Project Life SMASH book August 2012

These pages are from my pretty pink SMASHbook that I used as a Project Life album last year. August 2012 was a busy month. We went to a huge outdoor Flea Market that happens every Labor Day, went to the Appalachian Fair, went to Gatlinburg for a weekend, and went to Mumford and Son's Gentlemen of the Road stopover here in Bristol. I kept a breakfast token from the hotel in Gatlinburg and entry tickets from the flea market. The 3x4 ferris wheel journaling card on the bottom right hand corner is adhered on one side with washi tape. It opens up to reveal our Fair tickets.

Left page: I used a cookie sleeve from our trip to Roanoke to make a pocket for lots of memorabilia - see the next picture for more details. I had too many pictures and too much stuff for just one page!

Right page: We went to the race at Bristol Motor Speedway, so I saved our race tickets, parking pass (free parking since I drive a Toyota!), pic of us wearing our race headsets, and some journaling. I cut out part of the racetrack brochure so I would have a map of the track and seating sections.

I saved brochures from an antique mall and a salvage yard to put in the pocket. I used scrapbook paper to make inserts for the pocket. I included a comment card from the restaurant and pictures from our trip. Each insert has stuff on the back too.

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!

Happy 100 posts to me!! (and PL Week 30! and Find Your Voice 4!)

Guess what?? This is my 100th blog post!! Can you believe it?
I can't. I never dreamed that I would post 100 posts in this short time. I'm absolutely loving it and I'm very thankful to all my readers.

There's a lot going on in this post, a little something for everyone - It's mostly Project Life Week 30 but also how part of PL Week 30 ties into one of the creative prompts for Find Your Voice Lesson 4.

Here's the full spread of Week 30. A big part of our week included picking up our new camper and then going camping for the weekend. I also got a mani, Joe showed me his welding skillz, and I started trying to keep up with the 30 Day Selfies challenges over at A Beautiful Mess.

Left Side: cute fry wrapper from Pal's, one of the selfies I took this week, journaling card about Joe's parents celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, my mani, and Joe's welding.

Seriously, how cute is this wrapper? I love it!

I decided to change things up a bit this week and use a different Currently card. It was fun to answer some different questions :)

Right Side: me and Joe at El Sazon, a journaling card about dinner with our friendly campground neighbors, adjusting to the new RV, and our struggles to get everything set up.

I had cut some Amy Tangerine paper and I thought it was perfect for this picture.

This is where Find Your Voiee Lesson 4 comes in. One of the creative prompts for this week was to write a story more than one way - it could be to a different audience, from someone else's point of view, etc. I chose to tell a factual overview of what happened to you, my blog readers:

For some reason, we thought it was going to be super easy to switch from one camper to another... well we thought wrong. First, the grill wasn't put together at the dealership, so we had to come up with alternate plan for a meal. Then we missed the turn and bypassed the 2 good grocery stories. The 3rd grocery store really didn't have the type of things we were wanting, but we made do. As we were walking out of Food Lion, the sky opened up and a torrential downpour started We ran for the camper and ended up wringing wet and changing clothes while waiting out the storm for 20-30 minutes. We drove to a couple of campgrounds but nothing was jumping out at us. We ended up driving into Pigeon Forge. We were a few miles off the Parkway, so it was nice and quiet.

For the second version of journaling, I added "not so" above the Smooth  Sailing card and used a bifold card next to it for some private journaling with some more personal things in it.

Car tags:

I love this frame and this 12x12 scrapbook paper I cut into PL sizes.

We ened up getting it all together. We'll be able to set up camp faster and more efficiently next time! :)

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!

Catching Up on Life

How do you decide on which project to do at a given time? I know some people finish one thing before moving onto the next, but I like to have options. And so I have about a million projects started (and a million other ideas yet to be started). Sometimes I really need to:

Or stop reading blogs and make things. :)

Currently I'm working on my weekly Project Life, that Heidi Swapp memory file album, the Find Your Voice workshop, the 30 day selfies challenges at A Beautiful mess, catching up on the Phone Photography Project, and a number of SMASHbooks.

I'm wanting to start a little sn@p album about our camping adventures, an altered Rolodex, a photo frame for the camper, and some online Silhouette classes. There is not enough time in the day!

In my non-crafty life, we also bought a new camper and traded in our old one. It definitely takes some time to set up a new one - it's like moving into a house! This new one is so much bigger and we love it.

In other exciting news, I've recently been nominated for an award - the Versatile Blogger Award. How fun is that? Stephanie from Bee Tree Studios nominated me.  The award is given to other blogger to recognize them and help promote their blog. Thanks Stephanie!!

Here are some fun bloggers I've been following - go check them out!
Crafty Island Girl
Amanda Rose blog
Pyrex Thrifter Sisters
Aunt Peaches
This Vintage Grove

Have a great weekend!

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!

Week 4 - Heidi Swapp Memory File DIY Adventure

I've got the next part of my Heidi Swapp Memory File Adventure to share with you - Week 4 is all about "you" and your likes. I had to print several pics of myself (which seemed a bit strange - I'm used to using pics of me and hubby or just one selfie) to use throughout this section. I used lots of Heidi Swapp embellishments and papers.

All the new pages stacked up together:

I'm not adding anything else to the back of the front page until later - I can see the glue I used on the front of the page. I'm not sure what I'm going to put on the backside to hide that - probably a similar banner. The next page is a small tag. Here's how it looks on the right side:

And with the tag turned to the other side:

Front of the tag:

Back of the tag:

The page behind the tag is a fold-out page.

I fussy cut the chevron banner that was part of a pink journaling card, then stapled my picture underneath it. I layered the pennant tag on top and stapled it.

This is part of a great quote from Dr. Seuss!

The page all opened up:

And a close-up of some of my favorite things, things that define my personality. I wasn't able to take pictures of each of these items, so I used a fun paper punch and Heidi's heart paper from the Serendipity line.

A flower (looks more like a sun really) and a button were the final touches on this journaling card.

Here's the back side of the flap paper:

And a close-up of the back: I used Heidi Swapp embellishments, Maggie Holmes phrase stickers, washi tape, and 5th & Frolic stickers to complete this page. I love how it turned out!

 So there you have it - week 4!

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!

Project Life 2013 - Week 29

The full 2-page spread: we bought a new camper, had huge storms, I went garage sale-ing with Dad, I drove the camper and truck, and Joe and I went to Dollywood.

The left side: I took a screenshot of my Facebook fan page and added some number Thickers to it - I'm so proud to have over 300 likes in just over a month.

close-up of Harley <3 - it's she cute??

Right Side: I love this little camper 3x4. Joe and I went to Flapjack's in Sevierville (instead of our usual IHOP) on Sunday. I tried cutting a picture smaller and matting it on a 3x4 card to get more color on this page.

I cut up the bag from Jersey Mike's and adhered it to a 3x4 filler card:

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!

Find Your Voice - Week 3 SMASHbook page

This week I sort of combined Option 1 (crafting based) and Option 3 (picture based) prompts. I also used these pages for Challenge 18 - The Great Outdoors - in the Smash Your Stash facebook group.

These pages are in the Red smash book that I'm using for challenges. I chose 3 photos from Lake Tahoe and explained why they made me happy. I used Thickers, Pebbles Lakeside collection. Studio Calico cork stickers, October Afternoon alphas, enamel dots, and Crate Paper photo slides. I love mixing and matching embellishments from different lines.

I must say, I love how this turned out!

This is one of the longest titles I've ever had on a smashbook page, and I love how all the words are different colors and fonts.

I'm a bit literal when it comes to using embellishments, and haven't had a use for the trendy anchors that have become so popular - but since these pictures were taken from a boat tour, I thought the anchors made sense! :)

I adhered 2 layers of washi tape (to make the pattern show up better) and added cork arrows to reiterate the chevron pattern.

Hope you like this page and it inspires you to do a project about the great outdoors!

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!

Find Your Voice - Lesson Three Realizations

So Lesson Three got me thinking more about storytelling. Why do I want to record stories? Which stories do I want to tell? How will I tell the stories?

When I first started this workshop, I didn't think I was really telling any stories. My goal was to write more detailed, richer descriptions for my Project Life. Generally, I don't want to read long stories about a single photo, so I want to keep things short and sweet. But I'm taking the word 'storytelling' too literally - I keep thinking that I have to write long stories in order to tell stories.

I'm realizing that 'storytelling' can take many forms - a painting, a mini album, a single photo, or a short description. I guess we all have our own styles and ways of expressing ourselves. Maybe just seeing the pictures or reading a short blurb about something that happened really is storytelling. No long essay necessary. I don't have to tell stories in the exact same manner that someone else does.

I'm realizing that I want to record memories so that I can relive those moments and allow others to imagine what the moments were like. But mostly because I don't want to forget them. I don't want to forget the funny behind-the-scenes, there's-no-picture stories that happened. I don't want to forget the smiles on our faces when something great happened. I don't want to forget that new restaurant we tried. I don't want to forget that time we had a mouse in our camper. I don't want to forget how Joe forgot his tux 3 times on our wedding day. There's a very long list of things I don't want to forget!

I know which stories I want to tell, but I need to figure out some steps to make the stories happen - maybe I need to add an extra journaling card to my Project Life each week to remember how I was feeling. I could use the pocket pages in my #findyourvoice Sn@p binder and write some short stories to practice. One of the exercises in this lesson was to make a mind map. I chose to make one about the stories I want to tell, but maybe I should make another mind map about how to actually make this storytelling happen!

Maybe I've been telling stories for longer than I've giving myself credit for. I think I just need to keep it up and keep trying new things and new techniques! I'm going to keep telling stories until I tell them exactly how I want to tell them - my own way!

Tomorrow I'll show the Creative Prompt I chose to use for week 3.

I love reading each and every comment! Be sure to keep up with me on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook!