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

Small Print: Amazon Affiliate links used where applicable. I have not been asked to endorse these particular products. They're just products I love and use. Opinions are always entirely my own. Two-Forty-Six will make a very small percentage on anything purchased through these links. This helps support my craft supply addiction. If you wanna check out more of my favorite items, check out my aStore. I'm still setting up but everything listed are actual items I use and enjoy.

Project Life: Yosemite Trip Documented!

This past weekend I finally got around to putting our Yosemite Trip into my Project Life book. I didn't have an exact idea of how I wanted it all to look (I'm more of a figure-out-as-I-go scrapper) and it took the greater part of an evening because it just wasn't looking "right." Ever get like that? There was lots of trial and error involved but I'm pretty pleased with the end result.

So above is the layout with the inserts. Below is the layout without the inserts.

Originally I wanted that first picture to span both pages put it wasn't the right dimensions to make it that long. :( Maybe next time I take panoramas I'll make a super long one so I have that option. The page protector comes in a 10 pack from We R Memory Keepers.
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This quote sums up our nature trips perfectly. Sometimes you just have to head to the mountains.

The clear Yosemite quote sticker above was actually taken from this Yosemite scrapbooking sticker pictured below. When we were at one of the gift shops I found it on a little sidecap and of course had to buy it. (I thought it was multiple stickers when I bought it but it was actually one giant one so I cut it up and used it as I pleased.)

Below are some shots from the car ride there. I wanted to journal something about the road trip on the way there and as I was working on the layout I yelled to Ryan:

"Hey, was there any interesting I can journal about the car ride there?" 

"Wasn't that the ride where Luna puked every where?!"

This trip was only a month and a half ago. Isn't it funny how quickly we forgot little details and stories? That's one reason I'm definitely glad I am doing Project Life. I don't want to forget anything. Even Luna's first real puking experience.

Ahhh...journaling cards. I originally was going to go with plain white Becky Higgins Grid Cards and dress them up. I started to do that but it just looked so out of place. All these nature-y pictures and -- BAM! Bright white in-your-face! It didn't look right. None of the cards I had looked right. I looked through my 6x6 and 12x12 scrapbook paper - none of the greens/browns worked quite right. I finally settled on this yellow patterned paper and accented it with green. Honestly, it's still not my favorite, but it does the job I think.

 

A little bit about supplies:

• The "YOSEMITE" is spelled out using these Amy Tangerine Woodgrain Thickers (which you may recognize from my current blog header! Also, I got them from Joann's with a coupon which is MUCH cheaper than the listed price on Amazon). 
• The little green tab and "Details" sticker is from Sn@p labels, purchased from Michaels.
• The "Yosemite National Park" is from that random sticker I found in the gift shop. 
• The trees sticker is cut from these Sandy Lion tree border stickers. 
• And finally....do you see that little "hello" cursive stamp beside the Yosemite title....

It's from this Heidi Swapp stamp pack which I have officially fallen in love with. It's perfect for Project Life. And ended up only being around $6 at Michaels with a coupon. (Sadly couldn't find a link for you. Leave a comment if you know where to find them online!) Be prepared to see more use of these stamps in the near future. :)

Next up is this gorgeous Yosemite map card I picked up at one of the gift shops. I didn't have exact plans for it when I bought it but I loved it. I didn't want to "mess it up" but punching holes directly in it so I made some little makeshift tabs to put it in the binder. (The pokadot green - it's just patterned cardstock folded in half, attached with scotch tape, and punched with a hole.)

If I had more to say about the trip I would have journaled inside the card but I didn't so I left it blank for now.

The next insert below is a Becky Higgins Design J insert. I like how it includes 4x4's to break up the whole 4x6 and 3x4 business that's always going on. (If you click on the link you can check out over ten different page protector layouts as well!)

The yellow paper is back! Even when I'm not using a kit to coordinate (which I never do anyway) I like my pages from one event to have some sort of cohesiveness. My "theme" for the Yosemite trip was black stamps, that yellow paper, and some of that green stripy washi tape I love so much.

The card below was cut from 12x12 scrapbook paper. The Yosemite sticker came from the gift shop and I had a little square frame type stamp that I only inked the corners of so I could embellish the corners of the card.

I'm a bit proud of the picture below. See the washi tape on the side? Yea...that was my solution for accidentally cropping the picture way too much. Add some coordinating washi tape - problem solved! And to continue the yellow to the bottom of the insert, I stamped one of the Heidi Swapp stamps onto the yellow paper and cut it out, glued it on.

The "be brave and do it" is from one of my current favorite embellishment items, Cosmo Cricket "Just Because" Tiny Text Stickers. I just freaking love them. The "To be creative, one must play" is from "Life Story" sticker pack.

Here's the back of the insert in it's entirety:

Yep. Was taking pictures of deer in a field and embarrassingly decided it would be sooo cool to take a selfie with the deer. Journal about it. Document your silliness. Own it.  ("Say Cheese" embellishment is from one of those 4 page MAMBI chip sets you can get from Michaels.)

OH-EM-GEE! My new favorite thing! Flip Flaps! This one was a 2x2 included in this small mix set by CTMH but you can find similar photo flip pages like this from sn@p! as well.

The yellow 4x4 card is one I made listing the animals Luna picked out on our adventure. I always love doing little lists like this. I especially love the little mix of stamps and handwriting on the tiny animal pictures. Gah! How cute! (Are you allowed to ooh and ahh over your own layouts? I think yes! It's part of the fun! Be proud of what you come up with!)

Bottom row of the insert. So beautiful. I love Yosemite!

Next insert: Blog Post! In my PL binder?! Yes...that's right. I already outlined most of the trip in a blog post. What's the point of writing it out again in a journal card? So I copy/pasted, fiddled with the margins/pictures and printed out the blog post on 8.5x11 white cardstock. I think it's kind of neat to include a blog post every now and then.

You can read my post about our Yosemite trip here. On the second page I had blown up and glued in the 8x8 picture of "Then & Now." In one picture I am 8 months pregnant, the next we have Luna at 21.5 months old at almost the same exact spot in front of Lower Yosemite Falls.

Last page! I love this picture that Mr. 246 captured of Luna and I sitting by one of the streams.

To embellish I added more Tiny Text Stickers to the bottom corner. Sometimes they're just so perfect...I think I'm addicted.

Surprisingly, below is my only photo collage I included. I was a bit lazy while editing photos to do more. Plus I didn't have a ton of photos like you would expect me to. We live pretty close to Yosemite and have a year long pass so I'm sure we'll be back.

I embellished with more Tiny Text stickers and some enamel dots like this (can't remember which brand).

And one final one...I really wanted to use the camera stamp from the Heidi Swapp pack on this picture but I only have black ink and the picture's a bit dark anywhere I would want to stamp it so I lined up a couple pieces of my favorite washi tape and stamped it right on there. A little weird but I like it!

So, that's it...our Yosemite Trip in PL form. I think it turned out pretty alright. Since it was our first trip of the season I went for a large layout with inserts. I think next time I'll only do a page or so. Thanks for letting me share! I'll end this post with a question....

What's your go to embellishments and/or kits when scrapping a nature-y type outing like this? I'm always in the market for some new fun stuff. Thanks!

-Mrs. 246

Small Print: Amazon Affiliate links used where applicable. I have not been asked to endorse these particular products. They're just products I love and use. Opinions are always entirely my own. Two-Forty-Six will make a very small reimbursement on anything purchased through these links to you know maybe even buy me a cup of coffee! (Or pay off my library fines. Heh.) If you wanna check out more of my favorite items, check out my aStore. I'm still setting up but everything listed are actual items I use and enjoy. Again, a small percentage will go back to Two-Forty-Six...I might be able to upgrade that coffee to a grande. ;)

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