teacher. crafter. wanderluster.
February was absolutely a crazy month (in the best way possible)! It’s also a hard month as my dad passed away 3 years ago on February 1st. It’s always a hard day to get through without getting sad to think about the pain that his sudden passing caused my mom and I, but this year, luckily, February 1st was a Monday so we stayed busy with pre-school and the munchkins.
This is my first attempt at photographing my PL spreads with my DSLR – the lighting might be a little off since it was a really overcast but if anyone has any tips on how to better the photos, please let me know!
We rang in the new year this year in SF – visiting L’s family! I’m obsessed with these Kelly Purkey for Studio Calico foodie cards – TOO CUTE. I wish I had an unlimited supply of them. I include so many food photos in my album it’s a liiiiiittle ridiculous.
Our last day in SF, we had breakfast at this little restaurant close to L’s parents house. I ordered the “central American” breakfast filled with food I’ve never had before. It was all so tasty – L was surprised I was able to eat it all! Yay for new experiences! Saying goodbye to his family was rough but L was staying for a few days so that was nice for his parents. I was super excited to come home to my Alfie-boy! Unfortunately when I got wifi on my flight home, I had gotten a message from my cousin saying that my grandma on my dad’s side had passed away that morning. She was 94 years old and the most lovely grandma anyone could have asked for. I went to see her in the beginning of December, which I was so glad we did. My heart was hurting the whole flight home.
January 7th is Nanakusa no Sekku in Japan – people eat porridge with seven different kinds of herbs to bring longevity and good health. We never do this, but we were reminded of it when we saw it on the news so decided to celebrate this festival this year. Also included two photos of grandma’s funeral in the spread. Maybe a little morbid, but it was such a beautiful ceremony. I didn’t want to take away from the photos so I added some hidden journaling with a tab behind one of the photos.
The night before L’s return to Tokyo, we invited my (other) grandma over and had sukiyaki – a traditional Japanese dish! She’s in a nursing home right now and she complains ALL. THE. TIME. about how the food is not enough, and too healthy. Hahahaha. So she wanted MEAT. Oh, grandma. The photo that’s blurred out is three instax polaroids of some of my students. The other side of the spread isn’t complete – wasn’t sure where to add the journaling so for now, just photos it is. L, some of my best guy friends and I went to go see Jamie XX when he had a show in Tokyo. We had a great time – love my boys! I might just leave it as is – not much to say about it other than it was a blast and I’m pretty sure the photos are enough to depict that.
Crazy snow day this week – with L not being able to get to work for hours. Clearly, Tokyo is not used to snow….at all. I cancelled pre-school so I was cool with a snow day 😉
Left side of the spread = girls’ dinner at the best damn yakiniku restaurant I have ever been to. The girls had a reservation for months at this place so I was super lucky to have snagged one of the last seats! Super pricey but so worth it. The right side? Wellll, L helped me build this new storage unit for my PL storage. How did I get so lucky? As for the journaling strips, I blatantly stole the idea from the ever talented Juli from Juli Makes Things. Love, love, love how it looks but I don’t think I’ll be doing this again for a while. Takes too much time for my lazy butt.
My final page of January is a photo of my cute-as-a-button pre-schoolers and burgers. Noms. I need to add more journaling to that bottom 4×6 card to write about how we had the most amazing time at the Nike Employee store! We got lucky to get tickets from one my students’ dads who knew L was the biggest Nike fan there ever was. I scored a pair of Air’s and L got a lot of goodies, too. Can’t believe how many spreads I have for January, but I wouldn’t change a single thing. Love this low-key freeflow of documenting. Next week, I’ll post my February spreads. Will work on my photography skills… 🙂
I’m well into my 2016 Project Life album and I’m not too far behind (currently working on April spreads) which I’m super excited about but I realized I haven’t written about my process and/or logistics about how I’m doing it this year. Last year, I was working with a 12×12 album and you can read about that more at this post. After almost completing 2 12×12 albums (I have December left – but I’m letting it go since I made a December Daily album), I decided to give Studio Calico’s 9×12 albums a try.
I have to say I’m loving this size. They easily fit on the shelves in my room and the gold… drool. I’m using the gold album and I’m a sucker for all things golden. I’m sticking to a monthly spread, but it seems as though I’m a creature of habit and most spreads end up being weekly but whatever, I’m not going to stress about it. I’m still printing at home, and using Studio Calico’s pocket pages. I’ve been trying to print photos as I take them, not really worrying about the orientation or size as I’m trying my best not to let those things stop me or slow me down. I’ve found that this process has been working the best for me and has kept me on track for the most part.
Now for my title page. I received this overlay in A Beautiful Mess’ Messy Box I got a while ago when they were doing a free shipping promotion. When you’re an international crafter like me, you know those deals are ALWAYS worth it. At the time I received it, though, I wasn’t crafting 9×12 so I didn’t know what to do about the overlay. When I decided to work on my title page, a lightbulb went DING! and the angels sung.
The actual title page consists of the photos I loved the month from the past year of me + L, Alfie, and our little family. The journal cards are the New Years Goals by One Little Bird for Studio Calico and they are unfortunately sold out but I was obsessed with them. I added some simple wood veneer, embellishments and alphas to spell out my One Little Word this year, which is “enough.” Another post on that coming later. I have to say I’m pretty pleased with how it’s come together. Will be back to share January spreads next week
Slump. What a terrible word. It makes me feel uncomfortable…but that’s exactly what I’ve been in recently, as you can probably tell by my lack of posts. I’m so behind on my Project Life, and haven’t even touched my other projects in so long, it’s upsetting. Recently, I’ve been getting my mojo back by just getting my butt onto the computer (not literally, obviously), editing and printing out photos from 2014 (GASP — no, I haven’t finished my 2014 album). Albeit it’s not REALLY creative work, but it’s still something.
Today, during my early AM workout at the gym, I listened to one of my favorite scrappy podcasts – The Scrap Gals Podcast with Tiffany and Tracie. If you haven’t listened to it, you must. It’s absolutely delightful. Those ladies have the sweetest Southern drawl and they always have me giggling to myself like a creep. Anyway, the most recent episode was one called Inspiration Chain, and it was talking about how to find inspiration to scrap when you’ve hit a wall or… a slump. How appropriate and perfectly timed! I loved every minute of it and so I decided to combine what I took from that podcast, as well as some of my own tips:
Okay, that was a very text heavy post but I hope it inspires you as much as you it has inspired me. If you’re in a slump and haven’t listened to the podcast – go do it now! Even if you’re not in the slump, go marvel in the delightfulness of these ladies because they’re adorable and full of information and laughter! I’m about to go edit some more pictures from December 2014, and crawl myself out of this deep, deep hole I dug myself into. See ya on the flip side!
So here it is, I’ve finally created my title page for my 2015 album. I can’t say I’m 100% happy with it, but it is what it is, right? As I impatiently await my arrival for my January kit, I used a lot of products from Studio Calico‘s December Kit (Park Ave. Project Life Kit). The first card on my page (Twenty Fifteen) is a freebie from Caylee Gray (LOVE HER STUFF). I love the stickers I used – the camera & the little suitcase. They are from a Japanese company I absolutely adore, Midori. They are also the creators of the Traveler’s Notebooks. The stickers are from the Paper Craft Museum and oh my goodness, they are to die for. A little on the pricier side for the amount they come with but in my opinion, so worth it. You can see all their products here (Japanese only). How are you all doing on your title pages? I wanted to wait for my January Studio Calico kits to get here but I just couldn’t wait! I’m so excited to start the year off right and stay on track so I’m not spending the beginning half of NEXT year, catching up!
Like everyone and their mom (literally), I embarked on the December Daily (DD) journey this past December. As I only began Project Life-ing in 2014, this was a new and exciting project for me. For those of you who don’t know what December Daily is, be sure to check out Ali Edward’s information on it. There is something so magical about the month of December — even on days when there’s nothing really holiday oriented happening. Just seeing the decorations in the house or around the city, gives me a tingling feeling that can’t really be explained. After my dad passed two years ago, I was afraid our family could never really love Christmas the way we used to. It’s still hard on my mom, but having L here has definitely made it a memorable holiday once again. Enough blabbing, let’s get on with the photos. I won’t go over each of them but if there’s anything you want to know, such as where I got my products, certain techniques, etc, just let me know! Most of my products came from Ali’s December Daily kit (yes, it was pricey. Yes, I was sweating when I clicked Order).
I won’t lie – keeping up with my DD was a little tricky. On regular weekdays, after showering and getting ready for bed, I was so done for the day. Some days nothing happened (like, I sat in my room crafting and/or cleaning and/or working. That’s it.). But that was okay, I still loved documenting my days and I can’t wait to look back at it in the future!
I’m figuring the most appropriate post to start on this blog is my plans for 2015. I was inspired by Marcy Penner‘s post about her plans for 2015, so I figure I would write out a list of things that were working for me, that weren’t working for me, and what I’d like to do more of. I was going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth (you get it) for the past month about what size I would go with. I love the idea of an 8.5×11 album, but cutting and sewing page protectors seems like a drag for me and I have so many 12×12 protectors, I don’t want them to go to waste. I won’t even deny how lazy I am when it comes to the tedious aspects of crafting like that. So, I decided to just stick to my 12×12, despite how large and space-taking it is. I’m going with WRMK’s Black Classic Leather Album.
WHAT’S WORKING FOR ME ::
WHAT’S NOT WORKING FOR ME ::
WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO MORE OF ::
So, that about sums it up. Now that I put it out there, I expect you all to hold me to these “resolutions” and call me out on it if I’m slacking. I’m excited for 2015 – “the best year yet!” 😉
