❤

A 'friend'ly post

I was asked to take part in creating a scrapbook page relating to friendships in honor of the adorable Courtney Walsh's book that was just published... A Sweethaven Summer! YES, Courtney is the author. Super cool yeah? Here's the cover:

So proud of her! You can buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. She's completing another one as a followup to this one. Here's a little overview of her book:

A faded scrapbook reveals secrets that reconnect old friends in a place called Sweethaven.

Campbell Carter has come to Sweethaven in search of answers about her mother's history. Just before losing a battle with cancer, Suzanne Carter sent letters to childhood friends from her hometown of Sweethaven, Michigan. Suzanne's three friends — Lila, Jane, and Meghan — haven't spoken in years, yet each has pieces of a scrapbook they made together as girls. Suzanne's letters have lured them all back to the idyllic lakeside town, where they meet Campbell and begin to remember what was so special about their long Sweethaven summers. As the scrapbook reveals secrets from the past, old wounds are mended, lives are changed, and friendships are restored — just as Suzanne intended.

Here's the scrapbook page I created relating to friendships and Courtney's book. It's a photo of Leslie Ashe and I that we took when I went to visit her in Texas last month. We've known each other for 6 years and had met through scrapbooking. :) We've had our stalls in communication, but we always come back to our friendship. I hadn't seen her in years when I had gone to Texas, but the second I saw her it was like we just saw each other the day before. So crazy and friendships like that are far and few between! ESPECIALLY in female friendships. I'm happy and so lucky to have her and she's there for me whenever I need her! I just wish we lived closer than a plane ride away.

(click on any of these images to see them larger)

You can see the scrapbook page that Leslie created over at her blog {here}! We used the same picture without knowing. Heh, I guess that tells you a little about our friendship. ❤

Project Life: Week 5

Another week down! YES!

Project Life: Week 4

Whew, one more week down! 2 1/2 weeks left then I am caught up. YES! Then just have to maintain it weekly. Hopefully!

This week I added two extra 5"x7" page protectors for more photos and journaling. Since I was in Texas that week I had more photos and special ones I wanted to make bigger.

(click on all images to see them larger)

Project Life: Week 3

I'm catching up! Week 3 completed! Woot. Week 4 should be completed today, I hope. Here we go: (click on images to see them larger)

Project Life: Week 2

Playing catch up! Finished week 2 this morning. Well, I guess it's already 11:00 am. So almost afternoon. :) Working on keeping myself occupied at the moment. As most of you know I have been studying for my personal trainer certficication... I took my test last Wednesday and...

FAILED!

Totally sucks! I needed 500 points and got 429. Can you say test loser? I suck at taking tests, it doesn't matter what kind it is or what it's a test on. My mind loses everything I know the second I start it. So now, I need to get back into my books and study some more. I don't want to let too much time pass before I take it again. If I can manage to even keep myself concentrated on it right now. Lots going on in this big curly haired head.

Anyway, onto my pages... (click on all images to see them larger!)

Week 2:

Project Life: Cover page & Week 1

I've had my cover page completed for about 5 weeks now!  I've been procrasting on the weeks after.  I had photos printed with digital stuff on them.  Just hadn't put them into the page and journaled yet.  I'm not sure right now is the best time for me to be working on this... or maybe it is.

Anyway, here is my cover page: (Sorry for the crummy pics, I can't figure out how to take a good pic with the page protectors.  Grrr) You can click on any images to see them larger.

Week 1, full two pages:

Week 1, page 1 close up:

Week 1, page 2 close up:

a tour through my happy study/craft/scrapbook room

(**NOTE: Click on all images to see them larger!)

This is going to be a LONG post I'm afraid, and it's late. Let's hope I don't bugger it up. :) I was sooooo lucky to have Angela Daniels at Fiskars ask me to guest blog over there at the new Fiskateers Blog about organizing my room. (I'm having a little trouble logging in over there as I've forgotten my login, gah!) I gave some tips and ideas on how to think outside the box. I wanted to show more images (I could only post 1 over there) of my room and how I've organized my products.

Let me start by saying... don't EVER give your scrapping/crafting stuff away! I made that huge mistake. I'd collected so many awesome products from design teams I had been on, guest design team member spots and things I'd purchased. I started to feel like I was scrapbooking for the wrong reason, scrapping for teams and what was needed for them and not for me. It was becoming a bit overwhelming at the time. I'd also made some life changes and I just didn't even want to look at any of it any longer so I sold some of it and gave the rest of it away. Massive amounts of product! Boo, I'm so sad about that now. HUGE MISTAKE! Anyway, My room now is a total start over. I purchased some product, was given a LOT by sweet Leslie Ashe and also given some as tradsies for caramels. LOL That's another story! I'm going to share with you loads of pictures and the who/what/where/why's of the organizing of it all. So sit back, grab your favorite drink and a little snack and feast your eyes. :)

This is a picture of my room a couple months ago. It was in a different spare bedroom in our house. Brandon (my hubby) was at work and I got a wild hair to move the bed and furniture out of the other room and move this stuff in. That was a chore, that bed was HEAVY! I obviously didn't have it very well organized in this photo. Ha! And it was a mess. I boxed it all up, took the table apart and stacked it all in the other room in the closet.

First step, picking the colors to paint. I knew I wanted something fresh and I LOVE the color I painted our powder room so I used that as one of the colors. I purchased them at Lowes and had to find a light brown/tan to go the blue color.

Valspar 5006-9A Sea Air

Valspar 6008-1B Shorline Haze

Are the colors I went with. I drew the lines with a 4' level and then taped. Boy, painting by yourself sure stinks! I couldn't wait to be done with it. Of course I was anxious to just rip that tape off and see how it looked, but I had to let it dry for a bit first. Once I did... LOVE! So happy with how it turned out. I love that bluish color so much I'm going to paint our laundry room with it. :)

 

Next up, furniture. I wanted to have a wall of bookcases (that's what I did in our loft/man cave/office for my hubby). Of course I had Ikea on the brain. THE worlds best store for organizing! Then Leslie told me about hers and she got them at Wal-Mart. While I totally dislike shopping at that store because there's way too many people, the parking lot is crowded and people can't push their carts on their side of the aisle, hee hee. BUT I LOVED the price of these things. I'm all about a good deal! The larger ones were $27 and the smaller one was $17 (They were a tad more in Texas, odd). 

I wanted to keep this round table we had as our diningroom table in our apartment. (It was from Pier 1) I just love it so I've been wanting to keep it in my room. I like that it's not the traditional rectangular table. Plus, it's very sturdy and a great quality. The chair was a Christmas gift from my hubby and son a couple years ago. My old chair didn't have much padding. Probably cause my butt sat in it too much! Ha!

After that I found these AMAZING magazine racks at Home Goods for $19.99 each! {swoon} I knew I had to have those for my room. I thought, buy now, figure out what to put in them later. They had 3, so I bought them all figuring I could return one if I didn't end up using it. Once I got them home I knew they would be perfect for storing all my letter stickers, rubons and random stickers.

Let's move on to my shelving storage. Leslie sent me a gorgeous amount of ribbons. Which needed a home. If you have the store Home Goods by you... RUN!... that is the store to go to for glass containers. So amazingly cheap in price. That's where I found the container for my ribbon.

I paid, I think $9.99 for that! And it's HUGE! Almost 2' tall. Some of my other containers like the one shown here with my markers was purchased at Ikea. The one with the shiney silver lid was at Home Goods for $4.99. 

Here's an image with a little more distance. The Square shelving was from Target. The lamp up top was Home Goods. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To hold my buttons I found these little glass containers at Ikea along with the shelf they are on. Since they sit down in the shelf you can't really see what's in them, so I hung a tag with the buttons attached so I can quickly see which one I want.

I know a lot of people have a 3-tier pastry stand in their scraproom, but I couldn't help it. They're so cute! So I joined the gang and found one on clearance at Hobby Lobby.

 

For my papers I bought these zig zag bins on clearance at Target. One holds my cardstock and the other holds my patterned paper. I want to track down some of those Cropper Hopper dividers to separate my patterned papers into styles and then into manufacturer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little wire basket came from Home Goods and holds my stamps (most of which have been gifts recently ❤).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a closeup of my shelves and all of these bins were from the Target $1 bins. Some of them currently and some of them were from about 4-5 years ago!

On my desk I have this AWESOME little crate I guess you could call it that I found at Home Goods. It holds my pens, scissors, my main adhesive gun, hole punches, rulers and markers.

Notice my cute Fiskars Fiskateer scissors #1463! ;) 

And that brings us back to my Project Life tray of which you can read about here: Organizing MY 'Project Life'!

Here are some tips I shared over at the Fiskateer blog for organizing:

I hope you enjoyed my little tour and room and you've gotten some ideas for your own stuff too!

photo overload 'project life' tutorial

I've been taking quite a lot of photos lately and struggling to fit them into that week in my Project Life album. I needed a solution, here's what I came up with. (note: click on any image to see it larger)

Here's what you'll need:

• Pocket page protectors - Any size you like. I used 8"x8".
• PhotoShop or some photo editing software that allows you to print contact sheets of your photos.
• Sewing machine

First, load all the images you want on your contact sheet into PhotoShop. (see them all at the bottom of this image?)  

Next you want to select all your images. On a Mac (that's what I have) you click once on your first image in the tray, then hold the shift button down and click on the last image in the tray. They should all have a blue box around them.

Once they are all selected, go up to your file menu. You should see 'Contact Sheet'. Click there.

The image below is what you should see. I printed mine on a piece of 8 1/2x11 photo paper. Where it says 'Document' is where you would adjust the dimensions if you're printing on a different size. Below that it says 'Thumbnails'. This is where you can type in how many rows and colums you want your photos in. When you change the numbers the grid image to the right changes. When you're ready, click 'OK'. Your screen will show the images being bounced up into a blank page. Give it a moment to finish.  Especially if you have a lot of photos it can take a bit.

This is what you will have on your screen. You can now adjust them to whatever size you need. Since I am using an 8"x8" page protector I don't want them to be any longer than 8". Click on the bottom right of the images (see the box around them? click the bottom right dot of the box) and drag it until you see the bottom edge of your photos at 8". I did mine a little less than.

I also clicked on the whole box of images and drug it away from the edge so there would be a little bit of a border. Now it's time for text. Click on the 'T' on the left of your screen, then click on the blank white space of your image. Type what you want to say. I wanted to make note that I couldn't fit them all in my week page so I titled it 'Didn't make the cut'. Below that you can type a quick little title for each photo in order (see my original photo at the top of this post).

Once you've typed everything. Click on your text until you get a box around it. Now you're going to rotate your text so it's going in the same direction as your photos. With your text box selected hover your mouse over the right dot of your text box. You should see a curve with an arrow on each end. Click and hold your mouse button down and move it left or right. Now at the top of the screen where it says 'Constrain Proportions' type in 90. That will straighten out your text.

Now you can click and drag your text where you want it. If it's too large for the area you can click the text until you get the box around it. Then click one of the dots on any corner and drag your mouse.

Once I printed it I took my page protector to the sewing machine. Marked my 1/2 way point, 4" and sewed a straight stitch line all the way down. That created two pockets in one page protector. Place your photos and that's it!

 Happy 'Project Life'ing!

just accomplish 20twelve

While perusing the ever creative blogs on my blog roll last night I stopped at the blog of Elise Blaha. I don't know her, but I do know her blog is filled with fantastic crafty, daily, bready goodies. What stopped me was the image of a loaf of bread she posted. She is on a mission to bake 40 loaves of bread. Anyway, it was pretty and I'm a sucker for a loaf of bread. I ventured over to her 'about me' page to see who and what she is all about (side note: I found her blog originally through Project Life.). When I made it to the bottom of her page I saw a sign...

no, really, it was a sign she created. She simply wrote 'just start.'. (side note: she sells them here: Elise Joy) It stopped me right there. Odd, I know. I was like... *WHOA*! That couldn't have been meant more for me if she had actually known me. Why? Because I do just that... just start... everything and typically don't finish! Why? Because maybe I'm lazy, or I don't enjoy it, or... Well, some things I don't finish because of a fear of failure! Do you have this too? It's plagued me for years. I don't know how to get rid of it. Along with that fear of failure, is a fear of success. Really? 

I am better than I think I am. Smarter than I think I am. More capable than I think I am. Stronger than I think I am. So I have vowed to myself that 20twelve will be the year that not only do I 'just start.' something, I finish it! All of it. I will not take giving up or quitting for an answer. Reminding myself along the way that it IS okay to fail! So I created this little digi of my version of a 'just start.' sign and I will print it, frame it, print little stickers to put on notebooks, items, calendars.... as a little reminder for me that I CAN DO IT... that just completing the task and seeing it to the end... IS success!

Starting my list:

• Finish reading a book - I want to LOVE to read, but I hate it.
• Become a personal trainer
• Visit Rachel in Oregon
• Keep up with my Project Life
• Take photos daily
• Keep my photos organized on my computer
• (more to come)

instagram photo detail (via Twitter) tracking tutorial

I just keep coming up with all these cool little tips for keeping track of my photo details (date & time they were taken/shared) for my Project Life. Awesome! (**NOTE: You do need to have a Twitter account and post your Instagram pics to it when you post them to Instagram.) I accidentally came upon this a couple days ago and I thought I would share this one too.

This is what the outcome looks like. I put an 'X' on the photos I won't be printing for my Project Life and the others I write the date and time on them. It only goes back so far on Twitter so it's something I'll have to continue to do so I don't miss something. Instagram only tells you that you posted it '1 week ago', '3d ago', etc. I need more detail than that. Especially using it with Project Life where the point is to document your day/week. So here's how I did it... (**NOTE: Click on any images to see them larger.)

1. Login to your Twitter account and go to your home page. Then click on 'RECENT IMAGES':

2. You'll end up at this screen:

You want to go up to your 'FILE' drop down in the menu bar at the top of your screen. Then print. It will print all these photos like in my first image on this post.

3. Next, click on your first image:

4. You'll get a screen that enlarges that image and you see a row of some of your other images at the top, but they are smaller. Now you want to 'hover' your mouse arrow over the date that shows just below the word 'details' at the bottom right of your image. A little box pops up with the date and time you posted this image.

5. Now you can just write it on top of photo on the printout you did. Click on the next photo at the top and continue until you have all your photos dated and timed.

HAPPY ORGANIZING!

Pin It