A birthday card to share!

So, as it happens, I haven't scrapped in a month again. My December Daily sits forlornly on my desktop, neglected. I have yet to start this year's Project Life, so another New Year's resolution broken. But, I did manage to eek out a birthday card for my father-in-law!

I decided to share it here because I love the way it turned out and I used lots of old supplies and tools! The paper and stickers are 15-year-old American Traditional Designs. The cardstock is old Die Cuts With A View that I ran through my dusty Cuttlebug. I accented the balloon stickers with some old Close To My Heart dimensional glaze and then added a couple newer touches - the Pebbles rub-on sentiment and the Jillibean Soup enamel stars. And all done!

Hoping I find a way to carve out some scrapping time once again! Until then, Happy March!!

Project Life 2016: Week 8

Welcome to Project Life 2016 Week 8! This was a fun week to scrap because of the variety of our week. My mom came to visit, we had a birth in the extended family  and we got a little time out of the house.

Here's a look at the left side. I tried to get some "everyday photos" this week like the shot of my Costco shopping cart and my feet propped up in front of the TV. I also love when I have memorabilia I can include in my albums like Liam's swim lesson participation certificate.

Now for the right side. We got an email from our cousin-in-law that his son was born. So, I took the text from his email and overlaid it with the snapshot he'd included. It's hard to see here, but in the upper right photo, I accented all the plastic bug toys Liam had scattered about with black liquid pearls to give them some fun dimension in the photo.

I'm hoping to have my December Daily finished within the next week to share with you all next...and also the first couple weeks of Project Life 2017!

Project Life 2016: Week 7

I'm still forever playing catchup on Porject Life and still loving it! I even got myself all my supplies for 2017 even though I still have four past years to finish! I figure it'll all come together one day!

Today I am sharing my 2016 Week 7 spread. This was the week of Valentine's Day so I used lots of hearts and love-related embellishments throughout. 

Here's the left side of the spread. I love the rainbow burst filler card in the High Five kit so I decided to use it here accented with sequins. The photo in the upper left is Liam and his preschool classmates playing in a huge puddle; I love that his preschool sends us photos of his day so I am able to include them in my albums!

Now for the right side. I love teal and red together so I really enjoyed adding the heart border overlay to the photo in the upper left and mounting it on the teal XOXO card from the High Five kit. It's a perfect combination! I then accented a few XOXOs on the card with liquid pearls.

I also included a 6x12 envelope insert this week to hold Liam's valentines. I love including memorabilia like this in all my scrapbooks.

2016 Week 8 will be coming soon! Thanks for stopping by today!

Project Life 2014: Week 17

Today I am sharing another oldie spread from 2014. This one took awhile for me to plan and orchestrate because it was the week Andrew and I were in Hawaii. It was hard whittling down which photos to use out of hundreds to choose and how to also incorporate what was going on in Liam's life back in Milwaukee.

So here is a look at the full spread with inserts. The left side and both sides of the 6-photo insert are all Hawaii. The right side of the spread is all Liam in Milwaukee and then the smaller 7x5 insert contains my weekly recap on one side and a Hawaii postcard on the other side. I also included a couple Hawaii brochures using Attach Me tags but they are hiding behind the insert here.

Here's the full spread again but with the small 7x5 insert flipped so you can see the postcard and the front of 6-photo insert.

And here's the full spread again with the 6-photo insert flipped so you can see the back of the insert and one of the brochures I included.

And here is the full spread with the brochures flipped, exposing the full right side.

And in case you haven't looked at it enough, here's the full spread without inserts or brochures...

...and then again with the inserts placed.

And now for some closeups of each spread starting with the left side. I decided to keep it simple and tried to marry this spread and the two sides of the insert together by treating each Hawaii photo the same - with a cardstock border and a photo caption. I wish I could say I took the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park photo but it's a postcard. The geotag on the lower left photo acts as a frame around Andrew swimming in the pool.

Here is the right side of the spread. I know I said the whole thing was devoted to Liam in Milwaukee but that's not exactly true. The photo in the upper left was taken during the one day I spent in Portland after returning from Hawaii before flying back to Milwaukee.

Here is the front of the 6-photo insert. The plastic palm trees on my filler card are actually drink stirs!

Then, here is the back of the insert. The photo in the upper left of sunset from the summit of Mauna Kea is probably my favorite from the entire trip.

And there you have it! It was a jam-packed week 17 in 2014!

My 2015 December Daily

So, I never shared last year's December Daily. The truth is, I didn't finish it until well into February. By that point, Valentine's Day had already come and gone and it just didn't seem like a real good time to share it. So, I put it on the back burner and added a task to my To Do List to come here and share it after Thanksgiving this year. I figured now that the next holiday coming up is actually Christmas and everyone is probably decorating, putting up the tree and listening to Christmas music, now is the time to share this. I hope it helps get you in the festive mood and maybe inspires any of you out there who are planning to do a December Daily this year. I am! I used Simple Stories Claus & Co. for my 2015 December Daily below and this year I will again be using Simple Stories current Christmas collection, Classic Christmas. So here you go - my 2015 December Daily!

Title Page: I love the way this title page turned out. I hardly ever use calendar background paper but it of course worked well here. The photo is from a mini shoot I did with my boys to obtain a December photo for the grandma's 2016 calendars!

Day #1: This year was the first year we did an "Advent Calendar" for Liam. I read somewhere about wrapping a Christmas book and opening one each year and absolutely loved it. So his big present this year was that I purchased a bunch of Christmas books, wrapped them up and numbered them for each day.

Day #2: Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas - a true classic!

Day #3: Decorating the tree the way I like to do it - completely alone to ease my anal-retentive brain, Christmas music playing and a glass of wine.

Day #4: Jensen completely enamored with the tree, or more appropriately, the lights.

Day #5: We had to celebrate St. Nick's Day one day early because Andrew and I were heading out of town for a couple days.

Day #6: Andrew and I were so lucky that we were able to arrange a very last-minute trip to Columbus to see the Portland Timbers take on the Crew in the MLS Finals. And the Timbers won!!

Day #7: We had a spare mini-tree so Andrew came up with the idea of putting in Liam's room. He loved it!

Day #8: I thought it was appropriate to swap out Thomas with Winter Wonderland Thomas, use red and green coal cars and finish with the Christmas caboose to make a Christmas train on Liam's toy track.

Day #9: I was a little behind this year on addressing and mailing Christmas cards. I usually have them out within the first week of December.

Day #10: Liam was very excited to eat his Santa Twix that he in his stocking for St. Nick's.

Day #11: Andrew and Liam looking through my 2014 December Daily album.

Day #12: Andrew and Liam enjoying the fire!

Day #13: It's hard to see him but Liam disappeared one day and I found him just sitting in one of the dining room chairs, admiring the Christmas tree.

Day #14: I always like to include a photo of some sort of seasonal beverage in my December Daily and this year I went with a Deschutes Jubelale.

Day #15: Andrew had some extra Christmas lights so he decorated Liam's swing set which he was super excited about.

Day #16: This was our first year having four stockings hang from the mantle. All of our stockings are handmade by a close family friend.

Day #17: Despite being hit with the horrendous stomach flu that had been going around town, we still made it to the theater to see The Force Awakens on opening night.

Day #18: Liam's last casting session of three for stretching his leg muscles was today and he decided to be festive and do one green and one red.

Day #19: All the gifts were wrapped with days to spare this year!

Day #20: We went to see Santa and both boys were pretty good despite the long line. And neither one cried!

Day #21: I started to make cookies for Christmas and Liam helped with some of the mixing!

Day #22: Andrew wanted to teach Liam about the spirit of giving so the two of them went shopping and picked up a special gift for Liam to give to Jensen.

Day #23: Christmas cookies baked! This year we did peanut butter-M&M-pretzel cookies, egg nog cookies, red velvet cookies and chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies.

Day #24: This Milwaukee Christmas Eve was very traditional with a group of family heading to Solly's for lunch, several of us attending Mass and then dinner at Bonnie's house.

Day #25: Each year I do a two-page spread in my December Daily for Christmas Day that way I can include lots of photos. Beth, Paul, Peter and Steph came over in the morning to open gifts, have brunch and celebrate Liam's birthday. The poor child is a true Christmas baby. Then that evening we headed over to my in-laws' for Christmas dinner with the whole family. 

Day #26: A bunch of the cousins drove out to Madison to see The Force Awakens in I-MAX 3D.

Day #27: Liam playing with some of his new toys!

Day #28: We had a pretty mild December weather-wise and finally saw some real snow at this time.

Day #29: Andrew took one of the big boxes a gift came in and an extra strand of Christmas lights to build the boys a fort!

Day #30: I love getting Christmas cards each year and I always take a photo of the stack we receive to include in my album.

Day #31: We had a low-key New Year's Eve at home as usual and cracked open a nice bottle of champagne we had received as a gift when Jensen was born.

Closing Page: I think that our Christmas card is going to be the standard closing page from this point forward.

And there you have it! My 2015 December Daily in its entirety. Now here's hoping this year's is completed in a more timely manner. Enjoy the upcoming holiday season and working on your December Daily!