The 3×100 project (2013)

We’re gearing up for Summer of Awesome 2014 around here. Making plans for exploring, adventures, swimming, and other fun stuff. We have to cram a whole year’s worth of family time into five painfully short weeks. All this leads me to reflection about summers past, and things I never got around to writing about last year.

One of the most important things I tried to do last summer was to get more photos of the three of us together (plus Miss iKitty if we could wrangle her). I make a big effort every year to get tons of pictures of the boys together, and Jason is always snapping away so we have quite a few of me with the Little Man. But it’s more tricky to get all three of us. Someone has to hold the camera, right?

Last summer we did a ton of traveling. I began to notice all the different reflective surfaces in hotels and other places we visited that could facilitate a quick family picture. At some point, I decided I would try to get a hundred photos of the three of us during the summer.

We took pictures in front of mirrors. We took pictures of our shadows and our feet. Jason, master of the extended arm camera phone selfie, did his thing. Every once in a while we talked a stranger into taking our picture. It became sort of a game to try and get a photo at every place we visited. And the guys knew if we passed any sort of mirror I was going to make them stop. It was a bit of an obsession for me.

I’m STILL going through summer pictures from last year, but I know I have at least 50 pictures of all three of us together. Fifty! That’s pretty exciting! I didn’t make my goal of 100 photos, but who cares?

Making the conscious effort to get more pictures, even if they’re not great, has made a big difference in how I scrappbooked the summer of 2013. It looked a lot less like “Our summer with the Little Man”, and more like “Our summer as a family”. I super love that. I can’t wait to do it again this summer!

Five pages | Lilypad Challenges

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a challenge at a digiscrapping site. Franky, with recent changes in the rewards points for several sites, they’re just not worth it anymore. I don’t want to wait three months to get my gift certificates, and I want to get more than 5 cents for completing a challenge. /end rant.

I was all set to finish up the Month of Challenges at TLP, but when I realized I’d be out of town the last few days of January, I knew I wouldn’t be able to complete them. But there’s always next year! (and I might go back and do some of them anyway)

I decided on the spur of the moment to participate in this month’s TLP challenges. I was able to knock them out pretty quickly (except that darned haiku page!) It feels good to do challenges again. It feels especially good knowing I’ll get a 30% off coupon next month. I’m obsessed with Just Jaimee’s monthly kits and I want to collect them all!

You can see two of my challenge pages in this post. Here are the rest-

The first challenge was to use products from this month’s BYOC. I’m in love with that huge word art.

Journaling reads- Still my favorite after all these years. Palm Beach 2005

Credits:
Inspired papers
So Messed Up paint
Imprint on Me brushes (some altered) by Just Jaimee

The next challenge was to use the word “wish” in a page. It was a no-brainer to use this pic of the Little Man blowing out his candles last summer.

Credits: September 2013 Storyteller by Just Jaimee

This page was So Hard! We had to write the journaling in the form of a haiku. I am clearly no poet.

Journaling reads-
Random silly acts
Sitting with Grandma today
Caught with the camera

Credits:
September 2013 Storyteller by Just Jaimee
Made with the new Template Builder actions by Mommyish (which are AWESOME)

 

The next challenge was a Template Challenge. Do you sense a “silly” theme going on with these pages?

Journaling reads- I love that, even after not seeing each other in almost a year, they immediately start horsing around like no time has passed. Fort Lauderdale International Airport June 1, 2013.

 

And for the last challenge we were asked to lift a LO from the fabulous Shanna Noel’s SC gallery. I picked this one. Loved the script-y painted title and the paint smears behind the photo. My page tells the story of the surprise we threw LM for his birthday.

Journaling reads- [Little Man] didn’t know, but we had big plans for the day. Daddy asked for help “taking out the trash”, and ended up taking him to the movies instead! But that wasn’t all- when they got home, there were more surprises… Zombie Farm cupcakes and birthday presents! We usually celebrate his birthday on his last weekend with us, but we decided to change things up this year. He was so surprised! It was awesome!

Credits:
September 2013 Storyteller by Just Jaimee
Careless and Painted alpha by Allison Pennington
Lifted from “silly” LO by Shanna Noel

These were fun to make. I’m already excited for next month’s round of challenges!

Five Pages | Summer

I went on a page making spree last month, and I’m just getting around to sharing all of them. Here are five more pages about last summer. All of these pages were made using mostly freebies.

As soon as I saw the little origami bird in this kit, I had to snag it and make a page right away. I’ve ben looking for ages for origami kits! Of course I could have made the same page with a non-themed kit too. But who could resist that cute bird?

Journaling reads- Charles made the sweetest little origami bird for me. June 9, 2013

Credits:
Starter Pack by Anna BV

I love the phrase card that inspired this page. It’s a sentiment we definitely embrace.

Journaling reads- It’s ok to be happy with a calm life. We had some really great adventures this summer, but some of my favorite times were when we were having quiet time at home

Credits:
Happy Calm by Bella Gypsy
Camera and heart stamp by Cathy Z
Template by Simple Scrapper
Wood styles by Just Jaimee

So I’m pretty sure this one is going to piss off LM. That face! But it was such a cute story I had to scrap it.

Journaling reads- We stopped at a fancy coffee shop one morning and Charles ordered a frappuccino. He was surprised to learn it had actual coffee in it.

Credits:
Be Mine by Lisa Rose Designs
I Feel Like faces by Dream Big Designs
House Blend Journal Cards by Danielle Young Designs
Garden Party alpha by Forever Joy Designs
Stamped Alpha brushes by Mommyish
Clear styles by Bekkah E.

I mentioned before that I want to get more family photos into our albums. These two photos don’t necessarily have stories, but I like them a lot. So why not scrap them anyway?

Also I cannot express how much I adore these plain glitter styles. You can make them any color! Now I want to glitter everything!

Credits:
A Lovely Day by Sugarplum Paperie
Careless and Painted Alpha by Allison Pennington
Glitter styles by Mommyish

And one last page from our trip to the water park. I will eventually make pages with more photos and words, but I wanted to scrap this photo by itself for our Family album.

Credits:
Hello Sunshine by Zoey Pearn
Pretty Awesome flair by Bella Gypsy
Template Revisited 19 by Scrappin’ with Liz

You can see more of our Summer 2013 adventures here.

Spring Into Health LO’s

Tiff has some super cute new products for Grab A Byte this month. I love the little food papers and ellies, but there are plenty of more neutral items in this collection as well. Here are two pages I made. (For even more supplies in this same color scheme, check out Ohana Designs GAB products that I talked about earlier this week).

The first page is another installment in our Epic Summer Road Trip saga. It’s funny how I find myself a lot more drawn to the smaller stories of our travels lately. I will get around to scrapping more monuments and things, but I have a feeling I’ll be scrapping that summer for years to come, so I’m in no hurry.

Journaling reads- We Heart Cracker Barrel. We always try to eat Cracker Barrel on road trips at least once. They’re a nice alternative to fast food, and there are usually healthy options (though we don’t always take advantage of those) Daytona Beach, 2013.

Credits:
Spring Into Health by Inspired by Dominic
Template by Little Green Frog
Wood It Shine styles by Inspired by Dominic

The second page was about the birthday breakfast we had for the Little Man. I usually don’t love tiny photos on my pages, but the food pictures were pretty terrible. So I threw as many RadLab actions as possible and shrunk them way down. And I kind of love that milk splatter behind the big photo.

Journaling reads- We had super tasty breakfast at Nick’s 50’s Diner. 6.29.13

Credits:
Spring into Health by Inspired by Dominic
template by Scrappin’ with Liz

You can see more of our Summer 2013 adventures here.

*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.

MOC pages 10-15

I’m participating in The Lilypad’s Month of Challenges this month. I’m excited to stretch creatively, and really want to knock out a bunch of summer pages.

Our 10th challenge was to do a page about our One Word. I must admit, I haven’t done much with my word yet, not even introducing it on here. So there you go, my word is Health. It is very needed this year, especially after December, which I “took off”. Biggest mistake of 2013! It took me all year to lose 25 pounds, but only a month to undo a lot of my hard work. We’ll chalk that up to learning experience and move on.

Journaling reads- This year we are striving for Health. Physical health, financial health, and keeping our relationship healthy. We celebrated our anniversary in December by doing a 5k together. I can’t wait to do more healthy things together in 2014!

We were given a template to use on the next challenge. I love blocky LO’s so this one was a breeze.

Journaling reads- Awkward Family Photo. The mirror in this elevator did quite strange things to my face. Hotel Morgan. Morgantown, West Virginia. 6.9.13.

The next challenge was a template one also. But this time we were given two templates that we were supposed to join and make into one page. Very cool technique that I’ve never done before.

Journaling reads- Maryland Rest Stop. Driving between D.C. and West Virginia, we stopped at a rest stop with absolutely spectacular views. June 8, 2013

All of the above pages, plus every other page I’ve made for these challenges, have been made with the January 2014 Storyteller kit by Just Jaimee. I wanted to see how many pages I could make with one collection.

I love the idea of “killing a kit” that some paper scrappers do. They try to use every paper and embellishment in a kit so that there’s nothing left. That idea fascinates me. I have never ever “killed” a full sized digi kit. In digi, things move so quickly. You use a kit once, then it’s on to the next kit. I’m trying to adjust that way of thinking and make multiple pages with my new kits. I’m not sure if I’ll manage to kill the January kit (that collection is HUGE). But to date, I’ve used a piece of that kit on 17 different pages! That is completely unheard of for me. I’ve definitely got my money’s worth with that one. And I love that woodgrain alpha so much, I’m sure I won’t be finished with it anytime soon.

TLP had a sale this past weekend, so I was able to pick up a few other things, including Just Jaimee’s September kit from last year. I combined that with January’s kit for my next two pages.

The next challenge was to use a fancy shadowing technique to give your layers a more realistic look. It’s a pain in the butt to do in PSE. (I miss full photoshop sometimes!) It’s probably not something I’ll do often unless PSE ever starts letting you separate styles from their layers without a workaround.

Journaling reads- I caught him doing this pose in the car one afternoon..

Not the most deep, thought provoking journaling going on this month…

The next challenge was to do a page with fourteen goals or resolutions for this year. I took mine from this post.

Journaling reads- 2014 Memory Keeping Goals. Get a photo of me and Jason each week | Project Life | Three Times Twelve (a photo of our family once a month) | Summer Daily | Get (and stay) current with printing | Scan photos | Tag photos | 100 family photos this summer | One Little Word | I Choose class | Inspired Scrapbooking class | self portrait challenge | Organize digi supplies | Print a book

The last challenge I have to share today was to lift a paper scrapbook page. I was All Over that one! I lifted this lovely page from Adrienne Alvis. I loved the quote bubbles, perfect for a story I wanted to tell about me and Jamie! I used the FWP collab Blessed + Lucky, along with my favorite alpha from the January Storyteller kit.

Journaling reads- Wodehouse Fangirls. Our family has been huge P.G. Wodehouse fans for generations. My sister and I have read some of the books so many times that we have whole chunks memorized. We will often randomly quote passages to each other, which is probably strange to a lot of people. I’m sure not very many people get Super Excited over cow creamers like we do.

Holy balls this is a long post!

Thanks for looking 🙂

MOC pages 4-6

I’m participating in The Lilypad’s Month of Challenges this month. I’m excited to stretch creatively, and really want to knock out a bunch of summer pages.

These were made with Just Jaimee’s January 2014 Storyteller collection. I’ll be using this kit for as many challenges as I can. I used it on all six pages that I’ve done for MOC, and I’m nowhere near using everything.

The next challenge was to do a 2 pager. I’ve gotten a lot of practice doing 2 page LO’s with Project Life the past 2 years, so this one was easy. Very time consuming though. I used this DYY template set from Lynn-Marie. You can hide different layers to create dozens of different configurations. It’s super clean and pretty, and I will probably use them a ton.

Ideally I’d like to scrap the individual places in most of these photos, but in case I don’t, it’ll be nice to have them in a big spread. I just wrote a little overview of our trip. I was super into putting words on my instagram pictures this summer, so I had to mention that too.

Journaling reads- This is the first leg of our Epic Summer Road Trip 2013. We drove from West Palm, up through Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and into Virginia. We got to our destination in Richmond about 18 hours after we started. It was a long day, but we had a good time. I documented our journey using the A Beautiful Mess app and Instagram.

For the next challenge, we were supposed to take inspiration from a book. It was a good challenge for me, because I remember thinking of the book Make Way for Ducklings the day we took these pictures. I used colors and layout design that were similar to the book cover.

Journaling reads- This summer could have been known as the Summer of Ducklings. We were slightly obsessed with these little fluffballs. It all started one afternoon when Jason called me and said “Come outside!”. I was confused. “Are you home?” “Yes, come outside and hurry!”. Charles and I put on our shoes and ran outside. Into the rain. That’s when I started to worry, because my husband hates being outside in the rain. When we went down, we saw this croud of tiny ducklings splashing around in the puddles. It was the cutest thing ever! These were some daredevil ducks too. They would cross the street in front of cars, all in a line just like in the children’s book. I didn’t know ducks really did that!

The last LO I did was for a cluster challenge. I was really inspired by the LO’s I saw in the double page thread, so I did another 2 pager using a panorama photo I took with Little Man. It was fun showing him the trick where you can make your subject look multiplied. What could be cuter than three of him?

I’m still a couple of pages behind, but I’ve also done a few CT LO’s that I’ll share next week. I’m sure this will be my most productive month of scrapping ever!

Summer Bucket List update

We’ve reached the halfway mark with our summer with the Little Man. It has flown by! We never ever have enough time to do everything we want to. Ever. Which makes me sad. But I’ll have plenty of time to be sad next month, so no sense in rushing that.

Here are the results of our summer bucket list so far-

• swim- Check, plus a couple other times.
• beach
• water park
• parks and nature walks Half Check. We did a few things on our trip, but we still want to squeeze in some local parks if we can.
• document our adventures- Check. I’m using a combination of Project Life cards + Instagram + Momento to keep track of things. I’m also trying to slip in a few blog posts here and there for remembering the routine everyday stuff. I’ll gather everything together and do something with it this Fall.
• football- Check. Much more football than soccer this year. We started a new tradition of playing during rest stops while on the road too.
• soccer- Check.We’ve played every day this week.
• comics- Check. We went to the comic book store and he racked up a few, most of which he’s read already today.
• roller skate
• basil lemonade
• pizza
• ice cream
• skateboard park
• birthday party for the Little Man- in the planning process. This year it has been INSANE trying to plan something. Long story, but I think I finally have an idea that’ll stick.
• epic road trip to West Virginia and Washington D.C. Check Plus. I probably won’t write about it until August or September. (I still need to finish up New York). But we did it, and it was awesome!
• 4th of July party

A pretty good start, I’d say!

I’ll post some pictures soon. iPhoto and I aren’t getting along super well right now.

It is a proven scientific fact…

That this one is physically incapable of not making noise for five whole minutes. We timed it.

We just returned from our Epic Summer Road Trip. It was fantastic and amazing and exhausting.

This is what nine days worth of laundry for three people looks like.

So happy to squish Miss Kitty when we got home!

Jason has been given a crossbow. They will be having interoffice competitions next month. We will be pimping out his crossbow in a super fabulous way. Little Man is voting for a patriotic theme, while I’m going for glitter. We might compromise by painting it red, white, and blue with sparkles.