoon Ella had a gymnastics class in Cedarburg and I added two more pictures to my collection - Starburcks coffee shop where I often wait for Ella to finish her gymnastics class and a cute little place just across the Starbucks called Out & Out. They sell food made with local products and have a killer custard. I finished with few pictures of out home - the front door with the stairs, the wild backyard, our new hammock and the tire swing and one of the wild flowers that just popped in out yard.

 

Take Twelve - May layout

And here is the May layout. I didn't finish it before the May 18th deadline but it is done now. And it is still May! I kept is simple as my other Take 12 layouts. I used Lifestyle Crafts Diesel alphabet dies to cut the title, single strip of patterned paper and few embellishments. I really need to learn how to take better pictures of the double spreads. I really dislike how crocked it looks but you can get the idea.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), patterned paper and flower embellishments (Amy Tangerine fr American Crafts), journaling stamp (Close To My Heart), chipboard ice skates (Little Yellow Bicycle), heart sticker (Cloud 9), silver pen (Sakura), Matte Accents (Ranger)

I knew I wanted a pair of ice skates for the journaling block. The only stamp I had was looking right and I wanted the skates to point left. I spent hours searching the web looking for digital stamps to buy, or real stamps or basically any scrapbooking products related to ice skating. After fruitless search I remembered that Winter Twig collection by Little Yellow Bicycle had some ice skates among  the embellishments. I found two ice skates in the chipboard package. They were blue and pointed right. I flipped them, painted the blades with silver pen and covered with Matte Accents, added dots for the hooks and one little red heart.

 

 

The rest of my Take 12 layouts: January , February, March (still in progress), April.

Take Twelve - May

May is a busy month, jammed full with the end-of-year activities. Among them is an annual ice skating show put together by Wisconsin Figure Skating Club. It is an amazing event, organized completely by volunteers, that devote endless hours to the show. 

I did not have any problems to take 12 pictures on May 12th. I took more than 400 pictures at two ice skating shows that happened to be on May 12th. During the whole weekend Lila had 4 shows and I ended up with more than 600 pictures to sort and go through. They are not the best but they are a good reminder of this special day.

Lila skated in 4 numbers and I decided to pick 3 pictures from each number. The first column is her synchronized skating program, the second is Party Rock Anthem (can you see the skirt, the sleeve and the heart necklace - yours truly made them for 6 girls in this number), the third is Retro Disco (the knitted legwarmers were made by me) and the last one is Aerosmith.

All of the above also explains why I didn't have time to scrap, or blog, or read blogs or do anything else in the last couple of weeks. I really miss my scrap desk!

I have few things in progress so I hope to be back soon with a new layout or two.

Take Twelve - April layout

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts, Recollections), patterned paper (Bella Blvd.), stickers (Bella Blvd.), camera and butterflies die-cuts (K&Co), alpha dies ad diecut machine (Lifestyle Crafts), circle punch(Marvy Uhida), stamps (Papertrey Ink)

  

How I love this project! I just hope I will be able to complete it. So far so good. I am missing March layout but I have the pictures and I hoped to make it the same time as April layout but I run out of the photo paper!  I am using similar format for all my Take 12 layouts - square pictures, approximately 3.25"x3.25" arranged on a page in a grid-like pattern. One strip of patterned paper, a title cut with Diesel Lifestyle Crafts alpha dies and few embellishments.

This month I wanted to include a lot of journaling. I took it directly from the blog post with the pictures. I glad I read it again because I had to fix few small things. We have Playstation 3, not PS2 like I wrote. Honestly, it is all the same for me :) I took the png file with the journaling tag from the Take 12 Guided Inspiration kit and  dropped it into a word document. I made it bigger and added a text box inside the tag for the journaling. I than printed it on a white cardstock and cut out inside the tag border.

I added stamped numbers to my pictures, few embellishments and viola, another month is done!

You can see my January layout here and February layout here.

I am off to buy more photo paper and to print those March pictures.

Take Twelve - April

One of the suggested Take 12 prompts for April was technology and I decided it will be fun to look at this page few years from now. Our personal and home electronics are by no means state of the art. Well, maybe except Lila's. But it works for us.

1. My 2009 Toyota Sienna. It was the first time we bought a new car and I still can't understand why we did that. But I do appreciate the convenience. After I finally was brave enough to drive it I was shocked how easy it is. Our second car is 2000 Mazda Protege. 

2. This is how I find Lila each morning - connected to her iPod or Nook or both. Her cellphone is probably under the pillow.

3. My 5 years old laptop - HP Pavilion. It is pretty much falling apart and I started to think if tablet will be good enough for me or I need a new laptop.

4. Lila's nook - she got the first Nook from grandma almost 2 years ago and last December she upgraded herself to Nook Color. She uses it to read books and to watch Law and Order on Netflix 

5. Eli playing with Ella's DSi. DSi's were huge few years ago and both girls have them. But now they are not getting much use. I had to ask Ella to bring her DSi for the photo shoot purposes.

6. My cellphone -last summer a tube of sunscreen leaked in my bag and ate the cellphone coating. Looking forward to the upgrade!

7. Ofir in our basement office corner. - working on his laptop and watching movie on the desktop.

8. Eli playing with Leapster - this Leapster is also 5 years old (like my laptop) and was a gift from my BFF Nina to Ella

9. Our second desktop in the living room. It is used for homework and Netflix - definitely need a replacement for this one. We are getting at least one blue screen a day.

10. PS23 with Ofir's favorite game - enough said.

11. Ofir's Nikon D70 and a little Fuji that I am using. Another item on my wish list - new DSLR!

12. Wii. Used mainly for Netflix buy Eli (Blue's Clues) and Ella (crazy Japanese animation movies) . Our fabulous TV set is also in the picture - the black circle and the lines are actually there, part of the screen.

Here it is - our technology list looks more like a shopping list. :)