It's Time for a Plan...

I've had a couple of down days from crafting and it's been kind of nice to just regroup. But...it's time to get back to work and get this blog back on track. In order to help me do that, I've decided that I need to get a little more organized and come up with a 2014 plan for EPJ.  New year, new EPJ!

First up...it's time for a new logo!

I needed something simpler and brighter. It seems to have more pep.

And now for other changes.

Last year, I didn't post nearly as much as I really wanted to. I let all the other little things that happen in day to day life get overwhelming and then spent a lot of time spinning in circles. My biggest obstacle to getting things up on the blog was often my photos. Typically one of two things happened with craft photos. A lot of the time I had photos of projects taken, but I had so many different things on the camera waiting to be uploaded to the computer and edited that I never got any of them ready to go. Other times, I'd get so caught up in the projects themselves that I forgot to take pictures along the way. When it came to recipes, I'd often be cooking after the sun went down, resulting in no natural light and photos that looked less appealing than I wanted them to. So...new plan.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be editing all of the project photos I have stored and will start placing them into the blog as drafts. This will get them off of the camera and out of editing as well as help me figure out which projects need new photos and which crafts were made without photo documentation. For my food posts, I'll be focusing on making recipes for the blog on weekend days. This way I can start earlier in the day and take advantage of the light when it's available.

In 2014, I'll be pushing myself to get back into crafting...especially scrapbooking, which has fallen by the wayside over the last year. I'll be playing catch up so my scrapbook pages won't always be super current, but the memories will be getting put together - which is what counts.

I'm going to start out by aiming for 3 posts per week, including one Summary Sunday post each week (I've missed those). During the week, I'll be mixing it up a little. So what should you expect?

Books :  2014 Book of the Year is already underway! I have set a goal of 64 books for the year. I'll be posting reviews of books rating 4 or 5 stars and will occasionally give updates on where I am in the BOTY process. Darian will also be sharing occasional posts with reviews of his 4 and 5 star rated books. I'll be taking part in a couple of read-a-thons to keep myself working towards my BOTY reading goal.

Crafts : I have a bunch of projects to share from the past couple of years and I have some others in the planning stages that I'll be working on as the months go by. My Pinterest boards are bursting with things I want to try. I'll be sharing at least two finished crafts each month. I'll also be working on getting finished projects together to finally post things up on my Etsy shop. I've been stalling long enough. It's time to get some finished product out there.

Food : After a short hiatus, I'm getting back on the meal planning wagon. I'm going to be redesigning my meal planning process as well as sharing some great recipes, including both new and old favorites. I'm going to be working on our family cookbook throughout the year and hope to have some progress to show as the year continues.

Scrapbooking : I've kind of let scrapbooking fall by the wayside over the last year and I've decided that it's time for a revival of sorts. I'll be reorganizing my scrapbook room and then getting back to it, so I should have some finished pages to show for it. I'll be sharing both traditional scrapbook pages and completed pages for Project Life.


I've enjoyed doing some theme posting in the past, so I've decided to implement a focus for each month. Alongside the topics listed above, I'll be focusing on one item during each month and will have at least one post each week spotlighting that particular theme. Here's what's coming up...


January : Well...the month's not over yet! January has been a lot about regrouping for me and it's about new plans and resolutions for a lot of others, so the remainder of January will be focusing on organization. Among the things in store, I'll be getting my blog planner ready, updating my meal plan, reorganizing the scrapbook room, making plans for my family recipe book, and drawing up the plans for the redecoration of my sewing/craft room. Organizing and planning is bound to run over into February, but I'll get a big jump start before month's end.

February : February is the month of love. My parents will be celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary and Collin and I will be celebrating our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. I'll be sharing some of my favorite memories of my parents and my family, our engagement and wedding photos, our love story - including the story of our wedding day, and some of the DIY crafts I completed for our wedding.

March : March is all things spring. It will be time for spring break and spring cleaning. I'll be undertaking the sewing/craft room reorganization and tackle some other house projects to share. I'll also be doing some spring themed crafts to help balance out our holiday decor stash and keep it all from being just Halloween and Christmas.

April : April is the A-to-Z Challenge. It's "26 posts on 26 days of April, with Sundays off for good behavior". I'll still be posting Summary Sundays during the month, but the rest of the days will be posts themed by sequential letters of the alphabet. It could get a little crazy.

May : May is the first of two book months. Bout-of-Books 10 Read-a-Thon runs from May 12th to May 18th. I'll be doing some serious reading, posting some book reviews, undertaking reading challenges, and seeing if I can keep up with my 2014 BOTY goals. I'll do my best to get Darian involved since he seemed to have a good time with it last year.

June : June is my Pinterest challenge month. I'll be picking projects from my Pinterest boards and actually accomplishing them! Recipes made for the blog and books read for reviews will come from things I've pinned.

July : In July, it's time for vacation! We'll be talking all things travel. I'll be sharing some favorite family vacation memories and showing you how I organize my vacation memorabilia, as well as posting some complete vacation scrapbooking from over the years.

August : August is reading month number 2! The month will be filled with book reviews and updates on my 2014 BOTY goals. Bout-of-Books 11 Read-a-Thon runs from August 18th to August 24th. It's back to reading for a solid week with daily updates and challenges.

September : September is all about scrapbooking. It's time to hit the books...scrapbooks, that is. I'll be sharing how I organize my supplies and photos, what products I like best, where I like to shop for my scrap stash, and of course showing off some scrapbook pages (including Project Life). I'll be working a lot on mini-albums during the year and hope to have a couple to share.

October : If you've been around the blog long enough, you know that October is our favorite month of the year around here. I'll be posting our Halloween Pumpkin Project plans, sharing pumpkin carving progress and debuting the final results on Halloween night.

November : It's time for NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month. I'll be working on writing something every day and showcasing a few tidbits here and there on the blog. I'll also be starting the 2014 Christmas Present Project Countdown and checking off those presents as I finish.

December : I'll be crafting up a storm in preparation for Christmas, but there will still be blogging! It will be time for some year end wrap up posts, including how things went for my goals this year and how the bracket is looking for the 2014 Book of the Year. I'll be sharing some ideas for the following year as well as keeping up with the Christmas Present Project Countdown.


Well...that should be enough to keep me busy! I may be adding a few challenges to the schedule here and there to keep things interesting, but it's good to have some goals set out. I'm looking to a fun and productive 2014 here at Erratic Project Junkie. I hope you'll join me!

100th Post - Miss M's Birthday!

It's Miss M's birthday today. Happy 1st birthday sweet girl! Today is also my 100th post! Yay! It's a big day over here.

We had a party for her on Saturday, but I'm headed to my brother's house tonight for dinner and another little celebration. She's so loved.

She had a bit of a rough time since she'd gone without a nap and it was the third thing she'd had stuck on her head in the last ten minutes, but here's Miss M wearing her birthday hat (even though Mama put it on backwards - don't worry, I let her know.)

Since she's getting to be such a big girl, learning how to talk and walk, I wanted to do something for her birthday that would help her continue to learn. I'm an avid scrapbooker so I decided that I would make her some picture books.

I had a group of three albums in a little box that I decided would work perfectly. They're 6x6" post bound albums with page protectors. Granted, not the most sturdy of books for a busy toddler, but Daddy and Mama can help her to read them.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to make, but once I got rolling it moved pretty smoothly. I printed everything out on photo paper so that the pictures had a nice glow to them and then cut everything to the 6x6" size. Some albums were fancier than others. Based on the number of pages I separated them into the three books. Book 1 was the letters, book 2 contained the numbers, colors and shapes, and book 3 has the family album - my favorite and the idea that started this all.

The easiest albums were the colors and shapes. For colors I found animals that matched the color on the page. I made sure to keep the colors as bright as possible as well as make sure the main color was very clear. No need in confusing her. I included the basic rainbow colors as well as white, pink, brown, grey and black. (And yes, I spell it grey.)

Shapes took me a little longer. I created each shape and then found a matching item that she could learn to recognize so that it would start to make sense that all things have shape. I used the basic primary shapes as well as a few extras (e.g. oval, octagon, line, clover).

The first book I started to assemble was actually her alphabet album. I decided to make each letter an animal. With Patti's help via MSN Messenger, I came up with one for each. Okay, so we kind of cheated on a couple. I used N for Narwhal and U for Unicorn. Not exactly standard, but hey, it's creative.

I built the pages as a template with "is for...", a space for a photo, and a space for the name. I filled in the blanks and printed. I then used large chipboard letters in bright colors to grab her attention.

The numbers book is where I think I got the most creative. I used the same idea as the alphabet for a template, but then I made a little rhyming story to go with it. It took some work and a lot of searching to find photos that would work, but I think it turned out super cute.

And finally, I did the family album. This one is my favorite. I built it with all of her immediate family (including her dog, Riley). Each page has one family member, a picture of them smiling and their name. I obviously ended up with Marley, Mama and Daddy. I also included Riley, her grandparents (Nana and Papa & Grandma and Grandpa) and all of her uncles, me (her only aunt) and Darian. I hope she likes it as much as I do.

So there you have it. My fancy project for Miss M's first birthday. Now the bar has been set. Hmm...maybe I should've gone with something less fancy. I guess I'd better start coming up with the plan for her second birthday...

Cigar Box Mini-Album

Ok...so I haven't been around much this week. This was not on purpose. In fact, since Collin has been working and Darian is with his mom, I had this whole brilliant plan to make this a "project weekend" starting on Friday. Ah, best laid plans...

I spent Friday morning running errands and Saturday cleaning the house in preparation for game night. On the upside, my house got really clean yesterday and smelled like my yummy Scentsy for about 24 hours. But...we had the friends over to watch the BSU game (we're die-hard fans) and the nice fresh feeling has faded. In fact, when I woke up this morning it smelled like hot wings. Delicious...but not at 9am. The Scentsy has been turned back on.

I did manage to break out a project on Friday - so you do finally get a post. Eventually I will have this down to a science. This blogging thing is time consuming.

I'm coming clean right now people. I am a scrap supply hoarder. It's a little ridiculous. I admit it. But I finally made it worthwhile. I have been saving some of the cuter boxes that my chipboard alphabets came in thinking that someday I would make something of them. Guess what? That day has come. I finally did it. I took one down off the shelf and made this :

It's a cigar box mini-album. Obviously it's not filled in yet, but I'm saving that for another post. (I have to ration these things.) It has 26 pages in it (this was not really planned, it just happened) so now I'm trying to decide if I want to do something alphabetty - I'm making that a word - or if I want to make a mini-album about the house (it's a little sick, but I wrote it down and it can work out to 26 rooms/areas). What do you think I should do? Let me know in the comments section. Hopefully I can have it ready for a big blog reveal in October.

This project was (or should have been) pretty straightforward, but I did learn some things along the way. It really bothers me when crafters make it look like they never make mistakes and everything they make comes out perfect on the first try. I think that a lot of people get discouraged by this because they then think that it's not something they can do themselves. I say bologna. Because of this, I think me telling you how I did it (even with some of the dumber ideas that didn't work out) can show you that mistakes happen and maybe I might also help make a similar project easier for you. Learn from my occasional lack of common sense.

It took me about four hours start to finish, but I'm pretty sure I could do another one in about half the time now that I've learned from my mistakes.

This is what I started with :

You see why I kept it right?! It's cute. I just couldn't toss it.

The first task was to cover up the product information on the front cover. I measured the center red block and cut a piece of red cardstock to size. This is when I found road block number one. I LOVE the cute little window on the cover. But how the heck to recreate that on my cardstock...hmm...I knew I would have to use my handy dandy X-Acto to cut it out, but how in the world was I going to make a template?

Brilliant idea number one was to use a rubbing. Basically a less creepy version of the headstone rubbing that my high school history teacher had us do for a project my senior year. Junior year? I'm getting old...this is all a blur. So I made the rubbing on white scrap and cut it out. Super. That worked great.

But then I discovered the downside to this idea. How was I going to line this up on my cut out cover? Well...I tried measuring from the edges of the box and making coordinating marks on my red paper. That failed miserably. I ended up with three different versions, each one crooked. I got one that lined up pretty good and cut it out with the X-Acto thinking that I had conquered the problem. Wrong. My rubbing was apparently not very accurate and the edges looked rough and messy. Blegh. New plan.

What I ended up doing - what actually worked - was to lay an uncut piece of red paper on the cutting mat and then lay the lid down over the top of that. I used my dry embossing tool to press an impression into the paper from above. Haha! I have beaten you plastic window!

I cut that out and then used the center as a guide to cut the paper to fit. I then used my ModPodge to adhere it to the lid. Task one complete. I think this part alone took me nearly two hours. I will admit it. There was cursing. In retrospect, I think painting over this section would've been wiser...and easier. Live and learn.

I decorated the lid after that. Some cute ribbon, a paper flower, chipboard circle and a pink Heidi Swapp jewel. I realized that opening the lid was a little tough, so it needed a handle. So I created a cute little tab out of some ribbon and a brad.

Outside done. Check. (Well...except for the album title that will be added later.)

If you've seen my scrap room then you know that I have a bunch of random crap. This came in handy. I just happened to have some D-rings in a drawer from some belt kits that I bought a few years back because I thought the belt fabric was cute (I have used it as ribbon on scrap pages in the past). I decided to use these to hold my interior pages.

It then came time to pick the paper. It took me a while to figure it out. I originally wanted to use scrap paper because heaven knows I have enough of that.

Well, nope. That didn't work. I'm apparently far too particular. I wound up busting out my 6x6" scrapbook paper stack and picked out identical patterns in red, blue and green (colors fairly close to those on the outside of the box). To mix things up a little I also added some black and white patterns.

I cut each page down to 5" high and 5 1/2" wide to fit inside the 6x6" box with enough room for movement and the D-rings. There was cursing at this stage too. The cute little box patterns came out looking a little wall-eyed. Whatever. I had to just let this go - which was hard, I promise. I very nearly scrapped those.

I hole punched them...let's amend that...I hole punched them INCORRECTLY. Crap. Again with the cursing. You know that old adage "measure twice, cut once"? Ya, I didn't do that. I punched the first holes about 1/2" from the edge only to realize that this did not allow enough room to actually fit both the paper and the D-rings in the box. (There is a reason I am not an engineer like my brother.) So I had to punch another set of holes.

At first I thought I could "cover" this up by putting a ribbon through the first set of holes and tying a bow. This looked cute, but the pages couldn't turn freely. Fail. I cut the ribbon and decided to live with the extra holes. Such is life.

I then had to figure out a way to attach the D-rings to the box. This was interesting. The D-rings that I have open on the underside. So I had to put the paper on the rings before I attached the rings to the box. That was obnoxious. I came up with the idea to get a base sheet and then adhere this base to the box. I cut out a piece of black cardstock, punched holes in the appropriate location, and added this to the D-rings. I laid the whole assembly in the box to make sure it would work, only to realize that the rings would flop to the side. Fine. Bust out the fancy supplies. I scotch taped the rings to the cardstock to hold them in place.

I then used some scrapbook adhesive to glue the cardstock to the box (ModPodge was too wimpy and made a mess. It would've worked, but I was too lazy to sit there and hold everything in place while it dried so that the weight of the rings didn't pull the paper from the back.)

Tada! Finished. I really hope you have been able to learn from my mistakes. I'm sure that there are other ways to do what I did, but this is what worked for me. And now I have a cute little mini-album that can also act as a display piece. Plus, I have four more of these in the scrap closet to play with. Whee!

Picabo Mini Album (and Video!)

From this point forward on the family tour, I will be doing things a little bit differently.  How you ask? From here out each post will be completed via use of completed projects. Are you stunned? I'm fairly shocked myself.

So today's post features Picabo and the mini-album I created based on him. I have in the works similar mini-albums for the other pets.  The layouts are kept simple with only a select number of paper patterns used and minimal embellishments. I have kept the focus on the photos and the journaling. Photos have been arranged in near chronological order.

And...here's the added bonus...I am including my first ever blog video!  Just because there are some doubters out there, I have videotaped one of Picabo's more entertaining tricks.

I am posting the pages in order as they appear in the album. In between the pages I will be adding any additional comments that may pertain. To see any page larger, just click on it.

This flushing trick is a frequent occurrence. (Thanks a lot Chad.)  The best part is when I forget to lock the bathroom door and he decides to open it, waltz in, and then flush the toilet while I'm sitting on it. No privacy what-so-ever.

Finished about four years ago, this page is the first one where I attempted reverse type in order to get the white font on a black page. Though the type turned out quite well, the cutting of the actual journal block did not.

This would be a light version of the evil eye. Tell me this doesn't look like he's thinking "well, you're just coming off as stupid"...

His newest nap spot is one I just might kill him for. He has taken to jumping up the back of the television in the living room and sleeping on the top shelf of the entertainment unit. He has very nearly broken one of the little statuettes that sits up there.

Obviously not part of the album...excuse the "pet eye". (And yes, I was watching How I Met Your Mother)

This one's a little tough to read without blowing up. Lesson learned...black text on red background...bad idea.

To make up for the difficulty reading this page and for those of you who say "No way does that cat open doors" here's the video to prove it.

Granted, this video doesn't show him bringing the stick back, but I count it lucky that we were able to pull this off in only two takes. He quickly lost interest after this shot.

Yes...there is a grammatical error in this one. I didn't find it until after the album was completed so it's just been left there as proof that we all make mistakes sometimes.

I once had a conversation with an ADT rep who apparently thought I was an idiot.  The house alarm had gone off and we received a call letting us know. The conversation went something like this:

ADT guy : Do you want me to send out the police?

Me : Well, what sensor do you show going off?

ADT guy : It looks like it says garage door.

Me : No, that's okay. We'll just head home. It's probably just the cat opening the door.

ADT guy : You mean the dog?

(Obviously he took me for some kind of waterhead. I can tell cats from dogs.)

Me : No. The cat. He does this all the time.

ADT guy : The cat? You're sure.

(Really buddy?)

Me : Yes. I'm sure. Thank you.

My mom always loves when she looks after the cats while we're gone and she gets to find Picabo's "surprises". It makes for a nice mess to clean up in the morning. I once lost an entire bag of jerky to the thief.

...and as of yesterday, his new interest - salsa. He is quite possibly the weirdest cat ever.

So there you go...a nice easy mini-album.  Once I had the pictures picked and the journaling written, I think it only took me a couple of hours to put this whole thing together.  The best part? I'm going to pretty much identically copy the layout for Jasper & Bailey's albums. I'm all about making this project thing easy...