Project Life 2013 :: Week 10

Week 10! Wow... This was another out of country travel week for Theunis. Back to Namibia to finish commissioning a plant. And this week we kind of got used to it. A fairly easy week except that the gate's remote wouldn't work one of the days. And that just as the kids got dropped off from school. They both very bravely, and with-out much hesitation, climbed over the gate. (It is higher that my head). So proud of them!

This did mean phonecalls to Namibia, a search for the gate-motor-box's keys, trying out a bunch of keys, to no avail etc etc... to finally get it fixed. One of those perfectly bad timing scenarios. But I'm sure you'd rather look at my pages...

Monday documents Theunis going in to work late (after arriving from Namibia the night before) for a bit of me & him time in the morning. The season's end of our favourite tv show at the moment. The gate story journaled. Something Reuben painted in art class (love), and Theunis being off on a plane all too soon again. I actually like that he cut off half the plane - sort of captures the feeling of blink and he's gone.

I managed to get some crafting done this week. Very happy to finally finish a granny square cushion that's been in different stages of completion for months now! I also tried out a Pinterest Project nl. a yarn and glue bowl. This was a lot of fun, except that the dogs chewed apart my first attempts (good thing it wasn't homework). It now sits on Liam's bookcase holding all sorts of bits that a boy finds neccesary to keep.

The speech-bubble freebie can be found here.  The "Quote of the week" card was also a freebie, but I can't seem to find a link anywhere, sorry!

The shadow portrait of Reuben and his watergun was inspired by this blog post by Katrina Kenison. I found her via Ali when she blogged on Katrina here. The shadow photo on Katrina's blog, her comment that it was taken some years ago, and how she longs for those days past, just made me realise that I am living it right now. My life might not be perfect, but I am very blessed to be right here right now, with my boys at this age. And we will not pass this way again... (I also included a quote by Katrina). Isn't that also why we do Project Life? To catch all those in the now moments, and hold onto them for longer...

The spread. Love that on-site self portrait by my hubby. (Namibia was tough.)

And then below the kit card I've included some journaling done by Reuben on a school outing to an animal farm. He had no help with the spelling :) Love how he translated "Wag-'n-bietjie" farm.

Loving this Project!

And wishing that I was living in America today as Project Life (and one of my favourite kits,  the Jade Edition), goes on HSN for an amazing price. Sigh!

Read more on Project Life on Becky's blog.

I'm using her Cobalt kit.

Project Life 2013 :: Week 9

This was another week of work-travel for Theunis. This time for an entire week, and out of country to Namibia... I found this map on a great free map site. Here's the link on my Pinterest board. I added the plane from my digital stach, and hand-dotted the travel route.

On the left: Recording a breakfast date with a friend, how I love our home on mornings, Liam losing his first tooth (hand drawn arrow), Reuben who loves to get down to floor level to connect with our dogs, and some kid art.

On the right: I've included a half page insert, documenting a craft morning. I loved the Studio Calico card with see through panels that Ali used in her layout. So I did something similar by just hand-cutting a piece of cardboard.

Here's the insert turned over. Hope you can see the top photo's speech bubble recording the sound Liam makes while "driving" his car. The "dig you" was also a freebie that should be on my  Pinterest PL freebie board. I like how my morning at home juxtaposes next to Theunis' morning in Tsumeb. Not planned at all.

And the right hand side, with insert turned over: Again I like how my view at home sits next to Theunis' view at the plant in Namibia. I also recorded our Sunday school's puppet show training on Saturday, Theuinis' travel back, by car & plane (love that he did a very creative mirror shot ) , and a favourite TV show right now.

The full page. Visually quite a busy week. Quite a busy week full stop, actually.

And the full page with insert turned over. The card far right records some of the week's challenges, such as a power cut on Saturday night, and my rather sleepless night, when I discovered my cellphone's also dead. And then having to be up early the next morning to give Sunday school to a very lively group of 2-10 year olds. Life right now. The cool arrows on the right hand photo's were also freebies.

You can learn more about Project Life on Becky's Blog.

I'm using her Cobalt kit.

Project Life 2013 :: Week 8

Hello and welcome to Week 8.

On the left I've included a School photo. I tried to make it a tad more interesting by leaving a transparent space all around the photo. The card on the back is also smaller than the pocket ie. the same size. I also included a snail mail letter I've received from my Mom (together with two recipies in her handwriting - love that). I took a tip from Ali and included an "L" for a quote by Liam. It's in Afrikaans, so to translate, he says to his brother: "Reuben, must I always call you in my stern voice!" Ha ha!

On the right I included a newspaper front-page cut-out of Oscar Pistorius in court for his bail application. I wrote directly on the page in a white pen, and added some stick-on letters. To think that there was a time (in my all-digital phase), when I thought I'll never need those again!

And at the back I included some handwriting practice by Liam. Top right hand corner photo documents the story of our Wire Haired Terrier puppy chewing holes in the washing machine's pipe, resulting in water flooding the floor, and the washing landing up in the bath. And that's me with my new glasses. I added a little heart tag freebie after taking this photo, but it can be seen in the first photo of this post. The "I heart U" tag was also a freebie found on Pinterest.

And that's the spread!

I'm using the Cobalt Edition by Becky Higgins.

Project Life 2013 :: Week 7

This was of course Valentine's week. A bitter-sweet time in South Africa, with the news of Reeva Steenkamp's shooting and killing, and Oscar Pistorius' murder charge breaking. It all left me, like many people, very heavy hearted for all involved. I used a blank polaroid picture cut from a scrapbook paper to record this in a very simple, quiet way, and wrote on it with a white pen.

Again it was good to also record the everyday moments which fills me with gratitude.

The left hand page (click on it to enlarge): Here I recorded a bit of Permanent Marker fun we had on mugs (a Pinterest idea). Also some kid art that's been coming home (Art is a new extra-cirricular Reuben is loving), and Liam getting his first homework - exercising the letter "a". The heart paper was a freebie and so was the beige card. You can find most of the Freebies I use on my PL freebies and card ideas board on Pinterest. I know the beige card was from the blog Simple as that.

Lots of glare here, sorry, but this is just to show that this card opens up to include some stories about my youngest. I cut the heart from an old tag I had. I also didn't have an "o" for the word "Open" so I used a "C" backward and played with the "Open" concept.

The right hand page's photo's records:- silly moments; the fact that the boys were both sick with fever this week; a trip to a botanical garden; and dogwash & pool time. Ordinary stuff of life. The middle row journaling cards: First up is just a piece of vellum that I cut and wrote on. The heart photo is a little Valentine's project my 5 year old did in Woodwork class (his new Extra Cirricular). And then a card on a De-clutter day we had at church. It folds open to hold more journaling.

And there is the whole spread! Thanks for visiting!

If you'd like to find out more about Project Life as a memory keeping system, you can check out Becky's Blog. I am using her Cobalt kit this year.

Project Life 2013 :: Week 6

 February's been tough on me. More than what would be obvious in these pages. But that is also what Project Life does, it makes us see how blessed we really are, how much we have to be thankful for. And as long as I refuse to feel the victim, and remember that I am Blessed and loved and that my identity is in God, I am in a very good place.

Here is the left page. The orange text on my selfportrait moment turned out way too bright, so I toned it down by adding some vellum over. If you look closely you'll see some Ali inspiration on my wall. The quote is from the internet. The photo of my boys paging through our PL album is actually the back of last week photo. I initially printed two photo's next to each other but then decided to fold the photo's in half and view them back to back.

This insert was also inspired by Ali's. I was quite thrilled to see that I already had this Cathy Zielske template (from Designer Digitals) in my digital collection. So fun to ask him these questions and smile at the answers.

At the back I added my first list inspired by 52 Lists (found via - you guessed it, Ali). It was awesome to see myself reflected back in these words that touch my soul. The arrows are stickers from the Cobalt kit.

The top photo is of a table top that I did a mosaic on (blogged previously). I initially wrote on the photo, but realized the background is too busy. No problem. I cut out the boo-boo, (traced the shape with a journaling card), and the inserted vellum at the back, and wrote on there. All the cards here are from the Cobalt kit. Really funny to see a "sea" photo in there. (It was taken at the artificial beach at Sun City). We live inland, and far from the sea. My body knows it hasn't been anywhere near the real ocean for some time! (I'm originally a coastal girl - so I know the difference too well.)

The journaling on the blue wave card has been inspired by Today's Letters, such a cool blog!

And so proud of my 5 year old's name practice!

The top right-hand photo flips open to show two more photo's from our trip to Sun City.

And that is the full spread. To be honest, I struggled to get this spread to a place where I am (more or less) happy with it, but I know that I love this project and will love the album as a whole.

Interested to know more about Project Life? Visit Becky's Blog.