Project Life 2013 :: Week 4

Still so exciting to be sharing my PL on-line. And so love this Project! (That's actually an understatement).

I'll start with sharing some Photography Tips from this week:

(these are just things I'm learning along the way - no expert!)

Tip # 1: Try to bring light into your photo's. It really adds so much life to a page. One way of doing this is to shoot into the sun at late afternoon (or early morning ). I also find that the point and shoot camera's tend to have more of a glow when there's light involved (as opposed to my SLR).

You might also find this pin on working with backlight and sunflare quite useful.

Tip # 2: Explore the options of getting an underwater camera. There are relatively cheap ones out there.

This photo was taken with my sons little Nikon Coolpix.

And here's my week 4: 

(click on photo to enlarge)

On the left I'm documenting flowers in bloom outside our fence (there's actually 3 trees blossoming in 3 different colours.), a clothing tag and a photo's of Ali & Becky that I downloaded from the internet. On a freebie card I just typed a bit about them being the inspiration and creator behind my Project Life albums.

 Ali Edwards 's been my daily read for years, and always, always inspires me.

The card middle right documents the fact that I have 36 cousins on father's side. Something that's recently been brought to my attention when I connected with some of them on Facebook (I knew there were many).

PL tip : Keep an eye out for nice patterns inside corporate envelopes.

 The fine printed paper background was cut from the inside of an envelope. It contains many little numbers, which I thought matched the journaling.

The photo's at the bottom is from Interhouse atletics at school. The book-end journaling was actually also something I saw in Ali's PL album.

Photo tip # 3: Take a photo of a photo being taken. Great way to also capture the camera's you use.

(This was actually an idea I picked up from Trisha Harrison's 2011 album. A great PL!)

For me also capturing something I see a lot around here, with my son enjoying his new camera so much.

So happy about that!

The little bracelet (broken and missing a lot of beads) was something Reuben bought to support a "Save the Rhino" fund. He's very passionate about wildlife.

The black card far right was cut from the box of a Lamy pen that my husband bought himself. Behind it there's a card that he wrote on with the pen and some journaling about his love and search for a Lamy (pens are his thing), holding out for the right colour, and then walking into a very cluttered German stationary store, to find a whole rack with a wide selection of Lamy's. He was beyond thrilled!

Photo tip # 4: What is your magic time right now? Our's is late-afternoon pool time with the sun sparkling on the water.

The "Life" card lifts up to reveal some journaling on Life right now. I just hand drew around it with a grey koki, but Ali has some similar word-art available at Designer Digitals.

Not familiar with Project Life? It is a memory keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I see that she has a post called "Explaining Project Life" up today for newcomers.

Project Life 2013 :: Week 3

Welcome to Week 3...

Another full week as we celebrated Reuben's 8th Birthday.

Plus :: his main gift from us was his first camera = lots of photo's!

The left page starts with another "the kids were here" moment. I hope to do those through-out the year. Yep, that is a toy stuck to the ceiling.... The happy faces stamp was a gift from a non-scrapbooking friend, and just perfect to use on this page (to document our breakfast date). Middle photo is a view from our pool. The "hello afternoon" word art is a freebie, and I added "swims" in a similar font. Then - our live wire - Basjan, the Wire Haired Terrier. He's a camera magnet. And the party packs I made for Reuben's class.
I went with a "Back to school" theme and included some funky stationary with the sweets and chips.  The big 8 was stapled to the back of each party pack.

First insert: A Design E page protector cut in half to include some journaling I wrote about Reuben. Below is the cover of his birthday card that I cut up (with his permission, he saved the back containing our message).

While he was at school, I spur of the moment did a collage of  his eight years. Love it. (That's also where the inspiration for the journaling on the flipside came from, just thoughts that came up as I was selecting the photo's.)
Then I have an insert inspired by Tracy Larsen, where I included some black & whites of the (many) photo's taken with Reuben's new camera. They're not paying me to say this (they may if they want to hehe:), but we're all very impressed with this little shockproof, waterproof Nikon Coolpix camera designed especially for kids. It comes with all sorts of bells & whistles :- fun apllications like "fish eye " and "diorama" effect, frames, even plays music, and came in a really cool rugsack too. Great for giving them an early love for photography. It was interesting to see how much Reuben picked up from my Project Life photo's, doing foot photo's, his plate from above etc. Or perhaps it is as the Einstein quote says that every child is an artist, the trick is to stay one as we grow up...

This is the back of the last insert, and the page on the right. The two bottom photo's have similar journaling spots as both stories tell of how sweet my husband was over the week-end: to sort out my computer room, and keep the kids busy with invent-them-as-you-go stories while I had the flu. Both these photo's were actually taken with the little Nikon, as my SLR's shortest lens is a 50mm. Love having more options between the two camera's.

Hidden behind a journaling card (freebie), I included another photo of Reuben later on his Birthday, still mesmerised by his camera. I also wanted to include this photo as it captures him in the "normal" clothes he got to wear to school because it was his Birthday (as opposed to school uniform).

Oh yes, I do love this Project!

Not familiar with Project Life? It is a revolutionary memory keeping system designed by Becky Higgins. I'm using her Cobalt kit this year.

Project Life 2013 :: Week 2

Hello, and welcome to my PL catch-up post for week 2. This week marked the beginning of the school year in South Africa, so quite a full page (and also a bit of blurred out school related info, if you'll understand).

The left page just documents the last of their carefree at-home days, sleeping in, spending time in the pool... and getting school supplies ready. The non kit cards are freebies you can look up on my Pinterest boards.

The star t-shirt was a Pinterest project Liam did using fabric crayons and a star stencil that I cut for him.

The first insert actually documents the First Day Back @ school. I used a fold-up journaling card for each boy to document their first day back. (Liam's is on the flipside). I made the "Back to school" card by adding text to a "school" word art freebie I had. I use Microsoft's Photo Editing program for this, as I find it very user friendly.

This is the other side of the insert. More "Back to school" documenting. The blurred-out certificate is for First day in Grade R.

A drawing from Liam's first day, and on the right more of life right now:- Decluttering, painting Sting-rays, cocooning as a family, and a great dog walk we discovered. That's our Wire haired terrier of who'm you'll probably see a lot if you stick around. The journaling card on the left documents what's in Reuben's top drawer after a de-cluttering. Quite interesting. I'm not too happy about how grey the foot photo is looking, so will highlight it more and replace that one. I'm really wanting more white space on my photo's.

And that's Week 2. Thanks for stopping by.

PL 2013 :: Cover page and Week 1.

Hi,

I'm SO SO happy to be able to post again! I was errr... technically challenged blogwise for quite a while (think it had something to do with stuff not being updated), I tried a few things like opening another blog both here and somewhere else, but none of that was successful...but this blog sort of magically sorted itself out, and I'm back in blogland! And really feel the time is right for it. My computer room is decluttered, I got some photographing PL tips from Ali that seems to be working, and everything is just coming together here.

This is my FOURTH year doing Project Life. 2010 and 2011 were digital albums. Plan on working them into kits at some stage- so many lovely kits, right! Last year was my first kit album with the Turquoise kit. Loved it. I'm hoping to put all those pages on Flickr at some point. I'm also working on a backdated (Clementine) kit album for 2008. I'm sure there's a name for people like me, but I'm not the only one!

So, I'm happy to present my cover page for 2013:

I'm using the Cobalt kit this year. Living in South Africa, this one was the most accessible to me, as it was available via a local distributor - who apparently now stopped importing PL kits here :(. Hoping to get some of Becky's new kits in store locally!

Let me just say :: I don't think I look great on this photo - it was a very early morning, as we got up to take the 6 hr drive back home from the Berg. But the colours just went so well with this page (without it being planned). And I love the memory of this selftimer moment being taken off the bonnet of our car.. and the countryside morning being so crisp and beautiful, I had choose this one.

Here's WEEK ONE ::

My biggest struggle with PL? I always have too many photo's. I know there are people who some weeks don't have enough photo's, like there are people out there who are too thin and find it hard to put on weight. I'm just not one of those. So I started off my year having two pages for week one. At least this doesn't happen often. Here is the first page, left:

 It documents New Year's day in the Drakensberg where we were on holiday. And then our drive back home on the 2nd.

The right hand side just documents some trip details (that's us in The Wimpy), and my One Little Word for the year :: FORWARD.

The non-kit cards were freebies found via Pinterest. You can have a look at my Pinterest boards for all the Freebies I use. They should be either on my "Project Life 2012", "Project Life 2013" or a new board:  "PL freebies and card ideas". Have fun.

The arrows on the orange card came from the back of a plaster.

Week one, page 2, left::

 This page documents the rest of the week, back home in Joburg. I love that the sparkle in the water repeats on the card on the left. The card says in Afrikaans (our home language) ::  "Mom, if I'm on a cloud, could I stand, or will I fall through?" (quoted from my 5 year old). Bottom right I included a "kids were here" photo that I hope to keep as a theme popping up through-out the year. They are always here, but it just captures little things, like where their toys are, or a mess they've made etc. Moments that makes me stop and smile and think the kids were here...

 I love this one capturing Liam's toes being worn through underneath from all the pooltime he's been having. (Sorry about the glare, still getting there).

And week one, P2 right::

Haircuts before the school year starts, puppy time, and a fun Ten Pin bowling outing. You'll see I also included on the left page a card listing children's books bought that week.

 That's it. A long one. Thanks for hanging in there. I hope to update the blog next week with all my 2013 pages.

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!)