A Gift Full of Love

Good morning! Today I'm sharing the one gift this year, that I was beyond excited to GIVE. My niece and I spent a lot of time together in 2014. I made an effort to see her at least once a week, even if it was only for 10 minutes before her T-ball practice. I love taking pictures of the things we do together, and I have all these pictures of her that I wanted to share with her. I know I could have just created a photo book, or put them all into a photo album and gave that to her, but I wanted to put some love into it. Every single page of this book has a memory, something I love about her, and/or something I hope she holds onto when she's older.

She just turned 4, so she obviously can't read yet. But my hope, is that when she's older, she realizes just how precious something like this is. All the products are from my stash, all the cutfiles are from www.iheartstudio.ca or are from the 30 Days of Me class at Studio Calico. I'm not typing too much in this post, mostly because there's a lot of photos. I snapped all of these really quickly before I gave her the album, so some of them aren't the greatest, and if I'd had more time I would have split them up into two page spreads to share each week. I would have also loved to have shared the products, and a few suggestions, or techniques, but if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me.

This pocket page is from Studio Calico. One thing I hate is that the pockets are weird sizes, like 2 1/4" square, and 3 1/2" square. I made it work by printing the photo larger and trimming it down to fit. I used scrapbook paper in the other pockets and just trimmed it to fit. I added a sequin pocket in the colors from this page and the next.

I had printed these pictures first, and just mounted them on white cardstock and slipped them into the pockets.

For the see-through pocket on this page, I found two circle stickers that were the same size and just stuck them back to back and sewed the pocket shut so it wouldn't slide out.

This is another pocket page from Studio Calico. It has six 2 1/4" pockets. I printed some photos and trimmed them down. I added a triple heart die cut and some sequins to the pocket next to the journaling.

One of my goals for 2015, is to do more traditional scrapbooking. I have a bunch of embellishments, and given that my Project Life style seems to be pretty clean and simple, I need somewhere to use all those papers and pretty embellishments I keep hoarding!

Thank you for coming by to see this album. I put a lot of love into it, and I hope it's something she treasures for years to come.

-Alexandria

Project Life: Week Forty-Nine

Good morning! Today I'm sharing Week 49 of my Project Life. I had planned to share this last week, but being that I was sick, I pushed it to this week instead. I promise that I'll eventually get finished sharing my pages from last year, and start on this year. I think I'm going to stick with weekly spreads, running Monday - Sunday so I can keep the weekends together. I just haven't taken many photos for week 1, or 2 yet. I'm not even sure what week we're currently on.

This week, I used a variety of things, mostly from my stash, but a few that I bought specifically to make a few Christmas-y pages (though most of them aren't over the top Christmas-y). To introduce the month of December, I made this two page spread.

On the left side, I used a cutfile from Wilna over at iheartstudio.ca. This file was included in her Heartfelt Christmas Workshop, but can be purchased in her shop. I made it big enough to fit inside of the wreath that was already on the patterned paper, and cut it out of some red cardstock. I glued it to the paper, and then cut the paper to fit into the individual pockets. I love the way it turned out.

On the right side, I trimmed a piece of 6x6 paper from the My Minds Eye Sleigh Bells paper pad. I cut some more pattern paper for the top right and bottom left pockets, and added a chipboard frame to the top right, and a little tag with important December dates to the bottom left. I added a sequin pocket with a resin present from the Freckled Fawn Very Merry Embellishment kit. The sequins are from my stash. I cut some patterned paper and added some washitape to the card next to the tree. I adhered the tree cutfile from iheartstudio.ca to some red paper.

Here's a close up of my washitape tree. Originally, I was going to use this as my first Washitape Wednesday project, but I'm still not sure if I have enough washitape projects, to make it a regular feature.  The star clip at the top is from Freckled Fawn.

Here's my actual Week 49 Spread. I used the gold foil kit from We R Memory Keepers, and a few cards from the Midnight Edition.

Here's the left side. You can see the back of the sequin pocket. I used the lucky card as my title card, and added journaling to a couple of photos because I had minimal space for journaling cards.

Here's the right side. The top photos are the two attempts we made at dying my sisters hair. I don't have an after picture, so I just used the two of the process. A few things we learned that day were to never believe the internet, Kool Aid doesn't change the color of your hair, I'm still terrible at getting even coats of dye (in this case bleach & dye) on her hair, and box dye doesn't always generate the color they advertise. It was a learning experience, but even after three years of dying her hair for her, I suck terribly at it. So grateful I'm not a hairdresser, or I'd actually have to be good at it.

 

This week, I'm taking part in a Project Life link up hosted by the lovely Karen Drummond over at Day to Day. (Click the above image to go to her blog). My goal is to add my link to her blog every week, and I might miss some weeks, but I'm going to try my hardest because Project Life is always better when you share it with like-minded people!

Thanks for coming by to see my spread this week. I hope that you'll pop over to Karen's blog and add your link to the party! I'd love to see what you've made!

-Alexandria

One Little Word 2015

Photo from Ali Edwards

In December, I was thinking a lot about the changes I wanted to make in 2015. I shared some of those plans in my post about my Goals for 2015, but even after I posted that, I continued to think about ways to create positive change in my life in the new year. I'd heard a bit about Ali Edwards' One Little Word class, and read all her blog posts about past One Little Word's. I couldn't quite understand what it was all about, and a few ladies in the different Project Life groups mentioned it, and those who had previously taken it were offering what information they could about what the class was all about.

I decided to take the plunge and sign up despite knowing too terribly much about it. In the message boards, all the ladies were very inspiring, and helpful with any questions people had, and I learned so much. I soon realized that this was going to possibly be the best thing I'd done for myself, now all I had to do was find a word. My word.

I started to think about it, a lot. Everyone described this seemingly fairytale feeling of knowing when you've found your word. I created a list of words that encompassed the changes I wanted to see in 2015, including: more, love, faith, do, accomplish, happy, kind, and focus. I tried out each of the words, but none of them really gave me that feeling everyone had been describing. Others said that their word chose them, and when they accepted that one word spoke to them louder than the others, they got that feeling. 

When I listened, the word that was speaking to me, was DO. It wasn't very inspiring to me, and so I found myself actively looking for a word that encompassed what I wanted my word to inspire in me. While actively searching for a word, I found myself doubting that this class would be the one for me. However, I found myself browsing blogs, and Pinterest for One Little Word inspiration, and discovered that several people have used DO as their word. It was the word that was speaking to me, and when I accepted that, I got that feeling they described.

It doesn't matter what word you choose, or chooses you. I feel that any word is only as inspiring as you make it. I feel that if it inspires you, you should go with it, and not care what others think of your word. I also think that you shouldn't judge someone based on their word. Not everyone is going through the same things, and not everyone is using their word to achieve the same goals.

I look forward to sharing my OLW journey with all of you. If you'd like to learn more, or sign up for the class, you can visit Ali's blog (here).
All images (except the first one) are from Pinterest.

Have a great day!

-Alexandria

A Cherry On Top Haul - Christmas Present From Jon

Good morning! I hope you all had lovely holidays! I was sick through the second half of them, and it's taken me forever to feel better. I had planned to share some Project life on Monday, but I wasn't feeling up to finishing the pages and getting the post ready, so I took a couple extra days to feel better and instead, today I'm sharing the one Christmas present that I couldn't wait to open up! Of course it's craft supplies, and of course I have the best boyfriend ever because he let me order a bunch of supplies for my Christmas present. I know the holidays are about giving, and being with family, and next week I'm sharing the one gift I was beyond excited to GIVE this year.

I hate alphas because I always run out of vowels and have to buy more or get creative with titles, but somehow I've fallen in love them anyway. I love the variety of colors, shapes, fonts, etc. Here's the names of the alphas pictured here (left to right):

Gold Library thickers from Maggie Holmes Open Book line. Sunrise Pink thickers from Studio Calico Atlantic line. Bliss 2 Chipboard thickers from Studio Calico Hey Day line. Ali Chipboard thickers from Studio Calico Hey Day line. Afterglow Black foam alpha from Amy Tangerine Stitched line. Darling Geyser foam thickers from Crate Paper Oh Darling line. Dunbar gold foiled thickers from American Crafts. Every Day kraft chipboard thickers from Amy Tangerine Stitched line. Emma red dot glitter thickers from Studio Calico Thataway line.

Some Studio Calico wood veneers, cameras and snowflakes, as well as the Brighton Pier 6x6 paper pad. I was hoping for the 12x12, but settled for the little one, and bought a select few papers from the collection at 12x12.

I have an older embroidery kit from Amy Tangerine, and though I don't use it much, I want to do a little more embroidery on my projects. The two above are Comrade and Hello.

More Amy Tangerine supplies from her new Stitched line. Rub Ons, Oxford embroidery kit, Ephemera, and Matte Puffy Stickers.

More from Amy Tangerine. I was so excited about her Stitched line that I bought as much of it as I could get my hands on. It's beautiful! On the left we have her alpha book, and on the right, some stickers from her Stitched line. They're beautiful and look like they were painted with water colours.

When I found out Shimelle was creating a line of craft supplies, I knew that I would love them. I bought everything I could (of course). Her stamp, date stamp and ephemera.

Rub ons, layered chipboard stickers, and her sticker book. I can't wait to start using all of these new embellishments! I want to do more traditional scrapbook pages this year, and I knew I was going to need some embellishments to do so.

On the left is a set of My Minds Eye prints. They're 8x10 and ready to be popped into a frame and hung up. They're so beautiful and I can't wait to hang them in our bedroom. On the right are two My Minds Eye paper pads The top is Sleigh Bells and the bottom is Metallics.

I got a set of these stickers from My Minds Eye a while back, and I love them so much, I couldn't resist buying another set. The bottom right set is chipboard stickers.

Chipboard stickers are one of my weaknesses. These are from My Minds Eye Just Sayin' line.

These chipboard stickers are from the My Minds Eye Kate & Co. line.

These are from My Minds Eye Market Street line.

This set is just regular stickers from the My Minds Eye Kate & Co. line.

I also got the following individual papers as well. 

 

    

  

I also bought the following 12x12 paper packs

Amy Tangerine Stitched, Shimelle and Maggie Holmes Open Book.

Thanks for coming by to see my new craft supplies! I look forward to sharing more projects with you this year!

-Alexandria