P365+1: Week 51: December 16 - December 22, 2012 Catchup!

Ahhh ... Christmas week. Such a fun, busy week! I got lots and lots of photos from the last week that I wanted to include in my book, so here goes ...

We were going up north for the holidays Saturday morning so we shared our gifts with each other Friday night. The kids were more than happy to open their gifts early! Who wouldn't be, right?!

We spent Saturday in Cloquet with Scott's parents. Saturday night, before we headed to the resort, the Johnsons met us in Cloquet for pizza and then our annual visit (and the Johnson's first visit) to Bentleyville, the City of Lights. It was a great time!

Christmas with the May family ...

What a beautiful winter day!

And finally, Christmas with the Unzen family ...

April 2012 Random Moments/Recap Pages

Here's my recap of April photos!

Christmas is almost here. Merry Christmas!! Enjoy your time with family!

Digi Supplies:
Becky Higgins Project Life Template and Amber Edition; Karla Dudley Essential Stitches; Splendid Fiins Calendar and Camera Love Cards, Noted Cards; Echo Park Hybrids Wood, Summer Days and Toyboy; Lori Whitlock Patriotic Picnic; Katie Pertiet tape; Font: Toadfrog

My kids' Birthday Numbers!

Every year for my kids birthdays I do a "numbers" page to highlight some of my favorite photos of the kids from the year. Last night I put together this year's pictures. I always love these pages!

I put the pages together in the family album and then print them individually for the kids' books. Here's a glance at the 2 page spread:

And here are the individual pages for the kids:

For each of their pages I used:

#13 - Katie Pertiet: Game Cards Birthday; Echo Park Hybrid: Birthday Boy; Design by Dani: Hootenany (cupcake); Ed by Gabi: Birthday (balloon); Aja Abney: A Very Merry Birthday (curly ribbon); Lori Barnhart: Starter Kit (border stitching)

#16 - Echo Park Hybrid: Birthday Boy & Boys Life; Design by Dani: Hootenany & Play Date; One Little Bird: Smart Mouth (wordart); Crystal Wilkerson: You are Awesome Wordart; Lori Barnhart: Starter Kit (border stitching)

P365+1: Week 50: December 9 - December 15, 2012

I can't believe it's week 50 already. I've really enjoyed my photo-a-day project again this year. One of the things that is really important to me is that these pages go together really quickly. I want this project to be entirely about the photos and the story and not about embellishing my pages etc. This page took me only about 1/2 hour to complete. I LOVE that! I really need to put some time into what format I want to use next year.

I keep toying with the idea of doing a Project Life style book, but I use the Project Life style for my monthly recap pages in my scrapbook and those pages take me a fair amount of time to put together. For that reason I'm thinking that style may not work for me. (Although I'll keep Project Life style pages on occasion for my "regular" scrapbook pages simply because I love it!)

I've used an 8-1/2" x 11" format for my photo-a-day books for the last 3 years and am thinking I'll continue with something like that (and not switch to a 12" x 12" format). I like the idea that the books stand out from my other books on the shelf just by virtue of their size. Blurb (my new favorite printing company for my bound books) doesn't offer an 8-1/2" x 11" size book but they do have 8" x 10". I love Blurb because they don't have page size limitations for their books. Now I think I just need to come up with an 8"  x10" format for next year!

(How's this for a train of consciousness kind of post! Thanks for bearing with me!)

Days of December: The joys of a gingerbread house

My daughter has been talking about making a gingerbread house for a couple of weeks and decided one night (during a big snowstorm) was the time to do it. She talked her dad into taking her out in the storm to buy a kit at Target. (She doesn’t have him wrapped around her little finger now does she? LOL!) When they got home safe and sound she and I plopped down at the dining room table and she proceeded to decorate her house while we chatted and I took pictures, and, much to my daughter's dismay, I helped myself to some of the chocolate chips! Isn’t her house adorable?!

Digi Supplies:
Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays Class
Karla Dudley: Heart of the Holidays
Mye de Leon: Vintage Christmas
Misty Cato: Santa's Bake Shoppe
LivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date Stamps
Fonts: Century Gothic & Channel

Days of December: Salvation Army Bell Ringers

My husband and son manned the Salvation Army's "big red kettle" at Walgreens for 4 hours yesterday. They had a really fun time and said they will definitely do it again. What a great experience and a wonderful father/son day! (An awesome way to get in the Christmas spirit!)

Note: Much to my son's annoyance, we insisted he wear pants today because, despite the fact that by Minnesota standards it was going to be a fairly warm day (mid 30s), it was forecast to rain all day long (and it did). When they got home they were absolutely freezing so, even though Grant won't admit it, he was happy he didn't wear shorts! 

Digi Supplies:Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays #3Karla Dudley: Heart of the HolidaysMye de Leon: Vintage ChristmasKatie Pertiet: FaLaLaLivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date StampsFonts: Century Gothic & Channel

Days of December: Donating Lifesaving Blood

You know, these certainly aren't Christmas-y photos, but they are a part of our December and I think they depict a big part of the Christmas spirit (helping others) so I really wanted to include them as a part of my Days of December album.

My journaling reads:

When my son was approaching 16 years old I told him he was now old enough to donate blood. I asked him if he wanted to donate with me and without hesitation he said yes. When the day came, he did great! He found out that donating blood is quick and painless and is an important thing we can do for others. As we sipped on a pop before leaving Memorial Blood Bank we decided we'd go out to dinner -  just the two of us - and that since we're going to make donating blood a mother/son tradition, we'd make a dinner out for just the two of us a part of our new tradition. What a great idea! I sure do love this kid!

NOTE about creating a Days of December album:

I've got to tell you scrappers out there. This Days of December album is going together really quickly.  That's important to me because, first off, who has a lot of free time in December? and secondly, I want to order this book right away in January (the goal is the first week of 2013. I managed that printing goal in 2009 when I created a Days of December album so I think I can do it this time!) I'm taking Tiffany Tillman's Heart of the Holidays class at ReneePearson and that's key for me. Using a set of templates and having everything coordinate is making everything go together so quickly. I love that! So ... for those of you creating a Days of December album ... I hope you're enjoying the process!

The supplies I used are:

Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays #12

Karla Dudley: Day Dream Believer (recolored expoxy button)

Shabby Princess: Happy Go Lucky

LivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date Stamps

Fonts: Century Gothic & Channel

Celebrating 12-12-12 and ... a new licensed driver in our house

Yesterday was 12-12-12 ... it was a big day for a couple of reasons. I took my son to take his drivers test yesterday and he passed. Way to go Buds! That of course deserved to be commemorated on a page!

AND ... it was 12-12-12. That's big. I hadn't really planned on doing a page about it, but you know, it's not going to happen again for 100 years! I decided to celebrate it by commemorating an ordinary day. Besides ... I saw and read about so many people taking 12 photos for the day, etc. etc. I just had to join in the fun!

Here are some closeups of the individual pages:

For these pages I used some supplies from Katie Pertiet (Letterbox Overlays and Clock Buttons. I used Mye de Leon's Vintage Holidays kit, Karla Dudley's Heart of the Holidays' kit; Tiffany Tillman's Heart of the Holidays Template 6, Echo Park Hybrid's For the Record 2 (number paper), Cosmo Cricket's Boyfriend kit (the key), LivE Design's Needs+Wants Date Stamps and the fonts Century Gothic and Channel.

First Big Snowstorm of the year - from several perspectives!

We had our first big snowstorm of the year yesterday. It snowed literally all day long. It was absolutely beautiful (but the roads were treacherous)! We ended up with about 12 inches of snow. My daughter was completely thrilled and played outside a TON (as did our dog who loves the snow and rings the bell to go outside for a while, comes back in for a bit, rings the bell to go out ... repeat ... endlessly). My son also enjoys the snow but he didn't get the same joy out of it as my daughter did. He had other stuff going on and didn't go outside and play in the snow. Ah ... he's older. I can certainly see that. Once he gets out snowboarding he'll be thrilled! (As will my daughter when she gets out skiing.) The fact that my son didn't go out and play in the snow certainly didn't mean that he didn't spend his fair share of time outside (same with my husband). The snowstorm was certainly a great money making proposition for him. He snowblowed our driveway TWICE as well as a neighbor's driveway. Extra "funny money" is always nice! (I was outside some too ... taking pictures of course!)

Both kids had the same complaint about the snow. Their complaint: that it happened on a Sunday instead of a school day. Couldn't we just ONCE get a day off school for snow? Drives them crazy!

The snowstorm from my daughter's perspective:

The snowstorm from my son and husband's perspective:

Closeups of the pages:

I designed the pages from my daughter's perspective using:

Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays Template Class; Karla Dudley: Heart of the Holidays; Mye de Leon: Vintage Christmas; Nancie Rowe Janitz: Colorwash Brushes; LivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date Stamps; Karla Dudley: 25 Days (wordart); Becky Higgins: Turquoise Edition (ruler); Fonts: Century Gothic & Channel


I designed the pages from my son & husband's perspective using:

Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays Template Class; Karla Dudley: Heart of the Holidays; Mye de Leon: Vintage Christmas; Nancie Rowe Janitz: Colorwash Brushes; LivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date Stamps; Katie Pertiet: Holiday Word Strips; Crystal Wilkerson: Merry & Bright (snowflake button); Becky Higgins: Turquoise Edition (ruler); Fonts: Century Gothic & Channel

P365+1: Week 49: December 2 - December 8, 2012

Time sure is flying by. It's getting time now already that I should start thinking about how I want to lay out my photo-a-day book for 2013!

Here's a recap of our week:

Sunday, December 2nd: A view of San Francisco as we drove over the Bay Bridge. 
Monday, December 3rd: Grant is 16! 
Tuesday, December 4th: Lauren in her new outfit before her class field trip to see A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie. 
Wednesday, December 5th: Oops. I hit a button on my iPhone while chatting in the car with Grant. We laughed when we saw this calendar entry. 

"Protocol doublecross ball ball when we get home I'm going to"

Thursday, December 6th: Grant registered to be a Salvation Army Bell Ringer. (He’s 16 & could register himself!) 
Friday, December 7th: The star on our tree. 
Saturday, December 8th: We had the Watrases over for dinner.

New Christmas Themed Timeline for Facebook

I made a quick new timeline image for my Facebook account. I seldom change my timeline so I thought it would be fun for a change to have a seasonal cover. Merry Christmas!

The digi supplies I used were:
Design by Dani: A Lot Like Christmas
Nancie Rowe Janitz: Holiday Magic
Karla Dudley: 25 Days of Christmas (wordart)

Love you. {a family photo]

I designed our Christmas card last night and I used this family photo for our Christmas card. When I did that I realized I hadn't scrapped a page using this photo, and I love this photo. So, here it is. I love these guys!

OK ... correction, as I clicked on the Blogger "Insert Image" button to insert this photo, I navigated to my web folder (which is sorted by date). Hmmm ... lo and behold what do I find? I was wrong. I HAD already scrapped this photo. Darn it! (OK, I'm wrong again. They're different photos ... but clearly photos taken the same day - moments apart.) I like BOTH pages. They're both really quite different styles, but really do I need TWO pages of the same photo? Now to decide ... Darn it. Darn it. Darn it! (Maybe I'll keep both since they're slightly different photos.)

For fun (since I just realized my mix-up moments ago) ... here's how I scrapped the similar photo a few weeks ago. Again ... darn it!

Digi Supplies I used (for the page I created this afternoon - the one with the circles):

Karla Dudley:
: Be You papers
: Remarkable elements (circle wordart)
: Ashbee (Love You wordart)
: Template Collection 006
: 2011 DHD Blog Hop (hello. you are loved.)

LivE Designs
: Needs+Wants Date Stamps

Proof: Grownups can go out sometimes too!

Yup. It's true. Grownups can go out sometimes too. Going out is not just for the kids anymore! Maybe not so much when the kids were little, but as they get older we go out sometimes. How weird is that?! Ha!

Thanksgiving. A family weekend. We had no plans Friday night (my sister and her family were coming Saturday) so we decided we, the Johnsons & Oma would go to a movie. Since the adults & kids couldn't agree on a movie the kids were happy to stay home and we adults went to see Life of Pi in 3D. We’d planned on going to a 6:30 show but could only get tickets for 9:30 so we had appetizers and drinks at Toby Keith’s then Oma, Michelle & I shopped until movie time. Sunday night Karen & Oma were staying over so they, along with Lauren, joined Scott & me for drinks at JJ’S Wine & Coffee Bar (our Sunday night tradition). What a great weekend!

My digi supplies:
Jessica Sprague: Template 9
Echo Park Hybrids: Orchard Lane paper packs
Katie Pertiet: Buttoned Up
Michelle Coleman: Cinco De Mayo

Merry Christmas! ... Our Christmas Card is ready to print!

I did it. Yay!  I designed our Christmas card tonight. Over Thanksgiving weekend I made a card for my in-laws to send out and then I designed a card for my Mom. It made me think ... hmmm, maybe I should get going and make one to send out for my family too. So I did!

FYI, I always print our cards at Costco. They're great - and quick! I'll  even be able to pick 'em up tomorrow and send 'em out. Awesome!

Another FYI, Dani Mogstad (Design by Dani) came out with an awesome Christmas kit this week. It's called "A Lot Like Christmas." It's in large part what I used for my card. Dani has actually got a several great Christmas kits if you want to check 'em out over at JessicaSprague.com.

Merry Christmas!

List of credits:
Design by Dani: A Lot Like Christmas
Lori Whitlock: Christmas Eve
Katie Pertiet: Loosely Labeled Dates
Karla Dudley: Digi Essentials (stitches); 25 Days Titles (Merry Christmas wordart)

Days of December - Weekend Getaway to San Francisco/Napa

I can tell already. I started Tiffany Tillman's Heart of the Holidays class at www.ReneePearson.com yesterday and I know I'm going to enjoy creating my "Days of December" album. I'm keeping the pages fairly simple and am sticking in large part to using the class kits and it's working for me ... plus it's fun!

My husband and I went away to San Francisco/Napa this past weekend to celebrate our anniversary. It was a great time and gets to be in my December album because the weekend took place in part in December and also because it was Christmas-y because of a tour of a bunch of bed and breakfast inns we took in Napa Saturday night. We visited, I believe, 10 B&Bs - each of which offered a beautifully decorated B&B, festive holiday cheer and of course lots of good food and tasty wine! We even sat on Santa's lap. If that doesn't put you in the Christmas spirit, what will?!

For you scrappers, for these pages I used:
Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays Template Class; Karla Dudley: Heart of the Holidays; Mye de Leon: Vintage Christmas; LivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date Stamps; Rhonna Farrer: Free Love word art; and Fonts: Century Gothic and Channel

Days of December (trimming the tree & my son's 16th birthday)

I'm taking Tiffany Tillman's Heart of the Holidays class again this December. I'm still working out the details but I don't think I'm going to specifically create a page a day every day of December. I'm still in the planning process, but what I'm thinking of doing this year is creating pages simply as the mood strikes me. Creating pages throughout the month of December of events that are important to me/my family (birthdays etc.) and pages about holiday traditions (trimming the tree) (whatever may strike me this month). I'm not sure if I'm going to print these pages as a specific Days of December album as I have in the past (click here if you'd like to see the Days of December book I created in 2009). I suppose that'll depend on how many pages I end up creating and what turn this book takes. Either way, I'll print these pages in my 2012 family album. (So these pages could in theory end up in two or even possibly three books if the pages also specifically relate to one of the kids, like my son's birthday!).

All I know for certain is that I'm going to have fun with it. I'm going to document my family's December/holiday traditions and see where it goes! I can tell you that I ALWAYS look forward to Tiffany's December class! BTW ... if you're interested in checking out Tiffany's class, click here to go to ReneePearson.com and read all about the class!

Another thing to mention is SIMPLE. I want this book to be SIMPLE and I want my pages to come together quickly. I don't like to get behind (I get stressed and put a lot of pressure on myself if I get behind) and I want a cohesive book that will be done and ready to print the first week of January (REALLY ... I will keep to that schedule!). Tiffany's class is perfect for this.

I really like the idea of using full sized (12x12) photos. My thought is that I'm always going to do 2 page layouts. I'll have the left page be a full sized 12x12 photo and the second page be the supporting page with the story and a collection of more photos. Hmmm ... it's early in the month. My plan may change a bit over time, but this is what I've come up with so far. No matter what, it's going to be a fun month!

I'll share the detail pages as well:

FYI, for you scrappers out there, for these pages I used the following:

Tiffany Tillman: Heart of the Holidays Template Class

Karla Dudley: Heart of the Holidays (class kit)

Mye de Leon: Vintage Christmas (class kit)

Katie Pertiet: Defined Discs Holidays No. 2

Katie Pertiet: Santa's Trees

LivE Designs: Needs+Wants Date Stamps

Lori Whitlock: Birthday Masking Set

ScrapGirls: Birthday Paper

Fonts: Century Gothic & Channel

P365+1: Week 48: November 25 - December 1, 2012 + A Weekend Getaway to San Francisco/Napa, California

The tree is up and the house is decorated so it's officially the Christmas season! Merry early Christmas everyone!

I've got two POTD pages this week. One documents my family's regular week. The second documents a big weekend getaway my husband I took this past weekend to San Francisco/Napa, California to belatedly celebrate our anniversary. It was an awesome getaway!