Happy first Friday in February!

I’ve got a couple things to share with you today:

ONE | If you are a One Little Word student new content is now available in the classroom. If you didn’t receive an email welcoming you back to the class be sure to check your junk/spam folder and if it’s not there contact admin@bigpictureclasses.com to troubleshoot. One Little Word has on-going registration throughout the year – you are welcome to join at anytime.

TWO | I’d like to give a warm welcome to my newest blog sponsors Close To My Heart and Addie Recoy Designs. Thank you for being a part of this community! If you’re interested in connecting your business with the awesome readers here send me an email at sponsors@aliedwards.com for more information.

THREE | Looking for a bit of weekly inspiration related to creativity in your in-box each week? Check out my 52 Creative Lifts newsletter (my personal writing project for 2012). Here’s a link to Week 5. Subscribe for free here.

The kids are here with me this weekend so I’m hoping to do lots of hanging out, watching movies, going swimming, eating pancakes & pizza & then having tacos on Sunday with family friends.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Welcome to Project Life 2012 | Week Four.

Playing catch-up the last few days as I get back into the swing of everyday life after attending CHA.

As I was working on my week I was remembering how I’m not trying to tell “every” story in this project. Sometimes I scratch the surface and sometimes I tell longer stories. And sometimes, as I found out, I can focus on a theme.

A big thing that definitely came up this past week was an overall theme of adventure. Anna got her first library card (hello adventure), Chris took the kids sledding (hello adventure), I traveled to Anaheim (hello adventure). It was actually a new way for me to look at documenting the week as a whole – choosing a specific theme to emphasize vs. focusing on the everyday stories.

I’d encourage you to try it one of these weeks. As you look back at the end of the week or as the week evolves, what seems to emerge as a theme for the week? I definitely found it a nice way to bring it all together today and it helped me solidify which stories I wanted to tell.

Here’s a look at Week Four:

I’m still loving the Sharpie pens mixed with a finer pen for my journaling.

I’ve had those awesome Jenni Bowlin Days Of The Week stamps sitting on my table for way too long. Super happy to get those out and stamp them right onto the photo using StazOn.

The insert this week is an American Crafts 6×12 divided page protector.

I played around with my Silhouette and some new 4×6 sentiment boxes that will be available next week from Designer Digitals. I loved how the first set of 3×4 Hello Life Boxes worked as a “see-through” element and wanted that option for the 4×6 size.

I’ve also got two more sets of the 3×4 Hello Life Boxes: Volume 2 (months) and Volume 3 (available tomorrow – includes more words like he, she, you, us, etc).

I added an Avery Adhesive Clear Plastic Label along the outside.

I used an American Crafts Precision Pen to write on the photo below the Hello Winter Word Art (added to the photo before printing).

You can also see where I’ve got a sticky note to add some journaling that’s coming from Chris about their adventures sledding this past weekend.

Added a little Jenni Bowlin #2 along the edge of the top right photo. Yellow arrow is from Studio Calico.

That photo on the bottom actually happened on Monday night. Most likely I’ll start this week with a photo or two from my Anaheim adventures.

SUPPLIES | 2012 | WEEK 4

Click on the images to link to the products.

Last week I finally got around to installing the PostalPix app on my iphone and uploading my photos for development.

I still think it’s hard to beat opening up en envelope full of just-developed photos.

I’d read about PostalPix online and my sister has been using them to print her Instagram photos. She’s doing Project Life this year (I can’t tell you how excited I am about that) and she sent me the above image a few weeks back. She put them in a divided page protector from We R Memory Keeper’s multi-pack of page protectors (also available at scrapbook.com). Love that size.

Installing the app was easy. Choosing the photos I wanted to upload was easy. The shipping was quick.

I was super excited when I opened the envelope. I ordered about 20 photos and overall they looked great (a couple were dark but I’m pretty sure it had more to do with the Instagram filter I chose).

The only thing I was surprised about was the weight of the photo paper – it’s definitely lighter weight than traditional prints. But other than that, they are awesome and I’m excited to include them in some upcoming projects and will be ordering from them again.

A NOTE ABOUT PHOTO DEVELOPING

I was sad to learn that scrapbookpictures.com closed their doors last month. They were a great source of professional quality photo prints and I’ll miss their service and attention to detail. These days I print the majority of my photos at home on an Espon Stylus R2000. For the times when I don’t print at home I’ve used and recommend Persnickety Prints (a company that understands scrapbooking) and Color Pro Inc (a blog sponsor and a company that I especially like for printing on canvas or other specialty prints).

I wanted to share a video interview I did with Noell Hyman from Paperclipping.com at CHA where we talk about my new stamp releases for Technique Tuesday (available soon). Big thanks to Noell and Izzy for their interest in my products.

Check out all Noell’s CHA 2012 videos (including interviews with Tim Holtz, Amy Tangerine, Elizabeth Kartchner, Heidi Swapp, and more) here.

Also, the February Studio AE stamp set is now available here. You can purchase it either as part of the kit club or as an individual set.

The digital version of this stamp set is available at here.

Participating in a live taping of Paperclipping Roundtable with Stacy Julian, Angie Lucas from Ella Publishing, Noell Hyman, Nancy Nally and Isreal Hyman.

Meeting Jenny Doh whose new book Hand In Hand: Crafting With Kids will be available in April. I’m a project contributor to this book and it’s now become available for pre-order through Amazon. I’ll share more details as it gets closer to the release date.

Dining with friends: Liz Kartchner, Elise Cripe, and Kelly Purkey.

Heading home today from CHA (the Craft & Hobby Association show) and sharing just a couple photos – more to come on products and general observations. It’s my first time being back in a few years and it’s been fun to be in the midst of all the creativity and re-connect with friends in person.

“CANVAS CREATE” is a new monthly video series from Mixed Media Artist, Donna Downey, that takes you step by step through her process of creating a new mixed-media art canvas each month. Each month Donna will introduce several new techniques, tools, and products that she uses in her artwork as well as take you in a real time journey through the creative decisions that go into the making of each canvas. No matter what your creative background…from beginner to seasoned artist, you will enjoy creating along with Donna each month. For more information or to register, please visit www.donnadowney.com or email donna@donnadowney.com.

Three people will receive a set of 100 business cards from MOO.com.

• #230 | Cortney said…moo cards rock. thx Ali!
• #148 | Kimberly C. said…oh my goodness i’ve always wanted to get these! they look so yummy!
• #1 | khloe said…I’m the first today! Thanks for the chance! Bye.

Five people will receive a digital file (your choice) from Saturated Canary.

• #135 | Deirdre said…I think it would take winning this to get me to finally order business cards:) Thanks for the chance!
• #140 | shannon j said…I would hand one out to my next etsy customer. I always place a business card/thank you card in my packages. Thanks for the chance to win.
• #4 | libbywilko said…I would LOVE to win some Moo cards, they are such a great product. Thanks for the chance Ali.
• #20 | Claudia said…I would hand my card to my kids’ classmates’ moms, for playdates!!
• #111 | Judy Grubbs said…My husband.

Congratulations! If you see your name above please email me giveaways@aliedwards.com.

GIVEAWAY | Three people will receive a set of 100 business cards from MOO.com.

If you have not come across MOO before, they just love to print. Check out their range of business card templates here!

MOO was born from a love of beautiful, high-quality print and design. They make printing beautiful and unique business cards, Christmas cards and MiniCards easy! You’re can either upload your own images or artwork to create truly unique cards, or you can choose from a range of designer templates and personalize them with your own details.

Also check out their stickers, rounded corner business cards, and Facebook cards.

CONNECT WITH MOO.COM : SHOP | FACEBOOK | TWITTER

GIVEAWAY | Five people will receive a digital file (your choice) from Saturated Canary.

SPECIAL OFFER | Now through Wednesday receive 35% off your order when you use coupon code: canaryluv

My name is Krista Smith. I have two goofy kiddos. A wonderful hubby. And a very, very messy desk. I love to draw characters and just started creating digital stamps this past September. (I had worked for a year in rubber stamp designs before that.) I love to create cards and scrapbook…I run my 4 to 5 miles a day. Hate to cook; love to eat:). My favorite place is the beach. And we are huge New York Giant fans (GO GMEN!!) My family is my home and I am so thankful to the Lord for blessing me richly! I’d love for you to stop by my blog and say hello! I’ve met many amazing and talented women in the craft world…I’d love to meet a few more!

CONNECT WITH KRISTA : SHOP | BLOG | CHALLENGE BLOG

Four new products available this weekend at Designer Digitals.

First up, So Totally Happy. Companion to Life In Pictures and This One.

Rooms Of A House

366 Days

Outline Life

Hope you have a great weekend!

Also saw on there that she has a new book/guided journal that’s available for pre-order called And The Story Is Happening.

Totally love that title – add that book to my list.

Welcome to Project Life 2012 | Week Three.

It’s really hard to beat having a pile of just-printed photos.

My routine these last few weeks has been to print all my photos on Monday (my weeks go Monday to Sunday). I look back over the photos taken in the past week and hit print on whichever ones I like best (or whichever ones catch my attention).

Some of these in the photo above didn’t end up making it into my spread this week. I’m thinking I’ll just add them to next week.

Here’s a look at Week Three:

Being a birthday week I expected to have at least one insert to accommodate the number of photos. I ended up with two as you will see below.

I have to say that I’m really loving the Clementine journal cards. I feel like there is more space to write compared with last year (and I feel like I’m taking advantage of that so far).

We began our week with a dusting of snow (and that was it – just a dusting). On the top right photo I added a Hello Winter Brushes & Stamps (“heart snow”) by cutting it out with the Silhouette and then stapling it with the Tiny Attacher. On the bottom left photo I added some word art from my Sibling Brushes & Stamps. The photo of me and the big white balloon was a self-portrait for the February One Little Word prompt.

I also included one Instax Mini photo out of front door into the snow.

The first insert for this week uses the Design G Page Protectors. I decided to use this entire insert for things related to Simon’s birthday.

On the kraft piece of paper are the names of the kids Simon invited – he and Chris worked on the invitations together.

I used my Silhouette for two more things. The January frame is from the Hello Life Boxes Vol.2 package and the number 10 card is from my 3×4 Rounded Number Corner Cards package. Behind the #10 card I added a piece of Hambly Studios 12×12 Overlay Moustaches.

That “big day” date stamp is part of the new Dear Lizzy line from American Crafts (love it).

On the back I included a pirate napkin from the party. On top of the napkin I added Moss Notched Corners Labels from Paper Source and journaled about the party right on top.

I blurred the faces of the kids faces who attended the party.

The second insert is a We R Memory Keepers 8.5×11. Love this treasure hunt that Chris came up with – especially the part about the notorious pirate George.

On the back of this second insert I included the cards he received and a copy of the invitation.

After all that I really love how this page is just a bunch of words and photos. Photos + journal cards + a few little labels to identify photos. Love how this can be anything you want it to be.

SUPPLIES | 2012 | WEEK 3

Click on the images to link to the products.