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.