RaptorMama

Yay for holiday weekends! I got a whopping 17 layouts done this weekend, bringing my grand total for the month to 37!  I’ve now finished through the end of July 2013 and I am relishing this short period of being only 17 months behind. 🙂  Now I’m deciding if I should just scrapbook random layouts for a bit or if I should push on and tackle August 2013.  Decisions, decisions.  Now obviously these are super simple layouts, but I’m ok with that.  I have plenty of more artistic layouts sprinkled throughout.  Not to mention that Kate wanted to look at one of the finished scrapbooks this weekend and I had an epiphany.  As we looked through the book, I wasn’t critiquing my layouts.  I was marveling over how tiny she was!  So I’ll continue to push through and just try to get some stories down.  Here’s an example of one of the super simple layouts from this weekend.

I don’t even think that I cut most of these papers.  I just moved the scraps around until they looked like what I wanted.  🙂

Honestly the most time consuming aspect of this was adding these strips of Amy Tangerine tape and gluing down the wood veneer hearts.  Which took almost no time.  🙂  And to be honest, this layout is more complicated than most of the ones I made this weekend.  I go through phases of wanting to be artistic and creative and phases of just wanting to get it done and checked off.  Both are fine!

 

I’d say that I didn’t really spend more than 30 minutes on anyone layout.  That’s still quite a bit of time spent scrapping, but I’ve recently managed to get Raptor addicted to scrapping too, so I just give her some older papers (she doesn’t care that they’re not trendy), prints that I’ve ended up not using, and old journaling cards from my used up Project Life core kits.  I’m having her journal on her layouts now.  It’s super cute.  (And good for her writing skills.)  It was really satisfying (and motivating!) to get a whole month knocked out.  I batch printed the photos and then forced myself to just focus on them.

Other things I’m hoping to get done this week:

1. Baby Boy’s Blanket
2. Storage system for the nursery (hello Ikea!)
3. 2015 Week 3 PL
4. 2014 Week 3 PL
5. Start Finish book club book by Thursday
6. Figure out carseats
7. Design layout tracker
8. Pick another month to scrap and finish it
9. Work on wipes
10. Make spreadsheet for borrowed baby stuff

I had a very productive weekend.  🙂  (I wrote this a few weeks ago.)  I got all of the wipes cut out, and I even managed to rethread my serger!  I’m switching the thread to teal and let me tell you, it looks awesome.  The biggest thing, though, was finishing this scarf!

Here is my Frozen obsessed Raptor modeling it for me.

And here’s a close up detail shot.  I used a variegated nubby yarn which knitted up lovely in a seed stitch.

 

 

It’s a New Year’s miracle!  I’ve managed to keep up with Project Life for 2 weeks.  🙂  I think it might be a new record.

I’m still using mostly the Kraft Edition, but this week we had some baby news so I threw in a card from the Baby Girl Edition.  The Kraft is more cream based and the Baby Girl is more white based, but honestly, things like that don’t bother me in Project Life.  You’ll notice that most of these pics are phone photos so they’re not fantastic.  Once again, not bothered by that for Project Life.  lol.  When I’ve looked back at past Project Life albums, I love that they include all of the random one-off phone photos that don’t make it anywhere else.  Like the gas pic.  Hello!  Gas was under $2 a gallon!  Definitely something to remember.  🙂  The only things I added were a few thickers for the “Week Two” on the title card, and I added the text for the belly pic before I printed it.  Keeping it super simple this week.

I did a bit more blurring this week because it included my baby sister’s bachelorette weekend.  I will say, it was by far the classiest bachelorette party I’ve been to, but it did still include a rather naughty cake.  🙂  I also blurred out something from work and a bit of the identifying info from Raptor’s report card.  I’m always nosy and want to know what other people have blurred so there you go.  I’m still so loving this project!  🙂

 

 

 

I’m in major catch up mode!  I’ve done 16 layouts since January 1st.  I’d be feeling super awesome about that, but it looks like I have over 250 layouts left to be caught up.  Ack!  Currently, my plan is to do simple layouts as quickly as possible.  Also, I’m trying to pick a month at a time to focus on.  (I’m starting with the months that have the fewest layouts instead of going in chronological order like I usually do when I’m in catch up mode.)  I’m forcing myself to do whatever layouts are going to happen for that month and then crossing the others off my list.  I’m doing November 2014 right now and I hope to be done with it in the next day or two.  The reality of my “to scrap” list is that some months have 7 or 8 layouts worth of cute pics of Raptor at the pool.  Do I really need to scrap all of those?  No.  Time to narrow down the list.  Other items on this week’s to do list include washing/ sorting baby clothes my friend lent me.  Cleaning out the nursery so my other friend can stay there this weekend.  Knitting like a crazy person. (I’m 1/3 of the way through the first blanket!)  2015 Week 2 Project life.  2014 Week 3 Project Life.  Must catch up on all the projects!

 

I got another week done!  It’s a miracle!

This week I used the Becky Higgins Girl cards.  I’m still working on the calendar cards.  It will go in that blank orange space.

I didn’t have a ton of pics this week so I resized a few of the filler cards.  🙂

 

 

I love doing this project with traditional materials!  I have had so much fun this week putting it together.  Having a dedicated space on my desk has made all the difference on being able to keep up with this project.

Here’s the left side.  All of these cards are from the Kraft Edition.  I kept it pretty simple.

And here’s the right side.  After doing it digitally for 2 years (lol, 1 year being done and one year being in the planner) I’m not used to having 7 journaling cards a week, but I’m really liking writing more.  Especially since this year is going to see such big changes for us!  I’m not a huge fan of having all of the journaling cards down the middle with all of the photos on the top and bottom so I mixed it up.  I like the way it turned out.

Pretty much the only embellishing I did was to add a few wood veneers and write on one of the photos.  I’m not in love with how the writing turned out, so I think next time I’ll add the writing before I print.  (I’m wanting to add a belly pic every week with the number of weeks I am on it.)  I printed all of these pics at home on my Selphy (I <3 that printer) and to get 2 to a page I use a program called TurboCollage.  It could not be easier to use.

And that’s week 1!  Fingers crossed I can keep up this year.  🙂

 

 

 

You guys, I did it!  I finished the Year 4 Volume 3 book!  (That’s the book that ends with Raptor’s 4th birthday.)  I’m now officially only a year and a half behind.  lol.

I always end up with a ton of pictures of Raptor in the pool because I love to play with my waterproof camera.  I was trying to decide what to journal about for this page, when RaptorDad dropped this pic of Raptor as a baby on my desk.  (He’s cleaning out his side of the art room.)  I love it.  Of course, there’s a layout with this same photo in Raptor’s first scrapbook, but how fun is it to see these side by side!  If you can’t tell, this photo is from the very first time we took her swimming.  She was so not a fan.  lol.

I kept the page super simple.  Paper is from The Pier.  Wood veneers are from Lawn Fawn.

Just for giggles, I counted up the number of layouts I’d have to do to “catch up.”  193.  lol.  I think I need to pare that number down in a big way.  That doesn’t count Project Life either.

 

Let the slow process of catching up begin.  🙂

Process is pretty much the same for this year as last year.  I’m still using an assortment of cards (these are from the Becky Higgins winter collection) but focusing on the photos.  I am changing the fonts that I used so that the look of the book was at least a little different.

I’m also looking for a new calendar card.  I found one I loved on Pinterest, but of course it’s not listed in the shop anymore (because, duh, I’m a year behind).  I’ve emailed them, but with it being Christmas and all, I’m sure they’re taking a well deserved break.  If I hear back from them, I plan on buying the calendar cards and just dropping it in that blank spot.  If not, I guess it’s back to the hunt for a perfect card!  🙂

 

 

You may have noticed that since I’m a crazy person I added another goal to the side bar.  I know I said I was going to focus on finishing at least 1 page for each month, but then I realized that I only had 9 left in Raptor’s Year 4 Volume 3 book.  9 pages y’all!  I think we all know that I had to add that onto the list.  😉  I’m proud to report that I have been a scrapping fool this week on vacation and I’ve whittled it down to 3 pages.  Most of them are super simple (they’re from June 2013 and I just want them done at this point) but here’s one I put a bit more effort into.

Why yes, that is my desk in the background.  I’m experimenting with taking the photos in our art room.  The lighting stinks though, so I’m not sure how long it will last.  I used the new (ish) collection from Shimelle (love the papers!) and then I was digging around in my Valentine’s Day supplies to find more heart stuff and I came across all sorts of fun goodies!

RicRack, trim, brads, prima flowers…  What fun!  I love using up old supplies.  🙂  I think I’m going to put these brads out where I see them more.  I used to use them on pretty much every page I made.

 

Alright ladies, it’s on!  I even cleaned out a corner of my scrap desk so I could leave Project Life out 24/7.

Here it is!  Have we ever done a tour of my scrap desk?  Probably not since it’s always a huge mess.  lol.  If I ever get it cleaned up I’ll take some pics.  To give you an idea, RaptorDad and I share the space (a small bedroom.)  When we moved it, we went to Ikea and bought butcher block counter tops which RaptorDad installed on 3 of the 4 walls.  The closet door, door into the room, and a small table for Raptor occupy the 4th wall.  It’s awesome.

At any rate, I cleared off enough counter space to leave it set up and added a few buckets to hold pens, post it notes, and old Project Life cards.  Here’s hoping I can keep up this year!