Helloooooooooo

Hello dear blog,

So happy to be back! I don't know why I couldn't get in here for months, but now I can, so all is forgiven and forgotten! Excited to be posting soon! YES.

Project Life | Week 10

To catch-up with your Project Life posts, I believe, you have to blog more than once a week. But that doesn't seem to be happening right now. So, still catching up, here is Week 10:

On the left hand side, all products are from the PL Turquoise kit. I just put the entire weeks journaling on one card. It's not so clear on this photo, but in the album you can see the homework that Reuben is busy with. I thought that was nice to document. The "Hello Life overlay is from Ali and available at Designer Digitals. (And I wish I knew how to do those easy links at the bottom of your blog, sorry!).

One insert, containing a larger photo. The lay-out was inspired by Laura Kurz' amazing pages (but ended up not looking anything like it!). You'll see that I used a PL card on the left hand side. The boy tape I've had for ages, happy to give it a home! Top left I included a map (found in a newspaper advert) of our area (blurred it out a bit). I liked seeing that lines emerged as a theme this week. On the map and drawings (and even in the knitted wool perhaps?).

I'm so impressed with this very sweet (and I think first) family drawing by Liam. That's me on the left ;)

Stripey paperclips was found at Waltons Stationers. The card on the next page pulls out to reveal more photo's, of me with my hair curly, and straight (after a trip to the hairdresser). But I also started blowing it out straight on a daily basis not long after this. I forgot to photograph it for the blogpost. The speech bubble was a digital one I had, that I added text to, printed it out on a photo, and then cut it out and pasted onto a PL card.

No one but me would probably notice it, but this week marks a change in the way I take photo's. I took photo's in that way before, but subconciously steered away from it for a while. Perhaps because so many big events took place that just required mostly portrait shots. But this week I had myself inspired again by my favourite photography blog, Maine Momma  to look at photo's differently. To pay attention to the details, to see the beauty in them, the "photo opportunity". Photograph feet, and toys...

Another very inspiring blog is Habit, where a few women practise the daily habit of taking a photo and journaling something from the day. I find the journaling very interesting, but haven't gotten myself so far to journal in that style yet, usually because I save too little space for journaling, and then feel the need to just document the when, where and what. Yes, I still love every page more than the previous!

Project Life | Week 9

Welcome to my PL week 9. In this week I started playing more with stuff added on after my photo's were printed. I've scrapped digitally only for a few years, and the transition back is slow. PL is actually the perfect blend of the two for me since the scetch part of a Lay-out was never the favourite part for me. The little bird stamp was carved out of a rubber and stamped with powder paint onto a PL card. I borrowed the idea from Pinterest. I especially like Geninne's rubber stamps.

An (extra)ordinary week, documenting the boys starting Chess (Ali overlay from Designer Digitals). I also used some freebie journaling cards downloaded via my PL Pinterest board. We discovered beading at Women'sgroup...

We went to the Jesus Culture sessions at Rhema church. Another free downloadable journaling card there that I added typed journaling to. This page contains an insert that I made by cutting off one pocket from a 4x6 3-down page protector, and using the other two pockets. I added another overlay from Ali to the "Bedtime reading" photo. The same words was added to the overlay in Ali's hand font that I downloaded from Creating Keepsakes. (CK Ali Hand). I'm not sure if it's still available. I love that photo of Reuben taken at the MacDonalds play-area. And for a full view of the two pages....

And here's the back of the insert:

I loved seeing PL'ers enlarging photo's and dividing it into more than one page pocket. So had to try it. The overlay is from Ali at Designer Digitals. I think it's called "AE title and journal block overlays".

The other side documents a trip to the wool shop, fun! And a day at Hobby X, a very large annual Hobby Expo in Jo'burg. It was sad to see that South Africa is not aware of PL yet, and that the scrapbooking shops are far more focussed on the "embellish" side of Life Documenting. I found very few products suitable for PL'ing. (And still spent too much, haha!)

Project Life | Week 8

Welcome to my Week 8. The "one little week" is a free down-loadable wordart from Ali, and I thought it very appropriate documenting the one little week visit from my Mom.

The cute days of the week journaling cards are also free downloads, from Cathy Zielske. Find them here.

We took a lot of photo's on both the Friday and Saturday, so I decided to do Digital Lay-outs for each day. In retrospect I might have wanted some of those photo's bigger. This is a template from Ali called AE Layered template nr 33. The "relax" button was bought at a coffee shop! The back of this layout contains another digital template lay-out. It came out blurry on the photo I took of the page, and I can't remember the origin of the template, so I'll leave that out. It's very similar to this page.

A glance at both pages...

And the last page. The days of the week overlays are also from Ali, available for purchase at Designer Digitals, I think they're called "AEdwards 6x4 journalers". The cute aeroplave card tells the story of trouble with the airline that my Mom was flying with. It was a freebie from somewhere, but I can't find it now. I think it's called "Let's go". You can try my Project Life Pinterest board. I usually pin all the freebies I come across on there. And I mostly use freebies apart from my kit. And that was Week 8, which flew by because I anticipated it so much, and wanted the visit to last longer! 

Project Life | Week 7

Hello there! Still busy catching up here. I have to say that I just love this Project more every week! Thank you Becky (Higgins)!! I'm always most thrilled with the week I'm busy with. Find myself going over the pages again and again. I'm sure I'm not the only one...

Here's the first page of "Valentine week" :

It documents a morning (the only one so far) that Liam didn't want to go to Pre-school, and how good it was to just be home for him to spend the morning with me. The balloon was a Valentine's gift Reuben ordered for me from school. (Love that I'm his Valentine still). Some crafting at Women's group. A photo from my Brother's wedding (we couldn't make the trip). I like it that he is looking straight at the snapshot while every-one else is concentrating on the official photographer.

Here's a full view of both pages, with the insert to the right. It contains a Valetines Day card from my DH . And I just love pages that has crayon somewhere in them. Liam impressed me with these beautiful flowers he drew. He didn't like drawing much before, but has really grown in this area this year.

Here's the other side of the insert. It contains a Valentines Day card from Reuben. It says "Mama I love you" in our home language, Afrikaans. Also a photo of a Valentine's Project I did (seen on Maine Momma's blog). I melted bits of crayon pieces in the oven in heart shaped ice-trays, and stuck the finished & cooled hearts onto paper with a message. They went to school with the boys. The photo in the red frame was a hug I captured from my perspective. The photo at the bottom right is a flip up that I sewed on:

Here you can see inside. The top documents a Pony party we went to, and this is a photo of my Mom's arrival at the airport, and lunch we had there. Sunday we lunched somewhere else again. The Valentine and "All you need is love" cards are freebies I found on Pinterest. You can find them on my Project Life Board here. Sorry, I'm too focussed/busy/lazy to look it up now :)

Thank's for looking!

Project Life catch-up | Week 6

Welcome to week 6:

We were into February here, and I liked going for reds and dark browns and creams. Intentially and unintentionally. This week records the first week of going on an eating plan (after the previous week's spiritual fruit & veg fast). It was quite challenging in many ways, but at the same time easier than we anticipated. We (yes "we" :my husband kindly joined me, lot's of brownie cellery points for him!) actually started to love and want healthy food. We tried some very new (to us) things, like Quinua (still don't want that!) The plan is Dr. Gillian McKeith's 30 day eating plan and I lost about 3 kgs in the first week.

This week I also recorded a bit on my husband's work-life (he's a Project Engineer). He went on a 2 day site visit and took the camera along. The "big love" word-art was a freebie from Robyn Meierrotto at Design House Digitals. Their weekly freebies are worth checking out.

This week, surprisingly, only has two pages! It also documents me going for my very first crochet class in my friend's gorgeously colourful home. I've included one of the little things I've crocheted. The week-end our church had our second de-clutter day where everyone chucks out their unwanted stuff in the morning, and come and "shop" for free in the afternoon. It's a lot of fun, and I again had some good finds, including some oil paint and a handbag made from Indian sari's.

And here's the full spread:

If anyone reading here is not familiar with the Project Life concept, and wants to know more, you can read all about it on  Becky's blog.

Project Life catch-up | Week 5

Yes, it's happening, my PL posts are getting ticked off one after the other! Here's week 5:

A relatively calm week after all the Birthday and New-school-year craziness. I focussed on an aspect of my "One little word" {Flourish} for the year, nl. Nourish and shared it (my OLW) at Women's group. A lot of focus on Reuben this week, I know. Showing off some of his new school gear. I'll restore the balance again with a more Liam focussed lay-out at another time. But he doesn't always enjoy posing for photo's as much as his brother. And other times he enjoys the posing part a litlle bit too much!
The "love you to the moon and back" word art is from Robin Meierotto at Design House Digitals. The days of the week (Wed) was typed in with Ali's Handwritten font, and the other one (Tue) I think was downloaded for free from Design Editor.

 The highlight of the week was that Reuben started horseriding lessons. I made a special insert for this in my Microsoft photo editing program. I just opened a photo. Cropped it to the size I wanted. Then I set transparency to 100% and worked on the blank page, dragging photo's on and adding text. Then I digitally pasted the two sides (back and front) on one page and prited as A4. It's the easiest way for me, even though I do own and use Photoshop Elements for template lay-outs. It printed a bit too narrow, so I added some paper from the PL Turquoise set. PS: I have bought & added a tab to the side of this page after I've taken the photo.

And this is the other side. The journalling tells the story of why I felt that he should go for riding lessons (he's great with animals) and how we ended up at his riding instructor. And then I tell of how the first lesson went, the pleasure of the farm experience, walking past an apricot orchid to the field.  And how confident he was and how impressed his instructor was. And that she allowed Liam to ride the horse at the end of every lesson.

And as if his past couple of weeks wasn't exciting enough, Reuben still went and lost his first tooth this week :) I've been getting a lot of lower case toothy smiles on photo's since. Some felt crafting with a friend, lazy late summer days... And the Sunday was the ordaining of another set of elders at church. We are part of New Covenant Ministries International (NCMI). This couple is such an inspiration, so humble, and so on fire for God and ready for new challenges in their 60's. Love them and honour them. Oh, and our church also fasted this week. I was on fruit and vegetables and it was a wonderful time. A cool week!
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