Project Life - Week 21

Two Project Life posts in the same week....CRAZINESS!

Here were are week 21. I couldn't wait to work on this weeks pages so I started Sunday afternoon after we got home for a little fun time.  I knew this week would be all about my brother's big day so there was a lot of red, white and blue.
Here is a look at the whole spread, minus the insert which you will see below.

and the close up of the left side.

I thought about this title card for a while and decided I wanted some sort of nod to my brother's rank so I made a little piece that mimics the epaulet on his uniform.  I used gold glitter tape that I got from Michael's for the stripes and the star.  To make the gold star, I layed down three pieces of the tape on a piece of cardstock and traced the star and cut it out.  The dates were stamped and embossed with white embossing powder and the blue sequin heart is from Heidi Swapp.

A little shot of our Sunday Brunch, and a little flair from A Life Handmade. 

I used the white wood grain cardstock for both of these top slots and I'm in love with it, my favorite new paper by far.

Sunday we had Bison burgers for dinner, new to me but yummy, as was the ice cream!

A shot Larry sent me from home of Simone getting ready for the eclipse (no she did not watch it through the binoculars!)

We were super busy Monday prepping for a party after my brother's event, lots of appetizers and desserts were made.  Including cake pops!  I'm now an expert thanks to my sister in laws mad skills.

I loved these two shots from a night out we had.  The Insta grammed stamp is from the Adventure set from Studio Calico, love it!  I popped it up with some foam tape.

I got to see both of my nieces perform while I was in Virginia Beach which was so awesome.  One is a singer (last weeks pages) and this one is a budding thespian and a great one to boot!  I made the card myself, love it and her so much!

Here is the insert I added for my brother's event.  I love these 6 x 12 inserts and love that they are slotted out for 6 x 4 photos.  It's a great way to add photos without a lot of bulk. 

As you may have noticed I don't mention my extended family by name and I have blurred out any written mention of their names because I want to protect their privacy.  This after all is my public forum and not theirs and while they are a big part of my life and are featured a lot in my projects, I try to protect their privacy as much as I can.
The top slot is the invitation, the middle is the shot I took of his medals, I needed something to fill the space so I typed up some words from the program, the bottom is of him giving his speech.

Here is the backside of the insert.  A family shot, one of me and my brother and some photos of us setting up his new office space.

Here is the right hand side.

Shots from my flight home, loved seeing Lake Tahoe from the air.

It was my 1 Year Anniversary using the Instagram app last Thursday as well.  Its been a super fun year and I'm pretty obsessed with sharing photos as you can tell.

A screen capture I took of my wake-up alarm the day I flew home, and that's AM people not PM!
The logo for the County fair we went to on Friday, love this graphic.

Saturday morning Simone wanted to go to IHOP, I had Red Velvet Pancakes, so yummy!

I loved all these photos I took Friday night at the county fair.  I also added another QR code of a video Larry shot of the Demolition Derby we saw.  It was so fun, and they will be back for the State Fair so I'm sure we'll go again.

The last slot was more photos from Saturday, our bounty from the farmer's market and some cocktails we made with the Meyer Lemon's we bought.  Oh and those wheat thins were yummy too, it's a new flavor!

I'm so in love with this weeks spread.  Thanks for checking in and I hope you have an awesome rest of the week!

Project Life - Week 20

I'm feverishly playing catch-up so here is a Bonus Project Life post for Monday.

I worked most of Saturday on this and had fun playing.  It's kind of hard getting back in the grove.  I felt pretty overwhelmed while I was doing it.  I hate being behind on any project and would much rather have a nice cushion of time instead of feeling panicked.

Anyway here is the whole layout.

and the close up of the left side.

As usual I made the date card insert last.  I ended up using a card from the Clementine kit that was intended for the front cover.  Since I covered a bit of my vacation I thought it would be cute to make a postcard for the date card.  The stamps are all from the Studio Calico Adventure stamp set, even the camera that I used as the postage stamp.

I had a few extra shots from Mother's Day that I thought I would add an insert for but at the last minute I decided to make a flip up instead.  I love these.

Here is the inside.  My scanner isn't working right since my computer migration so I just snapped a picture of the poem Simone did for me at school and added it that way.  I have found there is always another way to do something if you want to bad enough.

I played a bit for this slot on the left.  I've fallen in love with the digital frames that I've purchased (like the one on the top right hand corner of the right side page) and have had some ideas of other phrases that I would like to have.  Since I wanted to include my issues with my computer migration I figured out how to make my own in Photoshop with the "so that didn't go as planned..." phrase.  I will be doing this again for sure, so much fun.

The other slot is just a funny photo I snapped while on terminal hold.

A quick shot of the computer guy I hired to fix said computer issues and some happy mail.

Simone had a field trip so a few shots from that.

These two and their watermelon, they love it so much!

Here's a look at the right side, this side is all my trip to Virginia Beach.

A shot of my boarding pass and a pic I snapped from the plane on way way out of town.  The stamps are also from the Studio Calico Adventure set.

Here is that frame I was telling you about, this set is from Erica Hernandez over at 2Peas.  It's awesome and inspired me to make my own.  The shot is of my niece singing at her talent show.  It's a little blurry since I had to zoom in but I still love it and I know its her.

I picked up another new Starbucks cup while I was there, this one is Stainless Steel and I love it! We used Face Time a lot while I was gone and snapped this screen shot of Larry and Simone while chatting with them on my ipad.

I hardly ever do this but I added a slot of just journaling because there were some things that I didn't get photos of but still wanted to documented.  I love the way it came out. 

The other slot is my sister-in-law making cocktails, it was our drink of the week.

Saturday Night I took my two nieces out to dinner and a movie and snapped this shot of us when we got home.  Such beautiful girls!

And some shots of our rousing Tripoli game that night.

I have more photos from the trip while will carry over to the next weeks pages.  I can't wait to work on them so I'll be back on schedule with those posted on Wednesday for sure.

Have a great Monday everyone!

I'm Home

Well I'm home from Virginia Beach, I had to get up super early yesterday morning east coast time to make a 6:45am flight but happily landed safely back in Sacramento at 11:00am west coast time.  The first flight to Chicago was easy I snoozed most of the way.  I watched the last Harry Potter movie on the second flight and still had time to snooze for about an hour before landing. 

I snapped this shot as we came in over Lake Tahoe, so pretty and just a touch of snow left.

It's nice to be home, its nice to be back in my own bed but I sure do miss my family.  It was so awesome being there for my brother watching him achieve yet another major career milestone.  The path he chose in life is one that is so amazing to watch, I'm so filled with pride for him, and so filled with pride for our country. 

Here are a few photos from his big day, I snapped this shot before we left, I love the medals on his uniform.

This is him giving his speech.

And one of the two of us after the ceremony.



It sure was a great Navy day this past Tuesday.  I'm so happy I was there to share it with him and spend some time with his wife and three kids.  I sure do miss them.

I have so much to catch up on this weekend, happy to have a holiday weekend to accomplish it all.  Two weeks of Project Life need to be completed this weekend, its my goal.  We are off to the Sac County Fair today, which should be fun.  Thankfully the weather is very cool today so it should be a fun day.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 

Tripoli anyone?

Have you ever played Tripoli? It's a card game, one my parents used to play in the 70's. My brother and his wife play it a lot so the other night they had another couple over for a game. The rules are easy which is good for me, I pretty much suck at all card games mainly because I can't add quickly so I feel like I can't keep up. Math was never my strong suit.

Anyway, the object is to clear your hand and hopefully have pay cards in your hand. I never cleared my hand so I never won a game but I do have a fair amount of pay cards. Finally at the end I scored and scored big, I had the Queen and King of Hearts and the 8, 9 and 10 of one suit. The pots for both of them were huge which was a nice way to end the game.

It's a fun game if you ever have a chance to play.

It's a busy day here in Virginia Beach, getting everything ready for tomorrow's festivities. I'll be back Wednesday with a photo or two.

Greetings from Virginia Beach

11:17pm East Coast time (as I write this) and just under the wire of still being Friday. My plane ride out yesterday was smooth sailing. I flew Southwest which I haven't done in quite awhile so I was a bit apprehensive with the boarding procedures but found some kind folks ahead of me in line to help me out. I sat in a row of all women which was nice and had a really mellow uneventful flight to Chicago. I rented a movie from iTunes, a first for me but it worked great. I chose New Years Eve if you were curious. It was the perfect movie for a plane ride.

 

We got to Chicago a bit early and just before I had to turn off my electronics I snapped this photo with my phone.

 

I don't know what it is about being up so high seeing the sun setting into the clouds, such calm and peaceful feelings always wash over me. Grateful for such a wonderful life, wonderful family back home and wonderful family to visit. How lucky am I to have that in my life. It doesn't go without notice for me, how truly lucky I am.

The next week will be a whirlwind of family activities and a very special day for my brother on Tuesday that I'm thrilled to be here for. Tomorrow I have a date with my two nieces for a movie and some dinner and plan to soak up as much of this whole clan as I can while I'm here.

I'm love that I can Face Time with Larry and Simone while I'm gone and got a bit choaked up tonight when Simone told me "Mama I miss you a thousand." It's tough being away from them both but this will be the first time I've ever been away from Simone for a whole week. Absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, for me at least.

 

I hope you all have a really great weekend!

 

Project Life - Week 19

What a week this has been and its only Wednesday.  I'm still have some computer issues which have really sent me reeling.  I've come to realize that I'm not the type of person that gives up easily and this computer migration has been challenging at best.  I will make it work if it kills me, which it may just do.

I was determined yesterday to get my pages done for the week but it was a challenge.  My Photoshop Elements was not fully functioning so I couldn't use a lot of my digital supplies which I've also come to realize is a huge part of how I complete this project.  I'm more of a digital scrapper and really hate when I have to hand write anything.  I can squeeze more details into a space if its typed than written and I feel some of my work this week suffers because of the need for more handwriting. 

I had so many ideas of what I was going to do but I was so frustrated that I just wanted to get it done.  I absolutely love the content of this weeks photos I just wish I was able to execute it a bit better.

Anyway, here it is, such as it is. 

and the left side.

I made the title slot last as usual and completely forgot I had used the same gingham paper for the slot next door.  I may go back and change this later, I just haven't decided for sure yet.

The slot for Sunday and our trip into Oakland for dinner at the Colombo Club.

I loved the photo I snapped of Simone's homemade Lunchable, which she requests all the time now.  And a shot of my old laptop, reaching a critical stage.  If I new what was coming, I don't know if I would have wished so hard for a new computer.

A few shots this past week from the Photo a Day challenge, I loved them both so they made it in.

I loved these shots of Simone at the spray park.  This is a slot in particular where I would have done more writing.  I may go back and redo this one now that my Photoshop is up and running.

I loved the Oh Snap dicut from this months Studio Calico kit, I knew it had to be used right away.  I had the old Hello my name is tag from somewhere not sure where.  I love the way the filter looks on this photo.  I used the FotoRus app for this shot.

I just loved our Mother's Day at school so the top two slots are devoted to them.  I actually like my writing on the top card.

Here's a close up of the place mat Simone drew for me.

Here's the card talking about the day.

As you can see my computer was back up so I was able to do some digital stuff for the remainder of the book.  It felt better and more like me so I was happy about that.

I love these two slots. 

A few Instagram milestones for me, 150 followers and my 600th photo.

A slot for our girls day out getting our nails painted.

The fact that this is done on schedule makes me happy.

I'm taking off tomorrow for a week by myself.  I'm heading back east to visit my brother and his family.  I'll be checking in here and there so keep a look out for some photos soon.

Have a great rest of the week.