Project Life: Week Seven

Welcome to another week of Project Life. This is still a project that I'm enjoying because it's giving me the perfect place to record and store photos that probably wouldn't be printed and put on layouts.

This week I decided to print most of the photos so that they would be smaller than the pockets so that more patterned paper would show. This allows more space for journaling and the pages are a bit more colorful because more patterned paper show through.

On this bottom section, I used a little chipboard banner and attached it on top of the page protector. It added a bit more dimension and layering to the photo.

On this page, I thought it would be fun to slip a few of the kids' valentines into the pockets. It will be fun to look back at these valentines and see what the popular themes were this year.

In addition to the valentines on this page, I added a photo of our Valentine's Day treat (heart shaped cookies that were later topped with ice cream) plus a photo on my current favorite snack (peanut butter pretzels and M&M's.)

This week I thought I'd try something new and use InLinkz to organize the supplies used on my pages. What do you think? Do you like photos more than text links? Maybe you don't even care about links. I'd love to know what you think.

Project Life Week Eight Supplies:
InLinkz

Things I've Made Thanks to Pinterest

I'm sure many of you love getting inspiration from Pinterest like I do. It's fun seeing ideas shared by friends and adding to a wish list of items that I want to make. Usually at night after the kids are in bed I like to take a quick look at what my friends have pinned that day.

I decided to start a "Things I've Made Thanks to Pinterest" board so that I can keep track of what I've have actually accomplished thanks to time searching on the addictive site.

Here are a few of my Pinterest favorites that I've made.

Last week, I made this Mediterranean Dip twice. I loved the combo of pesto, hummus and feta. I think more of this will be made again soon.

I made this Mozzarella, Tomato, Avocado Salad as a side dish for Thanksgiving dinner. Nothing was left in the bowl.

These Taco Cupcakes have been a hit at our house. My kids request these almost every time I ask for dinner suggestions. I like to top them with my fresh salsa and diced up avocado.

Homemade enchiladas are a comfort food to me and I love making them. This White Chicken Enchilada Recipe is simple and delicious.

Refried beans from a can are not on of my favorite foods, but homemade beans are a different story. These Crock Pot Refried Beans are easy and healthy because they aren't actually fried.

Have you noticed that almost everything I've made with Pinterest inspiration is food?  Not sure what that means, but I am happy that we've been trying out new recipes at our house.

My Pinterest inspiration isn't exclusively food related because I did use this idea of putting a gift card in a jar a few months ago to give a Target gift card to one of my daughter's friends. You can see how my homemade snow globe turned out here.

How about you? Are you on Pinterest? Do you make things base on inspiration you find there?

Shooting Hoops + Project Life

For some reason it took almost all week for me to get to last week's Project Life pages. I'm happy to report that they are now complete.

I dug into my stash of samples from CHA and used a bunch of Amy Tangerine Sketchbook papers. The bright colors make me happy. I also really love the heart paper on the bottom right of the page. It reminds me of the 80's and it's possible that I used to own some sort of clothing that closely resembles that paper.

My oldest daughter Audrey had a volleyball tournament this weekend and my youngest daughter Hannah made signs to hold up while we cheered. I cut out a part of the sign and put it in one of the pockets. She saw that I'd cut it and said that next time I should cut the paper so that it fits in the pocket first and then she would make a sign on it so I wouldn't have to cut her sign. Cute girl.

I also have a layout to share today. My son LOVE shooting hoops out on our driveway. It's all he can think about when he gets home. It's a great motivator for getting homework done. He also likes having me take pictures of him while he plays. (Got to love that!) He's always making sure I caught his shot on the camera. I'm sure this will not be the last of Max + basketball layouts.

Layout supplies from the Remember This Kit

 Hope you have a fabulous Monday!

Valentine Party Recap

Even though Valentine's Day was several days ago, I thought I'd share what we did at my son's school party in case you get to help at a school party in the future.

This year I'm helping out as an assistant room mom and so I'm always looking for fun class party ideas.

In my former life as an elementary school teacher, I learned that kids in small groups that rotate around to centers is the perfect way for the kids to participate in a variety of activities at a party. Plus it gives more parents opportunities to help and it keeps the volume under control.

We had four stations at our party:

1. Cookie decorating. This is pretty self explanatory. Each of the kids got two cookies to frost and sprinkle and then they had time to eat. While they were eating, they also got a juice box.

2. Passing out Valentines + Word Search. They decorated the bags before the party. Once the kids had passed out valentines, we had a word search ready to keep them busy until it was time to switch stations. You can find lots of valentine word searches here.

3. Making cards. This is an economical and fun project that the kids really seemed to like. We supplied the paper and embellishments and they did the creating.

4. Mystery baby game. This was my favorite activity of the party. Each of the kids was asked to bring in a baby picture the week before the party. The pictures were hung on the board and numbered. The kids had to write on a paper their guesses for who they thought the babies were. One of the kids got 21/24 right!

The party was one hour and each station was about 12 minutes long. We took a few minutes at the end of the part to reveal the answers to the Mystery Baby Game and give out prizes.

Are you helping out in your kids' classes this year?  Do you have any fun party ideas?

The Cameo is Out of the Box

Yesterday was the first time using my new Cameo and I must say I love it.

The 12 X 12 size makes cutting things faster since all of my paper is 12 X 12 and I don't have to trim paper before cutting. Plus the cuts are cleaner because there is better control on the blade depth. On my Silhouette, I always had to do a double cut and the Cameo just needs a single cut.

For my first Cameo project, the 12 X 12 size was perfect. My friend Aimee came over to make a banner to hang at a bridal shower for the fiance of her brother. Aimee said that she wanted really big banner pieces because the banner space at her mom's house is spacious.

We cut brackets shapes filling the 12 X 12 paper.  We cut cardstock as a base and paper for both sides. This was so fast. We just set up the shape on the computer and then kept feeding the Cameo with paper to cut the bracket shapes.

Aimee wanted to use a black and white color scheme with purple and line accents. The Glitz Design Hoolpa line was perfect for this. The line even had a cake that looked like a wedding cake! This line doesn't have any purple, but we added purple hearts on the center piece of the banner.

We made it two sided since it will be seen on both sides when it is hung.

Thanks to the Cameo, this only took a little over an hour. 

Today, I used the Cameo again for a layout about a Daddy Daughter Dance that my husband and daughter went to last night. There's nothing quite like fresh pictures off the camera that put me in the mood to scrapbook.

The Cameo cut out the title and I used the reversed out image for the title. I'd thought about using the letters that popped out from the paper, but it was going to be more tedious to attach those to the page.

This layout is a little peek at what will be coming in the March Scrapbook Circle kit. I'm excited to do a full reveal next week!

Just for fun, I thought I'd compare this year's photo with last year's daddy daughter dance photo.

Time is flying and she'd growing up so fast!

Hope you enjoy your weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you are enjoying this day of love and friendship. My husband and I went on a breakfast date this morning after dropping the kids off at school. This afternoon I'll be over at the school helping with class parties. This is such a fun holiday!

I had an extra hour in the middle of the day today and decided that we needed another Valentine banner around our house. Yes, I have many other pressing things to do, but sometimes I just need to make something!

The base of the banner is some heart doilies that I found out in our garage. Love it when cool and useful things make an appearance at our house. 

This was a great place to use up some valentine products. I kept the banner really simple and just layered up a few pieces on each doilie.

All of the cardstock pieces were run through a Xyron machine to make them adhesive. It was a quick way to stick everything together.

The chipboard pieces are self adhesive, so they just stuck right onto the doilie without needing to add adhesive.

Once each of the hearts was finished, I pinned them to the hot pink ric rac and sewed the doilies to the ric rac. It's a quick way to make sure it's secure and not have to mess with adhesive.

Hope you enjoy celebrating those you love today!

Supplies /// Elle's Studio One and Only Strips /// Elle's Studio One and Only Tidbits /// You + Me Kit /// Be Mine Kit /// Craft Store for Ric Rac, Thread & Doilies

Take Twelve: February 2012

Yesterday was the day for the Take 12 challenge on the Ella Publishing blog. The challenge is to take twelve photos on the 12th of the month.

Yesterday all of my photos were taken with my phone. Next month I'm going to challenge myself to pull out my real camera and take a few shots with that too.

This month I put my photos together in a college in Photoshop.

Starting with the top left photo, here's a brief description of the photos.

teaching the 3-year-olds at church /// kicking a football /// bike riding /// shooting hoops /// my sister making the BEST ever veggie pasta /// my brother make focaccia bread /// Sunday dinner at my parent's house /// my parents' house (the place I grew up!) /// me and my valentine /// Hannah and neighborhood friends playing school outside /// playing inside /// the view from my bed while reading a bedtime story with Max

I love this challenge because it encourages me to get my camera out and take pictures when I normally wouldn't.  Looking forward to using these photos on a layout soon!