I Love You

This one is just for the pretty. No story, just pretty pics and pretty product. This month’s Buffet at Gingerscraps is just perfect for our renewal pages.

Credits:
Winter Romance allies by Luv Ewe
Bear Hugs papers by Boomersgirl
Feeling Love template by Pixelily

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

Before I Do….

This is the first of approximately 52,000 pages I plan to do about renewing our wedding vows last weekend. I have a lot to say, and there are A LOT of pictures! My father-in-law is a fantastic photographer and he really outdid himself.

When faced with an overwhelmingly large number of photos, I did like I normally do and scrapped something silly. I will most definitely get to the big lovey dovey pages eventually though, no worries.

Also you can ignore all the snowflakes on this page if using snowflakes on a beach page offends you. I think they’re pretty. A lot of the kits I’m planning to use to scrap this event have snowflakes, so I might just make it a theme. I’ll take a page out of Nancy Nally’s book and call them “ironic snowflakes“.

Journaling reads- Just hanging out a couple of minutes before the ceremony. I’m gesticulating (as usual), Jason is making me laugh (as usual), and poor Charles looks like he’s about to be sick. I think he was nervous. Jason had to give him a Sprite to settle his stomach. Poor guy!

Credits:
No Two Alike bundle by Mandy King

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

New release day at GingerScraps!

I’m super excited to share that I’ll now be a permanent member of the GingerScraps CT! I guested for them back in November and had a really great time playing with all kinds of goodies! This will mean that Fridays on the blog I’ll have a New Release post with any pages I’ve made.

So here goes!

The first two LO’s are from our Louisiana trip. I’m really concentrating on those photos and stories this month, and I love the focus it’s giving me. I did the same thing last year with our first trip to California, and I made lots of pages. I plan on continuing this idea of a “monthly concentration” throughout 2015.

This page is a reminder to myself to take care of myself when we travel. I get motion sickness on planes, boats, and long mountain drives. And now I guess we can add very long bumpy bridges to the list too.

Inspired by- The red and blue of the kit reminded me of the red coke bottle and the blue of the sky as we crossed the bridge. I had to edit the photos pretty heavily to better match the kit, but I like them.

Journaling reads- Note to self- always, always take Dramamine when going over the Lake Ponchatrain Bridge into New Orleans. Those bumps are harsh!

Credits:
Let’s Party kit (Monthly Mix)
Make It Two templates by Dagi

LOM album- Places: Louisiana

The second LO is the first of what I’m sure will be many pages about St. Louis Cathedral. It’s one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen.

Inspired by- The blues and purples in the kit. I’d originally wanted to scrap different photos, but they weren’t working out. The blue hombre paper reminded me of the sky (everything reminds me of the sky apparently) so I used these instead. Another heavily edited set of photos, but I felt like playing with filters that day, so I went with it.

Credits:
Winter Wonderland collab from the Gingerbread Ladies
Make It Two by Dagi’s Temp-tations

LOM album- Places: Louisiana

And lastly I have a page about a video game Jason has been obsessed with lately. I just couldn’t pass up that fabulous journaling card! I’m sure I’ll be making plenty more pages with this kit.

I’ll be continuing with the Project 52 that I started towards the end of last year, and this is my page for Week One. I’ll talk more about my version of P52 next week.

Inspired by- That awesome journaling card! We call ourselves the Awesome Family, so it totally feeds into our collective narcism.

Journaling reads- Jason and C finally got to play Vain Glory together this weekend. They’ve been wanting to for a long time. Yay for Skype and games with co-op!

Credits: Digital Besties collab by JB Studio

LOM album- All About Jason

*I am a Creative Team Member. This means that I receive free products in exchange for making and advertising layouts for designers. However, the opinions expressed here are my own. The enthusiasm expressed here is definitely my own. See more of my CT layouts here.

Project Life 2014- Weeks 31 through 34

Now we are entering the era of my Project Life pages where I was not taking many photos. I was sad and uninspired. Then I got The Plague. It was all downhill from there. That’s why I wasn’t too worried about falling farther and farther behind. I knew the catching up process would be much faster with less photos, and less to say in general. I combined weeks 33 and 34 into two pages because week 33 wouldn’t have made a whole page.

While I’m much happier now, I still don’t feel like I have my photo mojo back yet. I’m looking forward to Week in the Life next week to give me a little spark. I’m sure I’ll get it back eventually 🙂

*Project Life was invented by Becky Higgins. You can learn more about it here. My Project Life pages can be found here.

Project Life 2014 Summer Stories- May 30 Part Two

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted about our summer in PL. Here is the second part of May 30th.

Some of the pages from North Dakota will have privacy blurs for C’s home, school, etc.

Around Fargo, and our first 3×100 photo of the year.

Check-in at the hotel and yummy dinner.

That first day was a beast to scrap. It was a long day and we took over 200 pictures. It has taken me over two months to finish up the pages for one day, which is a little discouraging. Hopefully the rest of the summer won’t be as challenging! Still very glad that I have Momento to refer back to though. It’s been a huge help.

*Project Life was invented by Becky Higgins. You can learn more about it here. My Project Life pages can be found here.

Project Life 2014- Week 30

*Project Life was invented by Becky Higgins. You can learn more about it here. My Project Life pages can be found here.

Throwback Thursday- Halloween LO edition

Let’s take a trip in the Way Back machine and revisit some of my old Halloween and Fall pages! Doesn’t that sound fun? (And also embarrassing?) Keep in mind, I made some of these five years ago*. So be gentle in your mocking, okay?

Living in SoFlo, I really miss having real seasons (other than Hurricane Season and the rest of the year). But there are definitely advantages to living here, like strawberries and tomatoes in November.

One of my favorite Halloween pages ever!

I used to make Graveyard Cake a lot before I got married. Jason and I made it together that year. We looked so young!

Speaking of young, check out teeny C! This was the one and only year that we got him on Halloween, so I’ve made like five pages from that night. (He was a storm trooper, in case you can’t tell from the bad Palm Treo pictures.

Two of my favorite things, zombies + toes.

Best Halloween ever. I need to make an accompanying page for that story…

Worst Halloween ever. Well worst since I’ve been married. The worst was in 1997 when I stepped on a nail and had to get a tetanus shot.

And finally, a page I made last week talking about Halloween 2013.

Journaling reads- After someone stole my plants from the front porch, I decided not to decorate for Halloween outside. But at the last minute I changed my mind and decorated the balcony. I decorated, then set out drinks as a surprise for Jason when he got home.

Credits:
Project 2014 October PreDeco papers and ellies
Perfectly Pumpkin kit
by Connie Prince

*These were made before I started keeping track of credits in the metadata of my LO’s so I don’t have that info.

Project Life 2014- Week 29

*Project Life was invented by Becky Higgins. You can learn more about it here. My Project Life pages can be found here.

California pages (and how I set up my travel albums)

I’ve been wanting to scrap California lately for some reason. We’ve been there three times picking up C over the years and I’ve only made a handful of pages. I think it’s about time that I fluffed out that album a bit more.

Looking at all three trips is super overwhelming. I decided to concentrate on our 2009 trip right now. This was before I started scrapping, and there weren’t a ton of photos. I sat down with my photos and picked out the best ones, about 130 over three days.

Before last week I’d only scrapped two pages for our California album from this trip (plus a couple more for other albums) I flipped through the pages I’d already made to see if I could discover themes. I don’t worry about being matchy-matchy with my pages in a particular album. But after I’ve made a few pages I like to make a mental note of similarities and decide if that’s something I want to continue in future pages.

I noticed that almost all of the pages from all three years had a mix of blue and neutrals, with a bit of red, yellow and orange thrown in. I like the neutral+blue combo, so I made a conscious decision to keep that color scheme. It’s pretty common, especially in travel themed kits so It should be easy to find kits to use.

I think this is a good place to share my travel album philosophy. Other than my Project Life pages, all of my LO’s go into the Library of Memories system. I have several travel albums for places we go. If I know that I’ll make a bunch of pages on one place it gets a separate album. California has it’s own album even though it has less than ten pages right now.

Other albums grow more organically. I started out with one Florida album but realized that it needed to be split up once I had been scrapbooking for a while. Now I have several for our favorite places. Generally if I’ve made ten pages and plan to make more, a location will graduate to it’s own album. I like to keep places together, as opposed to an album for each trip. That way it’s easier for me to see things change over time.

Still with me? Okay keeping all of that in mind, I made a list of pages I’d like to make based on the photos and the LO’s I’d already made. I came up with 18 pages. This is not to say that I’m going to sit right down and do 18 pages. I don’t ever worry about completed albums. They’re all works in progress. I hope to be scrapping about California for years! But that gave me a starting point and direction.

Now that I’ve written a book about all that, here are some of the pages I made.

Hotel Upgrade

Inspired by- A template challenge at Ginger Scraps

Credits- Project 2012 July by Connie Prince
template by Queen Wild Scraps

Journaling reads- We were lucky to get our hotel room upgraded when we stayed at the Sheraton. It was pretty swank, all modern and clean lines. We took a few pictures before crashing. It had been a long day. We were ready to relax a little before the busyness of getting Charles the next day.

LOM album- Places: California

Our View

Inspired by- A challenge at the Lilypad to scrap on the edge of the page.

Journaling reads- The view of LAX from our room at the Sheraton. May 29-31, 2009

Credits September 2014 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

LOM album- Places: California

No More Car Seat!

Inspired by- Template Challenge at TLP

Journaling reads- It was quite a surprise when we picked up C to see that he no longer needed a car seat. It seemed that he’d grown a foot taller in six months! I kept looking back to see him in the back seat. He looked so grown up.

Credits- September Storyteller kit, template by Valorie Wibbens

LOM album- For right now I’ll put this one in California. I’m re-evaluating what I want to do with C’s pages. I have a huge backlog of pages that I need to reprint for him, so I’m thinking about maybe doing a Blurb book instead. He’s more likely to look through that than a big scrapbook. I’m not sure, just something I’m kicking around in my head.

I’m pretty happy that I was able to scrap for Cali pages in September. (The other one can be found here). I’ve been making lots of pages this past week that I’m excited to share!

Playing with the Project Life app

I was skeptically optimistic when I heard Becky Higgins was doing an iPhone app. Though I’m a huge fan of Becky and the whole PL system, I think her digital products are overpriced for the digital market. Most of her core kits are $20, and I will never pay that much for a kit, unless it’s for charity.

I was pleasantly surprised at the pricing for the app. You get a few card sets free with the $2.99 app, and you can purchase additional ones for $0.99-1.99. The app comes with several template styles and photo collage templates. You can also purchase more if you’d like. I found the whole pricing structure much more reasonable than her other digital products (although I’m not sure if you’re getting the entire kit when you purchase through the app. I will confirm this when she adds more kits that I own)

I love that you can choose between squared and rounded corners. The cards fit well into the slots for either choice. I love the ease of it all. I did three pages in an afternoon. It was so fast! I love that I can easily scrapbook on the couch while Jason watches football. I like that I’m getting to use kits that I wouldn’t be able to buy at the regular digital price. I super love that when you type onto a journaling card, the text wraps around perfectly so you’re not typing over the embellishments on the card. I can’t even do that in PSE!

A few things that I’d like to see in future updates- An option for drop shadows, either within the app, or an option to export the templates on a transparent background so we can add our own. This might not be a big deal for paper scrappers using the app, but I’ve heard several digiscrappers complain about this. We don’t like flat looking pages. I’d also like to be able to write text on the photo spaces. There are workarounds to this by using other apps to add writing, then importing those into the PL app, but it would be nice to be able to skip this step. The photo editing in the PL app is extremely basic. You definitely want to do that in a different app as well.

How I plan to use the app. I probably won’t use this app for everyday scrapbooking. I love the clean look of my PL pages this year, but I will definitely consider using the app to catch up on previous years. I have a feeling that I’ll use the app a lot on multi photo collage type pages. Pages where I have a ton of photos, but I’m not really inspired to make pages with them so they’ve been sitting on my HD for years types of pages. Travel, scenery, holidays, etc.

Here are the pages I’ve made so far with the app-

This was the first one I made, using the Midnight kit. I just used pictures I had in my camera roll and made a quick little page about what MK has been up to lately. I think I used the photo editing within the app, but I might have used Pic Tap Go.

The other photos on my camera roll were from our recent day in Boca. I used the Kraft kit and one of the Squared Away templates (in-app purchase). The Kraft kit doesn’t have square cards, so they’re a bit wonky looking. But I like it, it looks different.

This is where I started getting really excited about the app. I’ve been wanting to scrap our 2009 trip to California lately. The photos needed a lot of help, so I edited them in RadLab on my computer. I created a “To scrap” folder in Aperture and shared it with my iPad. I was then able to use the edited photos in the PL app. I did all of that, including buying the Travel kit and putting the page together, all in less than 15 minutes. That’s when I figured out exactly how I wanted to use the app and how it would impact my scrapbooking. I was so excited!

I’m also really excited to try scrapbooking on the go. We’ll be going up to New Orleans this fall, so that will be the perfect opportunity to test it out! I can see myself scrapbooking in all sorts of exotic locations. The memory keeping possibilities for our summers alone are endless.

Has anyone else out there tried the app? I’d love to hear about your experiences and see your pages 🙂

These are numbers 6-8 of 25 pages I want to make in September.