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Project Life: Week 5

Another week down! YES!

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!

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organizing MY 'project life' *updates images at the bottom*

{ran·dom - noun - a haphazard course — at random: without definite aim, direction, rule, or method}

I mentioned 'Project Life' when I made my accidental find of cute little polaroid(ish) Instagram pics. {see blog post here for tutorial Accidental Mini Polaroid Instagrams} I finally started mine and completed the cover page. Having not really been heavy into scrapping the last few years I felt a bit rusty and unsure of where to start. I know my first thought was to make my album simple, clean and uncluttered... well, I'm crazy, random and colorful so once I started I realized the simple, clean and uncluttered style just wasn't going to work for me. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's titled... '2011 out -> -> -> 20twelve in!'. 

(click on all images to see them larger.)

I also planned on sticking with specific products to make the whole album flow. That's not going to happen either. I love RANDOM too much! It's very me in the crafting world.

While attempting to bust out some creativity on my mini pages within that whole page I found myself searching for what I wanted to use. Realizing that I needed a clear organization of all the items that came with the Project Life Kit (I have Clementine & Turquoise. I'm mixing them.) and of the products I knew I was going to continue to use for sure throughout my album.

Here's what I found:

A boot tray! Hee, I 'think' I'm genius!  It's big. It's 31" wide by 15.2" deep by 2.3" high. Now how to organize my goodies inside I asked myself. Well, I already had those items at home. So why not use what I already have. Waste not, right? Also, being that I am seriously an organizing product hoarder I was sure these items would work, or I'd find something else in my house to help me out. Here's what I used inside it.

Sorry for the crummy pics. These are both from Target, but I've had them for a while and the metal bins I've had for YEARS, literally no joke! (from the $1 bin which I'm sure some of you recognize them.) The clear plastic ones are from the closet organizing section.

So now here's how I organized it:

You can see all of the items that came with my Project Life Kit are to the right. I took everything out of the boxes they came in. The middle section is all smaller items and to the left are my photos and such. I'll get into detail in the following photos.

 

(Don't forget you can click on any image to see it larger.) 

 

 

In this image:

- upper left, blue box to hold my doodads I collect from the day.

- below that, weekly note pads found in the dollar bin at Target.  I can jot down what's happened that day for reference.

- to the right of that, my photos and Smash journaling cards.

- at the top are my stamps, corner rounder punch, date stamps, tabs & mini banners, tapes & clips, tags, chocolate (gotta have that handy when you're workin' hard).

Here I have my longer items that wouldn't fit in the smaller sections. Then the next two sections are what came in the Project Life Kit. I printed up dividers for the small and large cards.  (see below for close up images)

 

 

 

 

I titled the dividers with a name that made sense to me so they would be easier to find. :) That's it! Here's some random photos of it.

 

Hope you enjoyed my post! Have questions? Ask away, just leave me a comment and I'll answer you back. :) Happy 'Project Life(ing)'!

***ADDITIONAL PICS! (click on images to see them larger!) Sheri asked for close-up images of my journaling card breakdown. So here goes... (ps, some pics are crummy. I was in a hurry.)

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accidental mini polaroid instagrams

(Okay, Typepad is playing a cruel joke on me and it keeps flipping my picture, grrrr. Sorry!)

** I'm planning on using these in my Project Life album. :) If you're interested in Project Life here is a link to a video about it: Project Life Video 

I was printing out my Instagram pics the other day in Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and printing two images on a 4x6 piece of photo paper. I started to label them below each image with the date so I could remember when they were taken... then I realized they looked like mini polaroids. I stopped writing on the front and continued to date the backs with a sticky note.

Today I cut them apart and OMGosh, they are soooooo cute and thought I'd share how I did it. Love them! What do you think? 

Here's how I did it:  ***NOTE:  YOU CAN CLICK ON ALL IMAGES TO SEE THEM LARGER.

Pull up your images in Photoshop and create a 4"x6" 300 res background (File... New... Blank file... 4 inches high by 6 inches wide and 300 dpi).  

Drag one image onto the background and resize it to 3" wide by clicking on the image and then put your mouse on a corner of the image and you'll see an arrow.  Keep your mouse button pushed and drag it until your image is at 3" wide.  Do the same with the next photo.

Now you're ready to print.  (File... Print... *Then you'll get the following screen)  The settings you need are shown in the image.  REMEMBER, you need to be printing on a 4"x6" photo paper for these setting dimensions to work.

PRINT!  :) Then you can cut them apart and round the corners with a corner rounder punch if you like.

riveting

{riveting - adj - absolutely fascinating; enthralling}

So I've changed blog hosts... (yet again) Guess I could be a gypsy blogger!  Ha!  I wanted a bit more variety with what I can and can't do with my blog.  Typepad is an old friend of which I adored... out with Blogger and in with the newer.  Still "trying" to get my posts to transfer.  Not going so well!  We'll see how long the Typepad Help Desk takes to actually help.  While you're here, what do you think?  Is anything too much... too little?  Be honest!

I'm sure everyone is just dying to see what I post!  I have a million things in my head, but as with anything else I can't concentrate on one thing long enough.  {will discuss that in another post, maybe tomorrow} Life sure is crazy!  {see, that was random... AND riveting}  Annnnnnywho... If you'd follow my blog... or hell, just leave a comment I'd appreciate it.  :)

Today, this is all I have!  What's to come?  Ideas I'm tossing around for upcoming riveting blog posts...

• My journey to become a personal trainer
• My new crafty/office room {loving it btw}
• Healthy eating and my choice to be a vegetarian {4 yrs & 2 months now}
• Friendships and how the ones I've made through scrapbooking have turned out to be THE best friends and THE ones that stick with ya long-term
• Life and love - how things turn on a dime and you take a new road to find "greener grass" regardless of "groundhog holes" along the way {loving you BCH}

I hope you stay tuned and become a fan/follower in one way or another {you can use the follow buttons to the left}!