Monday, April 7, 2014

Summer 2013 Project Life

I finally just decided to snap a few iphone photos of what I have done so far with my Project Life album from photos we took last summer.
It is nowhere near complete, in fact most of the pages themselves aren't complete. But I got a good jumpstart on it at the weekend crop I went to end the about a month and a half ago.

I didn't get to the crop until around 6:30. By the time I had eaten dinner and settled in, it was about 8pm. And I spent the rest of that first night sorting and organizing my photos. If I would have known how long it was going to take, I definitely would have done that at home. Although at least I had them all printed up and wasn't missing any like I was the year before at the same crop! :)

So on Saturday morning I was ready to go.
Week 1 -


I am following absolutely no rules with this except that I wanted to go week by week. But as you can see, the first week had several spreads, since we did a lot that week including a trip to the zoo and a Chocolate factory tour with friends.
I am also using a variety of type and size page protectors. I have a smaller one (6x12) there on the left for part of the factory tour photos and title card.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find my Instagram page protectors until I came home. They were in one of those closet piles I have been sorting through. But I made do with the 6x12 and some patterned paper as fillers.

My steps for each week -
1. Decide which photos to use. Then it was like putting a puzzle together trying to figure out where I wanted them to go.
2. Create the weekly title card as you see in the first photo.
3. For each page, create simple title cards for activities, or titles next to or on photos.
4. Embellish using flat accents on some of the cards. Most of my 3d embellishments will be added last, since I didn't bring many of those with me.

And you can see lots of blank cards throughout, most of them grid but some with designs. I am going to type my journaling on these, and that is going to be the last step.

Week Two -
Week two is only three 12x12 pages. Same process for this one. photos, some matted on patterned paper, (Especially the instagram ones), minimal flat embellishing for now, and a title card for the week and some other titles.
As you may have noticed, I am pretty much using Simple Stories Summer lines for this project. But when I went to do the Six Flags page, I decided to mix in some of the October Afternoon Midway line since it coordinated pretty well color wise.

Week Three -
Since my second photo for week three won't cooperate here on Blogger, I am just sharing one. But there are two 12x12 spreads for week three and one side of a 6x12. Same process for these pages. I plan to do a lot of journaling on my blank cards.
Oh and the story behind "the tooth wiggle". Erin had this loose tooth in the front for months. We are talking a really long time. And we would always catch her wiggling it. Non-stop! So Mike and Erin posed for a "tooth wiggle" photo on Father's Day. :)

So that is what I have so far. I have all of my supplies for this album stored in a Crop bag, so whenever I want to create a few pages, it is all in one place. 

Now to the weekend! I was worried Mike wouldn't be able to come home this weekend at all because of a big project he had going on at work. They were not able to finish on Friday because of the windy weather at the job site. So he had to stay there so they could hopefully get it done on Saturday. Thankfully they did, and then he decided to just make the drive home even though it would only be for one night. Exhausting for him, but we were just so happy to see him.
On Sunday, he was so tired in the afternoon from playing pretty much non stop with the kids after church, that I told him to just lay down for a little nap before he had to make the commute that night.

Erin and I decided to go out for a little bit while he was resting.
Our city (St. Louis) is celebrating it's 250th birthday this year. So they have these 4 foot tall fake cakes decorated by artists and students all over the city and outlying areas.
Here is some information about it with a link to the full list of 250 cakes and their locations if you are interested. STL 250 cakes

I have been talking to the kids about spending some of our time this summer doing the cake scavenger hunt. A lot of the cakes are at some interesting places that we want to visit anyway, like Lemp Mansion, the Franklin Lloyd Wright house, and more. I know we won't get to all of them, since some, like the one at Meramec Caverns,  is at least 45 minutes to an hour from us. But we are going to try!
Erin wanted to get a jump start yesterday while Mike was napping.
The two of us decided to visit 4 of the cakes closest to us.
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This was cake number 3 from our stop yesterday. Two others were at restaurants on The Hill (an Italian neighborhood here known for great restaurants and markets.) And the other was at Tower Grove Park which is definitely the closest.
At each cake, she wanted a picture and then had to write out the location on her "list".
It's going to be a lot of fun finding the other cakes this summer. There are quite a few downtown, so I thought that would make a great "field trip" day :)

When we came home, Mike woke up from his nap and decided he was not driving back that night. Still too tired. So we had him home for an extra night. :)

Now it is Monday, and I have a busy week ahead finishing house projects, volunteering, tutoring and helping on a field trip, but definitely have some scrapbooking time scheduled.
Hope you have a great Monday!

14 comments:

  1. your summer pl looks awesome! what a great idea to scrap the summer this way! might have to keep this in mind!
    have a great week!

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  2. This was a great way to work on catching up your summer photos. They look great in your PL pages.

    I need to do my trip to England last Aug. I have a month of photos and have been puttng it off cuz the sheervolume of work ahead is daunting.
    I was thinking of doing exactly what you did (when DH is away up at the lake getting everything set up, cleaned and ready for camping. Think I will have my very own private retreat and invite a couple of girlfriends! lol

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  3. Your summer pages are looking great, Mary Jo, love that there is plenty of color and fun bits! Those cakes are super cute, I hope you all get to visit quite a few of them this summer. Have a fab week! :)

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  4. Loving your PL pages!!! Great photos! And loving the STL cake photo ... that looks AWESOME!!!!!!

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  5. These are looking great, Mary Jo! Great mix of photos and embellishments and little titles here and there. :)

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  6. Your Project Life pages are doing great! Your summer looks like it was so much fun!

    That is awesome that Mike was able to come home. I hate when there is an issue at AJ's job that messes up our weekend, like bad weather or problems with the equipment. Its always so frustrating! I'm glad Mike stayed Sunday night too!

    The cake scavenger hunt sounds so cool! What a fun thing to do over the summer!

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  7. Your PL pages are looking good, I love going to a crop and like you I am all about just getting them in and my bff was searching for her pictures even though she swore she printed them.

    Love the cake scavenger hunt idea, sounds like fun.

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  8. Your Summer pages look great! Love the variety of with the different page protectors and different photo sizes. It's a great start! :)

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  9. Your summer PL album is looking great!!!! It looks like you guys did a lot of fun things. So glad that you got to spend some time with your hubby...it must be hard having him travel all of the time. The 250 cakes scavenger hunt sounds like so much fun....and a bit of an adventure! it could be a mini album all by itself!

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  10. I love your summer project life and think it is a great way document so many different parts of our lives!! So awesome you had Mike for an extra night!! Love the idea of visiting all the cakes this summer, Erin is too cute :) sounds like a busy week ahead!!

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  11. Your layouts are wonderful.
    I love that you have some page spaces with just the cards…I have a photo on every pocket, but then again I am doing a photo a day.
    Thank you for explaining the wiggly tooth photo, I was truly curious about the photo, so cute.
    I think finding the cakes is going to be a fun activity for the summer. I love that Erin is documenting them all as well:)

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  12. You will love that you did this. So glad you did this. And great for the summer too. Looks awesome!

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  13. I'm just now catching up reading blogs this week! LOVE your PL pages, they're turning out so well!! And great idea to keep it all in a crop bag! :) Also LOVE those cakes and what a FANTASTIC project to find as many as possible! I know I would totally be doing that all summer!!! :)

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