Project Life: Week 12

Man, the year is just flying.  I’m happy to be here sharing week 12 today.  This week I decided to go with simple.  Some weeks I’m super excited to jazz up my pages, bust out my sewing machine, & enlarge pictures.  This was NOT that kind of week. It was kind of a low key week coming off our Disney high!  Chris and I totally changed our eating habits this week.  We had given up fast food several weeks ago, but this week we cut out all refined sugars & flours.  We are slowly changing the girls’ diets as well.  Already this week they ate WAY more fruits & vegetables.  So this week I incorporated several food packagings and pictures of our food.  Below is how the layout looks in my album.

Here is a shot of the left page.

Again I added the picture from the movie I saw along with the ticket stub.  I continue to love using paperclips and Martha Stewart labels.  In the layout above I included Skylar’s report card that came home along with a note from her teacher telling me that she wanted to stay after school Thursday for the talent show.  The post-it note with the #4 on it was her try-out number that was assigned when she arrived at the try-outs.  It was a really neat experience and I wanted to keep these little tidbits that tell the story.  The “Document Life” card is from this set that I have used in past weeks.  I added the office tag with a flower & some word art to it as well.

Here is the right page.

And a couple of close-up shots.

When Chris came home for lunch today I told him my pages for the week were done, but that I kept them pretty simple.  As he looked through them he said “I love these pages!  It perfectly captures our week!”  And ladies and gentlemen….THAT is why I do project life!  I do it for my family.  I don’t want to stress about having the “perfect pages” or having the “hottest product” on my layouts.  I do it because it tells our story!  My advice to you? Don’t stress about how your pages compare to anyone else’s.  Don’t fret if you don’t sew on your pages.  And certainly don’t worry if you don’t have 100 rolls of washi tape.  The important thing is to TELL YOUR STORY!

I am linking up as always to The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.   Head over and check out some really great project life inspiration.

You can see my previous project life posts here.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Make it great!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 11

Today I’m sharing my project life pages for week 11.  This week was totally different to put together because it pretty much focused on our trip to Disneyland.  I must admit that this week was the 1st week I really struggled putting my pages together. I did not want to make the week more than 2 12×12 pages.  I originally added an additional 12×12 protector & then took it out and changed it up.  I ended up using 2 inserts, a baseball card protector and an 8.5×11 page protector.  I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.  I’m not going to share much about the pictures as I blogged about our trip.  I’ll include the links at the end of the post.

Below is a picture of the week including the inserts.

Without the inserts.  The left page is design A & the right page is design D.

I used a flip-up protector to share a sequence of photos of Chris and Hailey on the Hollywood Tower of Terror.

Below are pictures of the front and back of the 8.5×11 page protector.  Love this picture of Skylar on the swing that I took from below.

I made a collage of photos for the back.

I also included a baseball card page protector. The front includes pictures from our trip to the beach.

The back side of this includes random instagrams, pictures, & journaling about our trip.

I’m really happy with the way the pages turned out and I’m thrilled that our trip to Disney is already documented.  You can read my posts from our Disney trip here:

Disneyland Day 1

Disneyland Day 2

Disneyland Day 3

I’m linking up with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.  Head over and see all the wonderful layouts people are creating!

You can see my previous project life posts here.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Make it great!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 10

It’s that time again! I had fun working on my project life pages this week with my sister who came up for the weekend.  It was fun to have a partner in crime.  I’m going to hop right to my pages this week as we are currently spending some time at the “happiest place on earth”!  So excited to have a few days away thanks to a fabulous military special on 3-day park hopper passes & my folks who gave us a ton of Hilton points!

Below is a view of my pages with an envelope insert that I included this week. Skylar had a really tough day on Thursday and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about it privately.

Here is a view without the envelope insert.

I kept it pretty simple this week. We left on Sunday for California so I knew that I needed to get it done & photographed.  Here is the left page.

My sister came up to Prescott on Saturday afternoon & we took all the kids up to feed the ducks. I took my good Canon dslr camera & just snapped away.  When I uploaded the pictures and saw this one of Skylar & Sam, I knew that I wanted to do another enlarged photo like the one I did here. I added a simple digital element by Ali Edwards. Here is a closer look.

Here is the right side of the layout.

Here is a close-up view of the flip-up protector.

Hailey worked on a project about David Crockett for several months and this past week everything was due & she performed her speech for the Living History Museum.  It was really neat & I was super proud of her.

Well there you have it!  As always I appreciate any comments & I’m happy to answer any questions you might have.  Gotta run as the kids are practically pulling me out the hotel room door to get back to the park!

I’m linking up with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.  Head over and see all the wonderful layouts people are creating!

You can see my previous project life posts here.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Make it great!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 9

I can’t believe I’m sharing week 9 of project life.  This year is just flying by & I’m so glad that I have all 9 weeks documented.  I went back and flipped through my album this week and I loved how seeing the little details just transported me back to the week I was looking at.  I love that project life does that!

I am still loving documenting our lives this way.  I only wish I had started using project life years ago.  I have definitely found my rhythm to putting my layouts together each week.  I usually print off my photos Saturday night or Sunday depending on how my weekend goes.  I don’t work on my layouts through the week, I just jump right in on Sunday.  Often times I work on it for a bit and if I get stuck I just walk away and come back later.  I try to have my pages done by Sunday night or Monday morning so that I can photograph them Monday with good light.  I like to have my post totally done on Monday so that all I have to do Tuesday morning is link up with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.  I have found that this is what works for me.  I think that is key!

So onto this weeks layouts.  As always, below is a look at the entire layout, including the insert.

I had 2 shorter blog posts this week that I wanted to include.  I used these 6×12 journal templates by Ali Edwards to include this post that recounted a conversation with my girls in the car this week on the front & this funny story about Skylar on the back.  I LOVE including my blog posts in my project life.

Below is a picture of the entire layout without the insert.

I didn’t have as many pictures this week as Hailey was home sick the whole latter part of the week.  I do love how I was able to include more journaling and some other thoughts I had.

Hailey asked for a new youth Bible this week and read it constantly.  I loved that I was able to capture this moment and share with her how proud I am of her that she is reading her Bible every day.  I included the Kohl’s cash that I used to get Hailey several new t-shirts.  Clothes shopping for her is never easy as she has a lot of sensory issues.  I was thrilled that I was able to find cute, modest t-shirts that were tagless.

The “hello there life” and the “remember this” journal cards are from the same set that I used last week by Kristina & Crystal.  I really love this set of cards & look forward to using them more.  I haven’t stitched on my pages the last several weeks, but this week I stitched quite a bit and I was really happy to be using my machine again.  I just like the extra touch it adds to my pages.  Here are a couple close-ups.

And a close-up of the right side.

I used one of these journal sheets from Marta Writes that my sister gave me.  She uses these in her pages all the time & she gave me a journal of them when I was at her house a few weeks ago.  I love the simple writing prompt that captures the moment.

If you want more project life inspiration make sure you head over to The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama and see all the wonderful layouts people are creating!

You can see my previous project life posts here.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Make it great!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 8

It’s hard to believe that we are already 8 weeks into 2012.  Time is flying by!  I am still LOVING documenting our everyday lives with Project Life.  I kept things pretty simple this week.  I love that with Project Life you can do as much or as little as you want. I have quite a few pictures & links to share with you so let’s get on with it!

Below is a shot of the entire week’s spread.  I used the back of Design F on the left and good ‘ol trusty Design A on the right.

This week I used multiple Instagram pictures, a picture I snapped with my Instax Mini7S, a picture from my iPhone, as well as pictures using my big camera.  Below is a close-up of the left page.

I really love the design F page.  I love having lots of smaller pockets to work with.  I of course added a picture of my “movie of the week”, along with the ticket stub and a few of my thoughts.  I continue to love using the Martha Stewart labels to add my journaling.  I also used paper clips to attach several of my photos to the journaling card.  My sister uses paper clips quite a bit and I picked up a container of assorted colors at Staples this week.  I love using everyday office supplies on my pages. The “Sure Do Love My Life” card is part of this set that was created by Kristina over at One Happy Mama and her friend Crystal.  The set comes with so many cute downloads!  I purchased the printable set, but she also has a digital set if you do PL digitally.  I used several more on the right side of my page which is shown below.

This is my favorite part of my pages this week (and Chris’ too)!  I enlarged a picture I took of Hailey feeding the ducks at the pond behind our house.  It was a gorgeous day so the girls & I walked down & spent some time hanging out by the pond.  I enlarged the photo to 8.5×11 and then trimmed it down to about 8×9.25 to fit into the pockets.  I had seen this done on Kelly Purkey’s pages here and knew that I had to try it.  I will definitely be doing this again!  Below is a close-up.

The “Today Was A Great Day” and the “You Crack Me Up” cards are also from the set that I mentioned above.  I knew that the picture I had of the girls making a “shocked” face standing next to the private property sign would be perfect attached to the “You Crack Me Up!” card.

Below is a close-up of the bottom of the right page.

I combined two pictures into a 4×6 using this tutorial by Ali Edwards that I’ve mentioned before.  I also used another one of these flip up protectors to add a couple additional pictures.  The picture below shows what is underneath.

All three labels that were used to journal above come from the Martha Stewart collection found at Staples.

I also plan on adding this post that I shared on my blog this week.  It shows Skylar’s regression into autism in pictures.  Because it is so picture heavy I am trying to figure out how to best include it.  My thought is that it will take 2 of the 6×12 page protectors.  In that post I shared how thankful I am that I have always taken lots of pictures.  It’s not easy to see those pictures, but I am encouraged by the improvement we have seen over the past 10 years.

I also wanted to share a photo of the cool vintage card catalog drawer that I scored from a fun antique place in Phoenix.  As soon as I saw it I knew that I wanted to use it for my PL journal cards.  Removing them from the wooden box in this post, allowed me to free up room in the box for longer items.  I LOVE having all my journal cards in one place.  I’m going to make a fun label for the front with my Silhouette Cameo.  Oh wait…I don’t have one of those.  Oh well…maybe for my birthday!

Here’s a view from the top:

This week I am linking up with both The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama.  If you need more Project Life inspiration click on over there and see what everyone has done.  I’m so thankful for the friends I have made there!

You can see my previous project life posts here.

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Make it great!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 7

This year is going by so fast!  I can’t believe that 7 weeks of 2012 are already gone. Sometimes I don’t love that times goes by so fast, but I do love that I have those weeks documented for my family.

This week was a really full week for us.  I recently started using Instagram and this week I took a lot of pictures using that app.  So much fun! I’m enjoying learning about all the different filters.  My instagram user name is iamjujublog if you would like to follow me.  If you use instagram too leave your user name in the comments and I’ll follow you back.

So let’s take a look at this week’s pages shall we?  I had 2 inserts this week.  One is a baseball card page protector and the second is my weekly 6×12 page protector with a blog post from last week.  This week I wrote about the speculation of Halle Berry’s daughter being autistic that was in the news.  You can read that post here. Below is the entire spread, including the 2 inserts.

Here is the layout without the inserts.  On the left I used the backside of Design B and the right side is Design F.  I’ve really enjoyed mixing up my page protectors. Keeps me from getting bored.

The left side of the layout I added an old, but fun “everyday” embellishment from Scenic Route. Oh how I miss that company.  Loved their stuff.  I added the sticker from the pair of Toms I bought this past weekend along with the business card from Melrose Vintage, a lovely shop in Phoenix.  I spent the afternoon shopping with my sister Jenny and we picked up a cool vintage bread pan at another shop that I helped organize her project life goodies in.  You can see her post about that organization here.

Sorry about the glare on my pages.  The lighting in my house is a bit wonky today. The right side of the layout includes my movie photos which I combined into on 4×6.  I also added the red chevron bag that I picked up at Melrose Vintage.  I know that you can order them online from several different Etsy shops as well.  I added an old Scenic Route chipboard piece to the front of the bag.  The bag includes a note to my husband.  This was a great way to add a private note to him.

Here’s a close up view.  I loved the green “My Favorite” page that I tore out of one of my Smash pads.  I added some words that I read that are so powerful.  They were said by a gal named Amy Spencer.  She just published this new book.  I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy!  The “Everyday Moments” & “Love this” is from the lovely Teresa Collins.

I used a baseball page protector to include a bunch of my instagram photos.  I used some of the older journal cards from a previous Becky Higgin’s kit to mount my photos on.  I got the “moments like this” journal card here.

The backside also includes a couple more instagrams, the packaging from the girls’ valentine’s candy they shared with their classes, & a few tags I had in my stash.

Here is a closeup shot of my blog post insert from this week.

So there you have it.  I am linking up again with The Mom Creative as well as One Happy Mama.  Head over to both of these links for some great Project Life inspiration.  If you have questions please leave them in the comments as I have had quite a few and I’m working on a post for this weekend that will answer them.

You can see my previous project life posts here.

Hope you all have a great week!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

*Click here to read the post about our fundraising efforts for an adaptive bicycle for our sweet Skylar.  We are looking for someone is digitally savvy to help us with our efforts!*

Project Life: Week 6

Six weeks in & I am still LOVING project life.  I love putting my pages together & feeding my creative spirit. I love that this week I have a mix of pictures from instagram, my iPhone, & my instax polaroid camera.  I continue to love including a picture of the movie I watched along with the ticket stub, stitching on my pages, & adding tidbits like receipts or food packaging from our week.  I will be adding a 6×12 page protector including this blog post that I wrote last week, but I ran out of 12×12 white card stock so I will print it out when I pick some up later this week.  I love that my husband actually asked “Why didn’t you include a blog post this week?  That’s my favorite!”

Well, let’s get on with it shall we?  As always first up is a picture of the whole week.

The left page is the Design A protector and the right page is Design F.  I usually stick with Design A, but this week I just wanted to mix things up.

I love bright colors & always like to add splashes of color to my pages. I also included the pink receipt from the towing company from when I had a tire blowout on Monday.

Used washi tape, word stickers, & Martha Stewart labels for some journaling.

I enjoyed adding smaller square instagram photos (2.25 inches).  They are a fun size to work with.  I also love learning new things so this week I used this tutorial by Ali Edwards to learn how to print 2 3×4 pictures on a 4×6.  I had these cute pictures of the girls with some of their favorite people…Monica, the receptionist at our chiropractors office & Dr. Ben, our chiropractor.  Skylar seriously has a crush on Dr. Ben; she thinks he is “so handsome!” I used the tutorial to crop the images & merge them together for a vertical picture slot.

So there you have it!  Week 6 complete!   I’m linking up with The Mom Creative and her Project Life Tuesday group. Head over and check out all the awesome inspiration.

You can see my previous project life posts here.

Have a great week!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 5

I can’t believe it is already time to post my project life pages.  Last week was a crazy week!  It started off well and then I was hit with a bout of vertigo.  Things were spinning for a couple of days, but I’m feeling much better.

I absolutely love documenting our everyday life this way.  It takes a lot of the guess work out of scrapbooking, but also allows me to add my own flair & style.  Five weeks into using project life, I am definitely in the habit of keeping receipts, tags, movie stubs, etc. to add to my album.  I LOVE adding that extra stuff.

This week I didn’t take as many pictures, but I had quite a bit of “extras”.  This was by far the most fun I’ve had assembling my pages.  Below is my layout, not including the 6×12 insert I added.

Below is the left page.  I continue to love including a picture of the movies I watch along with the movie stub.  The past couple of weeks I have enjoyed seeing a matinee movie after I drop the kids off at school.  I’m thinking it should become my new weekly ritual!  I also included a journaling card telling about my issues with vertigo this week as it was a pretty big part of the week.  Being pretty limited with what I could do for the latter part of the week, I did a lot of blog surfing. I shared some of my favorite craft/creative/story telling blogs on the “Great Blogs & Sites” journal card.  The card came out of a Smash journal pad I picked up at Michael’s.

Below is the right side of my layout.  I loved adding the pictures of my girls in the photo booth.

I used one of these 4×6 flip up protectors.  I love how that little section tells the story of our trip to our favorite old-fashioned candy shop in Phoenix, Smeeks.

I used some rub-ons that I’ve had for a long time on the journal grid card. I also added the fortunes from our takeout food this week to a journal card.  Hailey loved them & can’t wait for the thrilling times & the treasures that lie ahead!

I wanted to document the songs that Skylar has been listening to a LOT this week. I love that she loves to listen to Christian music or “Jesus music” as she calls it.  I also included a picture of a journal I made for my sister.  It is a moleskin journal (sold in packs of 3) from Target.  I added some washii tape, letters, & stitched across. This literally took me 4 minutes to make.  She loves to make lists & I thought it would be a perfect place for her to keep them.

I used this 6×12 journal template by Ali Edwards to include a blog post that I wrote this week about the misuse of the word “retarded”.  You can read that post here. The journaling continues on the back of the page.    I will never stop trying to get people to stop misusing that word.

Well there you have it!  I am linking up again with The Mom Creative and her project life Tuesday group.  I have really enjoyed visiting other people’s blogs and seeing their take on project life.  I have even made some new friends along the way!

You can see my previous project life posts here.

Make time this week to document your story, it is so important!

Have a great week!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 4 and Organization

Thank you for stopping by my little blog!  When I shared my Project Life Organization, I had no idea that it would inspire so many.  I am truly humbled!  I recently did a complete overhaul of my craft area.  You can read about how my entire craft area is organized HERE!  You can also follow me on Pinterest HERE!  

I can’t believe that we are four weeks into 2012!  These last 4 weeks have flown by and I’m so thrilled to have them documented using Project Life.  I’m still loving this project, especially the stories I am able to document for our family.

This weekend I decided to do an entire overhaul of my craft area as it is a total mess and I’ve been having difficulty finding what I’m looking for!  It is a huge project and it isn’t anywhere near done but I will share a few photos of my desk and my project life station.

I knew that I wanted to have all my project life core kit components in front of me as I worked.  The above picture is a shot of my desk.  To give you a bit of an idea about the size of the desk, my album fits perfectly in the black area.  I bought this desk about 7 years ago from Pier 1.  It is similar to the desk from Pottery Barn and WAY cheaper.  Not sure if they still have it, but I’ve been really pleased with the quality.  It has been through 3 moves already.

This is the left side of my desk.  It holds this little white basket that I throw all the extras I want to possibly add to my pages.  Next to it is a little metal basked I bought from the dollar spot at Target.  It holds my adhesive, Tim Holtz tiny attacher, scissors, ruler & Crop-a-dile.

Next to the basket of tools sits this little box.  It is an old letterpress drawer that I’ve had for years.  I kept thinking that I would make a project out of it, but the drawers are pretty small. When I started looking at all my little flair buttons and chipboard pieces I knew that it would work perfectly.  I LOVE having all of these pieces right at my fingertips.  I have always believed that if you can see it, you are way more likely to use it.  This was definitely true this week as I used 9 items from this little drawer. I’m so excited to use my stuff.  Everything in this drawer, except for the flair buttons, are items that I have had for years!

The above picture is of my wooden box that holds all of my project life core kit components as well as my washii tape, gaffer tape, and office labels, etc. in the back. As I’m sure that you have noticed there are a lot of journaling cards and 4×6 inserts.  I actually had the original Project 365 kit that Becky designed for Creating Keepsakes many years ago.  I found this wooden box in my mom’s garage over 5 years ago and have been using it to store various craft items since.  I believe it is an old silverware box.  It fits all the core components perfectly!

I’m really happy with my PL set up on my desk.  Having everything out in the open and right in front of me made assembling this week’s pages faster and easier than ever.  So onto this weeks pages.  The picture below is a shot of my pages this week, not including the 6×12 insert I added to the middle.

This week I got some goodies in from a couple of Etsy shops, had a picnic with Chris at his office, and made 3 dozen giant brownies for a fundraiser that my sister held.  I love that these couple of pictures and journaling will help me remember those stories.  I also went and saw a movie by myself this week.  I wrote a review about it since it has a kid that is on the autism spectrum.  You can read that post here.

I wanted to add the picture of Hailey and the write-up that was featured on the “Character Counts” bulletin board at school.  I trimmed the picture to fit into one of the small journaling segments and added the red arrows to point to the write-up that I added into a 6×12 page protector.   The write-up wasn’t that big so I stitched right next to the paper & trimmed the page protector down.

The entire right side of my page this week is devoted to the cupcake fundraiser that I participated in last Wednesday. It was a wonderful experience and i was honored to be a part of it.  My sister organized this wonderful event and you can read about it here on her blog.

This was seriously one of the coolest events I have ever been involved in!

I’m linking up again this week with The Mom Creative and her Project Life Tuesday. If you are looking for more inspiration I definitely recommend checking out the people who link up with her.  I enjoyed visiting their blogs last week and seeing their stories!

I hope you have a great week!  Find a way to tell your story!

Make it a great one!

JuJu

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a simple solution to documenting your memories.  You can learn more about project life here.

Project Life: Week 3

I normally won’t post my project life posts so close together, but last week I was delayed working on week 2 because Hailey was home sick all week.  Even with having a sick kid all week, we had a really busy week.  Some of our highlights include: hosting our first small group here in AZ, Hailey’s winter musical, Skylar’s spelling bee, and a quick trip down to Phoenix for Skylar to see the endocrinologist. We of course had to plan a lunch date with my sister while we were down there.

So let’s get right to it.  Below is the picture of what my book looks like when you open to week 3.  I slipped some paper in the center to cover up the other kids in Hailey’s winter musical.  I could have blurred them out with Photoshop, but I haven’t figured that out yet. (Keepin’ it Real!)

I have 3 inserts this week which include a 6×12 insert with one of the blogposts I wrote about this week.  I included it because it was a big part of last week.  I had no idea it would be as wide-read as it was when I shared my heart.  There is also a piece of a bag from our lunch take-out from Chipotle as well as the letter we received saying that Skylar qualified for the school spelling bee. YAY!!! Such a special story. We continue to be so thankful for all the wonderful things this special girl does!

I used this 6×12 journal insert by Ali Edwards.  After using several of her overlays last week, I decided to jump in and try this.  It was the perfect template for a blog post.  My post was a little lengthy so I used one on the front and then another template from the same set on the back.  I love how this gave me the opportunity to include the blog post & extra pictures in my album.  Below is the front side of the journal insert.

And here is the backside.

I continue to love adding the word stickers from my old Girl’s Paperie sticker stacks that I bought forever ago as well as the American Crafts Thickers.  I also included a picture of the book we read this week.  I plan to continue to do this as I think it will be fun to look back and see all the books I read.

Below is the right side of my layout. This side was really simple. I loved that I was able to use some fabric labels that I’ve had for many years.

I am truly loving this project because it makes me conscious about documenting all the little things we do.  My sister also posted her week 3 pages today and she summed up her thoughts of loving the “life” portion of project life.  You can read her thoughts here.

Don’t forget that I’m giving away a $15 gift certificate to Designer Digitals.  To enter, go to Sunday’s post and leave a comment.  This is a perfect way to pick up some of the 6×12 journal templates that Ali designed. The giveaway ends Wednesday (the 24th) at 9 pm Arizona time.

I’m linking up with The Mom Creative today on Project Life Tuesday.  Check out all the wonderful pages that people from all over the world have shared.

Check back tomorrow as I am going to be reviewing the movie Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.  I saw it yesterday and I have so many thoughts and feelings I want to share with you.

Make it a great day!

JuJu