Project Life Love

I spent the last part of 2014 catching up on the remaining weeks of Project Life. This is the third year that I've completed this project without missing a week. I'm not saying that to brag, or to make anyone feel bad for missing things, or starting and stopping.. I'm saying that because that's how much I love this project. Good weeks or bad. Depression or happy times. Mundane moments and celebrations. It's all there, in the pages. The idea of documenting the everyday stuff means a lot to me. It's awesome to flip through the albums and remember these times.

Looking back at the previous years makes me really psyched to keep going. It's hard to believe how drastically our lives have changed over the course of 3 years. A new baby. Three big moves. Old jobs and new ones. Roller derby. Age milestones. Achievements, great and small. A lot has happened, and I look forward to documenting the year ahead.

Here are my recent pages in case you want to see (does anyone want to see? I never know if it's over-sharing or if people do like to see my take on the project.) (also, I have the rest of the year done so I can share that soon too, if you want.)...

Left. (I'm finding that my pink hair is making me want to include more photos of myself.) 

Right.

Left

Right. (using a candy box for a pocket.)

Left. (paint swatches for a pocket.)

Right. (I have to write my thoughts about Aidan's 18th bday on that card still. 18!)

Left.

Right.

On the night of this Black & Blue bout (see above) one of my friends was in a serious car accident that resulted in her death weeks later. On my next PL post I want to talk a little bit about scrapping through the hard times and my thoughts on including those in the story.... also, how I cope with documenting things a month after they happen and how I keep things straight.

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year

Today I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of my favorite Christmas moments. The holidays came and went like a flash. All I could do was attempt to slow down the days and cram in all of my Griswold-sized plans. Here's a little piece of what we did...

This shirt had Nakiah written all over it.. I mean, look at the selfie I was surprised with on my phone!

What's the best way to distract the kids from asking over and over, "can we open presents now Mom?? How about now?" Cold or not, I had to wear them out! They thought it was so funny to slide into little puddles. Hey, whatever works.

Puppy cuddles under the tree while we watch every Christmas movie we can find. :) 

Decorating (the ugliest) cookies, ever. Dez kept eating spoonfuls of sprinkles. That might be why he looks a little sick. ;)

Christmas Eve jammies. Matching! Thank you, Target.

"Mommy, Mommy, Santa came!" 

Dez swiping the leftover Santa cookies. This is my sweet tooth kid. He spent the rest of the day hunting down and secretly eating everyone's Christmas candies.

Sometimes you just have to stop, drop, and color. She's our little artist. Ev colored this magic ink book in one sitting, and uses her new art supplies daily.

Snicklefritz: "Hey lady. Do you know your son is wearing a pony outfit? Do you realize if you share this on your blog or Instagram he will hate you in 15 years?" Me: "You can't even see his face. There's no proof. Also, he's a Brony, it need to be documented."

And finally, I win Christmas with these gifts! (says me)..

Hottie is a serious Christmas Vacation fan. So I found these moose mugs and Griswold bobble head (yes!! bobble head!). Totally winning. 

and then I managed Santa brought these little candy dispensers that poop the candy. Why you ask? Number three on Nakiah Christmas wish list was, and I quote..."Candy. butt-loads-of candy." Ask and ye shall receive, my son.

For New Years Eve we made the great call to stay home and be lame adults. ;) It was perfect. I played board games with the kids for hours while Hottie worked and once he got home we ate pizza and played hide & seek. Then we put the littles to bed and binge-watched Homeland. So that's it! Just wanted to show you a little glimpse into our holiday shenanigans. I'm happy with the way 2015 is starting out. I hope you are too!

Paper Camellia January Kit Reveal

Hello there! A new month means it's time for a kit reveal over at Paper Camellia (woot!) Take a look at these glorious kits!

 January Scrapbook Kit:

January Everyday Life Kit:

January Add-On Kit:

The add-on is awesome. I'm thinking about ordering one for myself since it wasn't my turn to work with it this month... look at all those goodies! I have to get my hands on them! ..and even though I switched from the Everyday Life Kit pages, I still drool over the kits... I'll probably buy those too. They sell out like crazy and it's not hard to see why. You should probably just subscribe. :) 

Here's the first project I made this month. I can't wait to share the rest!!

Check out what the rest of the team is up to, and stop by for inspiration daily on the Paper Camellia blog. We have exciting things planned for 2015! Come and be a part of it!

2014 Wrap Up

As I'm sitting here reflecting on the year, I realized it's been awhile since I blogged. I thought it might be fun to round up my favorite layouts from 2014 and put them all in one place. Below are 16 pages that I'm super proud of.. 16?! you say? Seems like she's showing us everything she made, you think. Nope. I assure you, this is less than a third of what I actually created this year. Feast your eyes...

This is an interesting time for me. A new year means a fresh start, and I tend to use January 1st and my birthday (conveniently 6 months later, June 27th) as mile markers. Each time those dates roll around I hunker down and assess where I'm at with my life. Make new goals, congratulate myself for successes (assuming there are some) ;), plan and tweak as needed to keep myself on track... I really slow down and think about where I want to be, and how I will get there. 

I could go into great detail about this past year... but I will just say this... it was both wonderful and horrible. I had extreme high points and even more extreme low points... for someone like me, who tends to enjoy living comfortably in the middle, it was a huge challenge. A test. Yes, that's a good way to put it.. this year felt like one big test, and often I felt like the answer key was being shredded. 

I'm excited at the idea of a new year. I'm ready to get back into conquer the world my little world, mode. I'm ready to get healthy (more on this later), take better care of myself (more on this too), and work toward creating the kind of life that I want. I'm ready to embrace routine and start thriving. 

I'll check back in here soon with some of my plans for tackling 2015, full steam ahead.. & I'll share the One Little Word that I chose for next year... it just slapped me right in the face! :)

Happy holidays everyone! Stay safe and happy, and celebrate! 

Merry Layouts: Oldies but Goodies

I took a look back at some of my holiday pages and I thought I'd share them here today. Christmas isn't one of those things I scrap a lot of... too much pressure, I think. haha. It sounds a little nuts when I see it typed out like that... pressure? who cares how "good" the layouts are? It should be about capturing the memories, just like all of the other stuff I make. 

I'm going to make a concious effort to make more holiday pages this year (beyond my usual December Daily.). We'll see how that goes. ;) Hey, maybe it can be my New Years Resolution?!

Anyway. Here are the pages.. most of them I just like because of the moments in the photos... 

I think this was collectively my kids' best Christmas. Santa gave Aidan a Mac, Nakiah an Xbox, and Evareaux all of the stuffed clubhouse characters. Way to go, Santa. How will we ever top that?? (we won't. #spoiled.) :)

Hottie's favorite moment each Christmas. Clark himself would be proud....

Buddy McElfersteen antics and possibly the first grid page I had ever done...

A two-pager that I scrap-lifted from Creating Keepsakes magazine by Suzy Plantamura. Awesome way to include a ton of holiday photos on one spread...

I don't really like the composition of this layout at all but it was a cute thing to look back on. I had forgotten all about how her first Christmas, at 7 months old, all she cared about was the tags...

I hope you're all out doing something festive and fun. Around here we are listening to iTunes Christmas Hits (so good!) and I'm trying to find ways to keep my kids off of the tv and entertained while Hottie puts in extra time at the store. After years of working in retail it still feels super weird to have "time off" around holidays. Hope you're enjoying yours! 

Me Series: November

I've been one busy little bee lately, though you can hardly tell from the blog. Every time I sit down to write a post I got nothin'.. even though I'm making trees like a lunatic (tutorial and possibly selling them to come soon), catching up on the last of this years Project Life... working on my first Paper Camellia Scrapbook Kit projects (Jan is SOOO good, ya'll).. and even scrapping some just for fun pages... as well as sneaking in some family holiday traditions and agonizing over Christmas shopping... so I am doing stuff, I'm just bad at sharing it right now.

Anyway. Today I figured I might as well share my November Me Series page, since it is in fact done (was done in Nov) and photographed and ready to post. I'm actually right in the middle of scrapping the one for December this weekend... which means I have held up to my commitment to do all 12 layouts! Whoa! Here is November...

If you want to see more of these Me Series projects check them out below...

// JAN// FEB // MARCH // APRIL // MAY // JUNE // JULY&AUG // SEPT&OCT//

I'll have December up for you soon. 

O Christmas Tree(s)

Right before Thanksgiving I was bitten by the bottle brush tree bug. Instead of prepping for the holiday I found myself dyeing trees...

I decided to do a little ombre rainbow collection.... seeing them lined up all cute and tiny on my typewriter made me crave more. I wanted a whole forest!

So I did some tree recon and found out that a JoAnn Fabrics not too far from me had 6 packages of these bad boys.. plus they were on sale... and I was able to use a special coupon for the entire purchase (LOVE it when the timing works out like that!). I ended up getting each package for around $4. Total Steal!!

The obsession is real....I used every single color of ink I own. I can't get enough. It's so fun you guys!

Even Buddy McElfersteen got in on the action. Who knew he was such a tree hugger?

Truth be told I don't really know what to do with them. I thought about giving some away as gifts, but I just can't part with them! Seeing my little rainbow forest all lined up just makes me happy. So I guess I'll continue to hoard them and probably keep my eye out for even more. :)

Warning: If you decide to hop on the tree dying band wagon it might be wise to wear gloves. My hands looked like this about half way through.. and a couple of weeks later are still a little blue. :)