Life Ephemera

That's My Girl

2012-02-08T10:05:00.000+10:00

Not a fan of cropping photos. Anyways, here's one of my many pet pages - stand ins for children until we have some!

Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye, We R Memory Keepers, Unknown (Blue); Alphabets: American Crafts, Basic Grey; Brads: American Crafts; Bling: Queen & Co; Buttons: Little Yellow Bicycle; Vine: Prima

Lemon Curd

2012-02-04T12:00:00.000+10:00

Stretched sketch design by me based on a sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: Crate Paper, Kaisercraft, ; Alphabets: American Crafts, Lily Bee; Border Punch: EK Success, Fiskars

The Perfect Pose

2012-02-01T20:09:00.000+10:00

Another retreat challenge that I set was the Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue challenge, and here's my take on it.

Old - Vellum and blue alphabet for 'Pose'.
New - Blue background paper.
Borrowed - Blue ink used to dull down the blue of the title lettering.
Blue - self explanatory on this layout!

Sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: Echo Park, Kaisercraft, Crate Paper, Simple Stories, My Mind's Eye, Die Cuts With a View, Basic Grey; Vellum: Unknown; Stamps; Stampin Up; Alphabets: Carolee's Creations, Chatterbox; Punches: Fiskars, Carl.

Etc Sketches and Red Earth Scrapping Flowers = Inspiration Heaven!

2012-01-28T20:57:00.003+10:00

While my scrapbook home of the last five years, Scrapbooks Etc, may have closed, Susan still hosts the fortnightly Moonlighting. This Friday past, I couldn't make the 2 hour trek to Brisbane to join in, but since Amanda had kindly provided the sketches on Facebook to tie in with Red Earth Scrapping's Flower focus this weekend, I decided to participate from afar. Very pleased with the results!

Sketch by Amanda Hartmann. Patterned Paper: Crate Paper; Flowers: Bella; Alphabets: American Crafts; Word Stickers: K&Company; Pen: American Crafts; Bling: Kaisercraft

Sketch by Amanda Hartmann. Patterned Paper: October Afternoon, Scribble Scrabble, Crate Paper; Cardstock: Bazzill; Alphabets: American Crafts; Flowers: Sassafrass, American Crafts, unknown; Buttons: Unknown; Bling: Kaisercraft; Washi Tape: 7Gypsies; Pen: American Crafts.

Packing Obsession

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000+10:00

Patterned Paper: Kaisercraft, My Mind's Eye, Making Memories; Alphabets: My Mind's Eye, Paper Trunk, Weave Extras; Brads: My Mind's Eye, Making Memories, American Crafts; Bling: Kaisercraft; Journal Card: Unknown - May be Websters??

Our Day

2012-01-26T17:05:00.000+10:00

Happy Australia Day people!

Thanks to immigration, and governments that have welcomed people from all nations, I get to be an Australian and enjoy the rights and priveleges that come with being a citizen of this great country. So here's to this melting pot of ours, and a happy day of lamb on the barbie, chilling with family, listening to the Hottest 100 and celebrating being Australians, regardless of where we began!

Perfect Puppy Parts

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000+10:00

I had a little squeal of delight when I rediscovered these photos in my stash of Molly - our now 25 kilo golden retriever. How cute was she as a pup?!

Sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: Unknown, Basic Grey, Prima, My Mind's Eye; Cardstock: Bazzill; Alphabets: American Crafts, Carolee's Creations

The Updated Scraproom Tour

2012-01-20T16:11:00.000+10:00

I'm an organisation junkie. Give me a labeller, some containers and a sense of order and I'm a happy, happy girl. So after 2 and a half years in my scraproom, and some tweaking of how the room works and the best ways for me to be efficient in my use of it, may I please present the updated (and labelled within an inch of its life) scraproom tour!

What hasn't changed?

Expedit. (Oh how I love thee) My three Expedit shelves will remain in their current locations for the forseeable future. They just work, right where they are.

My desk now has both of its extension leaves out permanently, coz I just need that kind of work space when I'm in the midst of projects.

What's new?

My big and medium Expedits have been joined by a mini Expedit that houses all my albums. Gotta love that cheap Ikea goodness! In late 2009, I saved up the dollars and invested in 12 black American Crafts D Ring binder albums, with the grand plan of transplanting all my layouts into a Stacy Julian-esque Library of Memories system. It only took another two years for me to actually move said layouts into the new albums and organise them into a system that works for me! More on that another time here.

Seating comfort thanks to two Nils chairs that I found over two separate visits to the bargain corner at my 'local' five hour round trip Ikea. But when you pay $60 for a chair that retails for $149, I'm ok with long road trips and cramped seating in our sedan on the way home! I bought two matching covers for the chairs in a nice green shade.

A sewing and die-cutting/embossing station, that lives around the corner from my main scrapping area. Super excited about that, mainly because after searching for ages to try and find some dark timber pieces to construct a desk to put these items onto, I managed to get a complete Expedit desk attachment for just $22. Yep, $22, not $129 or whatever the retail price is these days. Sitting in amongst all the bits and pieces in bargain corner were two large pieces of dark black/brown finished stuff, and it took me a good thirty minutes to realise that the two pieces of wood that I was pondering were in fact the surface ($15) and side support ($7) of the desk. A trip to the spare parts department, who kindly gave me the fixtures I needed to make the desk, and I had a perfect condition desk attached to my large Expedit.

Two dark brown low bookcases that sit beside the legs and under the extended leaf of my work table. $15 each from The Reject Shop, they work perfectly to store my go-to inks and embellishments right beside where I sit.

One dark brown DVD case, turned on its back, that runs the width of my work table under the window and stores my punches, again within easy reach when I'm working. And being punches, I don't have to worry about product fading in the sunfilled position.

One dark brown bookcase with three shelves that are the perfect size to house all my Scrapbook Trends Magazines. Love this mag! I won't need any more expansion room either, since I've now purchased a digital subscription to all their magazines, easily read on the iPad. No more paper clutter accumulating! All my other magazines and books live on my other Expedit.

White venetian blinds in all the windows in the room. My supplies held up pretty well for two years of full day northern sun and afternoon western sun beating down on them throughout the day, but I'd never been happy about it. So Matthew installed some great (cheap) Super A Mart blinds for me and now I can control the light that hits my supplies. The room is lovely and well lit when they're open, and protected from the light and heat when they're closed.

A4 paper drawers for my rubber wood mounted stamps, mostly split up from their packs and organised by theme into the drawers, which are the perfect height for storing wood mount stamps. Another set of drawers stores tools like my heat gun and hot glue gun, as well as spare chipboard sheets (freebies that come with school supplies!) and some Kraft mini album kits on my 'to-do' list. Another super cheap puchase at just $9 each at the back to school sales at Office Works.

Lime Tart Kits stored upright and categorised by colour theme, in some old record racks that my parents no longer needed. I tip the record racks on their side and then slot my kits into the spaces. In general, I keep the kits intact with most of their alphabets and embellishments together for about 4 - 5 months. After that, I pull out all the unused embellishments etc and move them into the storage locations I have (ribbon box, journal card box, flower/chipboard/bling folders, buttons, inks, other embellishments etc) leaving just the coordinating paper sets and cardstock in the plastic folder. This of course makes it heaps easier to store the paper only aspect of kits in the limited space of two record racks. I made the tabbed dividers really quickly by using one sheet of dark teal cardstock cut into nine 4x4 squares, folded in half using my Scor-Pal, and attached using double sided tape to some very old 12x12 sheets of cardstock. Labels were typed and printed in a jiffy using my Dymo label maker (best $30 I've spent in ages!)

Translucent plastic boxes ($4 each at my now-closed LSS) that store all of my patterned paper. Some is organised by manufacturer, others by colour, and I have a few that just have a hodge podge of manufacturers in Assorted Paper boxes. I also have one box that stores all my transparency products. I used to keep chipboard in one of these, but it worked better for me to have it stored in folders by theme in a D Ring binder than all crammed into a 12x12 box. While I'd like to do the same with my transparencies, so many of them come in 12x12 sized sheets that it's not practical for me to store them in a standard D Ring binder.

Baskets with all my glazed brads and Staz On inks in one place. Amanda Hartmann is to blame for this brad collection, with her inate ability to 'finish' a layout beautifully with a sprinkling of glazed brads and other bits! I've picked mine up on sale all over the place, but hate the task of pulling them all off the backing paper/foam storage, and the risk of the brads scratching each other in a normal storage box, so I choose to keep them in their packaging grouped with their colour families for easy access.

Business card holder with my Smooch Inks displayed. Given to me by my sister who worked at a gift and homewares store that closed down, all I had to do to repurpose this cute little stand was make 'shelves' out of thick chipboard. Worked a treat, and although I'm not a fan of displaying product in my room as decor, this is an exception I can live with!

Lipstick holder to store my Smooch Spritzes. Easy to use, and prevents an avalanche if one falls over.

Baskets to store all the 'other' things. I have one basket dedicated to adhesives and the like (living in a town that no longer has any scrapbook stores means I need to keep plenty of extra staple supplies on hand. I usually pick up cheap bulk lots of adhesive at craft shows etc.) Another basket houses all my mini album blanks.

Alphabet baskets. I have two baskets that store all my alphabets, and they are a thoroughly organised little collection! One basket holds all my American Crafts Thickers, sorted into colour groupings and then sub organised into size/type IE, white Thickers are first organised by basic sizes small, medium and large of average font types, then 'fun' fonts are separate, and 'scripty' formal fonts are separate again. The same system goes for all colours in this basket. At the back of the basket are all my Basic Grey 12x12 sheets of alphabets and sticker collection sheets. My Mind's Eye Lush thick chipboard alphabets are also stored in here, although I'm running out of space!

The second larger basket holds everything else, and is organised mainly by size - all my tiny alphabets are together, all my small alphabets, medium, large etc. Doesn't matter whether they're October Afternoon or Doodlebug, flat or thick; everything is grouped by similar size.

Teal binder folders with plastic envelopes used to store Flowers, Clear Cling Mount Stamps, Bling and Chipboard. I had pink folders when I first moved into the space, but pink just isn't my thing, so when I saw these folders for only $1.50 each at Crazy Clark's, I snapped them up. Teal most definitely is my thing!

I also have some teal display folders to keep class sheets from back when I used to do Sketched and Copycat at Scrapbooks Etc. I also have three folders set up with every PageMaps sketch since 2007. I'm loving the iPad access to sketch and challenge blogs, but it's handy to have the paper version accessible too. Other teal buys include a notebook and stapler, just because. Plus the folders were cheap!

These jewellery findings storage cases were perfect both in price ($2 each) and purpose, and I use them for all my brads, small metal items and eyelets. Grouped by colour as much as possible. Next to them are a bunch of techniquey kind of items that come in my Lime Tart kits. Not being much of a technique kind of gal, they're items that I probably wouldn't have chosen to buy, but having them on hand means I've had a go at crackle glazes and liquid pearls and not been averse to the experience :-)

Scraps. A scrapbooker's nightmare right? Not for me! Setting up this organisation system and maintaining it (easy as slipping any leftover pieces in as soon as I'm done with a project) was the best move I made in a long time. I've been using it this way for about 8 months and it's perfect for me. I have 8 12x12 plastic enveloped that I purchased years ago at a discount shop. Some are labelled with single colours (Red, Green and Brown) and the rest double up (Black/Grey, White/Neutrals, Orange/Yellow, Pink/Purple and Turquoise/Blue). Each envelope is labelled on each side with the relevant colours, and leftovers of any size get put into the relevant envelope. The big bag at the back holds really small scraps as well as border strips (perfect for housing titles on layouts) and cute packaging that I may recycle into a layout. It's always at my feet, easy to put scraps away into, or pull them out to use on a page - something I do a LOT. All the envelopes sit in hanging files on a desktop file caddy that I bought at an office supply store.

Divided plastic cases from an Auto shop hold all my buttons, assorted embellishments and inks. I also keep some older chipboard alphabets in here from back in the day when that was how chipboard was sold - loose. Got to say I much prefer the AC way of selling alphabets in convenient to store sheets :-)

In some larger divided boxes, I keep all my ribbon and lace, and in the other, all my journal cards, washi tape, and some extra glazed brads and book plates etc.

All together, that side of my workspace looks like this, and everything is within arm's length when I'm scrapping, including all my scraps.

On the other side of my table is another 2x4 Expedit, which is home to my many magazines. I love nothing better (when I'm not actually scrapping) than to curl up with a few of my mags or books and soak up some inspiration, so having this library of scrapbook titles keeps me entertained for hours! I usually pack a selection of magazines and books for our car journeys, given that every trip to Brisbane is a five hour round trip.

So there it is, the far more detailed and much more up to date scrap room tour. I love having this comfortable little corner of our home to relax and create in. And I really really love having it all organised and logical - makes finding what I want to use so easy, and telling the stories so much more enjoyable.

My last shot? I love this window in my room - when I first moved into the space two and a half years ago, that tree was something I looked down onto the top of out the window. Now, it's grown up and provides shade and privacy for that window, and lovely lush green outlook for me in spring and summer, when I have the windows open and the cool air wafting in. Perfect!

PS - Cleanliness only reigns when creativity is not in progress - here's what the room looks like mid project!

BUT. I have learned that at the end of any page, I must completely pack away and clean up everything I used and start fresh for a new project, otherwise the clutter kills my creativity :-)

Watch this space - scrap room and organizational post tomorrow :-)

2012-01-19T07:32:00.001+10:00

Mr Mischievous

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000+10:00

Being a teacher has its benefits - like a neverending supply of photogenic kids and gorgeous personalities to snap and scrap :-) Blogged with permission from his mum.

Stretched Sketch designed by me based on a Sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye; Alphabets: American Crafts; Button Stars: Unknown; Pen American Crafts

Happy Scrappy New Year at Red Earth Scrapping

2012-01-16T09:00:00.000+10:00

My lovely friend Helen (we go back to Year 5 together in 1988!) owns the online shop, Red Earth Scrapping. I've been a pretty slack friend as far as participating in challenges goes, but hopefully I've begun to redeem myself with completing (I love my One Little Word!) the Happy Scrappy New Year Competition today. An ongoing bout of insomnia helps when it comes to finding the time to scrap too :-)

Challenge One

Create a Christmas 2011 layout using non Christmassy papers, and use the bonus item. I forgot to use hidden journaling though. Oh well...
Bonus Item Clue: "I am icky, sticky but oh so pretty, I'm not the adhesive hiding behind your papers though, I like to be seen ..." I figured it could be Kindy Glitz, so on it went just before I went to bed, and all dry by the time I got up in the morning,

Patterned Paper: Echo Park; Ribbons: Unknown; Brads: Basic Grey, Doodlebug, Little Yellow Bicycle; Tickets: Office Supply; Butterflies: Jenni Bowlin Studio; Alphabets: American Crafts, Making Memories; Glitter: Kindy Glitz.

Challenge Two was a treasure hunt quiz. Done and emailed :-)

Challenge Three

Create a layout using the word New in the title. In my case it was about the New friendship between my previously very standoffish dog and my mother.

Bonus item clue: Jack climbed up one of these. I figured either Jack went up a hill with Jill, or Jack climbed a beanstalk. I went with the latter and used a cute Dusty Attic vine, which I drew leaf detail onto with a new mustard yellow pen. Love how it turned out. I also scattered some Studio Calico butterflies amongst it, along with some bling,
Patterned Paper: Authentique, Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye; Cardstock: Doodlebug; Vine: Dusty Attic; Bling, Kaiser; Butterflies: Studio Calico; Journal Card: Kaisercraft; Alphabets: American Crafts; Cosmo Cricket; Glitz Designs; Pens: American Crafts

Challenge Four

Create a layout with excess (not something I do very often, I prefer the less is more approach) You had to use more than one photo, three embellishment clusters, three edging techniques; have at least two sentences of journalling (only 2??)

Bonus item: use one of the five Chinese Elements - I used metal brads, and scrapped a photo about water.

Patterned Paper: Fancy Pants, Crate Paper, My Mind's Eye; Webster's Pages; Brads: My Mind's Eye

Challenge Five

Make a card set using only scraps of paper and leftover stash. Too easy - my very organised scrap collection came in handy for this!

Bonus item clue: It makes the world go round. My interpretation? Love, and the colour of love is red, of course!

Patterned Paper: Kaisercraft; Cardstock: Bazzill; Flowers: Discount Store; Stickers: SRM Stickers

Simple Home Decor: Framed Quote Gallery

2012-01-14T22:23:00.000+10:00

I love good fonts, good text, pretty paper and creativity using all of the above. I also love home decor that means something to the residents of the home - hence I've never really been a fan of having random modern art type prints on a wall for the sake of filling the space, and why the walls of our home had been bare for so long.

Enter my Holiday One Hundred list that I typed six weeks ago at the start of my summer holidays, and item number 64: print scriptures and frame. Matthew and I were inspired a few years ago when we visited Canberra to use words as decor in our home, with one idea being to print texts of historic documents that speak to us and our interests/history. I'd always had a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence in a frame in my room growing up, a nod to the land of my birth. So Matt and I tossed up documents and texts that moved us - the Magna Carta, Churchill's wartime speech/es, Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech, Kevin Rudd's Sorry speech, the Gettysburg Address. And maybe the president in Independence Day's speech, or Hugh Grant's Love Actually speech. No, perhaps not...

Anyway, fast forward a few years, and we've amassed a selection of Bible verses that really speak to us, inspire us with how we ought to live, how we try to treat each other, and encourage us in our faith. So I spent an afternoon/evening looking them up, copying them into a document, and then playing with font size and weighting to create some word 'art' for the wall of our living room.

Frame $4, Reject Shop

Frame $3, Reject Shop

Frame $12, Kodak Shop Warwick

Frame $4 Reject Shop

Frame $15/Six, Crazy Clarks

Frame $15 Ikea Ribba

Frame $8 Kodak Shop Warwick

Frame $7/Three, Crazy Clarks

Frame $7 Crazy Clarks

Frame $15/Six, Crazy Clarks

Frame $3, Reject Shop

Frame $10/Three, Australia Post Shop.

All were printed onto a script font paper from Kaisercraft's Secret Bird Society collection from 2010, but My Mind's Eye has a very similar font background paper from the Stella and Rose collection, and if you're into colours, then the world's your oyster! I chose the neutral paper because I wanted a background that wouldn't be too much for the collection of frames.

Text tips?

Find quotes that mean something to you. Mine are relating to my faith, but this could easily be replicated using any number of inspirational quotes. Just do a google search and be inspired!
I used Century Gothic font because I love the clean, modern look of it, and the contrast with the script background. You will almost certainly need to bold any font you choose, and use at least 24pt size to make it stand out in the frame. Most of mine were done in 24 - 28pt font size with highlighted words done in 36pt or 44pt.
If you want to highlight certain words within your text, to make them really stand out they need to be at least 8 - 10 points bigger than the main text. (I learned this in time for Psalm 117, and Matthew 5: 4 -12, and think that they're among my visual favourites along with Philippians 4:8) but missed out on some of my early attempts (1 Corinthians 13) and feel they could look better. But no paper to waste on reprinting!
Use text boxes or tables with borders made transparent to help restrict your size parameters and allow your quote to fill a certain space size for the frame you intend.
Set the spacing between lines to 'exact' in your paragraph settings to make sure every line is even, regardless of what size font you use to highlight certain words. On some, it's set as high as 50pt between each line, but it works (Psalm 117 is a prime example)
Make a mixture of centred, justified or left/right justified to vary the visual impact of each quote. I completely filled the space in my square frame, but gave the eye plenty of resting space in the Philippians 4:8 quote. Mix it up.

Framing Tips?

Keep it cheap! Discount stores, multipacks and sale tables are your friend if you want to make this cost effective.
Plastic is good. Very good. When you're using velcro to hang the frames, lightweight is a very good thing, even if it feels flimsy in your hand. Those ornate looking frames I used? All plastic.
Vary your sizes for visual impact. I used frames with an A4 photo opening, 8x10" opening, 8x10" frame size, 8x8", 5x7", 6x4, 5x3.5" and 4x4".
Arrange your gallery on the floor to get a rough idea of the dimensions and balance of the arrangement. Then measure the total height and width. Mark the corners of your arrangement on the wall, then hang the corner frames first and work your way in to the centre, hanging larger frames first. Using a larger frame in the corners helps to give a strong visual boundary to the collection.
Command Velcro Picture Strips. Simple and easy to use. No banging holes in your walls. No pictures not aligning or hanging off kilter. Did I mention easy to use?

If you'd like a copy of my document with all the bible quotes ready to print for yourself, just leave me a comment or email me at moira(underscore)coates(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au

Handful

2012-01-13T12:32:00.000+10:00

How cool is that sculpture? Claire and I enjoyed a weekend break to Milan (as you can when you're based in London) and we took the train up to Lake Como for the day. The photo had been waiting to be scrapped forever, but the papers I'd chosen to go with it were just hard to work with. Enter a sketch challenge at our retreat - use a lucky dip from the PageMaps card set - and in no time at all, I had this page scrapped, tiny 2 inch square scraps used up, and the story told. Love it!

Pagemaps Sketch. Patterned Paper: Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye, The Paper Loft; Alphabets: Jillibean Soup; Dies: Couture Creations; Journaling Spot: Basic Grey; Bling Flower: Basic Grey; Pen: American Crafts

Project Life

2012-01-10T13:26:00.001+10:00

With a plethora of Project Life how tos and design ideas out there thanks to Becky Higgins' new Design Team, there's not much to add to the spectrum. After four years of doing it, and only one 'successful' year of completing the project, my take on posting about my Project Life process is more of a 'here's how I refined the system' to make it work for me.

If you don't know what Project Life is, visit here to see what it's all about. I'd recommend starting there, and if your desire is to be more creative in your memory keeping, then click through to the links for the Project Life Design Team, but be warned, there's some serious inspiration in those blogs and you may end up scared off! To keep it really simple, read on...

To Recap:
In 2009, I missed out on purchasing the Project 365 kit that Becky released. I decided I would just take a photo every day, and record it myself. FAIL! I took a photo every day. I purchased an album and some six horizontal 6x4 page protectors, but without a system set up for recording the memories easily, and without products cut up and ready to go, it just never got any further than taking the photos. By the time I printed them, months had passed and I had no idea what sequence the photos belonged in or what the significance was of some of them.

In 2010, I did manage to purchase the first Project Life kit. So where did I go wrong that year? The first problem was starting on the back foot in terms of not having the kit there with me until February. As in just when the school year begins and starts to get crazy, leaving no time for catching up on the preceding six weeks. And when I did get started, because I hadn't had the time to set up the album with date markers for each week, it was really hard to work out where to put photos and journaling cards to start 'catching up.' So once again: stacks of photos printed, with little idea of where they fit and what they said about our story for 2010.

2011: the first semi successful year. Success #1? Receiving my Project Life Turquoise (be still my heart with all that clean graphic design goodness!) kit before the end of the 2010 year. Learning from past mistakes, I sat down before the 2011 year began and set up my album with weekly title cards stamped with the date range of that week.

A simple diary that I could write notes into. But even that has been moved to the too hard basket for 2012!

Success #2? I purchased a diary which had about six lines printed for each day of the year (no skimping on space for weekends like so many typical diaries. Each night, I would write down a dot point recap of the days events - everything. I would write on the top line of each date what the photo/s were that I had taken to represent that day. If I had not taken a photo, I would look at the journaling and decide what photo I needed to take in order to represent that day.

From that diary entry, I would then look at the events, look at my photos of the day, and the following day make a choice about what event was most significant in terms of our overall story, and write my thoughts about that onto the journal card for the day.

I attempted to use Facebook to have a brief recap in my status update to jog my memory for journaling. Where this failed, is that being a very public arena, even with privacy settings checked and triple checked, you can't be completely transparent in your FB updates. Or at least I felt I shouldn't. And when you post as much as I do, finding status updates from six months ago can be a painful exercise in scrolling down through your FB feed!

In 2011, I also made an effort with printing my photos. On average, no more than two weeks went by without going to the store and getting photos printed. Any longer than that and it did become difficult. But having the diary with the photo that I wanted to use recorded on the page was really helpful.

One incomplete week of many on Project Life 2011

The result? At the end of 2011, I have an almost complete (in terms of photos) Project Life. The down side? Having written the diary entries each day made me complacent, and I am waaay behind on translating those entries onto my journal cards in my Project Life album. The other lesson learned in 2011? Don't rely on choosing your journal card each day. Going through those cute little boxes each day to find the 'right' journal card is just one extra step that complicates what should be a simple process.

So here we are in 2012. This year, I've taken my lessons learned over the last three years and refined my process even further. It's been great too, to be an advisor to two friends who have embarked on the Project Life journey this year, and helping them set up their albums and talk about how to succeed in getting this amazing overview of everyday life has been perfect to help me get to a space where I feel I can succeed 100% this year.

Change #1? Insert every single journal card into the album right from the start. No fiddling around trying to decide which design to put into the page protector; just pull it out and write. It also means that I can do the visual balance of colours and weight of designs across the double spread at a glance, ensuring I've got a good balance of 'busy' and 'light' cards, of red, green, brown or turquoise cards etc. If a day arises where I find I have a heck of a lot to say, then I'll just switch out the card for a double fold card, but for an average day, it's all there and all I have to do is write.

Yep, that there is a journal card from the first Project Life - make use of what's on hand! Plus, I needed more red.

Change #2? Purposeful printing. I've decided to adopt the white border printing that many other Project Lifers do. To do this means I have to be certain of which photos I've selected for the day/week. When I go to the store to print, the first thing I do is select my Project Life photos, and finalise that order with the white border option selected. After that's done, if I need any other prints, I go back in and continue shopping, but my Project Life photos are done. Purposeful printing means setting a minumum date range for photo printing: being on my summer holidays at the moment means I've been able to get in and print photos at whim, but once I'm back at work, I've committed to an every Thursday print run. My local Big W girl knows me, and get my photos printed within 15 minutes, so it's not an epic outing.

Change #3? Momento. Hello awesome memory keeping App! Christmas morning, we drove the 2 hours to Ipswich for Christmas lunch with my family and friends. 2 hours of time to waste on the internet. I knew that I wanted to replace my written diary from last year with something I could use on my iPhone. I'd tossed up just using the notepad on the phone, but decided to see what there was in the way of apps, and after Googling it, Momento seemed to be the way to go. And is it what! And it seems the rest of the scrapbooking/memory keeping world is right onto this too, with many Project Lifers recommending Momento in the lead up to the New Year.

Things I love? It syncs all my Facebook statuses, Instagram photos, and blog posts into the Momento App. It's password protected - no nosey eyeballs accessing the 'moments' that I record on the app. The public content on Facebook can now be supplemented with my personal notes on events, so the days when all I can post on FB is Argh! can now be detailed on Momento with what caused me to want to post that, and it doesn't have to be public knowledge (something I found difficult when trying to use FB as a memory jogger for my Project Life journaling in the past.) Other Momento loves? The calendar. I just tap a date, and up comes all my FB updates on that day, plus any 'Moments' that I recorded. Tagging. In a post or date, I can tag people I was with, or the event I attended, so that if I want to reference when it was that I hung out with my siblings, or went to a school working bee, or had a P&F meeting, I can just search tags. So Momento, here's to $2.99 very, very well spent.

My monthly recap questionnaire.
Feel free to email me for a copy.

Change #4? Monthly Recaps. Years ago I began answering a monthly quiz on my blog, just a series of questions or items that I responded to in order to see how things changed throughout a year. Stupid little things that are interesting for their mundanity. Problem was, it was on my blog. That meant needing to remember to log in, answer the questions, publish a post... and all that was just a bit too much, so on each year that I started it, I invariably lost track about halfway through the year and kicked myself for not completing the task. So this year, I modified my questions to suit what I wanted to record on a monthly basis this year, altered the colours on the titles to match the colour story of Project Life, and attached them to the coordinating 12x12 cardstock that features the design theme of the kit. Last year my cardstock sat unused, so this year, it's been put to use throughout my album, and because it's already printed, I simply write my responses in, on the single line provided (no waffling or rambling allowed!) and my monthly recap is done.

Change #5? No excuses. Get that journaling out of my head and onto the card in my album before the day is over. It takes less than five minutes to jot something onto a journaling card. I'm using Project Life at its most basic, without adding anything extra to the set up. No overlays, no stamping, no embellishments. So it really is as simple as writing and printing (and corner rounding!) While I love seeing what some of the Project Life design team are doing, (and I can see why some, especially those who say that they no longer scrapbook in other forms, use it as a creative outlet) I'm keeping it as simple and as straight forward as possible to allow me to achieve this. All I want and need Project Life to be is a simple record of the everyday. I still scrapbook and love the creativity and products I have available to tell the stories of my past and present. But for the things that don't warrant a scrapbook page - the hot water system dying, the week spent in bed due to illness, the excavator moving soil in the back yard, our favourite coffee or salad - for that, I have Project Life.

So there it is, my evolved and perhaps perfected Project Life process. It works for me, and may work for you too. But that's the beauty of the system - it can be as much or as little as you want it to be. For me, simple is what is going to make this memory keeping possible. For others, creativity and extra bits and pieces will keep them enthused and enjoying the process, and that's ok too. Ten years from now, all that many of us hope for is that we can look back on this snapshop of our lives, and have those memories recorded. And that, my friends, is what truly matters.

A Friend Like Wendy

2012-01-09T09:17:00.000+10:00

I had this little thing about pennants. I hated them. Swore I would never, ever put them on any scrapbook page I made. Guess it was something to do with them being EVERYWHERE. Couldn't turn a page of a scrapping mag without seeing pennants. Anyhoo, I got over that (at least a year after the trend emerged!) and came up with this layout where a pennant just seemed to... well, work. My Facebook status when I completed the layout and posted a photo?

Well scrapping friends, hell just froze over - yep, that there is a pennant banner on a scrapbook page by moi. I swore it would never happen, but here it is in all its glory. And purple to boot! Wonders never cease!

So there it is. Purple and pennnanted...

Cardstock: Bazzill Bling; Patterned Paper: Making Memories, BoBunny, Unknown (dark purple); Alphabets: American Crafts, Making Memories; Flowers: Maya Rd, Petaloo; Pen: Creative Memories

The Beginning of a Great Obsession

2012-01-07T17:31:00.000+10:00

Patterned Paper: Kaisercraft, Crate Paper, Basic Grey, Lily Bee, My Mind's Eye We R Memory Keepers; Alphabets: Cosmo Cricket, Doodlebug; Stamps: Stampin' Up; Punch; EK Success for Stampin' Up

Together

2012-01-05T17:52:00.000+10:00

At our retreats, I set challenges and on this occasion I actually managed to complete not just some, but all of them. This layout knocked off five challenges from the list: use a sketch; incorporate packaging into your layout; use embellishments from a lucky dip of brown, turquoise and red items; use a scalloped strip, four different sized circles, chipboard and ribbon on a layout; and use every piece of equipment brought to the retreat (Cricut, printer, BigShot - dies and embossing folders, and the sewing machine) Yes to all of the above, and all in one layout :-)

Sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: Kaiser, Basic Grey, Unknown; Cardstock: Bazzill; Title: Cricut Graphically Speaking Cartridge; Embossing Folders: Stampin Up, Cuttlebug, Tim Holtz, Sizzix; Flowers: Kaisercraft, Prima; Transparency: Prima Packaging; Buttons, Chipboard, Metal Swirl and Buttons: Unknown

The Last Conversation

2012-01-03T09:00:00.000+10:00

It's a wonderful convergence when a story you've been wanting to tell and a photo you've been needing to scrap are found at the same time and come together with papers that work perfectly to tell and suit the story. The last photo of my grandfather, taken two days before he died, and the story of my last conversation with him, three days before he died. A layout I will cherish forever.

Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye, Kaisercraft; Alphabet: Making Memories; Ticket: Tim Holtz; Brads: My Mind's Eye

One Little Word: Complete

2012-01-01T10:37:00.000+10:00

It's that time of year again where I take stock of the year that's passed and look toward the year to come, selecting a word that will underpin my life for the year. Last year's word, Health, made a huge impact on how I lived my life, but there's still a long way to go, hence my choice of Complete as my word for 2012.

So what does Complete mean for me in practise? It means continuing and completing the health choices I made in 2011, and working hard to see them come to further fruition. It means forming habits and working at them to allow me to make change. It means finishing tasks I start, something I'm chronically bad at doing. It means reading God's Word each day and completing the goal I set for myself in 2011. It means less talk and more action, as I think of things I said I'd do last year and never did. It means simple things like not letting the housework get out of control! It means creating systems to organise my time and life to allow me to complete goals and tasks I set myself. It means completing things at work in a timely, stress free manner. Above all, it means the hope that Matthew and I can conceive and complete our family (or begin it at least!) I pray that this happens for us, and for several dear friends who are in the same frustrating situation as us.

My health is still not great, although the work I put in last year has paid off to some extent - I've lost 6 kilos, my HBA1c (3 monthly blood glucose averages) steadily dropped throughout the year, my cholesterol is near perfect, my thyroid function is vastly improved, and I'm off the sleeping tablets over the summer. My endocrinologist was so pleased with the obvious effort I put in that he signed the medical certificate required for me to be able to learn to drive again after a decade. But my health with never be complete, just a work in constant and essential progress.

So here's to 2012, and a complete improvement in all areas of my life and me!

Past One Little Words:

Health

Connect

Connected

2011-12-31T17:39:00.001+10:00

Based on a Sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: Crate Paper; Alphabets: Doodlebug, Carolee's Creations; Brads: Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye, Making Memories; Flower: Prima; Journaling Block: Fancy Pants; Inks: Versa; Pen: American Crafts

Simple Scrapbooking + Off The Page: an unlikely combination that worked :-)

2011-12-27T11:55:00.000+10:00

In the spirit of a handmade Christmas this year with the Coates clan, I made these clocks for everyone on both the Coates and McIver side, as well as for my staff at work. So perfectly simple, and so effective. All it took was coordinating 3 inch squares, mostly cut from scraps of paper I had left over, or embossed cardstock scraps. Everyone loved them!

Holiday One Hundred

2011-12-03T18:12:00.001+10:00

My summer holidays, all six blissful weeks of them, started today. To make sure I use them to relax doing the things I wish I had time to do during the year, I've set myself a list of what I'd like to do. My goal - to go back through this list and find most, if not all, of it crossed off by January 17th!

~~1. Make Christmas cards~~

~~2. Write Christmas letter~~

~~3. Purge shoe collection~~

~~4. Legally change name!~~

~~5. Read Gates of Zion~~

~~6. Read Daughter of Zion~~

~~7. Read Return to Zion~~

~~8. Read Light in Zion~~

9. Read Key to Zion

~~10. Make page kits to scrapbook~~

~~11. Catch up Project Life~~

~~12. Make a fresh fruit salad~~

~~13. Cook dinner on the BBQ~~

14. ~~Upload photos~~ and categorise

~~15. Do tax~~

~~16. Watch Glee Season 2~~

17. Open joint bank account

~~18. Get some sunshine!~~

~~19. Make colour block clocks~~

20. Read Vienna Prelude

21. Read Prague Counterpoint

22. Read Munich Signature

23. Read Jerusalem Interlude

24. Read Danzig Passage

25. Read Warsaw Requiem

26. Read London Refrain

27. Read Paris Encore

28. Read Dunkirk Crescendo

~~29. Colour/Size/Season sort wardrobe~~

~~30. Go swimming~~

31. Take a day trip to Goomburra

~~32. Visit a friend or ten~~

~~33. Eat dinner outside~~

~~34. Use candles~~

~~35. Go a day without contacts~~

~~36. Visit the optometrist~~

~~37. Get physio~~

38. See the chiro

~~39. Have kinesiology~~

~~40. Ride the bike~~

~~41. Make a waldorf salad~~

42. Scrapbook with students

43. Watch Little Women

~~44. Take down the Christmas tree~~

~~45. Learn how to use Windows7~~

~~46. Write out latin roots in Weird & Wacky Word Books~~

~~47. Create some new homonym sentences~~

~~48. Watch some Law and Order SVU episodes~~

49. Make a crème brulee

~~50. Send an RAK~~

~~51. Listen to Tori Amos~~

~~52. Eat some fruit every day~~

~~53. Put photos in frames~~

54. Read Mercy

~~55. Watch Food Inc~~

~~56. Watch Michael Collins~~

57. Go to the movies

58. Spend an afternoon at the library

~~59. Take dogs to the beach~~

~~60. Scrapbook with friends~~

~~61. Sort scrapbook supplies~~

62. Read The Fourth Estate

63. Buy new cutlery set

~~64. Print scriptures and frame~~

65. Watch Bowling for Columbine

~~66. Dust~~

~~67. Clean up the bay window~~

~~68. Go Op-Shopping~~

~~69. Sort through drawers~~

~~70. Make jam~~

~~71. Make lemon butter~~

~~72. Create a new salad~~

73. Go to the gym. Sooner.

~~74. Set up Project Life 2012~~

~~75. Have friends over for dinner~~

~~76. Download ST magazines~~

~~77. Sort through bathroom boxes and cabinet~~

~~78. Empty linen closet and purge~~

~~79. Watch Big Bang Theory~~

80. Have dinner at the H&J

~~81. Coordinate back to school sets.~~

82. Take a bushwalk

~~83. Read a book out in the backyard~~

~~84. Spend time with the dogs~~

~~85. Have some special time with family~~

~~86. Sort through work clothes~~

87. Watch Anne of Green Gables

~~88. Get Nelson clipped~~

89. Practise the skills in the Mastering Manual photography class

~~90. Make ten layouts using sketches~~

91. Enter a challenge blog

~~92. Fill Tupperware spice containers~~

93. Plant herbs into a pot

~~94. Drink some liqueurs!~~

~~95. Have a glass of wine~~

~~96. Take dogs for a walk~~

~~97. Make a lasagne~~

~~98. Read our journal~~

~~99. Sort through and empty bedside table and drawers~~

~~100. Visit the Art Gallery~~

Memory Lane

2011-10-01T12:00:00.000+10:00

THIS is why I scrapbook. Because a photo is so much more than just an image. These fun photos tell the story of our last ever visit to my grandparents home. The last ever walk up to Crook Peak, along the Mendips, down through the village and back up the private lane to Coombe Bungalow. The house sold a few days later, and the day after that, my grandfather died. I love the memories that I recorded on this page, simple points that trigger even more stories of the holidays we would spend there. And thanks to my hobby, never forgotten.

Sketch by Jana Eubank. Patterned Paper: 7 Gypsies; Alphabets: My Mind's Eye; Border Sticker: Basic Grey; Border Punch: Martha Stewart; Journaling Sheet: Jenni Bowlin; Journaling Sticker: 7 Gypsies; Pearls: Kaisercraft; Ink: Smooch Inks

Sea Shore

2011-09-30T18:29:00.000+10:00

So grateful that Matt's brother and his wife provide us with the cutest of nephews and nieces to let me scrapbook kids (until we have our own!) A chilly day at St Kilda, but Clemmie still wanted to play in the sand and find sea shells.

Patterned Paper: Fancy Pants, My Mind's Eye; Alphabets: American Crafts, Basic Grey; Journaling Sticker: Hambly; Butterfly Punch: Martha Stewart.

Miss Victoria

2011-09-28T18:17:00.002+10:00

Teachers, you know those students who you wish could populate your class forever? This sweet girl would be there in the top of my list - helpful (she even came in on her school holidays to help me pack up my classroom when I moved to Warwick), smart, generous, respected by her peers, enthusiastic, kind, and just... awesome. I was blessed to have quite a few students like that in the class I taught that year. One I'll never forget.

Layout is a background copied from a page by Kerryn Leworthy, papers and all. Embellishment and placement of title, journalling etc is me (been so long since I copied the page that I can't remember what the original looked like!!)

Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye; Alphabets: American Crafts, Sassafras; Buttons: Unknown; Birds: Unknown (Quilting Store)

The Lighter Side

2011-09-28T18:03:00.001+10:00

My father in law is a serious sort, so these snaps taken just as David, Stacie and Lyd were leaving one afternoon gave me the perfect opportunity to tell the story of his lighter side - the third photo from this sequence went into my Project Life album, and David was even putting up some bunny ears behind Lydia!

Sketch by Amanda Hartmann. Patterned Paper: My Mind's Eye, Fancy Pants; Alphabets: American Crafts, Cosmo Cricket; Vinyl Trim: Unknown; Buttons: My Mind's Eye, Jenni Bowlin

An Unlikely Heirloom

2011-09-28T17:58:00.001+10:00

Some families have antiques. We have this trunk. The writing on it tells such a story in itself - Mombasa, Aden, Sydney, Dunedin - and amongst the other stickers and labels and painting on it are places like Dover, Cairo, Nairobi - the story of my dad and grandparents journey to Africa in the fifties, beginning a new life serving as missionaries.

Patterned Paper: Kaisercraft, Basic Grey, Me & My Big Ideas; Alphabets: Carolee's Creations; Stickpin: Maya Rd; Bling: Kaisercraft; Buttons: Unknown.

One Little Word: Health - Update

2011-09-18T16:42:00.000+10:00

So I began this year with a rather impassioned post about my One Little Word for 2011; Health. I read back over it now, and I feel all those things that I wrote then, but they're tempered with regret. This has not been a great year for my health, despite my best efforts. So here's my litany of woes, and hopefully my self induced kick up the butt to improve!

January went really well for my health plan - I was testing my blood sugars regularly, I was sleeping well (WITHOUT the dreaded Stilnox), I was eating healthily and counting my kilojoules, and I was losing weight. Then came whooping cough. A few kids at school got it, and I got sick in early February, and was coughing badly for about 6 weeks before I went and saw a Doctor, who said it was too late to formally diagnose whooping cough, but it was probably what I'd had. I was put onto some steroids to ease the coughing fits - steroids completely counteract insulin, so I was fighting a losing battle there. When diabetics are sick, blood sugars go wild, and that's exactly what happened. And after a summer of sleeping semi-naturally, I was back on the Stilnox.

When on Stilnox, I binge eat, and usually have no recollection of it. Matthew says that I can often consume an entire day's worth of kilojoules in one of those binges, and when he tries to stop me I'll give an excuse like 'I'm awake, I know what I'm doing" (I'm really not awake, I'm just kidding myself) or "I'm having a hypo" (I may well be, but being semi conscious means I don't know when to stop, and hypo symptoms are a scary thing, and you want to keep eating until you've stopped shaking, which is usually well after the blood sugar has begun to rise) or "Don't tell me what to do" (surefire way to annoy Matt). So even with being very careful about what I eat during the day, it can all be blown in just a few minutes in the middle of the night. And of course, the weight has risen.

The poor rest (or lack thereof) that I'm having has also worn me down. Stilnox is supposed to be a quick acting medication (30 minutes), but I have to take mine up to 4 hours before I want to go to bed. It's supposed to give me my full eight hours of sleep, but I am lucky to manage 3 hours before I wake up in the middle of the night. When I wake up, 90% of the time, I'm wide awake and have to take another half a tablet to get back to sleep for the rest of the night. I hate it.

By the time I was over the coughing, I was run down and caught everything going around - and being the boss, and knowing how hard it is to get relief teachers, I just didn't take time off work when I was sick. So I've lost count of the number of colds I've had, and they're taking their toll, like a few weeks ago, where I actually took a week off work and am still fighting a nast viral and chest infection. That definitely took its toll on me, and returning to work has been a bit of a personal battle, and I'm struggling with how I feel about my job and my future. There's been more than a few teary moments and poor Matthew is not sure what to do with me.

Since I've been sick, I've changed the Silnox regimin and am taking it immediately after I eat dinner, with an over the counter tablet called restavit. Restavit helps to keep me drowsy and if I wake up through the night, I can usually just roll over and nod off again. So far, this is working really well - I've even had quite a few full night's sleep - bliss! So perhaps this is all in the timing - how much food is in my stomach, and the time I take the tablet might determine how long it takes to work, and whether I snack before I sleep or not. Certainly, the improved rest is also improving my frame of mind!

So here I am now almost two thirds of the way through my 'Health' year, and I have nothing to show for it. Yesterday, my friend Yvie put a challenge out there: set a goal, and work towards it for the next ten weeks. We have a Facebook Group to keep ourselves and each other accountable and encouraged. So I'm going for it!! Working towards the 25th of November (coincidentally the date of my brother's wedding) and trying to balance my diet and my diabetes with some good oldfashioned exercise will hopefully combine to an improvement in all areas of my health!

Ok, epic post done. Next one will be light and fluffy and maybe a little creative.