Project Life | Week 17

Good morning! I can't believe it's already July. Where did the first half of the year go? I feel like just yesterday I was taking down the Christmas decorations, and now we're 1/3 of the way through the summer. There's not a whole lot going on for the rest of the summer, so far just Jon's sister's wedding (August 1st) and a trip to Calgary for Global Fest (August 19-21). Soon it'll be December and I'll be asking where the whole year went.

Today I'm sharing my spread for Week 17 (in case you didn't read the title of this post and didn't know). This week started off with 2 days of driving from Dauphin to Wadena to Provost (where I live). We crossed almost 2 provinces in 2 days, but the return trip still felt faster than the trip out (as always). The second half of this week was pretty uneventful aside from my sisters final band performance in Wainwright.

Here's the left side. Since I made a mini album of my Dauphin trip, I left out a lot of photos. I included 1 from the first section of the trip home. The little map is about how we drove past a small town in Saskatchewan called Margo, which happens to be the name of a coworker (who's like a second mom to me), and when Jon didn't believe me, I snapped a shot of the map to send him. The picture of the tractor is from the last stretch of the trip home, and so is the "up the river" photo. The bottom right photo (in the wrong spot of course) is from when we stayed the night in Wadena (at my grandma's house) before finishing our trip.

Here's the right side. Took a "family" selfie with Jon and Gracie while squished onto the couch. It's the only selfie Jon and I have taken together. The right half of this page is about our trip to Wainwright for my sister's final band performance. We took my niece with us, and had a blast!

Thanks for coming by to see my spreads this week. I hope you have a great day!
-Alexandria

Go share a link to your Project Life spread from Instagram, Facebook, your blog, or wherever you share your spreads, on the Monday Link Up (here).

23 Little Things I Want To Remember Right Now Layout

Good morning friends! You may or may not know that I'm taking Ali Edwards' Type workshop. It's definitely inspired me to use typed journaling on my layouts from time to time, and to tell longer stories, or tell stories that aren't composed of complete sentences or proper paragraph forms. It's been absolutely wonderful to try telling stories in different ways. Today I'm sharing the layout I made using my list of 23 little Things from this post yesterday. 

For this layout I used one of my absolute favourite pictures from somewhat recently. I stamped the date the photo was taken, and the date the list was made on the layout. I used a background paper from Heidi Swapp's Hello Today line, some flair from that same line, the white alphabets are from American Crafts and the square alphas are from Studio Calico, and the words on the photo are from Ali Edwards. The little heart gem is from Freckled Fawn. The first line of journaling is also from Ali Edwards, possibly from her "Little Things Story Kit".

Here's the full layout. I love the giant photo and the large block of text. I love that I mixed the three fonts for the title. I love the way they look together and I love that you can read the title as "I want to remember 23 little things right now" or "23 little things right now" or "23 little things I want to remember right now". I love that it's simple. Since the photo and the journaling covered most of the page, I used a busier background paper and I love how it looks!

I love how this layout turned out and I'd like to thank Ali for encouraging us to tell longer stories, and to try things that might be uncomfortable to us. Thank you for coming by to see this spread, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 15

Happy Monday friends! I hope you all had a great weekend! I had to work, but I work basically every weekend , so it's all good. Today I'm sharing my spread for Week 15.

Here's my spread. This week was lots of books, a bit of creating, and our new couch arrived! Finally. It's so beautiful, and I love it so much. This week I used a title card from Studio Calico, and two journaling cards from the Midnight Edition, as well as some labels from my stash.

Here's the left side. Because I read Looking For Alaska this week, I thought it was only fitting that I use this title card from Studio Calico that says "I go to seek a great perhaps" which is a line from the book. I had a lot of photos I wanted to include this week, so I used labels to journal on the photos. My sister came back from Ireland this week, and was bummed that she missed the snow. I made a mini album with some magic moments and used a Kellie Stamps stamp on the cover. My books and mugs arrived.

The last photo of the old couches. Plus my favourite shot of my niece putting up the newest window stickers (which are still on the window). More Kellie Stamps, the new furniture (which looks AMAZING). Gracie peering over the couch at Jon's phone, and a peek into my Details mini album, which may very well be a permanent work in progress.

Thanks for coming by to see my spread this week! I hope you have a wonderful week!
-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 14

Happy Monday! I feel like Monday's get a lot of unnecessary hate. Yes they're the start of most people's work weeks, but sometimes they're my Friday, and other times, they're my Thursday. But almost every week, it's the day I share my Project Life spreads. I'll be the first to admit that doing Project Life has been really therapeutic for me, and a great way to document all the seemingly boring little details of my very monotonous life.

Despite that, you all seem to keep coming back to see my spreads every week though, so that's awesome! Thank you! This week I'm sharing Week 14. This week it felt almost like summer, but only for one or two days before it snowed again. I used one card from my Studio Calico stash, and the rest are from Honey I think.

Here's the left side. I don't have much to say about this weeks spread. Maybe that's because it happened months ago. In my attempt to document the every day, I snapped a photo while I waited for a coworker to pick me up for work, Jon and I started watching suits, I finished reading The Heiresses, Gracie was "couch diving", and I received some more Kellie Stamps. I love them!

Here's the right side. The top two photos document the one day we had warm weather (around 18 degrees Celsius) and we took Gracie out on the deck with a leash. She tries to venture outside whenever the door is open, so going outside is actually terrifying for her because she never actually gets to go out. I finished The Vacationers and The Girl With All the Gifts. Both were really good! The day after we were out on the deck, it rained, then it tried to snow, and then we had a layer of snow on the ground. My sister was in Ireland and mad that she was missing the snow. I also took a close up of my coffee because I've been drinking more lately.

Thanks for coming by to see my spread for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful documentable week!
-Alexandria

#myselfiescrapbook | Week 4

Good morning! I'm so happy to be sharing the final pages of #myselfiescrapbook but I'm also a little bit bummed that this project is officially over. I had so much fun doing this, and I think it's something that would be fun to do again in a couple years. This is definitely my favourite project I've made so far this year. I learned so much, I "met" some pretty amazing ladies, and I can't thank them enough for creating something so amazing.

In my mini albums, I love adding layers and dimension, and things that aren't necessarily photos, or don't serve any purpose other than looking pretty. For the page on the right, I had a felt doily and a normal white doily in my stash. I knew I wanted to include them in some way, and I decided to cut them in half and make a little 2x4 page between two full 4x4 pages. I wanted to add layers so I cut a little foam sticker from Freckled Fawn in half and adhered it along the edge after I sewed the doilies together. I love that you can see through a little bit to the next page.

 On the back of the doily page, I just repeated the same thing using the other half of all the elements. On the right, another selfie (of course).

The prompt was #seehowIthrive and I used a photo of my breakfast. I'm trying to eat better, and finding things I actually WANT to eat that are good for me, is one way that I thrive. The photo on the right was "doing something little for ME, like taking a walk when the weather is beautiful". I love that it has a tiny bit of my head in the photo, and the way the sun is shining. It was an accidental photo, but I love how it turned out.

This is easily my favourite 2 page spread in the whole album. I decided that I didn't just want selfies in here. I wanted to include things that inspired me. I have the quote at the start, and I knew I absolutely wanted to include more of them. I feel like this quote fits perfectly with the photo next to it. I make weird faces ALL THE TIME, but I never document them because I think I look ridiculous. I also have bad hair days more often than good hair days, and I wanted to include both of those things. Of course they happened to be in the same photo, but I would have been fine with them being in separate photos too.

My favourite element of those pages is the buttons. I knew I wanted to leave the extra bit of the pocket attached, and originally I was going to add sequins, but happily added buttons in rainbow order instead. I love the way they look. The pattern was completely accidental, I was just pulling buttons from my stash and I wanted them to be coloured on both sides so I chose these ones.

The next pages were about #lovingyourself and it's one thing that I wanted to work on after the stress of the last couple weeks. It started with a good hair day. I love good hair days, and I need to document them more. Loving myself means embracing the good hair days, even if they end in bad hair days. The photo on the right was about loving myself, even when I'm wearing pajama shorts and I haven't shaved my legs for an embarrassingly long amount of time. It was about loving that I can eat yogurt straight from the container, and not feel bad about probably eating a little more than I should.

This page was about trying to inspire myself to continue working on something, even when I wanted to quit. Loving myself means that even when I wanted to quit because things are hard, I find a way to get through it and keep trying. It means finding something that inspires me to be myself, and do the best that I can, even if I don't want to.
 

I love this song. It's almost like my anthem at this point and I play it often. It's not only empowering to me, but it's inspiring. It helped me to keep trying when all I wanted to do was snap under pressure.

This next bit is about being kind to myself. As human beings, we're so very critical of ourselves, and it's such a shame. I usually hate selfies with my whole face in them, and I'm always picking out the flaws I see until I eventually just delete it. But with this photo, I thought about all the things I liked about it. The quote along the bottom says "Create a life that feels good on the inside, not one that looks good on the outside". Things I liked about this photo included my good hair day I was having, but also how I felt. I felt like a million bucks. I was wearing my favourite shirt, my the sun was shining, it was so beautiful outside, I had some time to work on my own creative projects, I got all my contacts and some photos back from before my phone died (but still lost 2 weeks worth of photos). It was a good start to my day and I was happy. The right side is just some cards from the Farmer's Market kit by We R Memory Keepers, some wood veneers, a chipboard flower from an old My Mind's Eye chipboard sheet and a vellum flower from Maggie Holmes Open Book.

I wanted to add some dimension and something different to my book, so I found this old Heidi Swapp chipboard frame. Part of #bekindtoyourself was doing something that made me happy. I bought a TON of new books recently, and that was one way that I was kind to myself. I love reading, and my to-read shelf was getting empty, so I bought some books that I really look forward to reading. I'm rushing to finish my current book so I can pull one of these beautiful books off the shelf!

On the back of the frame, I adhered some patterned paper and a foam sticker. I'm kind to myself by relaxing on the couch with a book, under my favourite blanket EVER (Jon's mom made it for me). The photo on the right is another selfie. This one is probably my favourite from the whole album, and I said as much in my journaling. I used a stamp from the most recent Studio Calico kit, and wrote some kind things about myself and this photo. It was the perfect selfie to end the album with.

The very last page of this album is this photo I found on Pinterest. I loved the quote and I loved that it had some white space on the left side. This quote is one thing I want to remember now that this project is finished. On the left side I journaled about a few things I learned by doing this project, and just ended the whole thing on a happy note. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I love that adding the lines to my journaling made it look like a separate piece next to the photo.

 My album is full and I love it. It has layers, and embellishments, and photos, and things that matter to me. This is definitely one I'll flip through in the future.

I added a mint tassle to the spine of my album along with the other two and the little charm. I haven't decided if I'll add a title to the spine yet or not. Maybe I'll just add the date.

Thank you for coming by to see the last few pages of my album. This was probably the most fun I've had in a long time, and I'm so grateful to have all these selfies and have them all in one place. I tried a lot of new things, I learned a lot, and I'm grateful for all the people that this project has connected me with. It's definitely been a wonderful experience!

If you haven't done the #myselfiescrapbook, I definitely suggest that you do. It's so much fun, and you definitely won't regret it. Just do it!
-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 12

Good morning! Today I'm sharing my spread for week 12. This week I tried something a little different, and used a set of digital cards that I won in a giveaway last year. I printed these cards a long time ago, and had wanted to use them, so when I saw that she was having a Design Team call, I made this spread with her cards to submit. I didn't get it, but if I didn't try, I wouldn't know right?

Here's my spread for Week 12. I'm in love with these cards from Little Lamm & Co. These cards are no longer available, but she has some super awesome designs in her Etsy shop. I love her designs, and definitely need to buy more!

Here's the left side.  I added plain black alphas to my title card, and stamped the date. I used the card with the label next to my photo on the top right. I taped them together on the back and then journaled. I used a Studio Calico stamp on the pink 3x4 label card and journaled about Gracie. I journaled about house of cards on the lined card and used the pie chart as a filler card. I journaled about the books using a label from my stash that matched the orange in the title card.

Here's the right side. I included close ups of my AM/PM layouts. The colours went well with the cards in my spread. I finished two more books this week and journaled about those on the yellow label card. In the label spot I wrote in the hashtags that I use when sharing my books on Instagram. On the polkadot card on the right, I journaled about Jon being in Chicago, and my AM/PM layouts. I used the Pie Chart card to journal about how I spent my time this week. Lots of work, reading and creating. It was a good week, but I did miss Jon terribly. He had a blast in Chicago.

Thanks for coming by to see my spreads for this week. I hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Have a great day!
-Alexandria

#myselfiescrapbook | Week 3

Good morning! Today I'm sharing Week 3 of #myselfiescrapbook. I didnt take as many selfies this week as I thought I would. As it is, I've already taken more selfies this year, than I ever did in the entirety of last year. That's pretty crazy, but also super awesome!

This weeks prompt was to take 1 selfie 4 ways. Basically it means to take 4 selfies of different things. The example was 4 shades of lipstick. I chose my 4 go-to hair styles. I've never really noticed the differences of the different ways I wear my hair, so it was cool to see how it changes with a few bobby pins or a hair elastic. I used a divided pocket page, and added some gold number stickers to the right hand side. I trimmed a piece of clear plastic and stuck the numbers back to back on the plastic. I love that it adds that bit of gold I've had throughout this album. I chose not to do any journaling on this page and just left it as selfies and numbers.

On the back side, I have the other two selfies. I love that you can see past the numbers to the page before/after. All the see-through elements are my favourite in this album! There's a lot of them. On the right, I included a selfie with my favourite child ever. We were coming home from my sisters band performance, and we were laughing and singing along to Taylor Swift. It was so much fun, and this picture isn't a good one of either of us, but I wanted to include it because the memory is important to me, and there will always be embarrassing photos of us out there somewhere.

On the back, I adhered some pattern paper to the back of the frame to make it a little prettier. It was just plain brown kraft and I hated it. I had to include another from where I stand selfie because I was wearing my favourite shirt and carrying my favourite otter bag.

Thank you for coming by to see my pages for week 3. I've been having SO MUCH fun with this project. I hope you have a wonderful day!
-Alexandria

Ali Edwards Story Kit | 7AM & 7PM

Good morning! My apologies for this being late, I had meant to share these spreads on Friday, but that didn't happen, and then I was going to share them earlier this morning, but that also didn't happen. I had issues getting the photos off my computer, but now that I got that fixed, I'm absolutely excited to share these layouts with you.

A couple weeks ago, Ali Edwards encouraged subscribers to join her in documenting two moments in their day. The first would be at 7AM and the second would be at 7PM. It didn't matter where in the world they were located, they were to do it at those times in their time zone. I've subscribed to her Story Stamps since they were released in September, and I subscribed to the Second Story kit she released (to accompany the stamp) a few months later. I've been hoarding the last two kits, but when she announced she was documenting her 7AM & 7PM on March 10th, I knew there was no way I could do it that day, but I could absolutely do it a few days later on the 14th.

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm absolutely not a morning person. So getting up before 8:30AM is a huge deal for me. On the 14th, my cousin was getting married in a small town two hours from where I live. Her ceremony was at noon, and we were stopping along the way to pick up a few things, so we had to leave by 8AM to make it on time. This meant getting up at 6:00AM to be ready in time. I definitely slept through my alarm and woke up at 6:30.

I set an alarm to go off at 7AM and another at 7PM so I couldn't "forget" to snap a photo for each. I didn't want to document this for any particular reason, other than it was a little out of the norm for me to be up that early, and I wanted to document it. This whole day was focused on my cousin getting married, but I wanted to also remember what I was doing that day.

At 7AM, I had put on around half of my make up, so no morning selfie, that would have been terrifying. Instead, I snapped a photo of my make up lined up on the bathroom counter to document that at 7AM, I was in the middle of putting my face on.

My family decided that they would have a "reception" immediately following their ceremony, which meant it was a light lunch, a lot of visiting, a few games, and after it was over they'd go have their photos taken. This meant we were heading home around 4:30/5. We were all hungry, and agreed to stop halfway for dinner.

At 7PM, we had just finished eating dinner. My niece was colouring, my brother was holding my nephew, trying to get him to eat a bit before they piled back into the car. My sister-in-law was visiting with someone she knew near the bathrooms. My parents were talking (I don't know what about), and my sister was on her phone. I snapped a photo of my parents, and one of my niece colouring. I decided I'd choose my photo later.

While standing in line at Tim Horton's, waiting for our order, I scrolled through the selfies my sister sent me, and decided that I document my niece all the time, so I chose the photo of my parents. It was important to me to document that moment because for the last few years I've noticed my parents drifting apart. I know that I'll want to remember the few times that they were actually getting along, and they're the people that brought the 8 of us together at dinner that night. Even though my younger brother couldn't make it, it was something I wanted to document.

There you have my layouts documenting my day. Perhaps at some point I'll do Day in the Life, but if I can't even finish a monthly photo challenge on time, how in the world am I supposed to take photos throughout the day of what I'm doing? BUT, I'm working on it!

Thanks for coming by to check out my layouts. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-Alexandria