Big Picture Classes: The Phone Photography Project

I signed up for the Phone Photography Project and I'm enjoying it! Every day, a challenge and interview is posted.  Here are some of my first pictures for the class:

Day 1: From Where I Stand

Day 4: Summer Food

Day 5: Family

Day 6: Be a Tourist in your own town (this isn't my town, but it's close enough)

I really like the 7 questions that are answered by each contributor, and thought I'd share my own answers.

1. What is an approximate estimate of your ratio of DSLR photos to phone photos?
99.9% iPhone 5. Hubby bought a DSLR and is in the process of learning how to use it. I don't have much patience for it. I prefer to just grab my phone and start snapping pictures.

2. How do you use your cameras? Describe your approach to taking DSLR photos vs. phone photos.
My iPhone is pretty much glued to my hand. It allows to me to quickly capture the little, every day moments. Before I had a camera on my phone, I wasn't able to capture these moments.

3. How has phoneography affected your photography in general?
It's made my photography exist! Seriously. I used to only bring my digital point-and-shoot camera with me on trips or to special events. Most of the time I didn't remember to use it. Then I would have to plug it into my computer and upload the pictures. It just didn't happen. With my iPhone, I have Photo Stream set up. My pictures are automatically uploaded to my Macbook Air. The quick accessibility makes sharing and printing so much easier!!

4. Describe your phoneography work flow.
I always take pictures using the Camera app on my phone. I can quickly crop and post them on Instagram, or add fun extras using the A Beautiful Mess app or Rhonna Designs.

5. Do you use different apps for different settings? Do you rotate between favorites? How do new apps on the market affect your approach?
I really only use 3 apps (Instagram, A Beautiful Mess, and Diptic). I just downloaded Rhonna Designs and have been playing around with it too.
Sometimes I use filters from Instagram. Some of my favorites are Early Bird, Mayfair, Amaro, X-Pro II, and Nashville. I adore the A Beautiful Mess app. The doodles and borders and fonts are too cute! I often use this app to edit my pictures, then I post through Instagram and sometimes share on Facebook. I use Diptic to make collages to use in Project Life. The new Rhonna Designs app is one that I've been playing with for a few days. There are so many options for fonts, phrases, and scrapbook elements! I love that you can delete an added element later if you want.

6. Do you have concerns about the real-time social nature of phoneography?
Somewhat... I do tag locations on photos, but not when I'm at my house.

7. Where do you learn about new apps?
Mostly from Facebook groups and Instagram.

How has phoneography affected your life?

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How to make a Custom Project Life Mini Album

I used my PL mini album to make a book for my friend Jamie's going away present. I've been dying to get her into PL (I know she will be fabulous at it!) and this was the perfect opportunity. She loved it!! Apparently she has been wanting to try PL after seeing what I've done with it this year. :)

She's been going through some pretty major changes, and I included pages for each of these topics: selling her house, graduating school, a big graduation party, friends and family she's going to miss, a two-day moving trip across the country, setting up their new apartment, studying for a licensure exam, her hubby is starting school, and she's training and starting a brand new job. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but she's got it under control. I wanted to make a book for her to document her memories as she goes through this summer of change. The topics are very flexible, and can be changed to suit her needs. Some topics have more than one page, which will allow her to add her own topics or add plenty of pictures!! I used post-it notes for suggestions throughout the book.

I used PL cards from Becky Higgins, the vacation MAMBI cards from Michael's, and custom-made cards. I gave her lots of extra journaling cards  and quote cards so she could mix and match to get the perfect look for her.

I adore this Blush one - I just added alphas to a journaling card.

These were made using paper from Dear Lizzy's 5th & Frolic:

I added an Amy Tangerine 'Yes, Please' sticker to a Blush journaling card:

Alphas, a sequin, and a Studio Calico tag were all I needed to add to this MAMBI card.

I've had this graduation cap sticker for a million years. And I love these Thickers - they look so collegiate to me!

My favorite Thickers of all time :)

Another quick card using a Martha Stewart doily and an Amy Tangerine 'Yes, Please' ephemera.

Since she's new to PL, I also drew little pictures throughout the book to give her ideas for alternatives, such as including Instagram sized photos and 3x4 photos with a journaling card in a 4x6 spot.

Well, there you go! Incidentally, Jamie's taking her big licensure exam today - she's studied until she can't study anymore and she's gonna do great. Let's all keep her in our thoughts and prayers on her big day, ok??

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Project Life 2013 - Week 24

Week 24 was fun - we celebrated Father's Day, planted succulents, went out for Mexican food, closed on our house (mortgage refinancing), went to the drive-in, I got a new computer, we spent some time outside on the porch, and Joe brought me flowers. I mostly jazzed up some cards this week, and let the pictures tell the story- not a lot of journaling.

Left Side: flowers, mani, me and my Mom, a napkin from Macado's, me being silly at Casa Mexicana, our view at the drive-in, and our mortgage refinancing papers.

I printed a 2"x3" pictures and put it on a journaling card. I added the little 'love you... always' sticker from October Afternoon.

I cut down a Studio Calico card to make a frame for a 3"x3" picture. I used enamel dots on the corners to give it a little more color.

I added sequins to this 'Lucky Charm' 3x4 card.

Right Side: new Macbook Air, us on Father's Day, Honey Bear, bad storms at work, and us hanging out on the porch.

I LOVE this Jade card. I just added alpha's and 3 turquoise enamel dots. This is one of my most favorite cards I have in my PL.

I used an Apple decal to make a little card about buying a new Macbook Air.

This was a great picture except for my arm at the bottom - so I just covered it up with some sn@p stickers. Look at that sweet face!

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How to Make a Paper Umbrella Wreath

Recently, I saw Aunt Peaches' patriotic paper umbrella wreath and remember how much I liked Camilla's paper umbrella wreath. I've had it pinned forever! So I dug out a box of paper umbrellas from the cabinet and went to work!

 First, I opened up all of the umbrellas. Don't they look pretty in a nice Pyrex bowl from my collection? <3

Then separated them by color. 

Got a large styrofoam wreath that I hadn't used yet.

I wanted to have all colors spread pretty evenly throughout the wreath, so I applied them color by color.

I did my best to space them out, but one box of 48 umbrellas was not enough to cover my large wreath! It definitely would work with a smaller one though.

So I took out all the umbrellas and bought some more at Walmart. 

I decided to paint the white wreath form so it wouldn't be so white underneath! I picked a pretty gold. It ended up looking like sparkly sand.

And here it is on my front door! Love!

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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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