Project Life, Week 41 & 42; Week 50

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. I'm always excited when the next day is Friday :) I just had an awesome checkup and we only have 13 more weeks until Travis joins our family!! I passed my glucose test with flying colors and we have a sonogram in 3 weeks. I have been so blessed in this pregnancy and it is not something I take for granted.

Today I'm sharing Week 41 & 42 that lives in one spread. This included a week where I was out of town for training and I didn't feel like the weeks needed two individual spreads. This was the first time I did this & loved taking off the pressure of having to "fill" a week where I just didn't capture a bunch. I like that this album reflects our life even in this way.

Lots of Instagram pictures these weeks since I didn't really take out my DSLR.

Loved cutting down an envelope so that I could add more journaling about finding out that the baby was a boy :)

Week 50 was shared in part on Becky's blog post yesterday but I thought I would share the rest here today.

I am loving these bags from Michelle, my fellow creative team member, I actually just ordered a bunch of Chevron ones that came in the mail yesterday. A great place to tuck away some journaling. The small bags fit perfectly in the 3x4 slots!

Santa brought me a Silhouette for Christmas and the happy birthday was my first cut. I need to play with it more. Both Lisa Truesdell (gluestickgirl) & Ali Edwards are rocking it and provide such inspiration!

So this was fun. One of the games we played at Garrett's birthday party was guess how many Legos are in the jar. Garrett has known a few of these boys since he was Owen's age and I anticipate we will watch many of them grow into young men. I really wanted to capture their handwriting right now so I set out journaling cards for them to right down their guesses.

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Monica

Project Life, Week Fifty One and a Giveaway

Thank You for reading.

Thank You for sharing.

Thank You for your kind words.

The response to my post on Tuesday has brought me such joy over the last few days. I wrote that post first for me and second in hopes to connect with at least one person.

Thank You for taking time to connect.

As a small thank you I would like to give one of you a brand new Clementine Album. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post as to why you are doing Project Life this year and I'll draw a winner on Tuesday.

I have so much more to share but I made a promise (to me) that I would pace myself to make sure I work on Project Life as much as I blog about it :)

With that here is Week 51 which was all about working up to the holidays, happy mail, getting ready for Christmas, with a good dose of daily life thrown in.

The pictures are little fuzzier than usual. That would be due to my growing belly & gloomy weather this week. It is very hard to contort to take pictures of these layouts at 26 weeks pregnant!! My behind the scenes post on how this week came together will be up later today. Thanks for stopping by!

Monica

Project Life, Week Forty Four

While I escape the work day with a few bites of a yummy slice of hamburger pizza from across the street and indulge in some garlic bread dipped in marinara I thought I would share my latest Project Life week finished. Can you tell with my focus on comfort food it's been a stressful morning which included but is not limited to driving to work not once but twice today because I left my wallet at home and didn't even have enough money to pay to park? Sheesh.

On to happier times, like Friday. I had a Project Life date with one of my favorite girlfriends and her new baby. In between gushing over our boys, general enjoyment of her company and admiring my new furniture in the playroom I actually was able to put the finishing touches on Week 44.

This week was all about Halloween, a new artist in the house, missing teeth, thankfulness, deer hunting, soccer, check ups two months too late, new recipes and Project Life.

What I love about this week is that I used the Turqouise edition (my opening card), the Amber edition (my thankful cards) and the Cobalt edition (the card on Owen's drawing) and it all worked together!! I love that I can mix and match the different editions to get a look that is me.

I broke out my typewriter for the first time and really love the feel it gives the week. But, I'm afraid I don't know how to really use it since it doesn't seem the ribbon actually moves/progresses/winds when I type. It should, shouldn't it? Yeah, I have no idea. So, whenever it was looking too faint I would manually "reel" the tape. I don't think I should have to do that. Any ideas?

One of my favorite things is the added extra instagram pictures to the month divider. I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the back of this divider but there are more pictures there too!

For my Halloween pictures I added Design D and really loved the way I could highlight my vertical pictures and have enough room to play and add in the story. I really don't think through the orientation of my pictures very much during the week so I love having the flexiblity to incorporate all of the pictures I take with all the different page protectors.

To unify the two pictures of the Dutch baby I cut a 4x6 Turquoise edition card in half so it could fit into the 3x4 slots. Quick and easy. You will notice I don't always add journaling for a picture. For example, the pictures of Garrett playing soccer were pretty self explanatory. I call it done at that point. When I do add journaling I really like adding it right to the picture, that way I have more room to add more stories.

Since I tend to layer in lots of little bits from my stash, some of which is very old I don't really highlight the products I use. But if you have questions, please ask!

Also, a couple of posts I have rolling around in my head are how I keep my products organized, my favorite journaling products, tips for those starting Project Life in 2012 (really anyone working on Project Life) and maybe a bit of my process. Would you guys be interested in this behind the scenes look? If there is anything else you can think of I'm open to suggestions.

Hope you are having a wonderful Monday!

Monica

Project Life, Week Thirty Nine

Yesterday we hosted Garrett's 7th birthday in our home and I'm still recovering just a bit. After last year's Harry Potter extravaganza I opted for a smaller, simpler lego party this year. What I forgot is how much harder things are with a toddler in tow and how much more you feel everything at 21 weeks pregnant. After the party my sciatica was getting the best of me so I laid down on the sofa to rest. It was great until I tried to get up and had a hard time standing straight!

So, even though I'm dying to play with paper I think it's best I head to bed shortly :) To appease myself a bit I'm here to share Week Thirty Nine. I think this is one of my simplest weeks so far and I still love it!

This week is looking promising with the potential to catch up on my December Daily, a scheduled Project Life playdate with some of my girlfriends and a Saturday Sew with my quilt guild to finish Mitch's Christmas present.

Hope you had a wonderful Monday!

Monica

Project Life, Week Forty

So my list is out of control crazy tonight and includes baking, sewing, building a table and those are only the have to's. The want to's are December Daily & Project Life but I'm trying not to kid myself :) So, while Garrett finishes his dessert which he forgot to eat after dinner and I'm a sucker letting him eat right before bed, I thought I'd pop in to share Week 40 of Project Life.

It may look familiar because it went live on Becky Higgins blog today. I'm seriously still pinching myself that I am part of her creative team. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be working with this amazing group of women.

As bedtime is quickly approaching here is Week 40. But before I do there has been a request from Garrett to type this: Go Aggies!

This week was about a missing tooth, ice cream in October, afternoons in the park, signs of Owen, school field trip, school accomplishments, snuggles, the first tardy of Garrett's school career and remodeling progress.

That little envelope holds a very special something that I wanted to keep but is not for little eyes.

The little envelope might have something to do with this next picture, but who knows? :)

I'm off to read a bedtime story. Hope you have had a wonderful day!

Monica

Bait & Switch

I know I promised to share Week 41 of Project Life next but I've been distracted by Christmas. Since Sunday I've been working furiously to put together a quilt top for my husband's Christmas present. I was very excited to get it done last night!!

My husband's first comment was that it really fits into the color palette of our house. I would love to say that I planned it that way but since I pulled fabrics for and began this project last Christmas I have no idea what I was thinking :)

My favorite print is the chicks which I pulled in because I wanted to use gray. Love. This is the first quilt top I've taken the time to iron my seams so they "nest" in order to get my points to match. The kicker is that it worked!! I was so afraid I'd get off track since this design really needs them to line up and was tickled with each row to see it come together. And here is the inspiration for the quilt from Film in the Fridge, same but different.

So that I keep my word, something my six year old keeps me honest on, "a promise is a promise", here are pictures of my almost finished Week 41 of Project Life.

This is most certainly one of my more random posts but I've only given myself a 10 minute break from Mid Year Evaluations at work so it's time to get back it. Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Monica