I should be asleep right now...

...because I haven't gotten more than 5 hours of sleep the last couple nights-- this weekend I stayed at the Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage, and who can sleep when there's scrapping to be done and Diet Mt. Dew to drink?? (you think one thing had anything to do with the other? haha!!) Anyway, I didn't take many pictures, and most of the ones that I did take turned out crappy, so they will be re-taken tomorrow afternoon. But, here's a little of what I worked on:

 this is an addition to the Christmas week spread in my Project Life album... I wanted a way to save a few of the Christmas cards we got, so added them in a couple different ways- above I've used a 6x12 page protector; below I added a couple cards into the album just by punching holes right in the cards.

 I also added in an 8x8 page protector, and made a collage-style page with snips and pieces from all the cards we received. I've seen Ali Edwards do something similar before, and really liked it.

 (please excuse the slippers I'm wearing in the photo above- but you gotta be comfortable when you're crafting all day and all night, right?!?)

and as a refresher, above is the spread before adding in the extra page protectors. I really like this approach; it's a good way to add in more 'things' without feeling like I have to stretch the week into two entire 12x12 2-page spreads. It's probably just a psychological thing, because I know there's more than just the 2 12x12 pages of stuff there, but they're smaller-- so it works, in my brain.

This is a horrible photo, but it's a still photo from the movie Mona Lisa Smile. I was watching it on my laptop during a break from scrapping. The movie is decent (free-spirited Californian takes on the conservative mid-century view of 'the woman's place in society' at 1953 Wellesley College), but I absolutely LOVE the clothes in this movie. Every outfit-- I want to have the entire wardrobe in my closet! I really like her shirt-dress and sweater combo here, and I believe she's wearing a squash blossom silver and turquoise belt here, as well. I started noticing small things about people's outfits, like the fact that all the earrings are clip-ons, and the fact that Julia Roberts' character wore this super-cool silver and turquoise jewelry throughout the entire movie. Love it, love it, love it!! (I also found another piece of silver and turquoise jewelry to add to my own collection, at another local estate sale- I'll take a photo of that tomorrow, too!)

estate sale scores! (and some random pics)

Last time I was at Costco, I picked up some oatmeal-- 10 lbs!! I won't run out anytime soon, that's for sure!!  (Plus, I could use it to life weights- lol!)

I subscribe to a service that sends weekly e-mails with details about upcoming estate sales in the area. Every once in a while, I see a listing that sounds interesting: last Saturday, I got up early and hit up one particular sale  right at 8 am (when they opened), and came home with this:

Score!! a Smith Corona Electra 120 typewriter, with the case and instruction manual. It still has its ribbon, and once we messed around with it a bit, it still types! I've wanted a typewriter for a while, now-- sometimes I would rather have typed journaling for my scrapbook pages, but I don't want to mess around with the computer printer- soooo, typewriter to the rescue! Yay!! Yesterday, I drove up to Scottsdale and went to three separate estate sales. Two of them were a bust (nothing I wanted to get), but the third was pretty nice- I actually went back to it to get something I left behind the first time (thankfully it was still there!)

 There was regular household stuff, dishes, vintage clothing and shoes (unfortunately, the shoe size was way too big for me- 10 1/2) , but I spent most of my time looking at the jewelry. None of it was very expensive, but I really like all the pieces I bought.  The top left pic is a pin from the 1950s, and has a mustard seed in- it was good luck, apparently? The top right pic is two silver bracelets- one sterling silver, and one Mexican silver. The bottom left ring is also sterling silver, with a sapphire (? no idea), but what I really like is the setting. The next ring is why I went back; I just couldn't forget about this little Zuni roadrunner ring- isn't he cute?? The pendant is turquoise, I think, and about 1-1 1/2 inches across. I doubt I hit the jackpot with any of it, but I think I did pretty good! 

I also picked up a few pieces of paper ephemera, including these playing cards. I have a small collection of individual playing cards (dog and cat designs!), but I haven't bought any for quite a while-- it's really unusual for me to see individual designs like this, and I don't want to break up a deck just for one of the cards. More unusual, these cards were the only designs I saw!

here's a couple more pieces of paper ephemera I couldn't pass up- the Knoll Creek Dairy piece is a needle case (see below), and I love the little cow!! I especially like the old-fashioned telephone number. I don't know what the piece on the right is supposed to be, but I love the watercolor flowers.

below are a couple random pictures from the last week: 

I got my hair cut and colored last week... my stylist styles it straight sometimes, which I like, but I don't have a flatiron yet, so I had Tom capture it for posterity (along with the naturally-curly look, just to be fair).

and this sad sight was supposed to be an angel food cake... I had it upside-down to cool, and it fell out of the pan, so it got smashed!! thankfully, it still tastes okay. but darn, it looked great when I took it out of the oven!! oh well...

Project Life- Spread 2: Christmas!

A couple other things I want to mention regarding my approach to Project Life (a couple 'philosophy' type things I'm embracing to make this work for me): the photos aren't necessarily in any kind of 'order' in the page protector (other than the fact that the pics are from that week) because I don't want to have to worry that much about making them 'fit' into the page protector. They also aren't necessarily 'stellar' photography; I figure any decent photo that documents something is better than no photo at all. And, since the Project Life materials are all color-coordinated, I'm not worrying too much about coordinating anything 'with' the colors in the photos, or getting all 'scrapbook design-ish' over these pages. I want to make doing this as easy as possible so I can keep up with it!

This is the second week in my album: Christmas week. I jazzed up the title card a little (yes, right after I said I didn't want to go all 'scrapbooky' with this album, I did it after all... lol!) with a felt holly sprig that was a gift tag from Mom's package. I also made some photo collages in Picasa so I could include a few more photos.

The left-hand page includes a photo collage of the Christmas tree, the presents under the tree, and the Yule log on television (we watched a crackling fire and listened to Christmas carols while we opened presents!), the row of journaling cards with a couple extras- small photos of vintage books (from my childhood) that Mom sent me for Christmas, a business card from my Doctor's office, journaling with a 3-D sticker, a fortune from the Chinese dinner we had on Christmas Eve... The bottom row is two photos I took during the week: the left one on my way home from work one afternoon, and the right one was taken at my Dr's office during my yearly physical. (the office tech mentioned she was a scrapper, so I knew she'd understand when I whipped out my camera!) 

a close-up of the title block: I covered up the design on the card with a piece of die-cut scrapbook paper.

Here, I stuck some file folder labels to the photo for journaling space.

For this photo collage, I separated the small pictures using rick-rack stapled to the photo using my new Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher- I finally bought it (using a 40% off coupon!) after wanting it for months! (I think those teeny tiny staples are just the cutest!!)

another close-up- the lower right part of the page. I attached the fortune cookie fortune to a patterned tag from the Project Life kit.

Above is the right-hand page: more photos of Christmas day, including a 2-photo collage of opening presents in the top right corner: The left picture is Tom opening one of his present, and the right picture is Bisbee and Prescott opening one of theirs! (I love watching them do that!) The center strip is journaling (I included a couple Christmas stamps from cards on one of them), a photo of Tom messing with Ariel, and a grocery shopping list I saved.   

and, here are a couple more close-ups: the dogs enjoying their Christmas chewies (journaling on a vintage ticket stapled to the photo) and below, a pocket made using one of the photographs. 

The photo is of one of my Christmas presents to Tom: a radio-controlled mini helicopter. (he's been having fun with it so far!) I trimmed the photo to about 3x6, and taped down the edges of the photo to create a pocket. I added a journaling tag with details of our Christmas presents, and stapled a punched, stamped circle to the top edge.  Two weeks down, 50 (?) more to go!!

Project Life- or, what have I been up to?

So, what have I (we) been up to, anyway?? Well, the regular stuff-- and some holiday stuff-- just not blogging about it, I guess... but, part of what I've been up to is a new-to-me idea for scrapbooking the 'everyday' stuff that comprises our life, using a concept (and cool products!) from Becky Higgins called Project Life. From Becky's website: "Project Life is designed to be an easier-than-ever scrapbooking system. Simply pair your photos and journaling with pre-designed title cards and journaling cards. Your photos, these cards, and even your memorabilia slip into the Photo Pocket Pages and that’s it. The result is a stylish masterpiece that represents your life or whatever occasion you choose to record. With Project Life’s beautifully simple format, deciding what supplies to use or how to design layouts becomes obsolete, leaving you more time to experience life." Project Life can be used to document a photo-a-day, a week-at-a-glance, a monthly roundup, random photos and stories- however the user decides.

I started out seeing Ali Edwards post Project Life layouts on her blog all throughout last year, and the more I saw, the more it grew on me- the idea of recording the details of daily life as well as the bigger, 'usual topics' for scrapbooking layouts such as holidays, birthdays, trips, or other special occasions. Making regular "designed" layouts is fun, but only doing those leaves out a lot of what happens in our life. (plus, I rarely get the uninterrupted time or creative inclination anymore to spend a couple hours on just one layout.) I decided to try out Project Life using a weekly approach, and see how it goes-- without further ado, here is my first 2-page spread:

Project Life is made to be used with divided page protectors (also designed by Becky Higgins, to go with the papers); you can slip the date / title card and 4x6 photos right into the larger slots, and the journaling tags (or smaller photos) slide into the smaller spaces. The kit comes with tons pre-cut, pre-designed cards, so you have plenty of room for journaling (some of the cards are folded, too, so you have even more room to write). Lots of people do this as a yearly thing, so they start on Jan 1, but I was so excited about it, I started as soon as I got the materials- haha!! (There will be a title or 'cover' page that goes with this album, but I need to take a couple more pet pics first, so I'll show that later.)

Above is the left-hand page, which covers Dec. 10 - Dec. 18th. We attended a performance of Handel's Messiah and ate lunch at a new-to-us Persian restaurant (which was tasty); I received my Project Life materials from Amazon (see the photos, at the bottom?? LOL! I was so excited about this package I tracked it all the way to my door!) The next weekend, we drove to the Queen Creek Olive Mill, and ate at a new-to-us Indian restaurant (also very tasty). I didn't take pictures of that, but I did save the business cards.

Above is the right-hand page, with more photos of the week's activities- Bisbee snuggling with Tom on the couch while we watched TV on Friday night (she very rarely does that, so I'm glad I got a photo of it, even if it wasn't the best quality); addressing the Christmas cards; a photo taken off of the Food Network website from the final Next Iron Chef episode (I still need to write more journaling, there); and photos documenting a couple movies we watched. (FYI, I got images for the movies from the Internet, cropped and printed them, then attached them to cardstock. The red "Take-and Bake Revolution" is a sticker from the grand opening of our local Papa Murphy's pizza; I just stuck it to a journaling card and folded the overhang to the back. (it's very good pizza, by the way- we've gotten it 3x already!)

This is a detail of the business cards from the left page: I cut a piece of coordinating cardstock to 4x6, rounded the edges, and attached the business cards to the cardstock. And, I wanted to mention something you can hopefully see on the right-hand page: some of the photos have labels on them. They are simply office file folder labels with extra journaling on, and I think I'll be doing this a lot to keep track of more details. Some labels are stuck to the photo itself, and some are stuck to the page protector. Thanks for looking, and reading about my new project, Project Life!! I'm excited for this to continue-- I have a couple more weeks (mostly) completed already, so I'll show you those soon.