2014 Digital Project Life Blog Circle... February edition!

Prepare for a long, picture heavy post!  I have been pretty quiet on the blog this past month.  I chose to participate in The Lilypad's 2014 Month of Challenges (MOC)... 31 days of a challenge/layout per day.  I am proud to say I completed the challenge *and* managed to stay current on my January project life pages (I have one week left which technically ends today, I will be scrapping tomorrow night after I download pictures from our superbowl party this evening!), but between these two digi endeavors, the blog has had to stay, well, neglected.  I plan to share my PL pages more frequently (ie, as I actually complete them!) going forward.

For those interested, my gallery of the MOC is here.  I looked at every challenge and thought, "How can I use this in my project life scrapbook?"  I was successful more than a few times.  One challenge was a 2 page spread (of course that worked!) and another was "The week" which had a few requirements (dates, labels, journaling), so another 2 page spread!  A couple of other favorites:
This was a "fix an imperfect picture" challenge.  There was a lot of food court action in the background of this duck face picture.

Another challenge became a potential title card which, sadly, I did not use (but may still adjust for the space I've got or adjust the dates and use it later!) because the template I chose for this week did not have a 4x6 title spot.  The challenge was to use 5 alphas in a title.

One other thing I discovered and used is the Instafontmaker app.  I have a new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tablet that I bought to accompany my Galaxy note 3 phone. It has a Wacom stylus built in and was perfect to create my own handwriting font which I plan to use for journaling this year.  I also want to capture my children's handwriting as well as my husband's.  And the to-do list grows again!

And now, the January pages.  I am really proud of reaching the goal I set to stay current.  I am using Traci Reed Design's Plastic Stitched Grids templates this year and thus far I like the stitching aspect.

Week 1:

Cards, papers Elements - Traci Reed January Pocket Life collection

Photo Overlay - Becky Higgins Just Add Color

Week 2:

Cards, Papers, Elements, Flair - Just Jaimee Storyteller February 2014

Title Font - Bebas Neue

Journaling font - my handwriting

Week 2.5 (we attended a baptism which deserved its own spread - these pages were also part of the Lily Pad month of challenges!)  I seriously can't get over our priest's devilish grin on the second page.  Isn't it great when we can capture someone's true personality in a photo?

Papers/elements/Cards - Just Jaimee Storyteller December 2013 Collection

Week 3:

Papers/Elements/Cards - Just Jaimee's Live for Today Collab

Date Stamp - Splendid Fiins The Evidence

Week 4:

Papers, Elements, Cards - Traci Reed's Pocket Life: January collection.

As I hoped, participating in the blog circle helped me keep current for January.  The next stop in the circle is Lyn over at her blog, Robot Days.  Enjoy the trip!

2014 Project Life Blog Circle begins...... NOW!

It's time to start thinking about 2014 project life!  Or, if you're me, you've been obsessing about scrapbooking goals for the new year for quite some time.  (Me, obsess?  Never!)

I'm participating in a blog circle this year.  Each month on the 4th, our fearless readers will be introduced to our pages from the previous month.  I'll link up to the next participant at the end of this post and you can click through to your heart's content to see what we have all been up to.

A little about me... I'm Stacy, married to Chris, and we have three active and fun (read that as crazy and hyper at times) girls: Anna is 6, Julia is 5 and Amelia is 2.  So, yeah.  I'm kinda busy.  I am a stay at home mom who also works from home doing closed captioning for the hearing impaired in the wee hours of the morning so that I can have the rest of the day to keep up with the family.

For this year, I am going to work weekly on digital pocket style pages.  I have not decided if my spreads will be weekly or more chronological/monthly.  I think I may attempt to go with a weekly format and see how it goes for the first few weeks.  I will be using Traci Reed's planner for planning, which can be found here.  I have it printed in a pretty binder from Target and am already using the daily spots to record what we have done and pictures I want to remember to include.

My current plan is to use monthly kits by digital designers to document our days.  Just Jaimee has her monthly storytellers, which are a neat mix of papers, journal cards, elements and artsy/paint-like brushes and stamps.  Traci Reed is also debuting her new monthly pocket life kit tomorrow evening.  And no, I'm not affiliated with either of them in any way, I'm just very excited about the new things they are bringing to the table.

I may also dabble in some <gasp> more traditional pages to showcase larger pictures and play with different styles of doing things.  All in all, I am looking forward to a fun year sharing my scrapbooking experience and, most importantly, getting memories recorded for our family to enjoy.

Here is my cover page:

The template, papers, alphas and elements are all from Just Jaimee's January 2014 Storyteller collection.  I love the colors!

Thanks for visiting!  Your next stop on the blog circle is Kimberlee at Scraps & Sass.  Enjoy!

The Lilypad Month of Challenges!

The Lilypad is hosting a Month of Challenges this January.  You can read about it here.

First up?  A Blind scrap.  I used a single picture of Amelia from her Thanksgiving celebration at preschool and here is the result:

Products include papers and elements from Just Jaimee's November Storyteller, ribbon and string from Sahlin Studio's Project Mouse.

How did I not know about Traci Reed before now?

I believe I have found a new favorite - tracireeddesign.  She has journal cards, templates (with stitching, without stitching, with stitching and plastic overlays - seriously, where have these been all year for me?!  I'm going to have to go back and redo many of my pages with stitching!!!!) and embellishments that are really realistic.

Here is what I have done so far with several of her product lines.  She has a few "Get Artsy" collaborations over at Sweet Shoppe Designs that you will want to be sure to check out.  They make art journaling in the digital world not only easy, but FUN.

This first layout features cards, alphas and brushes from the Get Artsy: Love collaboration by Traci Reed and Jenn Barrette.  When I saw the pinks, I knew I had to have it to record the memory of my 6 year old's Christmas ballet performance.

Template/Overlay: Traci Reed 365Unscripted Plastic Stitched Grids

Cards, Paint, Embellishments/Overlay: Get Artsy: Love by Traci Reed and Jenn Barrette

And then, I found the Old Time Magic collection.  Oh.  My.  Word.  We are, as you may have guessed, a Disney people.  Late this year, our family bought annual passes to Walt Disney World.  Needless to say, let the scrapbooking ensue.  The layout below is a perfect marriage of Traci Reed's Old Time Magic collections with a little Project Mouse by Sahlin Studio thrown in for fun.

Template: 11November13 by Sahlin Studio

Cards/Elements/Brushes: Old Time Magic (various) by Traci Reed and Project Mouse (various) by Sahlin Studio

This final layout is true project life style, with the twist of an added overlay for the feel of using plastics on a physical layout.  Traci's Our Everyday collection has 2x2 and 4x4 square cards in addition to the more traditional 3x4 and 4x6 Project Life sizes.  I was first introduced to using these cards by Becky Higgins' Just Add Color core kit and am so excited to see other designers following suit with more cards and even more templates to use.  I'm always thrilled to find elements from one designer that work well with another, and the photo overlay from the Just Add Color kit worked perfectly with this set.  And the fact that there was a "Family" 4x4 card in the set to use with these pictures?  Priceless.

Template: 365Unscripted Slipins 5 by Traci Reed

Cards/Elements: 365Unscripted Our Everyday by Traci Reed, 365 Unscripted Oh Snap by Traci Reed

Overlay: Just Add Color by Becky Higgins/Digital Project Life

I can't wait to acquire more of the Get Artsy collection and play more with using the art journal style both within Project Life-style and traditional layouts!

Dabbling with Just Jaimee's products and art journaling

Recently, I have been introduced to a couple of new designers.  The first is Just Jaimee.
She has a unique collection of monthly themed kits called Storytellers.  Each kit contains everything needed to put together either project life style or traditional scrapbooking layouts.  I did both and had a great time doing so!

Template: inspired by Lori Whitlock

Cards/elements: November Storyteller Collection by Just Jaimee

Template: 11November13 by Sahlin Studio

Cards/elements: November Storyteller Collection by Just Jaimee

These templates were my first foray into very basic art journal style scrapbooking (think messy, gorgeous art - paint, spatters, layers of paper, etc).  Art and paint without the mess?  Yes please!

Look what's coming....

For the first time, I will be participating in December Daily scrapbooking.  I have always taken a ton of pictures during December and, well, not done a whole lot with them.  

After seeing the December Story Collection from SuzyQ Scraps (whose site is currently down - link to come), I opted to go with more subdued, neutral colors for the majority of this album.  And the concept of december daily really appealed to me.  I am going to attempt to take one picture per day in December (I know some days there will be many more, but for now, the goal is one.  Underpromise and overdeliver, right?) and document our family Advent and Christmas traditions.

Pleased to present the cover page... Here we go!

Disney.world! (take one)

We took off to Walt Disney World for a long weekend in October and I have just now completed the pages with those pictures.  I plan to put these in a separate 12x12 album (this one, to be exact) so that the girls can enjoy flipping through all of our 2013-2014 Disney adventures at once.

For these pages, I used a combination of Lori Whitlock-inspired templates, Just Add Color templates, the Becky Higgings Just Add Color Kit and various and assorted pieces and parts of Project Mouse Bundle No 1 and Fantasy kits.

Our cover page:

Pages specific to this trip:

Are we there yet?

Excited to ride the parking tram!

Animal Kingdom

More AK

Hakuna Matata

Amelia's first MK visit (yes, I cried)

It's a world of laughter...

See you real soon!