at five years old

I recently shared an interview I did with Brandon using an interview format from Cathy Zielske. I had originally planned on using that same layout for my interview with Olivia, but then I saw this cute “at three and a half” layout from Susan Weinroth & immediately change my mind and made this:

The first thing I did to my layout was take the journaling I’d already typed up from the interview layout and put it in a paragraph form. I kept the questions in bold & answers in regular (using the font PT Sans that was from the digital template). I separated each question with the “|” (it’s the uppercase of the back slash, just above the enter key) and then added the date at the end. I printed it all on some aqua Bazzill that I had leftover from another layout & adhered it to the top of the page.

Then I added my three photos & started to play! I broke out my May GTKC for the first time & had fun picking out prints :)

After my photos were in place, I spelled out “at five years old” with the mini letter stickers, and just above that I added some patterned paper I punched out with my cloud, butterfly, and 1 3/4” circle punch. I inked the edges and adhered them, then added a staple for the butterfly body.

I added those same pattered papers in strips below the photos, and included two border stickers from Crate Paper. I’m very impressed that they were actually 12” long; it seems like so many other border stickers aren’t quite long enough. I love the film strip border sticker! I was going to use it by itself, but it looked so blah without anything behind it.

Something was still missing so I pulled out this cute little custom embellishment from my kit. I love how it’s just a fun funky design & I think it adds that perfect oomph that I needed.

let’s go brandon

First of all, it’s Memorial Day. Thank you to all the men & women who have graciously served our country.

And to honor them, what is more American than baseball?

I take a ton of pictures at each of Brandon’s baseball games, thanks to the burst mode on my camera. It’s so easy to snap ten in a row & hope that one is him hitting the ball. When I looked at the photos from Brandon’s last game, I thought, “hey wouldn’t it be fun to have a story-board style layout of these photos?”

I found this sketch in one of my Allison Davis sketch books. (love them!)

Then I pulled out my March GTKC & found some papers that would work nicely, as well as some brads to embellish it. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, so the focus is on Brandon swinging the bat.

february 2011

 

Here is the February sketch from Scrapbook & Cards Today:

And here is my interpretation:

I stuck pretty close to the original sketch, really only changing up the embellishments. I had fun mixing & matching patterned papers from the February GTKC.

I just found out this fun strip of paper is called a “bar code strip.” I call it, “that edge you usually cut off & throw away, but fancy”. Sassafras always has some funky ones, and I knew I wanted to use this strip at some point. When I realized the sketch had a strip of ribbon/paper, I knew this banner edge would be perfect!

On the lower left hand side, I clustered a few embellishments in the corner. I love the 1940’s feel to the patterned Cosmo Cricket paper & didn’t want to cover it up.

sunny days

A few weeks ago I grabbed my camera when we went to the park, and I had fun snapping some fun pictures of the girls while we were waiting for their brother to get out of school.

I was inspired by a sketch that came with my April GTKC, and I lifted the circle idea from Brenda Johnston’s layout based on the sketch. I printed an 11 1/2” circle from Photoshop Elements onto the back of the patterned paper so I had a line to cut my circle.

I knew I wanted to incorporate yellow into the layout because of Olivia’s bright top. And then I found this fun cloud paper from My Mind’s Eye (the reverse is the yellow print on the cloud).

After adhering the photos & paper, I wanted to add some embellishments. I had two “blank” areas (the upper right and down by the title) that needed some attention. I just got myself the cute cloud punch last week, and this was the perfect time to break it in! I love how Susan Weinroth stitches her clouds onto her layouts, so I pulled out my new sewing machine too.

I used a single line of stitching on my upper clouds and three separate lines on my lower clouds.  I didn’t stitch on the clouds near my journaling because I thought it would just be too much there.

project life 5/1–5/7

 

(playing catch-up)

May Merriment: Flowers

Some days I took pictures of flowers, some days I didn’t.

 

It was Olivia’s birthday party today, so no flowers Just the gang of giggly girls!

 

Olivia had her kindergarten assessment today, so afterwards we went to Starbucks for breakfast.

 

(photograph a flower with a wide aperture)

a rose in our front yard; f/1.8, 1/2500, iso 400

 

Giving my car a very much needed wash!

 

(photograph a backlit flower)

I cut some roses from the front & set them in the window by the kitchen sink. I love how they look in the olive jar vase!

 

Kindergarten Mother’s Day tea. We all had to dress in our fanciest clothes for a special surprise day, put on by the kids.

 

Helmets all lined up on the bench, ready to play ball!

project life 5/15–5/22

 

May Merriment topic: Food

Something you eat (a plate, a pot, a table):

I don’t think I have any photos of our everyday dishes: Casa Azul by Villeroy & Boch.

 

Something edible:

The season’s first corn. Perfect, and never enough.

 

With a prop:

Wasn’t sure what to shoot until I saw Brandon’s lunch box on the counter after school, waiting to be unloaded & cleaned.

 

Food near it’s source:

I was struggling with this one until I saw someone mention “inside your fridge”…thank goodness it wasn’t a disaster in there!

 

Something sweet:

A perfect topic for my birthday! I took the kids (& my mom) to Icing on the Cupcake after we picked Brandon up. This was actually Abbie’s cupcake (I had a chocolate mint one…yummy!), but it looked the most “birthday”.

 

Strawberries:

A household staple this time of year.

 

Food with metal (utensil?):

Just our Saturday morning Noah’s bagels box. No metal, but pure deliciousness.

an interview with brandon

 

Originally I thought I was going to create an “everyday you” layout for my kids every six months. I thought it would be fun to chronicle their changes & likes & everyday-ness. Then I saw this cool interview format on Cathy Zielske’s blog & thought, I think I’m going to do that too!

This was by far one of the easiest layouts I’ve completed! I downloaded the template at Designer Digitals (where it looks like there are having a sale still…not sure how much longer though). I asked Brandon all the questions (& Olivia too, but I haven’t done her layout yet), then typed them into the psd document. I did have to head over to the Font Squirrel to download the fonts (since I didn’t have them, but they were free).

I printed the photos on photo paper and the rest on white cardstock, then I put them together & adhered them to a sheet of black cardstock. Done. And a lot of fun to look back on.

the great egg hunt

 

I think this is a first for me: scrapping an event within a month of it occurring!

I decided to submit a few layouts to the Sketch Support Creative Team call, and the above layout was based off of the two-page sketch. I thought I should scrap something current and I already had an idea in mind for my Easter page.

I used a ton of fun goodies from my April GTKC. Most of it was Jillibean Soup…I love how fun & springy the blossom soup collection is! I added the date to the cute little date sticker, and didn’t like how it looked. Thank goodness for the word stickers! I just covered up the original date with “remember” and re-wrote it.

I changed up this area here from the original sketch. I didn’t include the stitching because it was just too much, plus I couldn’t fit the circles & butterflies the way I wanted to. I also didn’t use stars, like the sketch shows. I see the “embellishments” of the sketches as an idea if you’re stumped, but mostly there to guide placement.

january 2011

I finally finished my layout for January! Yay me! (Do you watch Suite Life too? Thanks to London I say this all. the. time.)

I had a lot of fun putting this page together using some Jillibean products from my stash & my January GTKC. Of course I based my layout on this sketch for Project 12.

I decided to type up my journaling, and I numbered each memory with the date it happened. Then I added these cute little number stickers from My Little Shoebox to each photo to correspond with the date it happened.

The “buttons” on here are from the Jillibean cardstock sticker sheet. They were originally 1” circles, but they looked too big. So I punched them out with my handy 3/4” punch & they fit much better. The coolest part was that I had a nice open circle sticker left over! They could look cool on a different layout, but I used them to help hold the thread down on the back of the page.

four cards & a gift

I don’t know about you, but when I sit down to make a card, I try to streamline the process & make a few of the same card, assembly-line style. It doesn’t take much longer than making one card, and I get a few extras. Except at Mothers’ Day, when I have four women that I make cards for (my mom, my mother-in-law, hubby’s step-mom, and her mom).

This year I was inspired by Suzy Plantamura’s mothers’ day card seen here on the American Crafts blog. I loved the patterned paper base & simple design. So I grabbed some of my Cosmo Cricket DeLovely line that I had from a layout last spring. The papers are so bright & fun & were perfect for what I wanted to make (and by making these cards I was using up the paper! yay!).

I was only able to cut three 4 x 8 1/2 inch cards out of the 12x12 sheet of paper, so my 4th card has a different background paper.

(I was going to share the gift I made too, but I didn't get my photos uploaded yet. Whoops! But I can share anyways...I made this awesome Grandma subway art that I found on the eighteen25 blog.)

capture your 365 blog hop

I’ve been taking pictures since getting my first camera for Christmas when I was seven. This was in 1983, so it was 110 film (I think, I know it wasn’t 35mm), and I had actual flash bulbs that I had to put on the camera. Times have changed! I wish I had a picture of that camera (well, I wish I actually had it).

Since then, my photography skills have improved quite a bit (though they could definitely improve more still). However, the change I’ve noticed the most since beginning Project Life (365) is WHAT I photograph. I actually seek out the crap of everyday life (like the toys in my car for work).

HOW I try to change perspective in the photo by getting down on the floor more. (And yes, I know his face is cut off…this is one of my clients at work so #1 can’t show his face, & #2 that isn’t the point of the photo.)

And WHY I think something is important enough to take a picture in the first place. This last one has taught me to not always care if the photo is “perfect” as long as it conveys what I want, like Abbie holding her baby.

 

So without further ado, here are some favorites from April:

A trend

a moment with her grandmother & great grandmother

a five year old, looking at the camera instead of gazing sideways in her “I’m posing” look…and oh, how I’m thankful for the beautiful garden in my neighbor’s front yard, complete with rocks to sit on!

a playful moment with friends (and since it was night I could barely see thru the viewfinder…glad I took the picture anyways!)

the number six (thank you for the prompt! Can’t say I’d have taken a picture of our house number otherwise)

And since this is a blog hop, I hope you checked out the other blogs too! I’m last on the “official” list, but maybe you happened upon me first. Either way, check out what these other ladies did this month:

"Capture Your 365" Bloghop Participants:

1. Jill

2. Kate

3. Katrina

4. Kathleen

5. Christi

6. Tammy

7. Anne

8. Tracy

9. Sharon

10. Lee

11. Michelle

12. Beth

13. Michele

14. Christine (you are here)