Project Life 2013 Week 20

Week 20

Mother's day and more backyard fun! 

 

We celebrated at home with Chinese food, wine and  margaritas! I did not take many pictures and that gave me the chance to add in some filler cards.  Most of these cards are from a SC kit.

Getting outside in the spring is kind of a big deal around here because we spend so many months indoors during the winter.  There was tree climbing, swinging, and slide jumping for Team Benitez on Saturday.

 I used a few 2x3 pictures and I am still not in love with the size but do think they look better in the 3x4 pockets than in a 4x6 pocket.  The 2x2 pictures seem to get lost in the bigger pockets. Yes I know I used 3 of the frames on one page!  I love them! HA. 

 

IDEA: Take the opportunity to focus on two events in one spread or one event on a two page spread.  This weeks left side was all pictures from Mother's day and the right side was all pictures from Saturday.

Thanks for stopping by!

Marisol

Project Life 2013 Week 18

Week 18

Still haven't found pics of week 16....

More outdoor play, some spring cleaning, tree planting, a beautiful blooming rhododendron, crabby patties and an allergy scare.

My new favorite thing to do is using letter stickers directly on the photos. I had been using labels but got tired of it.  These BasicGrey letter stickers are the perfect size for this project and I want a set in EVERY color. White is my favorite because it seems to pop off the picture.   

Left Side: My hubby planted a tree and was so proud of himself!  The 'grow where you are planted card' is perfect for the story. He also attempted to clean the garage and didn't get very far...it is a mess!  The pictures in this spread are dark and once fall and winter hit I foresee more dark indoor photos.  I may need a new lens for indoor pictures but they are so darn expensive!  Any recommendations?

Right side:  I love my daughter's pose in front of the bush!  She is so cheeky! My son woke up one morning with a swollen face! It was so scary because we thought maybe he developed the same milk protein allergy as our daughter. I am happy to report that the results came back negative but we also don't have an answer as to why his face was so swollen.  I love adding quotes from my children.  They make great filler cards.  

I  repeated certain elements on both pages as a way of unifying them. 

*orange plastic letters

*letter stickers 

*triangle paper

*the orange patterned paper

*green and orange colors as well as touches of brown

TIP: Balancing  elements (colors and/or embellishments) on both pages helps unify pictures that would otherwise clash with each other.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Marisol

Project Life 2013 Week 17

Project Life 2013 Week 17

Where is week 16 you ask...well I don't know.  I have to check back and see why I didn't photograph it. But I found week 17!

A new TV, mom and daughter playtime, happy crafty mail, ice cream and outside play filled week 17.

My hubby and boys are soooo happy with the new 3D TV.  I set the self timer on my camera to take the picture of my daughter and I.  The black My Fave heart is cut out from a SC 3x4 card.  I wrote the word my with my favorite white pen. I won a giveaway on a blog and got my monthly kit all in one day! I attended  a staff recognition dinner for the day care staff. I was able to take a picture of all the ladies who have cared for my daughter since the age of 1 year.  I wrote their names on the back of the photo and made a note in the journaling that their names are on the back of the photo.  I wrote Best Teachers Ever directly on the photo and added the 2 wood veneer hearts.  It looks like it was really on the projector screen. 

The right side pictures are all from Saturday.  The weather was so nice and we spent the day outside.  I added sequin to the sun card after I stamped the Hello sunshine phrase.  I also stamped the word Hi in the middle of the sun.  I tried to create a rainbowe effect on the wood veneer alphas and it did NOT work. FAIL! But I used them anyway. 

TIP: I often print my pictures in the 4x6 size and mostly take them in the landscape orientation.  This can be problematic when I  have vertical pockets.  To resolve this I simply trim off a couple off a couple of inches to make the photo 4x4 and slap it on a 4x6 piece of patterned paper or a 4x6 card.  Over the years I have learned to compose my pictures so that trimming them would not change the effect or mood of the photo. This is a fancy way of saying I tend not to zoom in when taking pictures. HA. This technique is also helpful when cropping a 4x6 horizontal pic into a vertical picture. This also saves with printing cost because there is no additional cost such as when printing a custom sized picture just the cost of printing a standard sized picture.  

How are you coming along with your PL? I'm ALMOST caught up and it feels good!

Today I'm linked with The Mom Creative

Thanks for stopping by!

Marisol

Project Life Week 15

Project Life 2013- Week 15

A Sunday trip to the park, a week full of daycare activities and a birthday party completed our week.  

Week 15
This week includes an insert because it was my son's 2nd birthday.  His birthday was so much fun.  We played pin the banana on Curious George (even the grown-ups played...actually they had more fun than the kids) and had an Ice Cream Sundae buffet. Both activities were a HUGE hit!
I cut off part of Design F and added a flagged paperclip to help identify the insert. However, the clip keeps falling off!  Now I have to find another way to add a tab or something to help identify the insert. Any ideas?

The weather was so nice that we took a quick trip to a local park.  Nothing fancy about this page other than the fact that I adhered the LIVE flair badge on the outside of the protector. And now that I think about it that is not fancy either. HA. I added the title directly onto the white space of the picture of the tree. I often purposely take pictures with white space so that I can embellish or journal the area. I also embellished the pre-made 3x4 cards with stamps. 

First let me apologize for the horrible picture!  Not lots of journaling on this spread.  The top left pocket holds a picture of a quilt square my daughter and I made for the daycare quilt.  As you can see we used lots of scrapbooking goodies to create the quilt square.  I embellished a SC card with stamps and letter stickers.

A handmade 4x6 journaling card, a filler card and a confetti pocket complete this page.  I didn't add anything else because the pictures themselves are 'busy' and tell the story on their own.  

The back of the insert...such a horrible picture! Stupid glare!  I wanted to use the color orange and didn't have a premade journaling card in that color so I  created another handmade journaling card.  I used a really old stamp and slapped a label on top and called it done!

I let the pictures tell the story this week and used very little fluff.  I tend to do this when I have tons of pictures from an event such as a birthday.  I'm sure many other things happened this week and they went undocumented. I'm OK with that. This is my 3rd year documenting our life PL style and I no longer have the need to document every little detail every week.  

TIP:   Let your pictures do the talking.  When you have lots of 'busy' pictures tell the story on one or two journaling cards and let the pictures tell the rest of the story without any added embellishments or labels. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Marisol

Project Life Week 14

Week 14

I (mostly) used the Citrus Twist April kit for this week's spread.

Easter was spent at church and at home.  I cooked and the day was quiet...just how we like it.  It was our first Easter without our oldest son who was at school.  It was a bittersweet day.

See that picture of the wine glass?  Isn't it cool! I have what I call a 'dumb phone'-prepaid, no internet access, and NO CAMERA! Which means I don't have access to all the fancy photo apps. So when these cool photo overlays came out on the market I was thrilled!  They have the same effect on the photo as the fancy photo apps available on smartphones but without the HUGE monthly phone bill! HA.



Week 14 was part of  our Spring Break. Our friends came to visit and I cooked for 20 people!  My son and our friends kids are members of the Civil Air Patrol.  Aren't they handsome in their uniforms? I used another photo overlay on the picture of me.  The picture with the 'LAUGH" sticker on is of the kids playing Just Dance game on the Xbox.  I highly recommend this game for getting the kids off the couch and for burning some calories!

TIP:  Don't be afraid to cut up the PL cards!  The 'You make me so happy' speech bubble was part of a 3x4 card.  I cut it out and layered it over another 3x4 card  and layered that on a 4x6 card. I did the same for the top left pocket. 

I am still plugging away at my spreads.  I have up to week 26 completed! Right now I'm working on inserting the pictures in the pockets.  I'm almost done with that!  My goal is to finish the spreads before I go back to work on Sept 4th! 

I haven't decided if I will blog past weeks or not.  What do you think?  Should I just move forward?
Are you up to date with your PL?  How are you keeping up or catching up?
Thanks for stopping by.
Marisol
Today I'm linked with The Mom Creative