Spontaneous Photo Session

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had an odd and busy week that also included a spur of the moment photo session. Well...I'm now in the clear to spill the beans as it were. 

Ready?

My super fun hygienist Annie is pregnant. (Congrats Annie!) I've known for a while due to a work situation, but we've been keeping tight lipped until she and her husband felt comfortable announcing the impending baby to the world.

She was contemplating a few methods for announcing (thanks to the wonders of Pinterest). She decided she wanted to use the teddy bears that she and her husband had as children as well as a new bear for the new baby. Such a cute idea.

Initially, she took the shots of the bears sitting on the bench. It was cute, but I told her that I thought it would be more personal if she and her husband were in the shot. That's how I managed to employ myself. Someone needed to operate the camera. 

(Now...it bears - tee hee - mentioning that Annie's sister-in-law is the kick ass photographer who shot the photos for my engagement and wedding. She totally rocks. But...Annie couldn't very well have her do the job without blowing her cover. Hopefully I did well enough in her stead.)

Darian and I headed out to the farm (they live on a cute little spot of acreage out of town) and spent a short period of time shooting pics of Annie and her hubby on an adorable bench with the bears. Then I headed home to edit.

At Annie's request, she didn't want her face in the picture - silly girl - so I posed the picture to focus on the bears. A little photoshop magic, and the announcement was ready to go.

Here's the resulting photo announcement for the upcoming Baby Phelps.

I'm pretty happy with the result and I'm glad I was able to play a part in getting this cute couple's announcement out there.

Holiday Success! Planning for 2013...

Did everyone enjoy their holiday? I did. Well...until yesterday when I caught a ridiculous cold and spent the entire day in bed. I'm a little better off today, but still not 100%. But...it's still been super to have some relaxation time here and there.

I completed all of the 2012 Christmas Present Project Countdown with time to spare!

I completed the last of the 54 Christmas projects on the night of December 23rd. A full day earlier than last year! Hopefully I just keep getting more and more efficient at this. One step at a time...

I am still reading steadily in order to try and complete my reading goal for the year. I have a feeling I will probably come up a little bit short. But...no worries. I have a contingency plan. If I don't finish all of the 64 books I had planned, then the books with 5 stars will automatically win their initial bracket and the remaining books will be shifted accordingly. That probably doesn't make much sense without actually seeing the bracket, but trust me...it will work. I should also probably take this opportunity to explain that all of the books are actually read. I don't do the audio book thing. To me, that just feels like cheating.

I plan on continuing the book reviews through the end of January and then hopefully will be revealing my favorite book of 2012 by the beginning of February. There are some pretty good contenders. And once again, I have learned a few things that will lead to a revamping of the system for 2013.

Following that endeavor, it's back to the projects. I have quite a bit to share and I'm excited to show off some of the things I've made.

The plan for 2013? Ready?

Here are some of the things I'll be posting (in no particular order):

1. Kiddie Kitchenette
2. Sock Monkeys
3. 52 Things I Love About You
4. Patchwork Name Quilts
5. Alphabet Soup Quilt
6. Homemade Vanilla Extract
7. Homemade Sugar Scrub
8. Jean Aprons
9. Monogrammed Plates & Mugs
10. T-Shirt Quilt
11. "Sparkle" Quilt
12. Gameday Dresses
13. Little Girl Tutus
14. Pony Hoodies
15. Pajama Pants
16. Rice Warmers
17. Rag Rug
18. Beer Bottle Glasses

...and there are some things I'll be working on...

1. Project Life (I've kind of slacked off this year)
2. 2013 Book of the Year (changes to come)
3. 2013 Pumpkin Patch Planner
4. 2013 Christmas Project Countdown

I'm sure there will be things added as the year goes on. In fact, after the blogging extravaganza in October and all of the resulting Halloween decorations, I have decided that other holidays deserve just as much attention. So, I'll be planning some ways to complete projects to increase my holiday decor throughout the year. I have to get some good ideas on how to keep things fun - for readers as well as for my own sanity.

I'll be undertaking some photography challenges in order to increase the number of photos I take throughout the year as well as improve my photography skills. I'll be devising a way to feature these challenges soon.

And...finally...I can't leave out food. I'll be undertaking another round of meal planning in the spring. We are currently winding down on the meal planning/shopping that I completed last fall, but it's going to be a bit before I can fire back up. Unfortunately, our garage side-by-side fridge/freezer decided to bite the big one on Christmas Eve, so I have to wait until we either have it repaired or replaced before I can go do another big shopping run.

And there you have it. There will be organization, there will be planning, there will be posts, and...finally...there will be projects!!! Happy holidays everyone!!

Take Me Out Tonight... Part 3 of 3

Finally...part 3 has arrived. And now the pieces start coming together. You know the concept, you've seen the container. Now the fun part...the cards. I love these cards. I found it pretty fun to design them - even though it required me learning some new things from Publisher and a ton of printer cartridge replacements. (I use an HP printer with what used to be called Vivera ink...a black cartridge and five separate color cartridges.)

I started by putting together the Excel list of date ideas that I talked about in part one of the series. Just one nice long "A" column of ideas.

Once I had those done I opened up Publisher and designed myself a cute little card. I imported a picture of Collin and I and then created a text box at the bottom of the card to hold the individual date plans. This is when I had to go research for help. I really didn't want to have to manually enter each idea one at a time. I also wanted to conserve paper, printing multiple different cards on the same sheet. So I hit the Google and did a little searching. I found some help in the Microsoft Office forums and quickly solved the problem, making myself a nice pile of labeled cards.

Now, if you're doing this project and you're making labels for something instead of cards, you can use those handy label sheets (Avery and the like). Just select those labels as your publication type before designing. I went with the Diamond Style Avery 5164.

With my design all ready to go, I needed to link up to my fancy Excel file. I used the Mail and Catalog Merge Wizard under the Tools menu. I chose the "Use Existing List" option and browsed to find my Excel file.

With that chosen, I selected all of my items in the list and hit "OK". Tada! Merged.

Now...it was time to get that merged data imported onto the card. This requires creating a placeholder on the publication. So I selected the text box that I had created previously and created the publication using "More Items". This let me select my list. I inserted the correct field and continued the prompts at the bottom of the mail merge window.

I pulled up a print preview just to make sure everything looked hunky dory. I told you...I don't like to waste materials. The last thing I needed was a bunch of worthless labels on my photo paper. There was momentary panic at this point, as the print preview window still shows it as multiple copies of the same card. A quick read of the Microsoft Office Answer Box page reassured me that this is just a quirk in the program. It was just a quick click of print in the mail merge window and I was able to walk away to grab a snack while my gigantic pile of photo paper cards began to amass. (Look at me using fancy words.)

The print preview that caused me a minor stroke.

The final step was just cutting these pretty babies out and placing them in the box. Since they are in alphabetical order (I like a nice organized list), I wanted to make sure that we weren't pulling out ideas in the order they appeared in the Excel sheet. So...I just gave the box a good thorough shake. I figure if we do this every time before we pull a card, we should get a nice random pick each time.

Now we're all set to start having some fun and interesting dates!

This post is part of my 31 Days of Creative Crafting Series. To see a list of the other posts, click here. For a tutorial on how to make the Date Box, click here. And finally, if you want a nice list of date ideas for you and your sweetheart, click here. Happy dating!

Project Life Week 2 - Because I'm Always a Few Steps Behind

Because I'm just that awesome, you're getting a nice pile of posts this week. (Really I'm just trying to make up for the fact that I totally crapped out for the last two weeks.)

So...I think I'm going to post some Project Life. Hey...it's April...maybe we should get on with it and post week two. Ugh. I'm seriously lame at keeping up with posting this stuff. Humor me.

I just can't tell you how much I love this system. It makes it really easy to just slide things in and move on. Realistically, I could probably get away with doing a lot less journaling than I do, but as usual...I really like to make sure that someone from the outside would be able to understand why I have chosen the pictures I use and what they mean. So...the downside is that I do a lot of journaling...which you know I hate. Hence the reason I am now currently two months behind on my journaling...ouch. I need to step on it. I guess I know what I'm doing when I finish this post.

Collin began working as an on-scene medic up at a mine about five hours from home last November. He was pulling one seven day shift a month. This was a big change for our family - we're used to being able to see each other every day. Even when Collin is on a 24 hour ambulance shift we usually meet up for a meal or to say hi. At very least we have a phone call. But...the mine is different. There is no cell reception up there and the crazy snow storms make their internet connection very iffy. We typically manage a 10 minute conversation per day at most. At this point in the year we were using Skype, but with our new(ish) iPhones we're now able to use FaceTime as well.

If you've been reading my posts for the past few months then you know I've been dealing with pain of an unknown origin. During the second week in January, I managed to grab an open slot at the rheumatologist's office by luck. I was originally scheduled for the middle of March, but I was having an intense amount of pain and called to see if there was anything earlier. I got in three days later. Crazy enough, I got diagnosed one week after my original appointment date. If I had waited until that date it would've been summer by the time I had any answers. I'm very grateful that I was able to speed up the process.

Oh, how I miss the good old days. Darian came home with his first B on a report card in January. We were hoping that it would help him realize the implications of being lazy and not doing his homework...of course, that hope was dashed this last quarter. Instead, he came home with a B and two C's. Ugh. Patience is a virtue...right?

Darian was also sick this week...an oddity for the kid who had perfect attendance last year. Lucky me...I ended up catching it from him the next week...

And Saturday was my reward for the long week without Collin. Darian was with his mom so I spent some time with Owen & Patti. We went out to take pictures for K's 2nd birthday. She is always so darned cute. She has a cheese face that is hilarious. Afterwards, Patti treated me to a pedicure. It was awesome. And look how pretty my icky toes turned out. Patti gave me crap for picking a "safe" color. Apparently I need to be more adventurous.

And there you have it. Week two. Yay! I am so embarrassed that I am still working on February. Back to work I go...

Project Life 2012: In the Beginning...

I've been promising and promising that I would share my Project Life pages. I am finally coming clean on that promise. It only took me two months. I'm breaking it up into pieces since the posts will otherwise be crazy long, but we're getting started today. I mean it!

I will tell you though, it was not without some serious stressing on my part. The first problem came with the fact that I forgot to request the pocket page protectors when I made my Christmas list. When I went out to get myself some (on the day after Christmas, mind you) they were sold out! The nerve. I had to wait and wait and finally got them two weeks ago. In the meantime, I've been using the pocket protectors from We R Memory Keepers. A very good substitute and they have added more variety to my scrapbook - something I always like. The second issue was the photography. I couldn't get them to properly scan due to the height of the pages. I love my scanner, but apparently that extra 1/2" is just too much for it. So...I tried regular photography. Fail. Flash blobs everywhere and I couldn't go without flash because (as we all know) I tend to procrastinate and do my blogging late at night. Attempt #3...the light box. This may end up working find for regular pages, but again, the pocket protectors posed problems and...well...I just got pissed and gave up.

This week I decided it was time to suck it up and just go with it. So...I found the best light I could in my apparently dark and shadowy house and took photos of the pages...in...their...binder. The horror. I'll admit, not my proudest moment, but too stinking bad. This is what we're going with. You can no longer call me a liar...at least with this project. We won't talk about the Christmas projects I still haven't made tutorials for. (Pretend you didn't read that last sentence.)

My stash...the turquoise kit with binder and POCKET PAGE PROTECTORS.

For those of you not familiar, Project Life is an ingenious product created by the wonderful Becky Higgins. Everything you need comes in her little kit (if you remember to buy the pocket pages. BUY THE POCKET PAGES!). You just add photos and journal. It all gets compartmentalized into cute little pockets. Easy. I'm finding that I really like it. I will still continue to do my regular scrapbooking, but this works fantastically for creating our family album for the year. I'm planning to continue to do one for each year.

Initially I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough photos...I'm doing a 2 page spread for each week and I was worried that most of my pockets would remain empty. I'm finding that this isn't the case. For the most part they fill up quickly and I end up with extra photos.

This is where I confess...I might be a little OCD. Just a tad. I decided that I couldn't do this without some sort of organizational system. I needed something to keep track of what happened when because I am a serious procrastinator when it comes to journaling. Like a lot. So I jumped onto Publisher and made myself a Project Life Planner. And since I'm so nice...I'm going to share it with you...

Here it is:

I'm a little nuts. I admit it. Ok...so this is how it works.

The left side page has diagrams of all of the page protectors. Once I know which pages I'll be using, I indicate them on the page. I write into each piece as I know what I want there. Sometimes this takes a little rearranging...like when I have a horizontal 4x6" space, but a vertical 4x6" picture. But it definitely helps.

The right hand page is - for all intents and purposes - my daily journal. I track the day/date and what each one of us did, the highlights of the day or recipes that we tried. In the far right column I keep track of the pictures I have taken or want to take and the items I want to add to that week's pages.

This all helps take off the stress of putting the book together. If I don't have time to work on it one week, then I just jot down the daily activities and I'm good to go for later. I like it much better that way.

If you want to use these pages for yourself, feel free...here are the links...but if you mention them on your own blog, please give me credit and/or link back to this post.

Project Life Layout Plan

Project Life Planner

Finally...I'm going to go ahead and show you my title pages for 2012. Hey...it's a start. And...as always...clicking on the photos will blow them up larger for you.

The title line took me forever to decide how to do. When I first started, I had cut out the title in brown cardstock using my Pazzle. It just ended up looking too drab. So...I traced around it thinking that would make it pop more. Meh. It was okay. I ended up pulling the cardstock off completely and coloring in the outline using my white Uniball Signo. (I love that pen.)

The opening photo is our annual photo from The Farmstead, a local pumpkin patch. This one was taken in October of 2011.

 

I have always been a huge fan of rub-ons. I loved being able to capitalize on the presence of this circle. The quote seems fitting enough.

I am also a big fan of Ali Edwards. Ali supports a campaign she created called One Little Word. She challenges scrappers to base their family scrapbooking for the year around one word. Mine seems simple enough. To me, the biggest importance of our family is being together. So that was it...together is my word for 2012.

Some scrappers move right into the week by week pages after their title. With my One Little Word approach, I decided that I needed to explain the theme a little before I moved into weekly photos. So I added this extra spread.

The left side page spewed out of me. I just sat down and started typing. This was actually before I had officially chosen my 2012 word, but it became pretty obvious as I wrote that together was going to have to be the word I used. (For those of you wondering, the font I'm primarily using for the year is another Ali creation, it's CK_Alis_Hand_Official. I love it!)

For the right had page I further set up our family togetherness by using photos of us from 2009 and 2010. While looking for these photos I also realized that I need to start making sure we get more photos of the three of us together through the year. We have very few.

And that's it...the setup. Now hopefully I can stay on the ball and regularly post the weekly layouts. Because I'm a total sloth at journaling, I'm going to aim for one 2-page layout every other week. That should give me a sufficient buffer to get my crap together. If I'm doing better than that, well...then I guess you'll get lucky!

Let's Shed a Little Light on the Subject

So...as you've seen me mention a few times in older posts, the lighting in my house after dark is uber crappy for photos - especially my kitchen. It's just plain embarrassing. I vowed to do something about it - you know, trying to actually blog during daylight hours instead of jamming things down on the screen before crashing into bed in the wee hours of the morning. But...we all know that will never change. 10pm will always be my "happy time" for blogging. Because it's QUIET around here.

That's why I'm glad that there is Pinterest and that Michele over at The Scrap Shoppe came to my rescue. If you've never seen Michele's blog...well, you should. She's super crafty. She posted a tutorial for making your own home light box out of a cardboard box. Brilliant!

So while I can't promise that all my photos from here on out will be pretty and less tainted by my incandescent lighting, I think there is some hope in the future that there will be improvement.

I followed Michele's instructions (kind of loosely here and there, because I'm lazy like that) and made my light box in about thirty minutes. You can get the whole thing over at Michele's blog, but here's the basics of what I did. (Oh, and her photos are prettier.)

First, I swiped a box from work. It's about a 13x13" box. I wanted that size because ideally I want to be able to eventually take glare free photos of the scrap layouts I can't scan. Ya...we'll see...

Using my handy dandy box cutter, I chopped off the flaps.

Then I drew a rectangle on three of the sides, leaving about an inch of cardboard around the edges. Wielding the box cutter again, I cut out each of these rectangles, leaving one side and the bottom of the box intact. At that point, it looked like this:

After that, I dug out some white fabric to shield the sides. I ended up using what I'm pretty sure was a twin bed sheet from my college dorm room. I have no idea how that ended up in my fabric pile, but whatever, it totally worked. I just chopped a long 14" wide strip of fabric (long enough to cover the three sides).

This is where I start to deviate wildly from Michele. Hers is nice and pretty. I figured no one was going to see it but me so I took a short cut. Instead of cutting the fabric to individually cover the holes, I just wrapped it around and taped the edges down to the cardboard. I will eventually need to add some white posterboard or cardstock to the exposed inside edges, but for now...here's what I've got.

I tested it out a little bit last night using my little desk light through the top panel and I'm happy to say that my pages came out relatively glare free (I removed the white posterboard to slide them into the back of the box). I need to work on my angle so the edges come out straight, but the lighting is much improved. Fingers crossed for better project pictures from here forward!

You've Been Framed

I always try and give our moms something homemade for Christmas. I just think that homemade presents are so much fun - both to make and to give. This year I went the photo route for both moms.

Project 1 : "I Love You" Frame

This one I made for Carole based on an idea I got from Pinterest. We try and keep her up to date with photos, but sometimes we fail miserably...like the fact that I just gave her photos from last Christmas while she was here for this Christmas. Oops.

The gift was fairly simple to make, but should look good next to her other photos of Dar. I used a regular 8x10" photo frame with 5x7" cream mat. I printed the photo from our family trip to Yellowstone this past summer. I used black and white so that the whole scheme would tie together. Plus, I just like black and white for display photos because then they can more or less go in any room.

The "I Love You" letters are actually fabric stickers. I use them for scrapbooking, but I thought they looked super cute here.


Project 2 : "Love" Shadowbox

For my mom I typically use things from our childhood...like the photo frame I made for her a few years ago with our baby pictures and a "T", "L", "C" for our initials. (No, my parents did not name us just so that would come out like that.) Sadly, I don't have a photo of it to show you...lame, I know.

This year though, I decided to do a recentone with the family. I used a large shadowbox frame with a front opening hinge. I then framed our family photo in an 8x10" mat and a photo of Marley in a 5x7" mat. I adhered both of them to the linen backing. Unfortunately, my adhesive choice was crappy and they came loose after wrapping. I would suggest using double sided foam tape instead of the scrap adhesive I used.

Finally, I had a large chipboard "love" in my stash. I thought the whole thing could use a little bit of color so the bright red just works out well. There are accent pins to the top right and bottom left of the "love".

See...not too difficult, but still semi-creative (I like to think) and somewhat sentimental. That's the kind of gifts I prefer to give when I can.

Projects Past

Well...I've put it off as long as I could in order to try and get the last person her gift before I posted this, BUT she's decided not to come back until Saturday. So...she has been blog banned until she opens her gift.

The rest of you get to see what those 40 projects for the Christmas Project Countdown were all about...

Today I'm just listing each project along with a photo and the name of the person who got it. Individual posts and tutorials for each project type will follow over the next couple of weeks.

Now...here's a small disclaimer. These are not the best photos. I took pictures of the projects right before we wrapped them. I was in the midst of Emily's project and time was ticking down so they don't look awesome. But they work. Also...I majorly failed to take pictures of a nice handful of them before wrapping - so you get a picture of the people with their gifts. Oops.

Now...for the 40 projects of Christmas I ended up with...


Presents 1 & 2 : Emily & ME - Advent Calendars

You saw these back quite early in the game. They were the result of a Pinterest find.

Present 3 : Carole - I Love You Photo Frame

Presents 4 - 9 : Carole, Collin, Krista, Darian, Abigail and ME! - BSU Hats

You've already seen these on my December 10th post. Well...except for Carole...who managed not to get her picture taken.


Presents 10 - 16 : Grandpa, Dad, Tyler, Chad, Jon, Kirsten & Marley - BSU Hats

Kirsten managed to go without getting her picture taken.

Jon was the only one of us on Collin's side that didn't get to go to the game. So he needed a hat too...

These are the true BSU fans on the far left and second from the right.
The far right - Tyler - is actually a Vandal (we won't hold it against him today.)

Present 17 : Mom - Love Shadowbox

Presents 18-26 : Jean, Mom, Dad, Jon, Krista, Patti, Melissa, Erin & Grandma - Scarves

The very first scarf I knitted. I don't think it's half  bad.

I love the colors on my mom's scarf. It should go with just about anything. My dad's should be able to go with his BSU gear fairly well and it's SUPER soft.

I love the diamond pattern that ended up coming out on Jon's. I was a little worried about it when I first started. In our house we all agreed that the one on the right was "Krista colors".

I took Patti with me shopping for supplies for this undertaking. She unknowingly picked out the yarn for her own scarf. Melissa still hasn't opened hers yet, but I think the bright colors fit her personality.

Erin was the first one to jump on and comment that I should make it 41 presents because she needed one too. Ha! She was already on the list.

I really wish I would've photographed this one. This is my first attempt at multiple yarns. I really like how the pattern turned out. Unfortunately, you get a slightly blurry idea. I wanted to give this one to my grandma because I knew she would appreciate the effort - she herself does some wonderful crocheting.

Presents 27 - 29 : Owen, Tyler & Chad - Bottlecap Coasters

(I'll be honest...I don't know who got which set. Pretty sure Chad's are the top ones, the Tyler's, then Owen's. I could be completely wrong.)

Presents 30 & 31 : Krista & Patti - Decoupaged Tile Coasters

These I know! The pink/red set is Krista's.

These funky shapes and colors just seemed more Patti-like.

Project 32 - Carole : Decoupaged Tile Photo Coasters

This photo isn't blurry FYI. I antiqued the photos.

Project 33 : Collin - 52 Things I Love About You Card Deck

Don't worry...this one is at the house. There will be better photos of it in it's own post.

Projects 34-36 : Marley, Kirsten & Abigail - Sock Monkeys

 Projects 37 - 39 : Kirsten, Abigail & Marley - Patchwork Name Quilts

...and...

Project 40 : Emily - Alphabet Soup Quilt

Not a bad haul, right? Now you see why I said my sewing machine was busy. It was fun, but I think next year I'll get a bit of an earlier start. Live and learn.