Project Life Catch Up: April 14 - 28!

I'm still chugging along trying to catch up to present day (again). I finished this layout last weekend and it shows April 14 -26. (Roughly week 16-17.) It's very Luna-centric because when we don't have much going on Luna's really the only thing we photograph.  Haha.

This page is actually the back half of my Yosemite layout from April 13th so I had a 12x6 area to fill. I decided it would be cute to highlight our sidewalk chalk art from 4/14. Let's be honest...it's pretty sweet. Haha. I hadn't done sidewalk chalk in forever and it was way too much fun. Luna was kind of into it. She kept asking me to draw turtles then decided it would be more fun to play cars outside. I, on the other hand, totally went for it.

 

Nothing too special about the sidewalk chalk bits. I found these cute little stickers at Target that had rainbows and clouds which I decided would be perfect for my rainbow/clouds masterpiece. 

I feel like these kind of stickers aren't really "in" for scrapbooking right now but I say "Pssh!" Use what you like! It's your scrapbook. I think I'd drive myself insane if I tried to make some of those pages I see. They are gorgeous but they're just not me. It's not going to be fun until you stay true to your own style.

As for this section...I LOVE it. Even more so because this picture was taken after Luna used the potty for the first time!!! I never really do split pocket type layouts but I loved how this turned out.

• The "One Sweet Moment" is from one of the me & my big ideas pocket card sets, I just don't recall which one.
• The chevron card is from Becky Higgins 5th and Frolic Core Set.
• The "medal" was actually a pretty ugly flower embellishment that I added the "i did it!" circle on and glued some scrap ribbons on the back. It might just be my favorite part! And yes, it's on top of the pocket and not in it.
• And the typing?! Well folks, that's on my new typewriter! More about that on a later day but if you look through my Instagram Feed you can catch a sneak peek! (And feel free to add me, I've been really enjoying IG lately.)

Just a close up of the awesome flower/medal thing. I'm really quite pleased at how it came together. Now for the second page...

Isn't this page more matchy-matchy than you're used to from me? I kind of like it! Lots of purple/blue inspired by blue eyes and a purple dress.

I used the same purple (and yellow) washi tape on all the pictures from this "session" to kind of tie it all together. The card above is actually kind of plain but all the elements come together pretty well I think! The card is from the 5th and Frolic set and I made the QR code for the video at this website.

If you choose to scan it and watch it...be warned...it's a minute or so long video of Luna eating an apple. It was such a peaceful moment and I'm so scared that I'll forget tiny little details like how cute she is eating an enormous apple I just want to include everything!



More pictures from the park and another (pretty cute!) video of Luna on the swing. So cute.



Here's the last couple pictures from this portion. Washi tape is my friend. I have alot-ish. (I've seen much bigger stashes.) I just like how easy and cheap it is to add a bit of color/pattern and to "tie" groups of pictures together. My collection doubled in size when I bought the Memory Keepers Washi Tape Set. I like how it has pretty much ALL the basic colors in two different sizes/patterns so it's perfect if you like washi tape but don't have many projects where you can break out your kitty cat washi tape.

And for the end little bit...a flip page! I only had a couple pictures left I wanted to include in before I did our Easter (we did it later in the month since I was working on actual Easter) and the last of the month so a flip pocket was perfect.

I already have those pictures printed out so I'm ahead of the game...just have to finish it!

Has anyone did their Easter pages yet? Leave a link because I'd love to see them and steal all your ideas before I put my layout together. ;)


Thanks for looking!

- Mrs. 246

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Project Life Catch Up: April 1-6 2014

EDIT//06.03.14// A lot of people really liked the calender I used for this page and I did too! This calender in this post is from a PL kit buuuuut I just made a bunch of similar free printables for you to use! Check them out here: Project Life Calendar Printables.

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Hey guys! I haven't posted about my Project Life pages since this post back on April 2nd and since I've been on a Project Life kick lately I'm even more motivated to share my most recent pages. I've been looking at a lot of different people's pages and getting lots of ideas.

Sometimes when you do this kind of project it's easy to use your old stand-by techniques without a second thought but I was relying more and more on just adding extra elements in the photo editor instead of actual embellishment. That's fine and all (especially if you're doing digital pages!) but my aim wasn't to do digital pages. It was a bit silly just to do everything digitally, print them out, cut them up, put them in pockets with the occasional embellishment. It is time for me to shake things up a bit in my scrapbooking. 

Here are my pages from April 1-6 that I just finished this past weekend:

In what I'm calling my signature style of "mish-mash-anything-goes" I love this page. Lots of bright and happy and fun memories.

The "April" Title card was a bit more muted then I'd like and it was hard finding elements that would go together to fill up the space. Don't you just love those letters though?

Holy moly. This calendar is probably my favorite part of the whole page! I think it'll be so neat to look back on this years from now. I didn't keep track of what we did or anything. I just kind of looked through pictures to jog my memory of what we did and for days I didn't have pictures  and didn't know I just kind of filled in whatever. (i.e. "Mommy working" and "TGIF" Lol.) I think I may use one of these every month. And actually keep track of things better for it. I love it! *The card is from the 5th and Frolic Edition Core Kit by Dear Lizzy. I think it's a Michaels exclusive. I love this kit.*

I had more journaling I wanted to do on this card so a little pull tab worked perfect. I love including some hands-on elements too. I think it's neat!

Before if I wanted to jazz a picture up with some text I would do it in the photo editor but I'm trying a bit more to use handwriting on my pictures. I definitely need a better pen for this but I like the way it turns out. And yes, that's me and little Boo Radley cuddling in bed. (Cell phone pic quality for sure. But thank goodness for cell phones because if not, I'd have a lot less pictures.)

This page was kind of "eh" in my book. But the memories are documented and that's all that matters, right?

Here's the neat part though! I came across this Flip Flap pages by Close to My Heart somewhere on the internet and I knew I just had to have them. They have all sorts of different sizes and there's an adhesive strip on one side to attach them right to your PL pages and you have a fun little way to add extra pictures or journal. You can even layer them for a little mini album within your album. Ahh! The possibilities! (This is perfect if you have one to two more pictures you want to add to a layout but not enough to justify adding another whole insert. Plus, it's a fun hands-on element!)

And moving on....our day trip to Big Trees State Park!

I used a Becky Higgins Design H Insert for our Big Trees State Park pictures. We didn't take a ton of pictures since we've been there a fair amount before, just not with Luna!

I forgot I had this too so I had to put it in. We had bought Luna a sticker book full of bear stickers at the gift shop. I needed to entertain her a couple days later and asked her to make mommy a bear card for my scrapbook. She happily obliged. This girl LOVES stickers.

This picture didn't turn out so well since I had a lot of glare on the photo pocket but how freaking cute is that picture? I had a mini running theme for these pictures of words on stop of that clear and green striped washi tape, as well as black handwriting/stamps.

 

I didn't have a ton of room for journaling so I included a insert card and used lots of tiny writing. The card is from that same 5th and Frolic Becky Higgins Core Kit. I slipped in our parking pass from the day as well.

 

Another Flip Flap page! The typed sticker saying are from various Cosmo Cricket Tiny Text packs. I LOVE these packs. Easy cute embellishment on the cheap. I have 3-4 different sheets. I'm making it my goal to get them all. Lol. Note the journaling right on the picture. I'm liking it! I used to not want to do it. What if I'm ruining the picture, I thought. Well, it's the digital age. Print another one. Problem solved.

I forgot to take a picture of the whole back of the insert but this is in the top spot. A mini collage of us and the HUGE trees. I used a combo of letter stamps using Staz On ink (a new favorite!) and handwriting for the embellishing.

A new favorite!!! QR video codes!! I've thought about doing this for a while but I couldn't help but thinking that it was a bit silly. QR codes haven't caught on much and in twenty years will I even be able to scan them? What will the next technology be? Then I figured it can't hurt if it's not around anymore or something happens to the links. It's pretty neat for right now.

I was sold on the QR video codes once I was reading someone's blog this past week that their 4 year old loved looking through the PL books and her favorite part was scanning the QR codes and watching all the home videos. I think I should still be able to scan them in a couple years and I'm pretty sure Luna will get a really big kick out of it. (And so will I!) Expect more QR codes in the future!

The last picture of the insert. Luna and Ryan at the warming hut after our hike, having some hot chocolate (Luna's first taste!) and Luna playing in the snow.

That's it for now! What I've learned on these pages: I love journaling/writing right on the picture and I love QR codes. Expect more in the future.

Thanks for taking a look! Let me know if the comments if there's any fun little "techniques" you've come across for Project Life. I'm open to anything!

-Mrs. 246

Yosemite in April

I got my nature fill this past Saturday. Friday night we got all packed up so we could leave early(ish) Saturday morning. We even turned Luna's car seat to forward facing for the occasion. (They say you're supposed to wait until they're two but she's almost there. Happy early birthday, Luna. Lol.) She actually threw up in the car when we were half way there. This child never throws up so I'm thinking the views might have affected her a bit. The Comfort Inn we pulled over near was nice enough to donate a towel to us for Luna to sit on. (Note to mommy self: pack car with paper towels and some sort of cleaner for next trip.)

By the time we reached Mariposa (a cute little foothill town), Luna was feeling much better. We had  to stop in Mariposa because there's always a taco truck at one of their parks and Mr. 246 was determined to have some taco truck. Lol.

It was about that point Luna took a really early morning nap. Hey there little sleepy Bean.

Driving near the park there were fields of poppies everywhere! The above picture isn't the greatest, but it's the best I could do with my little point-and-shoot while driving in super bright sunshine. So many of the hills just had almost completely orange sides. It was awesome! I've never been early enough in the year to see that.

Driving into the park is always nuts. You almost break your neck looking from one view to another. It's just so awesome. We actually ended up buying a 12 month pass (which I'm super excited about). If we go at least one more time it was worth the deal.

Once we were in the park, Luna woke up. I think instinctively she knew awesomeness was going on. The above picture is when we told her to "smile," lol. What a silly face.

Hey Bridalviel Falls! I see you up there!

Hey Upper Yosemite Falls! I see you too! I know it's prime waterfall time because of the snow melt but I was a little worried there wouldn't really be any since we've been in a drought but I have a feeling there may not be too many waterfalls later this summer.

We had an early lunch at the car before setting out, then it was off to the Lower Yosemite Falls trail. We picked this one for Luna because it's short, there's a pretty waterfall, and there are huge boulders that Mr. 246 loves to climb. Lol.

Here we are in front of Lower Yosemite Falls. There's a bridge that crosses the river so you get a pretty unobstructed view. In past years there has been so much water if you stand on the bridge you will get soaked from the spray but this year you only felt a teeny tiny bit of spray when the wind blew really hard.

Above is another view of the falls. If you can see where the arrow is pointing...that's a person. (If you look super close you can see lots of people.) That gives you some sort of scale of just how huge this waterfall is. Amazing, isn't it?

Luna wanted to go "smimming!" and it scared me how willing she would have been to go swimming in that water. Haha. Ahh, to be a reckless almost two year old.

There was obligatory rock climbing on the hike back. Luna thought rock climbing meant daddy holds her and she just walks up the side of rocks. It was pretty funny. She went as high as Ryan could lift her and she still wanted to walk higher. Haha.

Once she got the hang of it, Luna wanted to climb on everything. She found that slanted rock above and instantly decided it was a slide and would sit at the top of it and scoot her butt down saying "weeee!" as she did it.

The last time I was in Yosemite I was 8 months pregnant. I knew I probably wouldn't go that year once Luna was born so I was determined to go before she was born. As we were walking back to the trail head I remembered taking a picture in this spot and even though I didn't get the exact spot it was pretty cool to take a picture in the same-ish spot as last time. Once with me be pregnant, and then again with Luna herself.

There were more pictures throughout the day, most of it scenery. Truth be told once we got our "official" hike done with I didn't take as many pictures. This was my 6th trip to Yosemite and Mr. 246's 7th and since we were doing trails and areas we'd already been I didn't feel as inclined to take a lot of pictures. I think the next couple of times we'll venture out more but since it was Luna's first time. We wanted to go places that we knew would be easy and fun (and not stressful and scary) to take Luna too.

I was on a Yosemite kick yesterday after I had gotten home and I decided to see if maybe there was a random campsite available (they're pretty much booked solid already for the whole summer by this time of year) and there was!!! I won the lottery and we will be spending a night camping in the Yosemite Valley two weeks from now! Yay!!!!!! It'll be Luna's first camping trip so I'm really excited. (And a little nervous. There's two streams/rivers surrounding the particular camp ground we're staying in. Am I allowed to put my child on a leash? Can I be that parent?)

I even got a field guide at the gift shop and had fun looking up some trees. I think next time we'll go I'm going to spend a while trying to identify things. I always wanted to be that person who goes hiking and says, "See that plant? That's a blah blah blah. It only grows the last two weeks of this month at an elevation of between 2500 and 4500 feet. You can tell it's a blah blah blah because there are clusters of 3 leaves that grow together and the branches grow in multiples of 5. Native American's used to use this plant for..." and so on. Haha. I don't think I'll ever be that good but it's fun to do when you're looking at stuff and try to figure out what it is.

I can't wait to go on more day trips this summer. As much as I don't like the immediate area we live in, I love the fact that there are so many amazing places you can go for just a day or two. We're very lucky. :)

Has anyone else been someplace neat lately? Where do you plan on going this summer?

-Mrs. 246

Family Trip to Jackson, California!

Hello again! We had some very important wedding-related business matters to deal with Saturday. That prompted a day visit to the town we're getting married in: Jackson, California. This town is cute...lots of mining history, dozens of amazing antique shops (none of which we got to visit today), and lovely rolling hills. Alas, my pictures from today are terribly exciting since it was a "business-only" trip, but we did manage a couple impromptu relaxing bits...mostly to allow the Bean to stretch about.

The first thing we did is stop at their local Safeway grocery store so I could order cake and cupcakes for the wedding. I did the negotiating while Bean and Mr. 246 found a nice shady spot somewhere in the shopping center so Bean could move about.

I think he found quite a nice spot hidden behind some not-yet-filled shops. No car traffic and some wonderful views. (The shopping center was atop a hill.) Best part? Their was a grapevine area with two rows of grape plants growing quite happily in the sunshine. And look! The grapes are starting!

The next stop was at the venue location. Sadly I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy taking video while narrating notes to myself about decorations and placements and other wedding planning tidbits. We got a lot figured out, even if I do still have a ton of work left to do. Here's two sneak peeks from the wedding venue that I managed to steal out of some of the video I took. 

This first one is part of the "Lower Terrace" fountain landing area. We will be getting married in front of that archway which is actually a fountain that will have water coming down the sides. If you look closely at the right side of the upper brick "wall" (the bricks you see in the second stone wall section in the middle of the picture) there is a overturned pot. This is also part of the fountain and will be pouring water into a kind of moat that the stairs actually go over. (Ignore the ladder and the rakes...they're doing some maintenance today!)

The second shot of the venue I have is of my favorite part. The outdoor fireplace! I just love everything about it. I wish I had a zoomed out picture so you could see the surrounding area and the little stairs that lead into the woods...it's just amazing. The whole venue has tons of stonework and bricks and awesomeness.

After meeting with the venue coordinator, we walked over to a nearby park (a quick 3 minute walk!) where they were actually having a Re-Opening after doing some extensive work on the park to help restore and preserve parts of it. It's the Kennedy Wheels Tailing Park. It's part of the Kennedy Gold Mine and has these HUGE wooden wheels that helped move the water for the gold mines.

I could not believe how big these water wheels were. Part of the preservation project was to build a structure to protect the last standing wheel. For comparison, that tiny person in the picture below is Mr. 246:

We didn't quite understand the wheels and how they worked, but from what I gather they helped moved water away from the gold mine down a hill, then up a hill, then back down to a "waste" water section that was dammed off. 

Here's an illustration of the area we found on one of the information boards. The yellow arrow is actually the wheel you see above. (Not pictured is the actual gold mine way to the left.)

We had lunch behind that wheel building, overlooking the area in front of the dam. (There's no water there today, so it's just fields.) It was beautiful anyway though. If you squint you can see the dam. (Just left of the clump of trees on the right-hand side is the dam.)

Actually, we didn't eat lunch there. The Bean did. It was her lunchtime and she had food packed...we didn't. We did manage to find a nice shady spot!

Bean wanted leaves for lunch. We decided that wasn't a good idea. Do you see what Mr. 246 is holding? Genius idea he came across online...bring an avocado on-the-go, then when it's food time for baby then just break it open and spoon it out. Self contained baby food! She loves it. I may have sneaked a bite or two. 

On our way leaving the park they were packing up from that morning's Grand Re-Opening events. They had these gorgeous leather jackets for sale.

 

They second two looked definitely handmade and I'm pretty sure they were since there were a bunch of legit looking mountainous men around. I am too shy to take pictures of strangers, but I did get a picture of their sign!
 

When I got home I Googled about these mountain men and of course I could find nothing of their local chapter...but I did learn some about Kit Carson himself.

So, Bean was fed then it her naptime. With no real suitable place to nap except the car, we loaded her up, got some drive-thru food and parked in a parking garage and had a mini picnic while Luna got some much needed rest:

The last order of business of the day brought us back to Safeway so I could meet with the florist. Mr. 246 entertained Ms. Bean and they wandered about the store hooting and hollaring and reading books while I spoke with the most amazing lady ever about flower arrangements.

After Safeway, we needed another mini sit-about so Bean could stretch again before we left for our hour long ride home. We went pretty close by to the first spot of the day, but this area had a patio-like area so we didn't have to sit near itchy grass. No grapes near this spot, but there was a bunch of lavender!


I got this beautiful picture of Lunabean. In this picture she looks so....different? Maybe it's because I hardly have any profile shots of her.

 

She was quite entertained by the car keys and a baby wipes container:

 

I can't quite remember if I mentioned this or not but Luna took her first step on June 10. She's been gradually moving a bit more every day and this girl wants to go. This is why we made it a priority to give her lots of time to roam about on today's trip. We would not have a happy child on our hands if she was strapped in a car seat, or stroller, or baby carrier all day. So...this was our third "Let the Bean Stretch" hang out session of the day. And she sure did stretch. Remember the wipes container and keys? She played with them for fifteen minutes straight. She just kept throwing them and going after them. Pretty much playing "fetch" with herself:

 

Pardon our pantless child...we knew we were going to have to change her again before we left so we just kept the shorts off. 

We drove home early enough to have a normal evening and get Bean to bed on time. Later on in the evening I had to make a decision about dinner and I knew I wanted to use up what we had on hand and I randomly discovered that we could make Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. I just had to say the words to Mr. 246 and he was on top of it. It was complete with Mr. 246's ketchup and mustard pizza "sauce" concoction. After eating it I felt awesome and disgusting.

 

So, my lovely readers, that is what I leave you with tonight: Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. I hope you enjoyed "tagging along" for a short bit today. Thanks for stopping by!

-Ms. 246