Year in the Life project

I have had some issues with Blogger, so I apologise for not posting.  Seems to be ok now.



I wanted to share with you this little project that I whipped up in about 3 hours start to finish.
I'm calling it my "Year in the Life" project. No it's not a photo a day, or even particularly in-depth.
I am going to do one for both of my girls, but I chose to do Emily's first.
I went back and picked one photo of her that I took each month (you could cheat and not use photo's taken within each month) and printed them out.
I used 2 6x6 chipboard album covers, 2 album rings, 2 pieces of double sided paper, a bit of paint and some double sided tape.
I cut the 2 pieces of double sided paper into 6x6 pieces - making a total of 8 - 7 will be used in the album. I then arranged these so that each spread would be one side of the paper, and the next spread would be the reverse side - front then back, and used my hole punch to punch through all the papers in one go (I just marked the holes from the covers usint a pencil).
After working out the order I used a glue stick to adhere the first page to the inside of the album cover, and the last page to the inside of the back cover.
After this it was just a matter of using a emery board to sand off the overhanging bits of the inside covers, paint the front and back (and wait for it to dry, but you can keep working on the other pages while you wait), then simply stick one photo for each month onto the paper, re-punching the holes as you go if the photo covers them.
I also printed off little journal strips about events that happened each month as a bit of a keepsake. You could choose to embellish each page as you like, but I just kept it simple.
Here is my finished product to this stage:

Cover.

First 2 pages.

Last 2 pages.

I then embellished the front cover using some of the leftover piece of patterned paper, a paper doily, some painted chipboard letters and some flowers and pearls.

Easy, quick, cheap and would make an excellent gift to grandparents or other relatives too. I think I may have to make duplicates of each of the girls...

Fab Finds

Here are some of the cool things I have come across lately:

* Facebook app that turns your status update into a sort of digital scrapbook page.  This is so cool that I don't even mind thinking that there is someone out there who has access to all my statuses.  Just before I finished it I took a screen shot (press the PrintScreen button in the top right of the keyboard) and pasted it into Paint (you could also use Word, Photoshop, etc).  Tada, instant scrapbook page highlighting some of the interesting things I wrote on my facebook page.

* Papertrey Ink.  I know, it's a bit naughty that I like a papercrafting competitor considering I'm a Kaszazz Consultant, but if PTI had a direct sales organisation here in Australia I would join tomorrow.  I love their designs, I love their colours, I love their dies. {heart} For now I just drool over their releases every month (can you believe they have a release every month!).

* PageMaps. Need I say more?  I have a folder dedicated to all of the PDF files that I can flick through when I need a page idea, or a card idea.  Each month they release a new page of scrapbook maps (sketches) and every 3 months they release a new page of card maps. My best friend calls it the bible of papercrafts.  Definitely a 'go to' book.

* Pretty decor.  I love looking at pretty, functional items that would look great in my cupboards, on my bench or on the table.  Like this, or this, or even these. Sigh.

If you've come across something great recently, feel free to leave a comment.

Monday Motivation - Just.Do.It

I saw a nike advertisement this morning with their old slogan Just Do It (do they still use that one?).  I then took the time to follow the Hero Arts blog hop from start to finish.  There was so much inspiration amongst all of it that I am so inspired to craft.  So my motto for today: Just.Do.It!

One Fifty

This is my one hundred and fiftieth post on this blog.  I guess that is memorable.  A milestone.
What do I have to share for this memorable milestone?  Not much.  The weather here has been crazy silly - about 28 degrees and very humid, which makes it feel more like 35 degrees.  I hate to think what the 40 degree days of summer will be like.

I had the evaporative cooling on all day yesterday but didn't open a window in our bedroom, and when I got into bed last night the bedding felt damp. Bluck (as Sophie would say).

The weather has made doing anything around the house less interesting and I've felt so lethargic.

I have not touched anything on my craft desk since I painted the canvases... in fact the paints are still sitting on the top.  No cards, no layouts, nothing.

We did have a surprise yesterday morning when I discovered 2 brand new guinea piglets in the hutch.  After we got the 3 guinea pigs and I figured out how to tell boys from girls we separated Rosie into one side, and kept Harry and Jake in the other.  That was back in September/October and we had given up on the fact that she would have any babies, so it was quite a surprise when I spotted a tiny guinea piglet in the hutch - it took about a minute to register.  Emily has decided that the 2 new babies are girls (because she said they are) and has named them Olivia and Alisa.  They are totally cute - a bit like fat little mice with no tail and a full body of fur.  They are tri-colour like their mum and dad (not sure which is actually "dad").

Emily was super excited and came rushing out the back, as did Sophie (to see what the fuss was about) and both girls were just in awe of these cute little creatures.

The depressing part is my schedule is so busy I don't know when I will next get a chance to make something crafty.  I have got a few older projects to share in the meantime.