Week 1 - Find Your Voice Introduction

I want to share my Week 1 of Kristin's Find Your Voice storytelling workshop. It's a free, 8-week workshop that just started last Monday. I'm helping sponsor the workshop and I think it's going to be fantastic! If you're just now hearing about the workshop, t's not too late to join the fun.

Week 1 is an introduction to the workshop and has some worksheets and prompts included. The worksheets get you thinking about why you're doing this workshop and what you want to get out of it. 

First, I completed the crafting prompt and created this album using a Sn@p binder, Crate Paper's 'The Pier' scrapbook paper, a slide frame, gold Thickers, colored shipping tags, and brightly colored Sn@p inserts. I usually just want to collect pretty paper and save them for 'later' but I decided to be bold and use this pretty stuff!

I love how the cover turned out!

I wrote 'week' on each tag and added gold Thicker numbers.

I just stapled the tags onto each of the Sn@p inserts. There were 8 pages in the pack - coincidence? I think not! ;) These inserts are reversible, and have fun patterns (chevron, strips, polka dots) in 8 colors.

I added a one-word title to the front of Week 1's Sn@p insert.

I printed out the lesson with 2 pages on each sheet of regular printer paper. I trimmed off about 1/4 inch from the top of the pages so the pages would be a bit smaller than the Sn@p inserts.

Prompt Two: Expand on 2-3 questions on the worksheet. I picked more than 2 or 3 :)

1. What is storytelling to you? What stories do you want to tell? Storytelling is a way to capture memories - a way to reminisce - a way to connect to other people. 

4. What are your favorite stories? (think movies, music, history, etc). What do these stories have in common? My faves are the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Matilda, Harry Potter, Circle of Friends, The Joy Luck Club. All of these stories are full of detail, imagination, vivid imagery, and are long stories.
5. What styles do you find aesthetically pleasing? Modern, vintage, brightly-colored, doodles, geotags, sequins, shiny, flowing, pretty
6. Which storytellers do you admire? How can you pull from their style to enhance your own? (I was mostly thinking of scrapbooking and the type of pages I aspire to make). Amy Tangerine, Becky Higgins, A Beautiful Mess, Michelle Wooderson, Pam Garrison - to me, I can pull ideas about remembering every day stories.
7. What is your ideal story? What are you looking to get out of the FYV summer storytelling workshop? My ideal story makes you feel like you are there, reliving the moment, has rich detail and is visually descriptive. I want to capture my memories on paper. I want others to be able to imagine how the moment felt.

Have you completed Week 1 yet?

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Week 3 - Heidi Swapp Memory File Album Adventure

Here's week 3 of Heidi Swapp's Memory File Album. The topic for this week is supposed to be 'who inspires you' but I never know what to say for stuff like that... since this is a book about me, I decided to add in an important topic - travel! I would love to be able to travel to many countries, but so far I've been to Jamaica, Italy, Spain, France, and Mexico. I'm so glad my hubby likes to travel! I toned down the embellishments for this topic, because I didn't have a ton of embellishments that were travel-related and fit my color scheme. I like how it turned out!

back of Page 8 and front of Page 9: This is a chipboard memory file that I covered with Heidi Swapp paper.

back of Page 8: the banner is part of a 12" Heidi Swapp banner that I cut apart. I matted each picture on Heidi Swapp paper.

I layered an Amy Tangerine sticker and an October Afternoon Travel Girl sticker to make this embellishment:

Page 9:

These stickers and tags are from October Afternoon Travel Girl, Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic, Amy Tangerine's Yes, Please, and more.

I used Amy Tangerine stickers as spots to list some of the countries and cities I've visited.

back of Page 9 and front of Page 10:

Page 9: I've been to California several times, and love it! I picked some of my favorite pictures from Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and me in front of the giant trees. 

Page 10: My husband and I have gone to Jamaica for our honeymoon and anniversaries. I used a picture from each trip and used them in a grid format. The strips are Chic Tags. I used a notebook paper punch across the top and bottom of this page.

back of Page 10 and front of 11:

back of Page 10: My hubby and I love going to amusement parks! These pictures are from Dollywood, Six Flags over Georgia, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and Univeral's Islands of Adventure. I just used plain wood veneers to dress up a couple of the photos.

Page 11: Here's us in front of each of the Disney World park icons. The only embellishment I used was a Mickey Mouse punch using Heidi's Sugar Chic paper.

Well that's week 3!

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RV trip!

Hey! I'm on a little road trip with my hubby and wanted to invite you to follow our adventures... If you're on Instagram, search for #eandjgreatamericanroadtrip

We left Sandusky, Ohio (Cedar Point Amusement Park) this morning and now we're on our way to Niagara Falls! Of course, I'm taking lots of pictures and collecting little bits for Project Life. 

I've got another post scheduled for tomorrow, and I hope to complete the first week of the Find Your Voice workshop this weekend. :)

Project Life Week 23

Week 23 was busy busy as usual. I got new shoes, we went to the Blue Plum Festival, Dad helped us paint some touch-ups and clean the back porch, Joe changed my brake pads and rotors, we went shopping at Lowe's for succulents, and we had dinner outside for the first time this year.

Left Side: the 'captured' card and the black and white patterned card are the backs of Jade cards from last week, the blue 'right now' card is from Honey, and the pink journaling card is from Blush. I got new (cheap!) sunglasses and the nicest lady at Lenscrafters gave me a Coach hardshell glasses case for free!

I saved our fortunes from our Chinese take-out night.

Right Side: I used a WRMK pocket page. I love this layout, but I really hate these pocket pages - the pocket sizes are so inconsistent! I had to add extra cards to the right side of the page because those pockets are so wide. Very annoying!!

This printable is from Little Musings. It wasn't free, but you get lots of cards in the set, and it's pretty cheap!

Have you been to any local festivals lately? Are there any that you're looking forward to attending later this summer?

I'm linking up at The Mom Creative for Project Life Tuesday.

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Succulents

Succulents are my new obsession.



I was impressed with the great selection at Lowe's! Are cacti succulents? I googled it and got mixed answers.

I picked up two of these small hanging baskets of succulents at Lowe's for about $16 each. It was cheaper than buying each plant separately. I put them in those 2 planters in the background. I got the concrete planters at a yard sale last year for $6 apiece. Great deal!

My mother-in-law gave me some new succulents from her garden - her plants are beautiful!! I added these around the outside of the planters.

I shared an Instagram of the small dish on my table.

The second planter:

My mom came over to help me plant them (Dad helped too!). She did most of the planting. I don't like dirt on my hands. 

Do you have any succulents growing??

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Find Your Voice storytelling workshop

This summer I am super excited to be participating in and helping sponsor the Find Your Voice class at rukristin.com.  It's a free eight week class that is all about embracing, finding and practicing with your storytelling voice.  I’m excited to further develop my storytelling and 'life documentation' and see everything else the community is going to be doing.  I will be sharing on here and possibly on Instagram, (with the hashtag #findyourvoice) and in the comments at rukristin.com.  Join the Facebook group and share the excitement with all your friends! You can sign up here to have the weekly delivered to your email inbox!

There are no required supplies for the class, but I'm putting together a little kit using a Sn@p binder and pages. I've been wanting to use the Turquoise binder for something, and this is the perfect excuse! :)

Have more questions? Get your answers here!

Are you going to join me and participate??

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Project Life 2013 - Week 22

Week 22 was an interesting week. I started getting sick on Tuesday night. Despite taking all kinds of allergy medications, it kept progressing, so I started an antibiotic for a sinus infection on Friday. Most of the weekend was spent resting and wishing I felt better! Monday was Memorial Day, and we drove back from Asheville that day. We celebrated Joe's dad's birthday, and I said goodbye (for now!) to a friend that moved across the country.

Left Side: My husband hard at work, my mani, us being silly at Camping World, and milkshakes at Steak and Shake. I added the sun sticker to the back of the previous week's journaling card.

I love it when customers take pictures of my hubby at work!! I don't know how he does his job - I would be way too scared to climb up in trees all day. He's great at it though!

I wanted to remember some of the TV shows I watched while I was sick. I wrote on washi tape stickers from Sn@p.

Right Side: I used several cards from the Jade kit. I documented all the pills I was taking for my allergies and sinus infection, Joe's homemade concoction for my sore throat, and the flowers he gave me. My friend Jamie moved away this week, so we had one last lunch the day before she left. We also celebrated Joe's dad's 66th anniversary.

I added a couple of stickers to a Jade card to make a birthday filler card.

Have you used the Jade kit? Do you like it?

I'm linking up at The Mom Creative's Project Life Tuesday.

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Father's Day Cards

I made these Father's Day cards for my dad and my father-in-law, after being inspired by this post earlier this week. I adore these cards! And I'm always looking for another excuse to use my flower frog to stand cards up in for pictures :)

I started by grabbing a precut card and a masculine Heidi Swapp paper pad (No Limits) that I got at Michaels. I thought the map paper was the perfect backdrop for this card. I cut out the banners. I typed the 'you mean the' and 'to us' on my computer in American Typewriter font and printed them on Heidi swapp graph paper.

Gold glitter Thickers were the perfect alphas to spell out 'world'.

I glued journaling cards on the insides of the cards and wrote 'Happy Father's Day'.

Hope you're having a happy Father's Day!! Did you make anything for your dad?

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Project Life SMASH book June 2012

Well it's time for the June edition of last year's Project Life SMASHbook. Be sure to click on this link and catch up with the first five months of 2012! 

This month I used a calendar pocket again, included "before and after" pictures of a spray paint project (how cute are those vintage metal owls?), got a new haircut, received pretty flowers from my hubby, and went on a scrapbook shopping trip with my Mom. My husband bought a new truck. I used washi tape and lots of 'tabs' for most pictures.

We bought a new grill and a new a new washer and dryer. I kept the ticket from the Hollywood Wax Museum and added some pictures of that trip. I picked up a business card from an antiques store and stuck that in the book too.

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