Hunting Layout 4/24

Today I'm sharing another Hunting layout. This one was scrap-lifted from one I saw on the Crate Paper Instagram. I've been wanting to do more creative things with my backgrounds, and this one turned out really nice.

I used a 2-inch circle punch and cut the circles in half. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. After each row I stitched the half circles down. I wanted the background to be the star and kept everything else pretty simple. Just stamped the date onto one of the lighter half circles.

I love the combination of patterns, and the texture of the corrugated pieces and the texture from the stitching. I love how it all came together.

Thanks for coming by to see this spread. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day!

Hand Embroidered Page | Unfinished

Good morning friends! After the stress of the last few weeks, I needed something to keep my hands busy, and let my mind focus on anything else. I've been inspired by Page Evans' pages for a while now, and since becoming a member over at Big Picture Classes, and looking through her classes there, I was even more inspired by her embroidered pages. They're beautiful, and I wanted to try it. I had planned to share this yesterday, but instead I'm sharing it now!

When I decided I wanted to do this, of course I thought "I want to do it, but I want to do it in my own way, and on my own terms." I didn't have the time, or the resources to get additional embroidery thread, so once I chose the design I wanted to use, I made a plan using only the thread that I had in my stash (which wasn't much). I chose to use this file from Wilna Furstenberg and shared on Instagram what my plan was. Everyone was excited about my plan, (including Wilna and Paige (I might have had a huge fangirl moment)), and that was all I needed to know I could do this, no matter how long it took me.

I took progress shots to share with Jon, my sister, and Instagram. When I started but I definitely didn't realize just how long it would take me. The very first heart (top left) took me 30 minutes.

After work, I'd come home and work on it while we watched some TV. It really helped me to unwind after work, and it helped me to get it done sooner than if I'd only done it before work. I knew if I set it down to work on something else, I'd never finish it.

I did all of the hearts before starting on the leaves/swirls around the rest of the page. My original plan had been to make all the leaves/swirls green/aqua, but I ran out of it very quickly, so I added in some purple leaves/swirls and I love how the colours looked together.

The finished page is far too pretty to cover up. You'll see on the right side that I have a spot that isn't finished. I'm not sure what I'm doing there, but a few of the holes were too close together and it ripped in a few places, so I just stopped and left it. I might cover it with an embellishment, or a small photo, but currently this page doesn't have any more of a plan than just looking beautiful! I love how it turned out. I almost want to frame it, and never do something this detailed again! But of course my hard work paid off and it looks wonderful! Everyone loves it and I'm so pleased with myself. I'll definitely do this again, just with simpler designs.

Thanks for coming by to check out this layout. I love it so much!
Have a great day!
-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).

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

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

#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

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