One of my goals when I turned 30 is to be able to complete one album that is all about ME. My album is nowhere is near completion but I have it all in my head. I have been quite frustrated with the way my pictures are lately (weight gain + crappy photographer who doesnt know how to use her camera) but I aim to compare digital cameras and decide if I should get a new dSLR for us again.

Here is the cover the album I plan to do:

Cover for my 30 things in 30 album:

Credits:
Susan Bartolini Just a Thought
Libby Pritchett Paper Clips Background

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I will just do a 30 events that shaped me at 30 book. Words + pictures!

Today is the last day of November for us here and tomorrow we will be going full head-on with December’s countdown to Christmas! 25 days to Christmas?! Are you excited?

I think I am. Slowly, getting excited, that is. I still haven’t gotten our tree up but will take care of it today as I promised the kids we will. Black diamond earrings will be kept in the drawers as I am going to be in my jammies all day, listening to Christmas tunes and getting into the holiday spirit.

If you are asking me if I am going to be doing a December Daily album, the answer to that would be a NO. Since it’s too late for me to actually prepare for one and I am almost certain I would not be able to take a picture everyday for December. With the kids in school and me being busy with work and trying to rest as much as I can (sick again!), I don’t want to pressure myself into documenting the season. For once, I think I’m just going to be laid back, and see what happens afterwards. (I got to do my Christmas Album 2010 in June 2011 – so, you get the picture).

However, I have some Christmas favorite kits already

I really wanted to do a 5×7 album this year since I still have my Evalicious Christmas hybrid album from 2008:

We will see, you can read about how Lynnette did hers (and plan to do hers along the way), here.

And some of the kits I am partial with:
Deck The Halls: Collection by Kristin Cronin-Barrow

KCB’s Christmas Collection ALWAYS ALWAYS ends up to be a favorite. I have used her Christmas collection last year for my 2010 album and I have been so pleased with it. (Plus her colors are very friendly with a Christmas that doesn’t experience snow and winter dont you think? )

Now, Dani’s kit HAS a snowman, granted. But the papers are just so yummy! Very child-like (like my kids) —- and I am guilty of ordering Christmas PJs to match THAT kit
Fa-La-La Layout Kit by Dani Mogstad

And for those who want the paper-ish look and feel, Jenn’s kit is perfect. All the tidbits are going straight into my Christmas album I can tell:
Kitschy Christmas by Jenn Barrette and Sahlin Studio

This probably would be my last album project for 2011 – since it’s almost end of November and I haven’t finished it yet (still with March). I am going to make an album of almost all of my Instagram photos (photos taken from an iPhone and uploaded through the Instagr.am app for photo effects) because I have been consistent with taking pictures from my camera phone rather than my actual camera so real life has been captured more there. (Sad, I know).

Hopefully, I can finish everything up — I have been loaded with too much work lately, studying about austin nutritional counseling, planning Christmas activities with my family, doing major budgeting with the husband for the upcoming year (trying to finish a huge project so we can meet a goal this year) that scrapbooking needs to take a backseat for a while.

I haven’t forgotten you though. I will get back to you!

I am on a scrapping roll – finished two albums for a friend (My daughter’s godparent) and I used a lot of Janet Phillips and Ali Edwards on these beauties. I will be sharing more, come August 1st. (Stay tuned for a post on the SSD blog!)

She threw a party for my daughter:

See completed album here.

I particularly love this:

So regal, elegant and classy dont you think? Papers from Andrea Victoria!
Click here for the album!

So I have officially decided Sunday night that I will jump into the wagon and participate in A Week in the Life. Ali Edwards is doing it this week, and a whole bunch of scrappers so what better way than to tag along and get some inspiration from them too.

At SSD, Traci Reed has a whole bundle of AWITL products called 10,080 minutes which you can use and the forum has its own threads where you can share pages and talk about AWITL.

As for me, I have an idea which things to document – the PDF file Ali on her blog shared was great on tips.

So here is how I am doing collecting everything. I originally intended it to be all photos from my iPhone but decided last minute Monday that I want to have pictures from my camera too. I am already a pretty heavy document-er – I use IG (iPhone app), Twitter and blog a lot so what I needed was a way to make sure I collect them all. Enter Momento. It’s an iphone app that lets you document life and sync feeds too – which you can export. I syndicated my IG feed, twitter and personal blog feed to it & make one liner comments all throughout the day (Eg: 8AM My nose is itchy ) and before I sleep, I run an export which allows it to be downloaded from my iTunes library. (I haven’t downloaded my Momento export feeds & pictures for yesterday).

I also take screenshots of relevant current events (news) or witty tweets (I would be documenting tweets). I have a spread in my planner where I have a timeline what happens. It’s very random and usually my handwriting is haphazard. Ill figure it out when I sit down to assemble the album.

What I document:
1. Food
2. News
3. Self-Portraits – no matter how ugly I feel I am these days
4. Clothes we wear
5. Routine
6. Around the house
7. Weather
8. Places We go (which is pretty much house + church + my parents’ house + kids’ school)

Can’t wait how this looks like in the end!

When you are a scrapper, you would hear this phrase – “Christmas in July” all the time. It means that you can either finish your holiday album last year or get ready for Christmas this year, especially if you love to give out handmade (scrapbook-made) gifts and books. And I am proud I was able to accomplish one thing – finish our Christmas 2010 Album! That last time I was able to complete something like this was way back in 2007 and God knows I had good intentions in documenting those from 2008 and 2009 (eventually). Even the holiday cards made from last year have not been sent (it’s one of my traditions unfortunately).

Here is the finished product (thankfully I have artscow codes!)
LINK

My most favorite spreads:

What made this easier is the fact that ALL holiday-related kits + templates + elements/brushes are in a folder ever since in my hard drive. I am pretty organized with my pictures so it was easier to pick (I delete a lot when doing the album). All of these are a mish-mash of stuff from Designer Digitals and Sweet Shoppe Designs + One Little Bird Designs.

This is an album 10 years in the making, literally and figuratively. Ever since I saw Janet’s Phillips Birthday Book I knew I wanted to do one for my kids, especially my eldest, who turned 10 last December. I have never documented his birthdays extensively and never planned to try and get “caught” up (we were never into parties anyways prior to our second child) so this was the perfect album to show how he has celebrated every year – and see how he has grown up!

Deciding to do it was easy but gathering all the pictures I wanted and how I will insert spreads into the numbered pages were hard. What I did was put the project in one folder in my hard drive labelled it BOOK OF BIRTHDAYS.

THE MATERIALS:

KITS & TEMPLATES
1. The template album by Janet Phillips
2. A folder where the birthday kits were stored. I decided on using these kits using kraft paper as base. I decided on using a mish mash of stuff with bright papers.
Jennifer Barrette Totally Rad Birthday
Julie Billingsley Funfetti
Traci Reed It’s My Party
Lauren Grier Birthday Monsters
3. A Lot of Cindy Schneider’s Super Seven Templates – I figured that I would include some tidbits on the celebration itself and these were perfect since I cannot gauge how I can partner page spreads.

THE PHOTOS
It was a good thing I have gone digital since 2004. But organization isn’t one of my stronger points prior to 2005 when I started scrapbooking so I had to manually download pictures from my Photobucket and Flickr accounts for his 4th and 5th birthdays. His birthdays from 1-3 were from pre-digital ages so I had to scan them in. (Tiring see? – all for the love!)

I had the birthdays by year in a folder labelled 1st, 2nd and so on.

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The whole organization, collecting, scanning, deciding which kits and approach to use AND deciding when to start took over a year – seriously. I would start, stop, forget about it and do the cycle again. But thank heavens for sentimentality that I was pushed and motivated to finally sit down and do one (of course the Artscow promos were 90% reason too).

I finished these in 48 hrs. I cannot stress this enough – if everyone was just as organized as they want themselves to be, we would be cranking out albums in no time. Tamad-itis and the lack of time aside, seeing everything laid out in front of you is just easy-peasy! We have templates so it makes it 1000% easier.

I used the little cute animals from Traci’s It’s My Party kit – the animals are more than worth it – it also works for both girls and boys so more value for your buck!

Examples:

An example of the pages I inserted in between:

You can view the whole album here.

And a Flickr set.

I have been thinking more and more about Project Life, the one spearheaded by Becky Higgins. It is easier to think and obsess about than looking for the best acne pills in the market (I have grown two huge pimples last month which has not gone away, for three weeks!).

I have read Becky Higgins’ blog, and her vision amazes me and has captured such a huge place in my scrapbooking heart. If not for my OCD tendencies stating I need to start in January (despite everyone saying you can start anytime), I would have done so already. Of course, I am quite apprehensive if this is one of those projects that will not be finished, but I have done my research and subscribed to a couple of Project Lifers’ blogs and I think this one is something I can do – photos and words with a few layouts + momentos. Do-able.

In the meantime, I am going to be compiling all my 2010 layouts in ONE album, regardless of topic. I will compiling them by month, using my Monthly Layouts as sort of a divider/marker of a new month. Let us see how it will turn out.

I finally had some me time over the weekend and finished the kids’ swimming lessons album. I do not intend to print this in just one album — this goes together with all the summer activities they will be having this summer. So nice to get into the groove — finished 31 pages in less than 24 hrs. It helps that I focused on photos (they speak for themselves) and Anna Aspnes’ templates were so perfect. I might not have her genius design mind, but I am so grateful I can be a copycat because of her templates.

Some of my favorites from the set. You can view them all here.

I have been thinking a lot about Becky Higgins’ Project Life kit. I have been wanting to get one ever since it came out, but was hesitant on how to go through with it for a year.

But all the videos and tutorials coming out with all the ideas one can do with the kit is making me think twice, especially since I have two kids in school and I want a way for it to be a work-in-progress album. I want to have layouts, stand alone pictures, their certificates in one place. Can I do it? Especially now that the schoolyear is almost every and I want to find a way to help me store everything else.

What makes the Project Life kit better than last year is that there are now picture sleeves and there are album sleeves with different sizes. I am totally loving how Ali Edwards incorporates BIG pictures into her Project Life.

There are more varieties too:

Maybe I need to think about this more