Read More Books 2014

Happy Friday friends! Today I'm sharing a layout I made while I was working through Ali Edwards' Type Class. It really helped me embrace using typed words in my journaling on my layouts, and it taught me different ways to use text (alpha stickers, hand journaling, typed journaling) on my layouts. I love this page so much, and it was the most fun way to document the 50 books I read last year.

Here's the layout. I added the red heart paper behind the photo, title and journaling. It was completely by accident that most of the books I chose for the photo were red, white and blue. I thought it was funny when I printed the photo, and so I added red and blue to the layout. This page is 8.5 x 11 and it was a huge change for me. I usually do 12x12, and while that has it's own challenges, so does making smaller layouts. I love how this turned out, and I'm working on one to document the books I read this year as well.

Here's another close up. I used two fonts for the text (can't remember either of them of course) and made the numbers bold to break up the text a little bit. If you want to see all 50 books I read last year, you can check out my profile on Goodreads (here) and follow me! (It's only showing 49 books, but I did read 50, so I'll have to fix that). If you have any book recommendations, I'd love to check them out. Just leave them in the comments! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-Alexandria

Ali Edwards Story Kit | Gathering Spread

Good morning! Today I'm sharing another layout I made using one of Ali Edwards' Story Kits. This one I made using the Gather Story kit. I had this photo sitting on my desk for quite some time now, and I knew I wanted to document it, but I wasn't sure how or where I was going to use it. I thought about using it in my Project Life album from the year the photo was taken, but when I ordered the print, I had to get it a weird size because of the dimensions of the photo, and when I tried to cut it up (I ordered it twice) it cut into peoples faces. I thought about just sticking it into an 8.5x11 page protector, and sticking it in that way, but since I hadn't done anything with it, and I wanted to make a page using the kit, I decided I'd use it for this.

This spread is very similar to one that Ali made in her process video for this kit, but it's also very different. I used a little bit of everything to make this spread. I used the phrase stickers, the canvas pieces, the digital files, the stamps, the digital cards (if I'm going to cut it up I prefer to print it out), and the little story cards. I used my computer to type out the titles for each of the little story cards, as well as the little "titles" between the story cards.

The photo in this spread was taken on New Year's Eve in 2011. My Grandpa passed away on Christmas Day, and we had the funeral New Year's Eve. My Aunt wanted to get a picture of his Grandkids, and the three Great-Grandkids (one of the Grandkids is missing). We're such a good looking bunch. Despite it being the holidays, so so many people came. The church was overflowing, and I know it meant a lot to my Grandma to have so much support from people who knew my Grandpa. Enough about how sad this day was. I think it's important to document all the moments. Not just the ones where you're happy and your life looks so perfect. I'm so grateful that she made us all stand there for this picture, even though I for one, didn't want to. 

This is definitely my favourite close up from this layout. I love how the gather stands out against the canvas piece. I used red Colorbox ink and the gather stamp. I added the hearts with black ink, and I love how it looks. The little titles were adhered to the story boxes with double sided tape. I added the titles and the stickers to avoid having odd sized gaps between the cards. I was going for a haphazard grid look, and achieved that with different sized elements.

I used the digital file for the acrylic hearts to cut this one out of red paper. I resized it to 2". I glued and then stitched it to the canvas piece. I added the blue chipboard piece that says "better together" to the middle of the heart. You can see a tiny bit of where I stamped on the photo. I used the "ah, family", hearts and "in good times and hard times" stamps. This photo is from one of the hard times, and I wanted to document it.

Along the right hand side, I stamped "the more we get together the happier we'll be". It's true. We don't get together very often, but when we do, we usually have a good time, and it was so nice that we were all together for this. We all would have preferred different circumstances, however still enjoyed each other's company.

I want to thank you all for coming by to see this spread. If you don't yet subscribe to the Story Kits, I suggest you do so! They've definitely helped me document moments in my life, I might have otherwise overlooked. They've encouraged me to look at some moments in a new way, and I'm so grateful to Ali and her team for creating products to help us document our lives in a new way. I definitely look forward to sharing more layouts using her kits, and I look forward to getting more of her kits!

Have a great 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

Love Themed Mini Album

Good morning! I'm so excited with how most of this mini album turned out. I wish I could make a mini album that was just one thing, but I can't, and I'm okay with that. This was supposed to be about our relationship. Originally FIRSTS from our relationship (inspired by the Story Stamp from Ali Edwards), but it became just a variety of things I love about our relationship, and Jon, and a few firsts from our relationship. It's messy and full of love, and that's basically all I was hoping for with this project.

This album is so full of love that I have to tie it closed to keep it from bursting open. I love it so much. Each one of those tags sticking out, is sandwiched between two photos of memories, and tucked into the pockets I made between each page. I'd like to thank Celine Navarro for her class at Studio Calico that taught me how to make this album from scratch. Perhaps in the future, I'll share a bit of that with all of you!

Here's the cover of the album. Isn't it just beautiful? Pink is definitely not my favourite color, but I just love the way this looks. Originally I was just going to make it, throw in some pink love-y paper for the pages, and sell it or give it away. But after I embellished this beautiful cover, I knew I was going to keep it for myself. I'm so glad I did. The black doily is from My Minds Eye (Sweetest Thing) I cut it in half and stuck it down in two places. The ticket to my heart sticker is also from that line. The arrow is from Maggie Holmes (Open Book) the chipboard hearts are from Studio Calico, and the love thicker is by Amy Tangerine. I used some old white sheets and dyed them different shades of pink using food coloring and water.

Here's What it looks like when you open it. On the left I used some word stickers from MME Sweetest Thing to create a short list of things I love about Jon. I stamped the date the photo was taken in a few places, and tried to do this where I remembered when the photo was taken.

Inside the pocket I included a photo of us from early in our relationship, and a collage I made a few months later.

The photos that were attached to the tag and slipped into the pocket.

 

On this page, I cut the "10 Things I Love About You" sticker in half, as well as my photo, and a chipboard heart and a banner that I stamped "I love you because" onto. I listed 10 things I love about Jon on this page and added some jewel hearts from Freckled Fawn.

Here I used my Firsts stamp set from Ali Edwards. I documented our first date, kiss, I love you's and adventure. I told the stories about each of them and included a collage of one of our trips and a selfie in the pocket.

This page has photos in the pocket, but I wasn't comfortable sharing them here. Nothing super inappropriate, but I don't think Jon would appreciate me sharing shirtless photos of him on the internet. (And none of you need to see that anyways).

I kept this page pretty simple. The pattern paper was super busy so I just stuck down a vellum circle and some heart stickers along with a recent selfie and a little journaling. I don't know why there's an acorn on this page (tucked under the tag) I definitely do not remember putting it there, but I might leave it.

I ran out of photo paper so this page doesn't have a photo in the pocket. I used some chipboard stickers from My Minds Eye (Market Street I think). It says "Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another". It's perfect for this photo. Jon and I have so few pictures of the two of us, and since I (sorry for being so blunt here) got fat, I try and avoid them whenever possible.

The final page is from our first Christmas in our first house together. The bell ornament my mom made me for that year. It's so pretty and I love her for making it for us. It will always be front and center on our tree. Eventually our goal is to replace our set of purchased ornaments with ones from family that mean something to us. I almost want to write the year on all of them, but I'm pretty sure they're all documented in our Project Life at some point.

Thanks for coming to see this album. It's very similar to how I made the Vintage Book album, but instead of using a book cover as my base, I just used some chipboard from the back side of one of those giant fridge calendars. It worked perfectly and was thin enough that I could stitch the fabric down around the edges, plus you can make it any size you want!

Have a great day!
-Alexandria