Laura Vegas

What We Ate: Week Two

January 15, 2018

Hey everyone! I'm back with another "What We Ate" post, to share the new recipes that I tried out last week. Two weeks into the year, and I'm still on track with my challenge to myself to work at least 2-3 new recipes into our meals each week.

Honey Drizzled Pistachio & Avocado Bagel Toast | Gringalicious

Thoughts: This is a very simple recipe, but I'm all for simple meal ideas. I've had my eye on this one for myself, and tried it out last week for a simple lunch one afternoon. I only had bagel thins on hand, but they worked perfectly. And while mine didn't look nearly as pretty as the ones above, they were super yummy. It was so good, that I ended up making it three times in the last week.

One-Pot Lasagna Soup | Carlsbad Cravings

Thoughts: I mentioned the idea of "lasagna soup" several times to the family, and they weren't big on the idea. I think it was the word "soup", as we're not really soup people around here. But I knew this would be a heartier "soup", so I went ahead with it, despite their initial reaction. I love a one-pot meal, and this one was super easy to make. Just like the blog post said, it did have a lot of ingredients, but they all just got dumped in one-by-one, so it wasn't much work at all. I didn't end up adding the last couple of cups of chicken broth that it called for at the end, because I figured that would just make it more soupy, and I decided it was a good thickness as it was. One thing I would do differently if/when I make this again, would be to break up the lasagna noodles into smaller pieces. I was worried I was making them too small, and turns out, they were a little too big. The family ended up liking it after all, and it was full of flavor and totally like eating lasagna. Personally, I'd rather eat lasagna soup than real lasagna 😉

Garlic Parmesan Pull-Apart Rolls | Crunchy Creamy Sweet

Thoughts: I decided to try these out to go along with the lasagna soup. They're made using refrigerated biscuits, and were so simple to make. I like that the edges got a little crispy in the muffin tin, and how they pull apart into pieces for easy eating. And they mopped up the sauce in the lasagna soup perfectly!

I hate to take a break from this challenge to myself when I'm only two weeks into the year. Lol. But I will be headed out of town for four days later this week, and won't be back until late Monday night. So if I do end up posting next week, it will be mid-week. Otherwise, I'll get back to this new feature the following week. I'll be back tomorrow with a new layout share, for anyone missing my scrapbooking projects 😉
What We Ate: Week One

January 9, 2018

I'm trying out a new thing here, and we'll see if I can consistently keep it up throughout the year. So I mentioned that I set a goal this year when it comes to cooking. I am challenging myself to incorporate at least 2-3 new recipes into our meals each week. I love pinning good looking/sounding recipes on my Pinterest boards. In fact, food is one of the main things I go on Pinterest for these days.

I used to have two boards for recipes. Now I have twenty. About a year ago, I took the time to create separate boards for different food and dessert categories, and I love how much more organized it all is. Not to say that everything is pinned on the perfect board. Lol. And some things fall under a few categories, and should be on multiple boards. But it works, and I change things, and add additional boards, as needed.

What good is pinning all these yummy concoctions if you never actually try making them, right? That's where my challenge to myself came in. I have been trying some of these recipes over the last few months, and all of my Christmas cookie recipes I used for the past two years came from Pinterest. So I've had a little head start on the idea of actually using what I'm pinning, but I wanted to push myself to do even more.

I'm thinking that every Monday, I'll try and share any new recipes I tried the previous week. Except this week, as I'm sharing on Tuesday 😉 I should add that I didn't actually try any of these meals last week, as I hopped back on my diet for two weeks just to re-group a bit. So I have to take my family's word (and anyone else that ate the leftovers) on taste. Here's what I made for the first week of 2018:

Slow Cooker Broccoli Beef | Creme De La Crumb

Thoughts: We love beef and broccoli, and I have a great recipe that I use from Rachael Ray to make it on the stove top. But I loved the idea of using the crock pot to make it. This was so easy to make. Toss all of the ingredients in the crock pot and let it do it's thing for 4-5 hours, adding in the broccoli a few minutes before serving. I made some steamed rice to go with it. The family loved it and said it was really, really good. I tried asking if it was better than the version I usually make, but they never did answer me. And I will say, while making beef and broccoli is pretty darn easy, this version was way less work than how I usually make it and less dishes and clean up. Which is always a plus in my book.

Slow Cooker Four Cheese Mac and Cheese | Damn Delicious

Thoughts: I love Damn Delicious recipes and this sounded like a good one. Again, using the crock pot. The recipe says to cook on low for 90 min to 2.5 hours. At first, I thought that meant it was good to go after 90 minutes, but could go up to 2.5 hours. But after letting it cook for 2 hours, it wasn't quite ready, as the noodles were still a bit tough. I did use a different type of noodle, so I'm not sure if that played into it. One family member said it was too cheesy (didn't know there was such a thing as too much cheese ;)). One family member said it was good, but filled her up too quick. Joe didn't love it, but took some leftovers to work, and it sounds like his co-workers (who eat a lot of my leftovers btw) said it was ok. Overall, it didn't get rave reviews in my house, so I probably won't make it again.

Copycat TGI Friday's Potato Skins | Cincy Shopper

Thoughts: Soooo. My family looooooooves TGI Friday's potato skins. You know, the ones you get in the freezer section. And they always want to buy them, but they're so expensive, so I don't let them get them very often. I'm pretty sure that I've always known that potato skins are easy to make, but I admit, I've never tried to make them myself. While I know there are quicker ways to bake potatoes, I'm a rule follower, and did exactly what the recipe told me to do. It was the weekend, so I wasn't in a rush to get these done. They were so easy, and the family LOVED them. And it made a TON. I wanted to try freezing a few of them, to see if they would re-heat just like the real TGI Friday's frozen ones, but the family gobbled them up too quick. I told them they could never buy the frozen ones again, since I could make 10 times as many for the same price as one little box. Lol. I will for sure be making these again and again.

Sloppy Joe Sliders | Valerie's Kitchen

Thoughts: I made these to go along with the potato skins. I had bought some rolls the previous weekend, and wanted to use them up by making some sliders. And when I went to search for a slider recipe, I knew that I wanted something using ground beef, since that's what I had on hand and thawed out. These Sloppy Joe Sliders were super easy to make, using all ingredients that are staples in my pantry. Joe loved these. Crazy, because they're so simple, but he kept saying how good they were. Sarah took off before dinner was ready, so she (and her boyfriend) has them as leftovers the next day. I only assembled the ones that were being eaten, since they go in the oven for a while. So it was easy to make more of the sliders the next day.

So there's a look at my first week. I tried out 4 new recipes, keeping me on track with my challenge to myself. I'll be back next week to share what I end up making this week 🙂
My Hopes For This Year

January 8, 2018

Hey everyone! We're eight days into the new year, so I figured it was about time for a new blog post. I had good intentions of typing up another post like I did last year – my What Will My Focus Be post. But truthfully, all those projects that I talked about are still projects that I want to focus on throughout this coming year. Did I work on all of those last year? No. Did I think about all of those last year? For sure.

That's the nice thing about scrapbooking, is that there really isn't a deadline as to when these projects get done. Sure, some of those are ones that I would love to finish sooner rather than later. Some are just on-going projects, that get added to over the years. And some are projects that will take a lot more time than others, which is why I haven't quite gotten to them yet.

One project that I am totally loving, and will definitely keep doing, is Project Life. I will be keeping with the same format, and using 9×12 albums. I am using the older Seven Paper albums that I found on a deals website at the beginning of last year, and I was smart enough to buy a large amount of them, along with all of the 9×12 pocket pages (I got them super, duper cheap). I was thinking ahead, and wanting my albums to match, and I also had this gut feeling that Project Life (and the 9×12 size) was something that I would continue with over the next few years.

I already have my album set up for the first half of the year. Meaning I have my pocket pages all set up inside the album, and my weekly title cards printed out and inserted into each week. While I'm still catching up with my 2017 album, and have tons to share from that, I hope to stay current with my 2018 album. So once I have my January photos, I'll get working on those weeks, and will share what my plan is for my 2018 album (including the weekly title cards I decided to go with) next month.

I'm still designing for Kerri Bradford Studio, and LOVE it. I sat down this weekend to work on my January project for her, and it got me doing a lot of thinking. I started out wanting to create a layout. An actual 12×12 layout. I feel like I haven't made a layout in a while. I've made a digital layout, and a few 6×8 size layouts, along with pocket page layouts. But not a traditional layout. Then my mind went to Travelers Notebooks, and I thought maybe I'd make something in one of those. I've mentioned that for me, I feel like a Travelers Notebook needs to have a theme, or a purpose. I can't just use one to randomly make "layouts" in. I do have an idea for a notebook, and it's food related. But I couldn't quite figure out how to do what I had in mind.

In the end, I decided to do a 6×8 pocket page spread. Well, one side is a pocket page and one side is a full page "layout" I guess. I have come to really, really love the pocket pages. And I'm also really, really loving the smaller size albums – specifically 6×8 and 6×12. I have "all about me" type albums set up in both of those sizes for myself, and have been enjoying adding to those albums over the last year. So my mind tends to turns to the pocket pages, and these smaller sizes pages, whenever I have a project in mind.

I'm not saying that I'll never make full 12×12 layouts again. In fact, I was sorting out some printed photos from the last two years this morning, and several layout ideas came to mind. Including some two page layout ideas. I've jotted those ideas down, so that I can work them into my creative time at some point. But in the grand scheme of things, I just don't have as many layouts that are on my to-do, or want-to-do, list anymore.

The girls are older now, and I just don't have the photos like I did when they were younger. I rarely have any photos of Sarah. And while Alyssa shares TONS of photos with me, I do kind of look at it as those being her stories to tell. I don't feel the need to scrapbook all of her photos now that she's an adult. Kwim? Although I'm totally going to start a project for her, with all of her college photos (to which she'll add her stories too when she's ready) ;)

And while I can certainly go back and scrap all the photos that I never got around to from their younger years, I'm not always inspired to scrap with old photos. Not just for the sake of making a layout anyways. I've been scrapbooking for almost 24 years. Which is crazy, right? I spent years and years making nothing but layouts. Tons of layouts. So much of our lives are already in the albums, and so many of our stories have already been told on those pages.

So it makes sense to me that maybe "scrapbooking" for me has changed, in what it looks like. Maybe it's not as many layouts. Maybe it's more pocket pages and smaller sized pages. Maybe it's less about the girls, and more more about me (or Joe). We're in a different season of life, so I also find myself in a different season of my scrapbooking and what I want this hobby to be.

Anyways. I ramble. Hopefully some of that made sense.

Totally unrelated to scrapbooking. I've been thinking about adding a few other topics to my blog. I've gotten in the habit of only blogging when I have a project to share. Unlike years ago, when I would blog about a good mix of scrapbooking, everyday stuff, family stuff, etc. I'm really not sure who all reads this little blog of mine, or what you're hoping to see from me (feel free to let me know in the comments if you have ideas). But I was thinking about how while some people share only scrapbook related photos on their Instagram pages, I have always shared a good mix of photos. There's really no rhyme or reason to what I share on my Instagram, and I like that it's a mix of every part of my life. I'd kind of like my blog to get back to that fun mix.

One thing that I've been sharing more of on Instagram is food related photos, and people seem to enjoy it. I've gotten a little more into cooking and meal prep, and it's something that I've been enjoying. I decided to make a goal for myself this coming year, which is to cook with at least 2-3 new recipes a week. I've got a ton of yummy recipes pinned on my Pinterest food boards, and while I love to pin more and more to my boards, I rarely take the time to make any of them. I want to change that. Last week, I tried out four new recipes, three of which were successful. We won't talk about the fourth one. Lol.

I thought maybe I would start sharing a food related blog post once a week. Maybe it would be sharing the new recipes from the week before that we loved. Maybe it would be a little about how I meal plan, or food prep. Maybe it would be some other random cooking tips I've picked up, or storage ideas, etc. I haven't thought it all out yet, but it's something I'd like to add to the blog.

Maybe I'll start a once a week post, where I share a few things that I'm loving that week. I'll brainstorm that idea, since it just popped into my head while I was typing this up 😉

Just know that my intention this year is to blog more. I know blogs aren't what they used to be, and they're not read as much as they used to be read. But I still enjoy blogging and sharing. And I don't want to feel like I have to have a new scrapbook project to share, in order to blog. So that means I add a little more variety here in my little corner of the internet.

Anyways. I've rambled again. Just tossing some thoughts out there, so they're not all stuck up in my head by themselves. Feel free to chime in on any of the things I rambled about, ideas you'd like to see (not saying I'll do them, but I'm always open to ideas if they fit what I'm already doing), things that you're excited to work on this year, etc.
What My Focus Was

December 31, 2017

Hey everyone! I thought I would sneak one more blog post in before the end of the year. I was thinking back to the beginning of 2017, when I wrote THIS post. To quote myself – "I've been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish, scrapbooking wise, this year. What it is I want to focus on. What is more important to me now, as opposed to last year, or even five years ago".

Seeing as how we start a new year tomorrow, I thought it might be nice to see what I actually did accomplish this past year. It's not like I had any grand plans of knocking all of these things off my list, but I do love that I had some projects on my list that I could think about here and there throughout the year. You can read all of my thoughts (from a year ago) about each of these on that blog post linked above. And today, I'm just going to briefly touch on what I did, or did not, work on this year.

I have been working on my Project Life albums consistently all year long. And if I'm being honest, it's one of my favorite projects. It just fits our life so well right now. I love that it's a random mix of random photos, documenting all of the randomness that is our life. When I wrote that post at the start of the year, I wasn't sure if I wanted to do digital PL or physical PL. I'm so glad I settled on doing the physical albums, and I will continue to do the same for 2018.

I have the first half of 2017 in my Project Life album totally and completely finished. And I have shared every one of those 26 weeks in full here on my blog. I am behind on the rest of the year. I admit that. But all of my photos are in the album, along with weekly title cards and weekly calendar cards. I even have quite a few of my journaling cards typed up, and some filler cards added in as well. It will all get done 😉

This is a project that I did work on this year. I knocked out photos from 2007, 2008, 2015, and 2016 and blogged about them (along with the album concept in general) HERE and HERE. I also completed 2013 mid-year, and the first part of 2017. I just put together the rest of my photos for 2017 a few days ago, and will be adding them onto my next photo order to add into the album.

Ummmm. Yeah. I didn't even think about this project. Lol. It's still something I toss around in my head, as I'm still not sure exactly what I want to do. I know what I want to do – I'm just not sure how to best do it.

This is an album project that I had sort of started in 2016, and I did actually do a little work on it this past year. I even talked about doing a blog post on what I had done so far, as it's very similar to the daycare albums that I mentioned above. But I guess that never happened.

I did actually work on this project a bit. I worked on finishing up Alyssa's school albums. They were pretty much done, seeing as how she graduated 3.5 years ago. But I still had some random stuff to work in. I did a blog post HERE, sharing her sophomore, junior, and senior years in her school album.

I also did a post HERE, about the super simple way I incorporated the girl's school art projects into their albums. I'm pretty sure I took all of the photos for that project back in 2016, and yet it took me until earlier this year to actually finish what ended up being a 10 minute project. Lol.

Another project that I never even thought about this year. I was totally on track to have this done by the time she graduated high school, and then got derailed on an album project for her band teacher. And somehow, I've just never made it back to finish this album. I really need to work on it.

The only thing I did for this album project was print photos from my CHA trip this past January, and work them into the album. Yep, that's all I accomplished for this one.

This is something that I really, really, really want to do. And I've watched these Day In The Life and Week In A Life projects come up over the past year. And I have kits for both of these projects, including several kits for Day In The Life. I even have digital kits for these projects. And yet I still haven't participated. I think life always feels to crazy around here, and I feel like I can't focus enough on getting what I would want to include. Silly reason for not having tried, I know.

I know I created layouts this year, even if there weren't all that many compared to previous years. I know I created 26 layouts, that I'm pretty sure have all been shared on my blog. I also created about 8 more layouts that I wasn't allowed to share, as they were for online classes or workshops. I created my first travelers notebook, documenting my favorite TV shows. I created a few digital and/or hybrid layouts. I worked with some of my Story Kits from Ali Edwards. And I think I even created a few cards here and there.

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And there it is. A very quick look at how I did tackling my scrapping to-do's. Not too bad, considering how much less I seem to spend creating these days. I'm hoping to come up with a new "what's my focus" in the next few days, as I look ahead to this coming year.

I hope you all have a happy New Year's, and I'll see you back here soon!
Happy Holidays

December 26, 2017

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone, from our family to yours! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. And since I won't be back on here in the next few days, I also want to wish you a happy New Year's as well!

I haven't had much to share these past few weeks, and have just been enjoying the holiday season, and hanging with my family. I will most definitely be back after New Year's, and am hoping to add a little more variety to what I share on this little blog of mine. See you next year!
Kerri Bradford Studio: Twelve Days of Christmas

December 9, 2017

Have you been visiting Kerri Bradford Studio this month? Kerri has her annual Twelve Days of Christmas going on (it started on December 1st), where her design team, along with lots of guest designers, are sharing holiday themed projects. There's also a fun freebie available each day for you to download, but it's only available for the day. So you need to be stopping by each day to make sure and grab those freebies ;)

I have to admit, I usually take the easy route when wrapping Christmas presents, keeping my packaging super simple and easy. I'm a huge fan of gift bags, and I never use ribbon or bows. But every now and then, I will get inspired to get a little crafty in my gift giving presentation. This year, I have several people on my list that I will be gifting 8×10 home decor type prints too. I am always on the lookout for fun printable images that can printed, framed, and hung around the house (mostly found on Etsy).

And so often, I see prints that I know would be just perfect for a friend or family member. Like the vintage blueprints for the blow dryer (found HERE) and hair brush (found HERE) for my favorite hair stylist. I'm also pretty sure I'll be hanging these in one of our bathrooms as well.

Or the chalkboard baking conversions (bought on a deal somewhere else, but you can find HERE) and kitchen measurements (bought on a deal somewhere else, but you can find HERE) for a friend that loves to bake.

I had a bunch of these printables printed as 8×10 photos, done thru Costco. I have framed prints like this in the past when giving them to friends and/or family, but I figured this time I would just gift them the prints themselves, and they can use them however they want. I wanted a fun way to package these prints, and found some black envelopes that I ordered off Amazon.

I wanted to decorate the front of the envelopes, rather than just scribbling their names with a pen like I would normally do. I started by printing out some smaller pieces of the grey plain patterned paper found in Kerri's Travelers Pack: Splendid kit. I adhered them onto a large piece of patterned paper, and then adhered that to the center of the envelopes.

I picked out a few shapes from Kerri's brand new Christmas Calendar kit – the wreath and the "Merry Christmas" – and die cut both from colored cardstock. I adhered the wreath in the center of the grey plaid patterned paper pieces, and then adhered my Christmas sentiment in the center of the wreath. I added a few small silver accent dots to the wreaths to finish them off. Then I just slipped the prints inside and they're ready to go!

Kerri also has a great sale going on right now. It's a Jolly Holiday Sale, where you can grab kits and classes for 20% off (use code JOLLY), and all stamps are 10% off. This sale is going on all thru the month of December, so be sure to take advantage if there's kits, stamps, and/or classes you've been eyeing!
Craft The Story: Ali Edwards – Details

November 21, 2017

Hey everyone! I've got another layout to share, and it seems fitting that I'm sharing it this week. Seeing as how the story behind the photos started almost a full year ago. The week after Thanksgiving 2016 to be exact. That is when I started a journey to become a healthier version of myself.

I've never been one to talk about my weight, or even to acknowledge that I had gained weight over the last 6-7 years. It's been in the back of my head for years that I needed to do something about it, but I never got motivated enough to even try. Until a year ago, when one of my closest friends started her own weight loss journey. And in hearing a bit about the program she was doing, I knew that it would be the perfect fit for me.

I never took actual before photos. But I had taken photos with the girls on Mother's Day this year, and I noticed that in the photo of Sarah and I, we were posed exactly the same as we were in the photo we took on Thanksgiving last year. So I made her take another photo with me in October, after I reached my goal weight.

I started on this program the week after Thanksgiving, and started working towards my first goal. Which I met back in April. I then took a two month break, doing my best on my own to make healthy choices and maintain my weight. But I also knew deep down that I still had some more weight that I wanted to lose. You see, I ended up having to replace pretty much my entire wardrobe. I had some clothes saved from years ago, when I was smaller. But I'm also smaller now than I've been in forever and ever. So my choices were limited as I lost more weight. So since I was replacing almost everything, I knew that I wanted to get down to where I really, really wanted to be – so that I could make the most of my purchases with that end goal/size in mind.

So I went back on the program towards the end of June, and met my final goal at the beginning of October. And while start to finish, it took me 10 months to reach my final goal, with the intentional breaks that I took along the way (including the two month break), I actually only spend 6 of those 10 months actively trying to lose weight. I ended with a 55 pound weight lose, and I'm very proud of it.

So, on to the actual layout. I was looking thru the Details Story Kit from Ali Edwards, and realized it would be a great way to document my story. There's a lot more that I could share/document about this weigh lose journey, but I wanted to at least get some facts down. Some quick details.

I have the actual Story Kit, and was planning on creating a traditional layout. But I've also gotten used to doing a lot of my planning either in Photoshop or in my Silhouette software (that's usually if I'm planning on die cutting something). Since I also have the digital version of the Story Kit, I was playing around in Photoshop, mapping out my plan. Kind of the same thing as sketching out the plan for the page.

And at some point, I decided to just make this a fully digital layout. I love playing with paper, but sometimes, I just want to veg out on the couch and do nothing. And part of my version of doing "nothing" is playing around on the computer. So sometimes, digital just appeals to the couch potato in me 😉

I knew that I wanted to use the "details" 4×6" card, with a 4×6" photo underneath, and another 4×6" card from the kit below the photo.

Since I had three photos that I collaged together onto one 4×6" photo, I knew that this 4×6" card from the kit would work perfectly paired up with it. The 01, 02, and 03 divided sections allowed me to document some details to go along with each of the photos.

I recently read a comment from someone that had lost a lot of weight, and they said it should be socially acceptable to wear the size label that comes on new clothes out in public. Wear it proudly. And I guess that's why I wanted to document my starting weight/sizes, and where I'm at now. I'm not one to pat myself on the back often, but I am so freaking proud of myself for accomplishing this goal and getting to where I am. I may not be proud of where I started, but I'm proud of where I ended up.

In every Story Kit, there is a marketing card that includes a photographic image with a quote on one side, and some info about the theme of the kit on the other side. The card in this kit had a floral image along with a quote, and I thought the colors in the flowers went well with my photos.

So I selected the top part of the card, and used it to create a border along the top and bottom of the page. Since the card was six inches wide, I just pasted it twice along the top and twice along the bottom. I added in a scalloped border along the top and bottom as well, and picked out a digital patterned paper for the base of my page.

The nice thing about using digital elements is that you can size them however you'd like. The physical chipboard circle pieces are a good size, but I was able to use them larger digitally. The same goes for the "why", "what", and "when" cards. I sized them to fit onto the page to my liking, and once I was happy with them, I then typed up my journaling on each card.

I know that, if you're like me, when you hear about someone losing a lot of weight, and doing it successfully, you kind of want to know how they did it. Like I said, I wish I could say that I did it all on my own, but I didn't. I did use a food program, and that program was something that I choose to invest in. I believe in this program 100%, and I know it works. If you work it and commit to it. And I was fully committed, 110%, when I was on the plan. I never cheated. Not even once. Which is why it worked.

If any of you are sincerely interested in more info about the program that I used, feel free to email me and I can share a bit more about it with you.
Kerri Bradford Studio: Home

November 15, 2017

Hey everyone! I've got a new layout up over at Kerri Bradford Studio today, and wanted to pop in and share it here as well. So, I'm sure you've all noticed that I've gone back and forth a lot this past year – between making traditional layouts, working in my 9×12" Project Life album, creating 6×12" and 6×8" pocket page spreads, and I even gave the traveler's notebooks a try.

Along the way, I'm finding that I gravitate towards certain formats and certain sizes more than others. After 24+ years of scrapbooking, and focusing mainly on creating 12×12" layouts all those years, the pocket page albums and smaller sized formats really speak to me lately. That's not to say I'm giving up on traditional layouts at all (I know many of you come looking for those). But I have to go with what inspires me, when it inspires me, because that's when I'm creating things that truly mean something to me.

So when I set out to create this layout, I decided to create a 6×8" two page spread. I created a layout recently with a similar design – 6×8" photo on one side, and 6×8" journaling page on the other side – and I really love the way it looked. This design works really well when you have that one special photo, and a lot to say about it!

The photo I used for this layout was taken almost a year ago, as we took it on Thanksgiving day 2016. And I'm planning on having us take another one on Thanksgiving day next week, as a lot has changed since then. And it means I'll get Christmas cards ordered and sent off in a timely matter as well 😉

I wanted to create my title directly on the photo, before printing. Did you know that when you purchase Kerri's kits, you not only get the cut files to use with your Silhouette or other cutting machines, but you also get the PNG files that can be used digitally? I used the PNG file for the word "home" from Kerri's Giving Thanks kit and centered it along the bottom of my photo. I also used two digital stamps for the subtitle, both taken from the Oh Yeah digital stamp kit, to add a subtitle under the word "home".

There were many things I could have wrote about for this photo. Part of the reason I used the word "home" for my title, was because I knew that I wanted to use the fun house stamp from one of Kerri's newest stamp sets. And I knew I could work my journaling around the theme of home and family.

I'm sure this goes without saying, but hopefully you all know that all of these digital stamp kits have REAL stamp sets that you can purchase as well. I was actually waiting for the new stamp set to arrive before I started my project, but then decided to switch it up and use the digital stamps. And of course, as my life goes, the stamps arrived in the mail last night, right after I finished this project. Lol.

For my journaling page, I added a few digital patterned paper strips, from A Traveler's Pack: Splendid kit, along the bottom of the page. It's cut off a bit in the photo above, but I added the grey dotted paper, and the black days of the week strip. The scalloped border was from an old digital kit in my stash, which I did in the same green as the heart.

How cute is that house?! It's from Kerri's new Gather Together digital stamp kit, and I think it's just adorable. I sized it to fit in the lower right corner of the page, and changed it to a navy blue to tie in with the jeans that Joe and I were wearing in the photo.

The heart and the "this photo" are digital stamps taken from Kerri's One Fine Day digital stamp kit. I kept the "this photo" black, but changed the heart to green, to tie in with all of the green in the photo. I sized them to fit in the upper left corner of the page. I added two grey enamel dots to the heart after I had printed my page out (they look green here, but they're grey).

Once I had my journaling all typed up, I also added one last digital stamp to complete the last sentence. It was a total last minute thought, and I'm glad I did it. I used the "happy place" from the Gather Together digital stamp kit, in green to match the heart and the scalloped border.

I'm certainly not turning into a digital-only scrapper or anything. Just in case anyone was worried about that 😉 I know I've done quite a few projects lately that incorporate a lot of digital elements. But I have to say, I really enjoy it. Sometimes, I just have no desire (or no energy) to go into my scrapbook room, dig through product, and try and create something. But I can totally sit on the couch, while watching my shows, and play around in Photoshop!
Project Life 2017: Week Twenty Six

November 13, 2017

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a better weekend than I did. I ended up down for the count with a random stomach bug, and pretty much wasted my weekend sleeping on the couch. So much for getting anymore work done in my PL album. But I did have one more completed week to share with you, so here's a look at week twenty six in my 2017 Project life album. Yep, half of the year is officially done and complete!

So this week ended up being two full spreads. When I was working on finishing up my June pages, I thought this week was just what you see above. It actually wasn't until I went to photograph them all that I happen to glance at the page after this, and realized that week twenty six was two full spreads. So I rushed to finish up that second half of the week, so I could get it photographed at the same time. Lol.

I had some more photos of the girls trip down south with Alyssa's dad, since they went on a weekend, which meant half of their pics fell in one week and half in the next week.

I'm not one to trim photos in half like this very often. But I wanted to include this as a 4×6" photo, and didn't have an extra 4×6" pocket. So splitting it between two 3×4" pockets worked.

Again, I was given just the basics when I asked for some info about these photos to do the journaling. Basically, where they went. So I kept the journaling card super simple, just listing out the places they visited.

I really need to work on my label stash. I like to use them on photos in my PL album, adding some alpha stickers, a word/phrase sticker, etc. But I don't seem to own many of them, so I'm always digging around for the few I do have.

The chipboard star is an old glittered one from Pebbles. For the journaling card to go with my Snapchat selfie, I copied and pasted my journaling from an Instagram post.

I'm really good at screenshotting the Snapchat pics that the girls sent me, but I need to get better about saving some of the Snapchat pics I send to them. They're usually nothing great. But I do have some that could work their way into my album, like the one above, taken while cleaning out the hall closet.

This is the second half of my week twenty six spreads. Guess it was a super busy week, photo/story wise.

In week twenty four, I shared these watercolor prints that I had found on Etsy, and in week twenty six, I captured the final look at what I did with them. They really are a great conversation starter. Not that we have that many friends/family visit us. Lol. But when they do, they have all tried to figure out what the prints are of, and I make them all try and figure it out.

I really wish Sarah would snap a photo here and there while at school. She's in her first semester of college, and I have yet to see any photos of her on campus, in class, with friends, etc. When she went to orientation back in June, I specifically asked her to take a photo for me. She didn't, which didn't surprise me. So I found her bag of stuff that she brought back, and took my own photo 😉

I had these two photos. One of Joe, taken for the umpiring site where they need a specific look to their headshot for coaches and schools to see who's working their games. And one of Sarah, taken on her way out the door to go to work. So I decided to do my journaling about how the two of them are always coming and going, and I'm pretty much ALWAYS at home.

I snapped the photo above when I was deep in scrapbook assignments, but couldn't actually share any of them. My way of trying to share that I was actually creating, even though I couldn't show anyone anything I was doing. The journaling card actually goes with the photo below it. Of some fake plants covered in layers and layers of dust, that I finally just threw away.

And I just had to document the final episode of Pretty Little Liars. I should really work those things into our albums more often, but this one specifically seemed like a big enough deal to document.

I found some images on Instagram and screenshot them to use. If I'm remembering right, the "The Whole Gang" card came from a Disney set from Simple Stories. Seemed like a good fit.

I guess I should be totally honest. I actually have one more page to week twenty six. Since I'm using two albums per year, week twenty six was the end of the first album. Since I had the backside of this last page free, I added in a few additional photos from the week. Like I said, it was a busy week! But there was no way I was going to be able to crank out that last page in time to photograph it, since I already had one more spread than I thought I had for this week. Lol. But I will get that finished, along with my title page to the album, which I never fully finished.
Project Life 2017: Week Twenty Five

November 10, 2017

It's Friday!!! Which means I'm close to surviving another work week. And I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to blog so much these last few weeks, and finish so many projects. When inspiration/motivation hit, you have to go with it, right 😉

I wanted to share another week from my 2017 Project Life album with you today. I'm pretty sure these all start to look the same, and I'm pretty much doing a lot of the same extras within these weeks – as far as journaling, embellishing, etc. But I still enjoy sharing them, so hopefully one of you out there still enjoys seeing them.

So, week twenty five was also a week with more photos than other weeks. So once again, I added in a 6×12" pocket page insert. This is a look at the first half of the spread, with the insert on the right.

I think June was around the time that Alyssa started sending me Snapchat photos more often, so I've been adding some of those photos in, along with the real photos that she sends me at the end of each month. I love that they have text on them, so there's really no need to add anything else to them.

Sarah is one that's hard to photograph. I'll sometimes try and sneak photos of her, and she usually figures out what I'm doing. I snapped the photo above while picking her up at the park down the street (after she went for a run in the middle of a heat wave, and then decided she couldn't make it home). I thought for sure she saw me out the window, but apparently, she had no clue I ever took this. Until she saw it on my phone weeks later. Lol.

I really like the digital journaling cards from In A Creative Bubble, like the one above. I like that there's a lot to them. I'm sure that doesn't make sense. I just like how there's a lot of boxes, things to check off, a variety of font sizes, etc. I like to try and add at least one of these types of cards in for each weekly spread.

For some reason, it throws me off a bit when I have the weekly title card in the 6×12" insert page. I guess because it sits more in the middle of the spread, as opposed to the corners. So not important, but it still throws me off.

Once again, I took the journaling right off of my Instagram for the card above. I sometimes have to edit the text a bit to make it fit, or go with a smaller font size than I'd like. But being able to copy and paste my journaling saves me time in the long run.

Awww. My baby. Where did the last 18 years go? The photo on the left was taken on her 1st birthday, and the photo on the right was taken shortly before her 18th birthday.

Here's a look at the second half of the week, with the insert on the left.

Once again, I used one of the cursive chipboard words from Bella Blvd to embellish a 4×6" filler card. Simple and easy.

My first thought when I want to embellish 3×4" filler cards with basic patterns (like these polka dots) is to add a chipboard element to the center, with maybe a phrase sticker below it. Quick and easy.

It probably wouldn't hurt me to pay more attention to the photos I snap of these pocket pages, since it's not until I'm editing them that I notice I have lots of glare on some, or just poor lighting. Sorry my friends, but I'm not about to sit and pull all of my photos and cards out of the pockets just to photograph them 😉

I ended up including quite a few of the photos of the girls from their day trips to Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor. I had the room for them, since I didn't actually have many photos for that week.

If you're wondering if these are just bad shots of Sarah, since she has her eyes closed in so many of the photos, you'd be wrong. That's just how she takes photos sometimes. Lol.

Another week that ended up being pretty darn simple, and I'm cool with that. Whatever works at this point, since I still have three months to catch up on!

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