Project Life | Week 23

 Monday already? Today I'm sharing Week 23 of my Project Life. I often wonder why I don't simply share the full spread and call it good. I don't really embellish my pages, and they're generally simple. This week I used some more Studio Calico cards and a sticker from my stash.

Here's the left side. I usually use alphabet stickers for my title, but because the words on the card look hand written, I just used my white pen to write the week.

Here's the right side. The circle camera on the green card was punched from another card and just glued to that one. I added the chipboard glasses from My Mind's Eye Cut &  Paste line. They've been in my stash forever and I finally got around to using them. I stuck the spring card to a patterned card because I didn't have a photo for that slot.

I've noticed that as I get further and further into the year, I take less and less photos. My routines become mundane, and I feel like I've documented them a hundred times already. Not that it's a bad thing to document similar things over and over (I have probably a thousand photos of my desk), I just can't bring myself to take a photo of my coffee cup every day. Maybe next year.

Have a great day! I'll be back on Wednesday sharing some 3x4 cards I made using some Kellie Stamps from my stash.
-Alexandria

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).

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

Project Life | Week 13

Good morning! I'm so happy that I have a Project Life spread to share this week. I feel like it's been forever since I shared one (I checked. It's been a month). Today I'm sharing Week 13, and it feels like this week happened in another lifetime.

This week I used a lot of my stash. A bit from Studio Calico, and some blue cards I found in my stash. I recently sorted them by colour, and I love how much easier it is for me to find cards. I just need to go back and put the colours in order so I'm not flipping through everything in the blue section looking for a navy blue card.

Here's the left side. Jon was in Chicago until the start of this week. The selfies of Gracie and I were the night before he came home. She missed him and was forcing me to cuddle with her because she was lonely. I also took my desk apart only to put it back together. I'm still debating getting rid of it and getting something a little smaller and changing the layout of my room a tiny bit. I also read two books at the start of the week. I LOVED Chris Hadfield's book. It made me realize how small my life really is in the grand scheme of things. This I Know was really beautiful as well. I didn't get a ton out of it, but I really enjoyed it. If you've lost someone really close to you, I definitely recommend it.

Here's the right side. One day it was snowing and the next day it was already melting. It snowed before Jon got back, and I left it until he was home to shovel (I hurt my back doing it a couple of times, and so I've resigned to the fact that I won't be doing it). I finally forced myself to finish Travelling to Infinity by Jane Hawking. It was dry, but I enjoyed learning more about them. She's such a strong woman, and I admire her strength. I'm a photo ninja, and snapped one of my sister before her final Honor Band performance before she leaves for Ireland. I also snapped a photo of Socks, the angry cat.

Thanks for coming by to see this spread. I finished it a while ago, I just never got photos taken of it. After what I'm referring to as "the great catch up" of 2015, I photographed 9 weeks of spreads and I'm working on some posts for those as well.

Have a great day! On Wednesday I'm sharing my mixed media "I am" cards for One Little Word. I think it's one post you're going to want to see!

-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

Project Life | Week 11

Good morning. Today I'm sharing my spread for Week 11. This week was a busy one, so I have two full pages, and 3 inserts of varying sizes. It was fun to create some inserts that allowed me to see all the pages at once.
 

Here's my spread for Week 11. This week I used the Rain Edition from Becky Higgins. It went pretty well with the colours of my cousin's wedding, so I felt that it was a solid choice for this week. PLUS, I haven't used it much lately, and I needed a lot of cards in similar colours because I had a lot of pages/photos this week.

Here's the left side. I didn't take many photos at the start of the week, so most of these are from towards the end of the week. I made cookies for Jon's get together this weekend, and snapped some cute photos of Gracie, and Jon. We finished watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. So funny! The theme song is still stuck in my head. I read The Opposite of Loneliness (a must read!), and finished my vision board for One Little Word.

Here's the front of the first insert. I took a Design A page, and cut the top 4x6 slots off, all the way across. I considered keeping the strip along the left edge with the holes so it wouldn't slip down on the right side, but decided not to. So far it hasn't stuck out the bottom of my album, but if it does, I could always move it up to the top 2 rings to keep it from getting ruined.
Here I included the three movies I watched this week. I journaled a bit about all three of them on the card between Gone Girl and The Best of Me. I also included the photo from my 7AM layout. I've changed up the make up I use recently, and I really wish I had a photo of the make up I've used in the past. I think it'd be cool to see what I've changed, and what I've kept the same (though most of it has changed recently). I stamped and journaled on the bottom right photo.

 

Using a stamp from Freckled Fawn, I stamped "Here we go" on this photo. It was taken rather early in our trip, and I wanted to document that I went with my parents and my sister to my cousins wedding. I used black Staz On ink, and just used my fine tip sharpie pen to journal on my photo.

Here's the back side of the insert, and the beginning of the next few pages. I included the program from the ceremony, and just put it into a 6x8 pocket page that I sewed and trimmed a little smaller to fit the program.

Here's the back of the first insert. I finally won something from Roll Up The Rim at Tim Horton's. In the same day, I won 2 free regular coffee. My dad ended up using them both (I prefer mochas), and it was the least I could do since he bought both of my winning drinks. I snapped a couple photos of the guestbook table. Their guestbook was the posted with two wood slices on it. It was so cute! They also had some envelopes on the table with clothespins. They asked guests to write their address on the envelope and clip it onto a tree they had placed near the front of the church, and they mailed their thank you cards out in the pre-addressed envelopes. It was a great way to get addresses they didn't already have!

Using some more Freckled Fawn stamps, I stamped "Pure Joy" onto my photo, and "Yes" onto my journaling card. I stamped a little cup that says "Yum" on a scrap of paper, cut it out and used foam squares to adhere it to the card. I definitely need to stamp in my Project Life more. It adds the perfect little touches to cards and photos.

Here's the front of the second insert. I trimmed the right half off of a Design F pocket page. My sister took a few photos during the ceremony and then sent them to me. They're so cute together! In the little sequin pocket I included a couple of the fake flower petals that Tori picked up off the floor and handed to me after the ceremony, and the little tag off of their S'more wedding favours (so cute).

Here's the back of insert 2 and the front of insert 3.

On the back of insert 2, I used a couple cards from the Rain Edition to document little things about the day. They were the perfect cards to document what the day was about, and journal a bit about all the photos on this insert. The top photo on the left was them braiding a rope. It was a tradition I'd never seen before, but it was interesting. As she was braiding she said "I tried to teach will how to braid, but he still can't, so I guess I'll do it". I love when they can make jokes during the ceremony. Her dress was beautiful! She looked amazing!

Here's the front of insert 3. I cut the right hand side off of a Design D pocket page. During the lunch after the wedding, Tori stuck her glass on her face and was laughing about it. Cutest thing ever! With the help of her dad, and her bridesmaids, Kate made her center pieces. They're beautiful! There were flowers in the jar on the top.
After the lunch, Kate & Will had some photos taken with their families, and while Will was having his family photos taken, Tori asked if I'd take a picture of her and Kate. She thought she looked like a princess. It was sweet!

Here's the back of insert 3 and the right side. This spread is all about the trip home, and some failed attempts at selfies. Lots of journaling on photos, and a bit more stamping.

Here's the back of insert 3. I included my 7PM photo and some journalling about where we were and what we were doing.
The selfies. Oh boy. They're a little embarrassing, but I wanted to include them because they're an important part of the story, plus we laughed about them for AT LEAST half of the trip home. Also caught a picture of Tori colouring. Her dress was so cute! We sort of matched.

Here's the right side. I have a thing for taking photos of the country side while we're driving. I was trying to get a good one of the pink sunset, but it was too far away so it doesn't show up well in the photos.
More selfies, only one of them turned out really well (the second last one). I also made sure to take a selfie of my dress. I love it so much I almost didn't take it off. I also snapped a photo of a terrible park job because I was on the phone with Jon after we finished supper and I mentioned the terrible park job, and promised to send him a photo of it.

Of course I had to stamp on one more photo. Another Freckled Fawn stamp, and I journaled about the trip, and how we laughed ourselves to tears. I think I'll use that stamp more
often!

Thanks for coming by to check out this photo-heavy spread for Week 11. I'll see you next week when I share Week 12.
Have a great day!
-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 10

Good morning! I meant to share this spread last week, and thought I had it scheduled, but apparently I didn't. So I'm sharing it now. I'm sharing Week 10, and the more I get into this year, the more I realize that I'm actually okay with documenting everything from my perspective. I'd love to include Jon's, but he's very reluctant and I don't want to force him. I absolutely include things that we both do, but it's mostly about what I do, my photos, and my perspective. He also seems to be okay with it, so we'll see how things  go.

Here's my spread. I used some of my Studio Calico stash because it's getting out of hand, even though I've been using it for almost every week at this point.

Here's the left side. More snow, of course. Finished a couple more books, tried the new Salted Caramel Timbits from Tim Hortons. They're so sweet, but soooo amazing. It's like a mouthgasm. The stomach ache I got from them was absolutely worth it! Also snapped a photo of a beautiful sunset on our way home. We were stopped for a train, so I managed to get some good shot with my iPhone.

Here's the right side. I also got a shot that had the train and the elevator in it. I love the almost silhouette affect in the photo. So pretty. When we dropped my sisters purchases off at my mom's house, Jon wrote on the window. He drew a pile of poop and some flies and wrote "ha ha poop". We laughed for like 10 minutes about it. I finished reading The Longest Ride (so good. Excited to see the movie). We watched Big Hero 6 (so cute!) and I finished a mini album full of photos of my niece, using a coffee sleeve and a tutorial from Wilna at iheartstudio. The tutorial was included in her Love Mini Workshop, and I'm so addicted to making mini albums in that shape. I made a cutfile for the inside pages, and the cover (so I can make it with watercolour paper) and plan to make a bunch more!

Thank you for coming by to see my spread this week. I'm hoping to get back to sharing my pages every Monday, and hopefully get back into the habit of doing the Monday Link up with Karen. I hope you have a wonderful day!

-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 9

Good morning! I'm getting pretty excited about my trip to Manitoba. I'll be honest, the thought of spending a week with my parents, isn't necessarily my idea of a great time, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing my cousins and getting away for a few days. It'll definitely give me something to document in the coming weeks. Today I'm sharing my spread for Week 9. 

This week I chose to use blue & aqua/teal. It compliments the bottom right photo perfectly! Most of these cards come from Studio Calico, a couple of them come from Dear Lizzy and the Blush Edition from Becky Higgins.

Here's the left side. The top right photo makes my heart so happy. I came around the corner and found Tori laying on the floor flipping through a little photo album. It was the cutest thing, and I definitely want to put mini albums full of people she knows in a space that she can reach them because watching her flip through them is the cutest thing ever. I used Amy Tangerine vellum alphas and my Shimelle date stamp on my title card. I added some ephemera from the Amy Tangerine Stitched collection to the blue card. The bottom right photo was the room design I created using this site. You can customize the patterns/colours of items, but I just wanted to use it to make sure that our new furniture would fit in the room, and figure out how to lay it out so that everything would fit. I saved it and cropped it close to the walls then printed it to fit in this slot. The photo on the bottom left is from mid re-arranging. We were running out of room to move, and it was getting late. Jon was trying to drill a hole in the floor to run the cable for the TV through the basement and up so we could put the TV on another wall.

Here's the right side. The top left photo is the finished TV wall. It's beautiful and I love our new furniture. I love that the doors have glass on the top to display knick knacks and my colourful books, and the bottom of the door is closed in so we can hide all of the DVDs and boardgames. The top right was my brainstorming the new sign. The idea was there, and I knew in my head how I wanted it to look, it just wasn't executed well. The bottom left was my sister wiping off our best work so far. It's so pretty I wish we'd just left it. I was surprised that no one tried to smudge it at all.The bottom right photo is my ampersand wall. I want to add to it, but currently all I have is a bunch of little ampersands. I'm thinking I'll collage them in the shape of an ampersand. A few people have asked me "Why the and signs?" and my answer is simple: "and". It symbolizes the inclusion of something. There's more than just me, it's me AND Jon AND Gracie AND Socks, AND our families. Plus they're pretty. The frame is from Ikea, all of our TV furniture is also from Ikea.

Thanks for coming to check out my spread for Week 9
I hope you all have a wonderful day! I'll be sure to update you about my trip when I get back.
-Alexandria

Project Life | Week 8

Good morning! I hope you all had a nice Easter. My Grandma from Saskatchewan came out to visit us, and everyone except my sister made it to dinner. My baby sister is currently in IRELAND of all places, until later this week. I'm so happy for her, and so glad she was fortunate enough to go on this trip with her band group. I'm definitely looking forward to creating an album of some sort for her to remember her trip! I'm also looking forward to her coming home and being able to talk to her about her it! Ireland is on the top of my "to visit" list!

Today I'm sharing my spreads for Week 8. This week was pretty uneventful, lots of crafting, a trip to the city to pick up some furniture for the house. This week I used up some more of my Studio Calico stash.

Here's the left side of my spread. Caught Jon and Gracie cuddling on the couch right after I'd asked her to come sit with me. Jon and I watched "The F Word" which was conveniently changed to "What If". Tori and I made a beautiful ball to hang in her room. Mom's Sunday School class made them at church the previous week, and she had some leftover supplies. It was supposed to be a prayer ball, on which they write things they were going to pray for, but Tori just wanted to make a pretty ball to hang in her room. She's the cutest! I also finished the cover, and put all the ribbon on the tags of my mini album for Gracie. It turned out beautifully!

Here's the right side. I used the tag card to create a quick summary of the things that happened this week. After my haircut on Wednesday, Jon and I went to Edmonton. We picked up all the new entertainment furniture for the livingroom, and had dinner at Montana's. I got some new books in the mail (I've read all of them already) and a new coffee mug. It's so ME! I also finished my mini album for socks, and worked on one of the tags for Gracie's album. The stamp I used is this one, from Kellie Stamps. I'm currently waiting for another order of stamps to arrive in the mail, and can't wait to use them!!

Thanks for coming by to check out my spread for Week 8. 

I hope you all 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