Hopefully after catching up with this one… the rest of my project life posts will be in order.  It drives me a little batty to have them all mixed up.

Week 1:

Left side:

I know I shared a little peek as I was making it on Instagram.  (I usually do).  The little cardboard spy badge still makes me smile.

And that deer head.  Sigh.  Hubby stuck it up a tree.  It’s still there 8 weeks later.  We would not be good townfolk.  ha ha.

Right side:

I like using the 3×4 cards in the 4×6 slots along with a photo.

You can find a tutorial for this mini here (Farmhouse Mini Book Tutorial).

Join Maggie Holmes in our Calico Classroom March self-paced class, Happy Little Moments. Life is full of happy little moments that we often don’t scrapbook. This altered book is the perfect place to tuck them in along with a few sentiments and beautiful hand picked embellishments.

Maggie will walk you through the creation process and show you some fun techniques for making a magical and unique album.

Although the class kits are now sold out, you can follow along with the PDF using a hardcover book, patterned paper, and your favorite embellishments (like I did).

Here’s a sneak of what Maggie created…

I used my own supplies to play along and I’m soo very happy with how my project turned out.  Here’s some sneaks from my book using the class PDF and my own supplies.

You can learn more about how I made my project kit from my own stash over here.

So, here’s the part you’re all waiting for… the good folks over at Studio Calico are letting me give away a spot in this class.  Just leave me a comment telling me one of the happy little moments you want to record in this altered book.  I’ll leave the giveaway open until Friday night.

I used a mix of 9 to 5, Farmhouse, Cakewalk and Boarding Pass for this one.  I cut the zig zags out with my silhouette and trimmed the edges off.  This way I could space them however I wanted.

The sketch called for squares of patterned paper and I layered them underneath my photo.  I kept my title and zigzags monochromatic so that I could still have some white space on a pattern heavy page.

1.  I’ve been dealing with a couple of large orders and new designs.  While this is bad for you now (since it takes away my time from my own store), trust me, you’ll benefit greatly when I’m done those!  More on that at a future date.

2.  My button supplier has been out of stock of my badge supplies for a month.  This has delayed both my own little shop updates and also the wholesale orders.

Once my supplies arrive I’ll be taking care of my wholesale orders first and THEN be restocking the shop again (hopefully with a little cosmetic update too).  I’m also changing the way that I’m delivering my digital files, so that’s taking up some time as well.

In March I’ll be taking a two-week break from the internet world.  It’ll be hard, but it’ll be nice.  It’s needed.  We’ve got lots of quality and family time planned.  I’m hoping to get in some designing during that time as well.  I’m debating whether or not I’ll shut down the store during this time, or just leave the digital portion of it up.

Once my break is over and the wholesale orders are complete I’ll be restocking the store.  At this point I’m guessing it’ll be mid-April-ish.  I plan on keeping that place humming after that and will be working on making larger quantities so that the supply is there.  The badges always sell out so fast, and while I’m super grateful to you guys for that, I want to be able to stock more of those.  Along with the badges there’ll also be a lot of new items in the store (and if you follow my instagram feed you will have seen peeks of these).

So, I have a little update for today.  These have been ready to go for a while, but I finally just got the files together.

I use these in every week spread of my Project Life album.  I use them to add in the little bits of the week that didn’t make it into pockets or get represented with photos.

You’ll get .png and .pdf files emailed to you within 24 hours of purchase.  Find them in the shop here.

 Kathy Rohe!

Congratulations!  I’ll be in touch.

Week 2:  

I think I’m going crazy because I’m certain I’ve shared this week, but I can’t find it here.  So, if all of a sudden I have… I apologize for the 2 minutes of your time I’ll be wasting.  :)

It’s been so long I don’t even remember what we did this week!  ha ha.  I remember I worked for my dad, we had a little cold snap, we took the kids skating and started school again.

Left side:

Still using those silhouette shapes.  LOVE them.  I really need to make some more… I’m running low.

Also playing around with the Photobooth app on my phone.

Right side:

I love using the label journaling cards and adding titles.  Perfect and simple.

The Crate and October Afternoon journaling cards on a 12×12 sheet are also the perfect size for the 3×4 pockets.

I created a little flip book for one of the 4×6 pockets where I had one more little photo than I had room for.

Project life is a system created by Becky Higgins to help you simplify how you document life and preserve memories.  It’s a reminder to celebrate the little things.  You can find out more about Project Life here.  You can find more of my Project Life posts here.

Today:  Today is for cleaning the upstairs and working on projects.  I’m considering a blog break soon.  If I can I want to plan posts to go up so it might be a good idea to start planning.  But that really sounds like no fun whatsoever…  ;)

Have a great weekend everyone!

I was so very fortunate to be asked to be a contributor for Maggie’s Happy Little Moments class.  I was to complete the class project with items from my own stash.  I’ve talked about the class briefly before, but here’s the run-down.

For those of you considering the class but not purchasing the class kit I wanted to share with you a little bit of my kit building process.

If you’re purchasing the class kit you’ll be receiving a hard cover book which is the cornerstone of this class.  If you’re building your own kit (like I am) you’ll need to purchase your own.  Thrift stores have an abundance of gently used hardcover books.  The most important factor (for me) was finding a book that had a title that would work with my project.  I found these too at the second-hand store and brought them home.  Either of these would work for me.  Look for a book that’s between 1-2″ thick (mine is 1″) and approximately 5×8″ tall.

Once you have your book you can start building your kit.  I kept the color of the spine in mind as I did this.

The nice thing about using your own stash for this project is that a) you can customize your kit to reflect you and make it as neutral or girlish or boyish as you want, and b) you can make your kit as large or as small as you like.

Here’s a picture of the products I intend to work with.  I say intend because I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll add and subtract to/from this as I go.

I think the key to building a kit for this class is to have a variety of product.  Just like the food groups!  :)

So, let’s break this kit down and I’ll explain what I’ve pulled and why.

1. Paper.   I started building my kit with patterned paper.  I picked out my color scheme (yellow, grey, blue and orange) and pulled out papers that worked.  Lots of Chap and October Afternoon.  When I create pages I like to have one large print and multiple smaller prints, but because the project is smaller in size I stuck with small prints.  I tried to have a variety of styles… some dots, some stripes, some chevron, etc.  Most everything I add next will reflect the color scheme chosen by my papers.

2.  Accent sheets.  Coordinates with some of the papers and makes great journaling cards.

3.  Alphabets.  I may yet include a smaller type to add variety but I chose two for now in two different colors.

4.  Ribbon.  I dug through my ribbon basket and pulled out ribbon in varying thicknesses.  The thicker ribbon will be great for the cover and for making banners/pennants.

5.  Doilies.  The girliest thing that I included.

6.  Punched shapes.  I decided that since I’m going for a less girlie theme that I would substitute flowers for stars.  Nice and generic…. works for girls and boys.  Punched hearts would also be great, except that my heart punch broke making cupcake toppers on Valentines Day.

7.  Labels.  I had a pile of labels and bubble tags on my desk for a future shop update and they happened to be in the right color scheme so I added those into the pile.  Many companies (like Jenni Bowlin and Martha Stewart) make great label stickers.

8.  Die-cut tags.  I’m guilty of hoarding my Studio Calico tags so I’m planning on using some of them up in this project.

9.  Tickets.

10.  Shipping tags.  I use shipping tags on everything.  They’re great on their own or for hidding journaling when tucked behind a photo.  Because this project doesn’t include page protectors it’s a great chance to use them for that purpose.

11.  Badges.  I would have made some badges exclusive for my kit, but I’m totally out of supplies at the moment so I took some from my “not-quite-perfect-enough-for-resale” pile and I’ll use those.

12.  Buttons.

13.  Glassine bags or envelopes.

14.  Twine.

15.  Gems.

16.  Chipboard.  I’m including miscellaneous chipboard hearts and buttons.  Not a lot of bulk.

17.  Journaling Cards.  Like the accent cards I listed earlier these cards pulled from my project life stash will be great for journaling or matting photos.  Added to the pile… loosed cards and a blank Smash pad.

Not shown:  Mister Huey mists, washi tape, date stamp, stickers (I’m using the 12×12 sticker set from October Afternoon Farmhouse which includes shapes and borders), sewing machine and my Cameo

A great product to add to your pile would be the October Afternoon Miscellany (which I did after I took the photo).  They include such a nice variety of goodies… from tickets, flashcards and word strips… to buttons and ribbon.  Absolutely perfect for this project.  I have the Farmhouse and the 5 & Dime packages that I’m using right now.

So, go get a book and dig through your stash.  Find a color scheme you love and pull a variety of product.  You can always add more as you go.  ;)  Hope to see you in class!

But over at Swissgirl Designs they’re having a blog hop.  Our only requirement for today (other than highlighting the Swissgirl stamps)… make it sparkly and make it about love.  So that’s what I did.

I’ve been dying to dig into that Crate Paper Heart line!

I love all the little typed phrases that are in the stamp sets.

Lots of layering.  I think I upped the ante on the bulky factor with this one.  ;)

There’s a lot of supplies that I use that are older and I can’t link too… like the wood veneer Studio Calico frames, jewels and the Making Memories ticket… but here’s the rest…

And what’s a blog hop without a giveaway?  :)

Leave me a comment and tell me what you’re doing for Valentines Day.  And if you’re not doing anything… tell me that!   I’ll draw a winner Thursday night and get these lovely stamps on their way.

Now, for another chance to win, hop on over to Amy Parker’s blog.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It was a little frustrating for the boys until the bumpers were up.

After every single turn he stood at the lane with his hands behind his back like this…

So funny.

Molly’s been going bowling with her school on Fridays so she actually did quite well.  By the end of the afternoon everyone had a spare or two.

Today:  Today I need to get my to-do list together and hopefully get a jump on some assignments.  I’m really wanting to restock the store, but I’m still waiting for my button supplies which are out of stock.  So, if you’re waiting for those… so am I!  ;)

I’m going to start pulling my supplies for the March class at Studio Calico in the next day or two and posting my process… so if you’re interested in signing up and not purchasing the kit, hopefully that’ll help you out.

Happy Monday everyone.