Author: cristina

Reflections on the New Year

| cristina

Leora Sanford has a new kit out today. It’s all about change and it made me want to scrap a page about starting a new year.

Leora is one of the designers that do magic. I cannot explain it in any other way. I open up her kit, start putting things on my page, effortlessly, and I end up loving my page so much. It happened again with this page. It is quite different from my usual style, but I love it!

A New Year with You

Credits:
Metamorphosis by Leora Sanford
Fonts: Pea Pumpkin Peters, CK Ali’s hand

I usually avoid new year resolutions like the plague, because I hate not following through. But this year I am feeling really good about the new year. Maybe it’s because I am writing my proposal and it feels so good to see the end of this PhD in sight. Maybe it’s because DH and I are waiting to hear back about some interesting prospects for him and I am so hopeful. Or maybe it’s because I am 30 and it’s about time I made some resolutions and stuck to them! 🙂 So, here goes. My resolutions this year are to work well, have fun crafting productively, keep up with my Project Life, lose weight and make exercise become a part of my routine. And most of all, enjoy the journey!

PL Style

| cristina

I have been working hard on finishing up my mom’s spring visit album. Since I had a lot of pictures to scrap, I decided to use the Project Life-type page protectors. They make it so easy to scrap many photos! Here are the two latest pages I made, using all BYOC products plus a journal card pack that is 50% off today:

Mom's Visit Day 15: Exploring

Credits:
Good Life by Lauren Reid
Word strips from Customizable Journal Cards No.2 by Designs by Lili
Fonts: Pea Pumpkin Peters, Sugar Shock font bundle by Lauren Reid and Darcy Baldwin

Mom's Visit Day 15: Exploring (2)

Credits:
Word strips from Customizable Journal Cards No.2 by Designs by Lili

Only 4 pages left to go to finish this 60-page album!

Sewing 102

| cristina

Last week I sat down with my sewing machine and played a bit. After the first, disastrous experiment, it was all downhill. 😉 I feel like I have mostly mastered my sewing machine, and I’ve had lots of fun sewing on my Week 1 spread. I also made these journaling cards last week:

PL journaling cards

I just punched out a few shapes and sewed them on. Easy peasy. I still have the occasional mishap (notice how the journaling card at the top doesn’t have any thread… it slipped out twice when sewing it, so I gave up and just glued the strip in place. I ended up liking the punched look. 🙂 ), but it’s mostly going well now. The trick was staying calm, and trying to push down the pedal slowly and smoothly. I have only used straight stitches so far, so I certainly have more to practice. 🙂 Fun, fun!

Project Life – Week 1

| cristina

*** warning: this is going to be one mighty long post, but since this was my first week of Project Life, I want to jot down a few notes about the process, lessons learned, etc. ***

But let’s start with an overview picture of my Week 1:

Project Life 2012 - Week 1

I have completed Week 1 of Project Life, so far so good! 🙂 It has been quite a journey though. Ever since getting my kit and completing the title page, I’ve been waiting to have enough pictures to start working on the first spread. So last Wednesday afternoon I sat in front of my binder, trying to figure out how to fit the bits of the kit in the protector. I quickly realized that there are no 4″x6″ inserts that would work for me. So I went back to the computer and picked out a few digital supplies. I recolored at will, to match my pictures. I started out with my Happy New Year 2012 card design.

Project Life 2012 - Week 1

My weeks go from Monday through Sunday, and since Jan. 1st was a Sunday, I used that day’s picture of DH and me in the title page, but it felt a bit weird to write “Week 1 – Jan. 2-Jan. 8”, leaving out Jan. 1st. So, as with all the big issues in my life, I went to DH with this quandary; he looked it up, and found that, by an ISO convention, the first week of the year is the first full week that includes a Thursday. So all is good in my world! 🙂 I included a little insert that came with my snow shoes (I’ve had them for a few months since my mom brought them last spring, but this was my first time wearing them), but other than that there are no memorabilia this week. Not surprising, since I stayed home most of the time. 🙂 The color scheme was picked from the picture of the two bowls (which I adore and are from Anthropologie, BTW). I’m not sure I will be able to match colors in the future, but it worked this week and I went with it.

I had an identity crisis during the weekend and, while I’d started out with the firm conviction that I was going to round corners because that’s the look I was going for, I realized suddenly that I like the square corners better. So I stopped rounding corners. I have a feeling I might be going back and forward on this decision, especially as I include more bits from the kit, since they have rounded corners. I will likely mix up, which is always good in my book. 🙂

Project Life 2012 - Week 1

Once again, it’s all digi supplies recolored and printed out, with the exception of a journaling card sprayed with my Mr. Huey mists. Another thing I’ve noticed is that all of the journaling cards in the Clementine kit have journaling lines in portrait orientation, so I’ll have to print out my own or use the grid journaling cards for the horizontal slots. Or just forget about writing on the lines and use them anyway. 🙂

Thoughts about the process

  • I definitely over thought things this week but it was to be expected, since it was my first week. I promise not to try to match colors so hard in the future, or I’ll go crazy.
  • I love love love love love sitting down with my pen and my journaling cards and just write. That alone for me is worth doing a  physical PL album.
  • Lili’s 4×6 multiple photo templates (see them in action on the bottom left pocket above) are a huge time saver. I know I will be using them a lot. In fact, I have started using them as a blogging tool too (see below) and I love them!
  • I messed up a lot with photo printing this week. My printer has a 6″x4″ photo tray that I had never used before (and it shows…). First, I printed on the wrong side of the photo paper. 🙂 Then, I forgot to select the photo tray, so I printed with photo quality on copy paper. :-/ Finally, I put way too much photo paper in the tray, so the paper was fed incorrectly and it printed all wonky. But apart from these mishaps, I am loving the quality of the prints. I am using Canon photo paper (with an HP printer 😉 ) and I love it (and no, I didn’t pay it nearly as much – I got it at Staples during one of their frequent 50% off offers).
  • I am glad I bought the big variety pack of photo protectors. I like to change things up, and I enjoy the freedom of having the left side set and being able to choose the design I want for the right side, based on the pictures I have.
  • The 4×6 slots are perfect to mix photos and journaling. I love the look and I will continue to do that.

Here are a couple of my favorite details of the week (and yay, I have indeed mastered my sewing machine! 😉 Look for a post later this week.):

Project Life 2012 - Week 1

I’ll finish up sharing a little funny detail (well, it wasn’t funny at all last night…). I finished up my spread last night and was feeling very proud, so I insisted that DH admire it. Well, he didn’t admire it one bit, but he did – grudgingly – look at it, and readily pointed out that I had stamped 2011 on all the pages instead of 2012. Ugh!! And I was feeling so accomplished about using the date stamp! 😛 Well, so I had to stamp out new 2012 dates and paste them to cover the wrong ones. Not a big deal, but I’m glad he caught it before I took pictures, or went on with the new week. 🙂 Who knows when I’d have noticed otherwise! 🙂

Here are the supplies (I tried to list them in order, left to right, top to bottom).
Week 1
Left page:
New Year’s Eve kit and word art by Sahlin Studio and Valorie Wibbens (recolored)
Cavallini & Co. paper Christmas tape
Paper and hearts from Note to Self by Jenn Barrette and Kristin Cronin-Barrow
Winter wonderland word strip from Snow Bunny by Jenn Barrette
Paper and journaling card from Conversation Piece no. 5 by Paislee Press
Right page:
paper from Photobooth by Paislee Press
hearts from Note to Self by Jenn Barrette and Kristin Cronin-Barrow
4×6 Photo Collages by Designs by Lili
Journaling card from Conversation Piece no. 5 by Paislee Press
Becky Higgins Project Life journaling card and Clementine kit arrow stickers
Other supplies:
Becky Higgins Project Life journaling card
Mr. Huey mists
Smash date stamp K&C company
Pen: Micron 03

Note to Self

| cristina

Jenn Barrette has a new kit out today, it’s a collab with Kristin Cronin-Barrow and it’s delicious!

The colors are so pretty!! I have printed out a few bits to go in my Project Life album, so you’ll see those soon, but in the meantime I made a card too:

You Are Awesome card

The patterned papers in this kit are absolutely gorgeous! Makes me want to print them all out!

The January BYOC Is Here

| cristina

Finally! The January BYOC is in the shop! I know many of us have been anxiously awaiting this new collection, and I know you won’t be disappointed! The products are all revolving around Project 365/Life/52 and they will really help you to stick to the project you choose throughout the year. This year, as I already mentioned, I will be doing a physical Project Life album. In 2011, I started and haven’t completed a digital P365 (but in fact it was more of a Project Life than P365 since my intention was to scrap the photos, not just take them). I have been doing 2-page spreads for each week, but have fallen behind. When I saw these templates by Emily Merritt, though, I have felt the urge to go back and try to finish my pages:

I started scrapping the latest page, Week 52 – the last week of 2011.

P365/2011 Week 52

Credits:
Fonts: Pea Pumpkin Peters, Traveling Typewriter

As you may notice, I am having way too much fun with my RadLab – and this from someone who openly disliked editing photos! I love the format of Emily’s template – having square blocks for pictures make it easy to fit most pictures, be they horizontal or vertical. I am now debating whether I should go back and finish my missing pages using this week in a page format or stick to the week in 2 pages that I had been doing. I do like to keep my photos kind of big, plus in 2011 I had modified the P365 concept to include multiple photos per day if necessary, because keeping just one was too limiting, so it would weird to have multiple photos for the first part of the year and just one for the rest. I am still undecided… But let’s move on to more BYOC goodies! If you’re doing a digital version of Project Life, these page protectors are a must have!!

and these little bits are really useful too:

Then there are these cards, that are essential for both digi and hybrid:

I have already printed out a bunch to keep handy for my Project Life album. 🙂 In the meantime, though, I’ve also scrapped with them! 🙂

Mom's Visit Day 15 - The Good Life

Credits:
Good Life by Lauren Reid
This and Thats by The Tattered Pear
Kraft paper from Highlight of the Week Templates by Emily Merritt
Fonts: Pea Pumpkin Peters, Traveling Typewriter

All the BYOC products work perfectly fine even if you aren’t doing P365/Life/52, and I especially loved these templates by Sara Gleason:

And this paper set by Amber Clegg:

Perfect to scrap a bunch of photos easily!

Mom's Visit Day 15: Lunch

Credits:
Pansy templates by Sara Gleason
This and Thats by The Tattered Pear
Wet Paint Alpha by CD Muckosky
Font: Pea Pumpkin Peters

Well, as you can see, I am still working on finishing up the album about my mom’s visit last spring – only 7 more pages to go! They will be a breeze to scrap with these new products! 🙂

ETA: I got a GSO for my P365 page today!! 😉

December Daily 2011 – Completed!

| cristina

I am so excited to share my completed December Daily album! I made the cover from scratch and I love how it turned out. I started from some cardboard from some packaging that DH had put away for me. 😉 I cut it to size and punched the holes with my Cinch.

DD 2011 - 25

Then I just painted it with white acrylic paint, and decorated.

DD 2011

The Santa card is from Kitschy Christmas by Jenn Barrette and Sahlin Studio available at The Lilypad and at Sweet Shoppe Designs; the tree is from Jolly Golly by Cosmo Cricket; the charm is by Tim Holtz; the reindeer is by Recollections; the snowflake is from Snow Day by Crate Paper. I printed out “countown to Christmas 2011” on copy paper (I love how it curls up! I will definitely be doing this on my Project Life too!), with font Traveling Typewriter. I cut the numbers with my Silhouette, layered 3 copies and covered them with glitter and a coat of Glossy Accents. So pretty!! I originally planned to use them on my Dec. 25 page, but ended up not needing them, so they were perfect for the cover.

DD 2011

DD 2011

DD 2011

When I was working on the cover, I’d originally started out with design:

DD 2011

Kitschy Christmas by Jenn Barrette and Sahlin Studio available at The Lilypad and at Sweet Shoppe Designs

Then I came up with the other version, and had a hard time picking the one to go with. DH preferred this one with the bells, but I was loving the one with Santa so I went with it. The bells go in the inside back cover.

I put this pretty calendar from Big Ol’ Tags 3 by Lauren Reid in the inside front cover:

DD 2011 inside cover

I’m so happy with how my album turned out, and I’m really happy to have finished it so quickly! 🙂 I don’t know if I’ll be doing another DD album in 2012, but my process for 2011 was very smooth and fun so I very well might. 🙂

Project Life 2012

| cristina

This year I am doing Project Life, a concept started by Becky Higgins. It started out as a paper album, but there is a digital version too. You can use it for whatever you wish, but the common use is to document the everyday life. It consists of a binder with plastic page protectors with inserts of different size, in which you can slip a photo or a journaling card. For the past year or so, I’ve seen several examples of Project Life (one name for all: Ali Edwards) but I wasn’t in love. Then one of my favorite digi designers, Lili of Designs by Lili, was chosen to design one of the two new kits, and I started paying closer attention to the PL world. I soon realized that making a physical album had one great advantage over a digital P365: you can include memorabilia. So I decided to jump on the PL wagon this year. I bought a bunch of goodies: the Clementine kit and binder (designed by Lili), the big variety pack of plastic page protectors, a pack of G design, a pack of 6″x12″ protectors, a pack of big envelopes, and a pack of blank journaling cards. I plan to treat it pretty much as I did my digital P365 album – a day to day storytelling. When I first got my binder and the big protector pages, I was a bit a lot  scared at the size of the thing – I am so NOT used to 12″x12″! But then I decided that instead of being afraid to fill this album, I will treat it as the opportunity to stretch my creativity and try something new. Having the small inserts instead of a big 12×12 canvas is also going to help me a lot. There is so much inspiration out there (thank you, Pinterest!), and I am excited to embark on this journey!

I have done my title page. Since I do my weeks Monday through Sunday, and this year started on a Sunday, I decided to use my Jan. 1st picture as part of the title page. Other than that, I used cards from the Clementine kit, paper tape, and some letters cut out with the Silhouette. Very simple.

Project Life 2012 - Title page, Font: American Typewriter

Taking a picture of the spread was not an easy task – the reflections from the plastic were so annoying! I can see this as being a major nuisance throughout the year.

Oh, by the way, have you ever wondered what happens if you print on the wrong side of photo paper? This!

PL

This is what happens when you’re too lazy to check which side your photo tray wants up. 😉 I was scared when I pulled the top picture out of the printer, but then I realized what had happened and had a good laugh! 🙂

So far I have not done any planning ahead for the project, but I am eager to start. I am waiting to gather the first few days of pictures to plan my weekly spread. Since I bought a variety of protector designs, it will take a bit more planning to figure it out, but I think it’ll be fun to do. In the meantime, I have played a bit with my mists and the blank journaling cards:

PL journaling cards

I have also printed out some goodies that are coming out this Friday in the January BYOC at The Lilypad, so if you’re considering Project Life/P365/P52 this year – be it digi or hybrid – keep an eye out for the new releases!

I will come back and share my progress with my album as soon as I have something! 🙂

December Daily 2011 – Days 24-25

| cristina

My 2011 December Daily album is almost finished! Here are pages 24 and 25:

DD 2011 - 24

Credits:
Falala papers by Rachel Young Designs
Font: American Typewriter

I love this picture of DH and me in front of the Chrismtas tree!

DD 2011 - 25

Credits:
Downtown Christmas papers by The Tattered Pear
Font: CK Ali’s hand

I was clearly bored with the project by this point (I found it really hard to stay motivated once Christmas had passed), so instead of wasting time on journaling and selecting photos, I made a collage with all my favorites of the day. Works for me! I decided to end the album with the 25th, since this year my album has been focused on Christmas, and also because DH and I were out of town the week of the 26th.

Yesterday I finally tackled the task that was scaring me the most: the binding of my album. I bought a Cinch a few weeks ago but hadn’t used it in a project yet, and I was terrified of botching my pretty December Daily album!! Of course, everything went well. 🙂 This is what my album looks now:

DD 2011

All the pages are done, and I’ve started working on the cover. It will be wire bound. It’s less than an inch thick at this point, so it’s a lot more manageable than last year’s album. 🙂 I will try to work on my cover later today, so I should be able to share the finished album soon.

Happy 2012!

| cristina

This month’s featured kit by Sahlin Studio is New Year’s Eve, a collab with Valorie Wibbens. Check out Krista’s blog for a discount and a chance to win a gift card! Here’s a Happy New Year card I made with it and the coordinating add on:

Happy New Year 2012 card

I added Stickles on the glitter alpha, it’s so sparkly! 🙂