on a roll...

So Saturday night I was anxious to get in my room & create after enjoying a slow paced day of sleeping until noon -I know, all of my parent-friends are jealous- then spending the afternoon at the Iowa Deer Classic w/the hubby & his friend, grabbing Mexican for supper on the way home, I was ready for some girlie time :)

I set my phone up to play a playlist of one of my favorite scrappers on YouTube & I attacked the stack of semi-pre-planned pages from a few days before.  I was super pumped to realize I had created 6 pages between 8ish PM & 4:30AM (or 5:30 if you consider DST ;)  By the way, staying up all night on Daylight Saving Time night was not a good idea for me LOL I then slept until almost noon on Sunday & totally wasn't ready for bed a short 10 hours later :/  but back on track.... my pages... I was able to work in 3 more between light house keeping & laundry on Sunday afternoon!

So here are the 9 pages from my weekend. The photos are from Labor Day Weekend 2010 at Lake Red Rock here in Iowa and there is one more page to complete the chapter, I hope to do it tonight.

"Sammy"  Oh how I have hoarded this piece of yellow Heidi Swapp paper.  I bought it on sale last year & kept trying to use it only to put it back in the stash for 'the perfect page' Well, this weekend I was not about saving but much more about using, so it finally got used! I did cut the center square out so I do have a bit to use on another page later (justification my dears, justification  ;))  the canvas flowers are OLD but the bone clips, brand new from the shopping trip the weekend before. using, not hoarding, I love it!!

"A.M. highlights" This used another batch of old stuff; plaid paper, colored clips & the "carefree" was a mis-cut from my Cricut some time ago.  The flair & journaling cards are from Pretty Little Studio.

"crashed" Used the coordinating page to the plaid, stickers & chip frames that are all old, another flair from PLS and a plastic CTMH clip from my December Daily. 

These next 2 are the simplest pages of the set! the papers, cut aparts & chipboard shapes all just screamed to go together even though they are from 2 different lines. 

These 2, the papers were so old they didn't have dates on them! HA!  I did fussy cut the bobbers from behind the photos to put on the top left & bottom right of the pages, the anchor clips are from the  shopping trip the weekend before.

 "Today"- this page uses some more old stuff! Its feeling so good to put this stuff to use, finally, after years of 'saving it for the perfect page'!!  the sand paper  & tag were from a page kit swap, the "today" circle tag emptied a package~another favorite thing to do in my scrap room, the teal-y paper behind the bottom was a scrap, I have had the feet punchies for an eternity and I love that printed twill!

Another ancient piece of paper waiting for the perfect photos found! I used really old tapes (brown & green) to accent the title with some Evalicious puffy stickers.  The strips behind the photos were from my scrap bin an another anchor clip from the shopping trip! I am determined not to hoard supplies anymore! (please feel free to keep me accountable if you see me not following through ;))

There you go! I am super pumped to have these photos scrapped, this chapter almost done & ready for the books!! This Saturday, I am attending an all day crop & plan to pump out my surprise party mini book so I can come home & start a new, short chapter on Sunday.  Next Weekend is Tim's big hunting trip so I plan to take over the dining table (and probably set up the folding table) to sort out these: 

3 stacks of completed pages that need put into sleeves & albums.  They are pretty much sorted by year but no in order, some are even in sleeves, but I am supppppppppppper pumped to check this project off my list!

Done & Documented: September & October

So, in my last report, I had finished 2009 totally & completely, an absolutely amazing feat for myself.  So proud yet, it brought to the forefront of my mind a couple of issues with that current style of memory keeping.  First, 8 4" thick 12x12 albums for each & every year of our lives? HUH?! who has room for that??? Definitely not us in a time when we are getting serious about downsizing our house and 'things'. Second, without children of our own to hand things down to automatically, where will these monstrosities go when I am gone? Truthfully, this one bothers me, so much less than the first as I am truly doing 99% of them for me in the moment. I use scrapping as therapy, as my creative outlet, as my me-time, girl-time, bonding time with my mom, Grandma & aunts. Occasionally, I use it to work through some issues, some feelings, and document that not everything is truly as it looks. On that other 1% I use them to send messages to people in my life unsure if they will ever see them or know how I feel, but I feel better getting it all down on paper & put in the stack to someday get put in a book. :)

So when I pulled fresh photos out to scrap, I had an all together different thought process. I knew I needed to cut the pages down in each chapter: 6 pages=3 layouts is going to be my cap for the majority of chapters from here on out. Many are falling in at 2 or 4 pages even.  This is freeing up A LOT of printed photos to hand off to friends & family for their books or trash, whatever they deem necessary.  The best part, I am doing it all guilt free. I am working hard to get the important stories told in those few pages & oddly, not even struggling most of the time.  Come to find out, I am much more of a photographer than a story teller, but I am learning to combine the two. Many less 'here we are at the lake again', '4th of July parade 2013', or 'kids at Christmas' pages more 'this summer at the lake we..... ' & 'a change in the parade this year was.....' and 'this year for Christmas the kids got/did/wanted.....'  all of them with a valid story to tell rather than just fun photos. I am also using Picasa to create collages then printing them in 8x10 or 5x7 to be able to include many more photos when they are needed but still wanting to keep the scrapped page tally down.

Since instituting these changes, I have been on a roll!! I have scrapped so many pages, I have lost track of a count & even quit photographing them all.  In fact, looking back, I haven't photographed any since the beginning of October, but here are some favorites from September & October:

 these are from 2 of the 3 birthday parties I scrapped from January & February 2013.  I have since moved over to 2010 and have scrapped a WiiFest gathering at our house, a family 4th of July dinner, Easter, a road trip to visit an aunt, 2 kids' birthdays & a brother's surprise birthday party. SERIOUSLY this rocks my scrapping world!  I have 2 Christmas celebrations, Christmas program, Father's Day gathering, graduation reception(which may already be scrapped), the January snow (there was a lot of it), adding Sammy to our family as a puppy, and some lake pictures to scrap. That will complete the year! That's amazing to me. My current goal is to finish the 4 pages of Father's Day I have on my desk-less about the holiday & more stories about the pictures. then I will probably take a break from 12x12s & 2010 to work up & do the December Daily I blogged about last week. I might just be sure to have the right photos in the 2010 basket instead of the basket that holds all of the photos that need scrapped, so that in January when I am ready to get back to big pages, I can transition easily.

That said, I never want to be caught up. I never want to be with out something to scrap. I simply want to be less years behind :) maybe some day being able to scrap the current year would be fun.

you can see my January, February, March, April, May, June, July, & August  reports here.

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Done and documented is series of monthly posts that highlights Jess's progress completing unfinished travel 
albums from years past. I will be following along by doing my December Daily 2013-CHECK, then plan to finish 2009 (2 chapters)-CHECK & start a new year. Feel free to play along.

December Daily 2010

Since 2012's pages are taking so long to complete, I decided to share some of  the 2010 album I finished this year.

here is the final completed product.

Long story short I forgot I had started the album pages until I got about half way thru completing an entirely new one, then discovered the beginnings of the other album.  Here is the picture of overwhelmed me taking it all to the bed for more spread out space to work it all in together.

some of the details on the pages: foamy snowman die cuts. yes please!

some layered Elle's Studio tags I have been hoarding.

Close To My Heart flip flaps to make more room-both pages open up this way.  chipboard tag shapes-yummm.

 

 photos arranged in a collage from Picasa3- one of my favorite ways to include alot of photos on a single page or layout.

The prettiest page I think I have ever done: beads threaded on eyelash fiber, sparkly 3D border stickers, & a circle clip w/'L' on it.

hinge stickers: another terrific way to include more space on the page. also I journaled right on this photo of my Starbucks coffee cup.

Hopefully I have 2012 ready to share by the end of January ;)