planning for Every Day October

I am so excited.

Joann.com is having a 40% off scrapbooking supplies sale right now so I took the opportunity to stock up on albums and to get the album I'll be using for my new Every Day October project.

This is going to be exactly like the "December Daily" project, except this year, I'm doing my favorite month. The December Daily project was great, but I found that I was repeating a lot of the same content in our family's Christmas album. I am a fan of making things as easy and fun as possible so I am making the switch.

I'm going to be using an American Crafts 8.5"x11" D-Ring Modern Album.  I'm using the brown to go with the autumn theme. I love these modern albums, the chipboard covers allow for some fun customization.  Here is what I came up with so far,

First I painted the cover with a mixture of two Making Memories Scrapbooking Paints, Nutmeg and Eat Your Carrots (yes that really is the name).  The nutmeg was a little too brown and the carrots was waaay too orange. Mixed together, they worked nicely!

To distress the edges a bit, I used a sponge with a Staz On Brown ink pad.  This is a solvent ink pad that is permanent and waterproof. Because the cover was painted, the ink dried nice and quick.

Next I used a fun date stamp from Close to my Heart with the same Staz On ink pad to make the date circle on the front.

I used letters from Making Memories to make the title and then used a bat punch by Martha Stewart crafts, (one of my favorites) on an old dictionary page.

Am I early?  Oh heck yes. When I think about all the fun things that we'll be doing in October (camping trip, Harry Potter exhibit coming to the Seattle Science Center, decorating in the new house, pumpkins, etc.) I am really inspired.

Bring on fall, I am totally ready.

organizing family photos and albums

Most people who read my blog know that I love to take pictures.  A lot of pictures. And I also like to scrapbook and create Life Art, its a great creative outlet for me and I love looking back on all of our memories.

I've gotten a lot of questions from people asking how I organize everything and I am finally explaining everything from albums to photos.

We have two ikea bookshelves in our living room that hold all of our books,

I like having them out in the open in a central location.

At this point in our lives, I have the albums divided into four categories: Roman, Family, Christmas and Week In The Life (still on volume 1 of that one, I just started last year).  I also have any mini-books that I've done in a basket below the albums (you can see the top of it in the top photo).

Because these books span eleven years, I also have some specialty albums, our wedding, my family history, Zach's family history, my high school & college memories, Roman's first year and yes, I even have smaller albums for the pets (keep in mind that we had the pets before Roman came along so I had some extra time on my hands).  You can also see that I've used several different types of albums over the years, the one thing that keeps everything "together" is the labeling system that I use on the spines.

I see a lot of software out there to help organize photos and to me it looks like it takes something that can be simple and makes it complicated (and I loathe complicated).

I organize my pictures like I organize my albums, we have a "media" folder with subfolders of "Christmas Album", "Family Album", "Roman's Album" and "Other Albums".

The Christmas Album folder has subfolders with the years the photos were taken (with a Christmas Past folder for random scanned pictures when I was a kid).  I didn't go digital until 2005 so thats when the folders start,

Our Family Album photos are organized the same way,

and Roman's photos are organized by his age,

The Other Albums folder is for projects like Week In The Life, December Daily, etc.

Then when I download my pictures from my computer, I make a folder for each event (Roman's Birthday, a fun Saturday outing, etc.) and then put the photos in the corresponding folder.

Last year I decided to try a December Daily album, something new and really fun, but I found that I was repeating a lot of the same things in our Christmas family album.  So this year, I knew that I wanted to do something similar to the December Daily...just not in December.

My favorite month is and always has been October.  I love everything about it, from the leaves changing, the pumpkins, the super fun Halloween decorations and the cooler temperatures.  And every year, it seems to go by way too fast.  So this year, in December Daily tradition, I'm going to be doing an Everyday October album - something that I am really, really excited about.

So that's it - my super simple, non-complicated system. If you have a user-friendly system I'd love to hear about it!

December Daily 2009: Days 29, 30 & 31

This is my last post about DD 2009. "boo" and "yay" are running through my mind right now, I really loved running around like a total geek with my camera around my neck taking pictures of everything every day (which really isn't too different from my everyday life...but whatever). This was really really fun. I will be doing this next year with bells on.

Onto the goods - here is day 29 before:

and after:

stuff I used: word stickers by Making Memories; patterned paper by My Mind's Eye; pages from an antique dictionary; my old typewriter; font used: avenir.

This was our last day in Wenatchee and the first day I started to feel better.  Murphy's Law I tell you.

Here is day 30 before (now this one was fun):

and after (the pics turned out a wee bit blurry):

Stuff I used: Starbucks bag;  tab punch by McGill; word stickers by Making Memories; old school dymo label maker. 

I was so happy to have my SLR that day, the views from the train coming home were breathtaking! Living here is so awesome, I love Washington.

And now my last day....day 31 before!

and after (I have two pages of after...will explain below):

Stuff I used: transparency talked about here; lined scalloped journaling page, unknown; December calendar embellishment by Jenni Bowlin Studio; word stickers by Making Memories.

I finished this page with a transparency pocket on both sides so that I could put some thoughts on the very last page.

Stuff I learned from December Daily: the little things matter most; before printing journaling on photos, keep in mind where you holes will be; eyelets look nice but make your book thicker and the pages harder to turn (won't be using them next year); it really is fun if you challenge yourself to use what you have on hand; don't use felt to cover an album if you have pets (I've sticky rolled it about 50 times so far); a daily book is fun for me but is like Disneyland for my kiddo (which is awesome, he loves looking at it); I will so totally be doing this next year.

Thank you to Ali Edwards who inspired this project and thank you to my husband and son who put up with 31 days of me shoving my camera in their faces...even more than usual.  Love you boys.

December Daily 2009: Days 25, 26, 27 & 28

Happy New Year everyone!  I am incredibly stoked (did I just say that?!) to write this email, man did I have fun with this project.  I will seriously be doing more mini-books now.  So much fun.

Without further ado.....here is Day 25 before:

And here it is after:

Stuff I used: patterned paper from behind both photos from My Mind's Eye; word stickers by Making Memories; paint on left page, "spotlight" by Making Memories; transparency on right page talked about on my day five page here; font used: avenir.

Lots of fun.  And yes that is Skype on the page on the right, my sister and her boyfriend are in England for the holiday. Technology rocks.

And now on to day 26!  Here is the layout before:

And here are the "after" pages, I have two because of the file folder:

on this page I put memorabilia in the left pocket and I covered the file folder on the right with photos.  That was fun.  I designed a fun journaling box in Illustrator (I'm really loving doing that lately) and wrote in with white pen.  All aboard!

Stuff I used: File folder from Staples (cut down and corners rounded); white journaling pen by Signo (this is by far the best white pen I have found and I have gone through a bunch); gaffer tape by 7gypsies; word stickers by Making Memories; "26" letters by Thickers (I think this is the funniest, wittiest name for a product ever by the way).

This was fun to put together but a little time consuming, I traced around the photo (stuck on the file folder) with a finger tip craft knife (which I highly recommend for doing detailed cutting).

Here is day 27 before:

and after:

Stuff I used: random ledger paper from Bartell Drugstore; pages from an antique dictionary; word stickers from Making Memories; mini letter stickers from Making Memories; stamp set is an oldie I got for a great deal on eBay; ornament on right page, unknown; "27" number stickers from Creative Memories (I think they may be retired, I got them a really long time ago).

I didn't take many pictures that day, my cold had gone from bad to worse and I slept most of the day.  Now onto day 28 before:

and after:

for this layout I ended up using two ways of showing the number 28.  Why?  I found this awesome website called Sky Blue Pink, if you are looking for fun playing cards to use in altered art projects or scrapbooking - you must see this website.  It is awesome.  Anyways, I found some fun Christmas playing cards and thought I would use them for next year's album. I got them and couldn't wait.  They are really, really cute.

Stuff I used: patterned paper from My Mind's Eye; stocking graphic behind "28" from Making Memories; "28" numbers unknown; word stickers by Making Memories; font used: bookman.

29, 30 and 31 coming tomorrow, stay tuned sports fans!

December Daily 2009: Day 23 & 24

Merry Christmas Eve! Our stockings are hung, our presents are wrapped and I am ready to share some December Daily pages!  here is Day 23's layout before:

And here is the layout after:

This layout was inspired by Ali's day eleven page, I fell in love with that fabric tag the moment I saw it.  This was really fun to put together and I'm sure that many parents out there can relate.  Here is a close up of the picture collage on the left (I put this together in Adobe Photoshop CS):

And here is a close up of the list on the right:

And here is the stuff I used: canvas tag by Pink Paislee; small letter stickers by Making Memories; printed paper behind clear acrylic by My Mind's Eye; font used: Rockwell Condensed.

Here is today's layout before:

and after:

I did this almost 100% digital, collage on the left and layout on the right was designed in Photoshop CS, snowflake was downloaded from Microsoft.com's free clip art section and altered in Adobe Illustrator; "hello" drawn with my Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet (this is super fun for putting hand-drawn elements on your digital layouts); "24" cut from this page by Making Memories; font used: avenir.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year!  We will be on the road the day after Christmas so no blog posts until the 31st.  But then I hope to have the rest of the album finished.  Gotta go, I think I hear something on the roof...and bells too...

December Daily 2009. Days 19, 20, 21, 22

Seriously?  Two days until Christmas?  Holy smokes.  We're all still sick, but I am hoping that we feel better tomorrow for family get-togethers.

This year is kind of funny.  My house is a mess, my laundry runneth over, we're sick, and yet I am super happy.  I think that having this extra creative outlet really helps me feel more like me.  And that is cool.   

I have some updates for our December Daily album!  Here is day 19 before:

 And here is the layout after:

 

Stuff I used: Starbucks cup (hee hee), gaffer tape by 7gypsies; game spinner by Tim Holtz; vintage red labels by Papier Valise; border punch by Fiskars.

On to the next!  Here is day 20 before:

And after:

This layout was super fun, I was inspired by this gal's December Daily picture and was able to recreate it at my parents' house (no breakable ornaments here).  I think its pretty funny that Roman looks much taller than me in that picture.  A sign of things to come for sure.  Like next week or something.

Stuff I used: number paper by Making Memories; clear acrylic frame, unknown; red ink on clear acrylic frame by Close To My Heart (Cranberry); tag by Avery; border punch by Fiskars; font used, avenir.

Here is day 21 before:

Earlier I had switched day 6 with day 21, so there should be a white envelope from day 6 here. But then my sister gave us a Christmas card with a super cool red envelope and I ended up using that instead.  Here is the after:

This layout was inspired by Ali's day three page.  I loved the idea of writing a letter to your kiddo in the book.

Stuff I used: santa paper by My Mind's Eye; "21" circle designed in photoshop (font is Rockwell Condensed) and cut out with Marvy Uchida's Super Jumbo Circle Punch (which is 2 inches wide - a great size to have on hand); border punch on envelope, threading water by Fiskars; letter stamps by Stampin' Up (the ones I used I think are retired, I ended up getting them on eBay for super cheap); tab punch by McGill. 

On to day 22!  Here is the layout before:

And here is the layout after:

Stuff I used: my kiddo's artwork from school; star ticket by Jenni Bowlin Studio; same stamp set used on day 21; binder-edged border punch by EK Success; "22" numbers unknown; mini index card for journaling.

I will actually be going all the way to the 31st with my album, our family always goes over the pass to see my husband's family where we have our second Christmas.  So stay posted, much more to come!

my heart is happy...but my throat is sore

I caught the cold.  Boo.  But my spirits are up and my heart is extremely happy right now, if you guys haven't checked out the December Daily Flickr page - check it out here.

It is amazing, inspirational, happy, creative....awesome.  I think that it is so cool that there are so many artists out there that are sharing their work with us.  It seriously makes my heart happy.

December Daily freebie

After doing my day 17 page I realized that it would be fun to offer the "hello Tradition" journaling box that I designed to anyone that could use it.  It is a bit of a funky size, 5" high by 5.67" wide (I sized it to my page), but hopefully you can make it work with your project. 

If you are just using it as a black and white element, you can click on the image above to see the full-sized, print-quality version and "right click" to save it to your computer.  Or you can download the zipped up .png file by clicking here.

You can re-color the element by following the steps on the Designer Digitals website here.  Let me know if you use it - I'd like to start doing more of these freebies if they are useful.  Have a creative day!

December Daily 2009: Day 17 & 18

I finally feel like I have a handle on things - I have only one present left to wrap (wahoo) that should be here tomorrow.  I'm happy about this because I can now ditch this whole "responsible adult" thing and start enjoying Christmas like a kid with my kid (and of course my husband).  Yay to that!

I am a few days behind on my posts, so here is what my day 17 layout looked like before:

And here it is after:

Roman absolutely LOVES Charlie Brown and I thought it would be fitting to do a day on it.

Stuff I used: Wacom pen to draw "hello" in Photoshop; images from the internet; font: avenir.

On to day 18!  This one was super fun.  Here is the layout before:

 

And here it is after:

It was our day to take pictures with Santa!  So much fun.  Roman was a little bit shy but kept it together.  My sister's little girl did awesome!  Happy as always.  This one was fun because I got to include the receipt in with the photo on the right.  It'll be fun to look at that in 20 years and think how "cheap" pictures were "back then" lol.

Stuff I used: transparency talked about on my day 5 page; photoshop.  Super simple this time. Avenir font used again (one of my favorites).

More to come tomorrow, have a warm and safe night everyone =0)

December Daily 2009: Day 16

Time is not flying by....it is jetting by.  I can't believe that we are almost to Christmas!  Here is my day 16 page before:

And here is the layout after:

Every night after dinner, I go downstairs and get my work/creative time on while Zach spends time with Roman (which is why my office hours are so late).  This usually involves a lot of roughhousing and playing.  Last night was particularly loud (laughing and yelling) and I actually said (sarcastically) "ha - do you hear what I hear" to myself.  So I went with it - hee hee.

I used the same type of colors that I have on the album itself, light blue and red.  I initially wanted to do red letters but you could see the red stamped letters on the left as well as the red "15" so I thought I would go with blue.  I wanted to do something special with the pictures and remembered this fun technique of rounding only two opposite corners.  The bigger the corner, the better the shape!  So I used the large corner rounder from EK success (it is a little over a half inch) for maximum cool-shape-ness. 

other stuff used:  grungeboard letters by Tim Holtz; scrapbook paint by Making Memories; paper on the left behind photo is by My Mind's Eye (this was purchased a few years ago and is discontinued); wee little word stickers by Making Memories; bird punches by Martha Stewart Crafts; Red Stick-It Felt; journaling circle created in Adobe Illustrator and cut out with Marvy Uchida Super Jumbo Scalloped Circle Punch.

While I'm fairly caught up with this whole December Daily thing....I have yet to get my Christmas presents taken care of (ha!).  So I'll be working on those quite a bit in the next few days.  But I would so rather be working on December Daily.  Yup. 

December Daily 2009: Day 12, 13, 14 & 15

I have realized that doing a handmade Christmas and a December Daily album is kind of a lot for me to handle. Thus the super long break between posts.  But I have to say that I am having so much fun!  On to day 12!

Here is the layout before:

And here is the layout after:

I had so much fun decorating the coffee sleeve!  Onto the supplies: Starbucks Coffee Sleeve, Game Spinners by Tim Holtz; Clock transparancy by Heidi Swapp (I found this on eBay, I think it is discontinued); patterned paper by My Mind's Eye; ribbon, JoAnn Fabrics; labels by Avery; Holly elements cut with Martha Stewart Holly Punch and Stick It Felt; word stickers by Making Memories.

On to Day 13!  Here is the layout before:

And here is the layout after:

Today we saw snow flurries - the first of the season!  Roman loved it, he kept saying "look mommy, it's Christmas!".

Supplies used:  Pages from an antique dictionary (I got mine on eBay); word stickers by Making Memories; Polka Dot Patterned paper by Making Memories; typewriter; thread; font used, Avenir. 

Hello Day 14!  Here is the layout before:

And here is the layout after:

Supplies used: Poinsettia Blossom by Making Memories; "joy" and "my favorite gift" journaling tags also by Making Memories; paper tag underneath "14" by Papier Valise; vintage dictionary page; letter stickers by Creative Memories.

On to day 15!  Here is the layout before:

And here is the layout after:

I didn't use pictures on this layout (I didn't even take pictures that day), I thought it would be fun to put one of my planner pages in here, complete with my chicken scratch handwriting.  I also wanted to put a library card in there but it was too short.  So I stuck two together and used a ribbon to hide the seam.  Crafty eh?

Supplies used:  letter stamps and ink by Close To My Heart; planner page by Franklin Covey; library card bought at Discount School Supply - I LOVE this website; "You are Here" stamp by Stampers Anonymous.

That's all folks - stay tuned!!