RaptorMama

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!

 

 

Somehow, my Cheese Christmas Tree gets by far the most hits of any of my blog posts.  Who knew.  lol.  This year, we were tasked with bringing a fruit tray to Christmas and Raptor was insistent that it look like a Christmas tree.  Well, ok then.

 

I sliced up some pear for the tree, Raptor sliced up some strawberries for the presents, and then I added some oranges just to fill it in.  It would have looked better with blueberries, but we were working with what we had.  lol.

Alright you guys, I’m setting some goals for January.

First off, 2014 Project Life.  Oi vey.  I haven’t even started.  I’m still doing it digitally, and I have all of my notes organized in my planner so it shouldn’t be *hard* just time consuming.  I’d like to get 5 layouts done by the end of January.  I’m mostly done with Week 1.

Project Life 2015.  I’m much much much more excited about this.  🙂  My mom gave me the Baby Girl and Baby Boy Core Kits, so I’ve decided to do this year with physical product.  Not gonna lie, the albums take up a lot more space than a photo book, but I love them.  🙂  I went ahead and bought the Kraft Core Kit to round things out since I’ll be including more than just baby stuff.  Oh right, goals, lol.  2 parter.  1.  I want to create a space in my craft room to leave Project Life set up 24/7.  I think it will make it a lot easier to just pop in and grab a card to write something quick.  2.  I want to *try* to stay somewhat caught up.  I’d like to have at least 3 weeks done by the end of January.  I’m ordering a stockpile of paper/ ink for my photo printer so I have no excuses to stop halfway through the year.

Raptor’s Scrapbook.  I’m so far behind on this it’s ridiculous.  I’ve written down list of possible layouts by month (in my planner of course) and I’m trying to prioritize them.  I’d really like to have 1 or 2 layouts (at least) from each month done by the time the twins arrive.  Since I usually have between 10 and 20 in any given month, that’s a pretty huge reduction, but I think it’s a manageable goal.  I have 12 months without a single layout.  I’d like to cross 4 of those months off the list.

Planner.  It’s a new year!  I’d like to buy a new binder (mine has fallen apart past the point of duct tape being able to repair), design and print out some new pages (twin tracker for example) and I’m toying with the idea of making a new cover/ dividers.  I’m also considering just changing the 4 to a 5 on the cover.  lol.

Knitting.  I need to finish a scarf for a friend and make some serious progress on the baby blankets.

Felt.  I *desperately* need to finish a set of letters for a friend.

Twin Prep.  I want to go ahead and get the flannel cut for their baby wipes.  I also want to buy some burp rags so I can add some trim to them.

Blogging.  I have been the worst blogger lately.  I’m hoping to change though!  Goal?  To post 3 times a week in January.  Including next week, that’s 15 post by the end of December.  We’ll see.  lol.

Wow.  That’s kind of a lot now that I type it all out.  😉  Let’s see how I do!

And because all posts need a cute picture:

Raptor seeing Santa.  She asked for a pedal bike.  Santa delivered.  I might have a heart attack teaching her to ride the darn thing.

 

 

In Austin, there’s a busy road where people (against all reason) park on the shoulder and basically climb a cliff (I might be exaggerating slightly) to decorate cedar trees (which everyone is allergic to).  It’s awesome!  And I have wanted to do it for basically my whole life.  This year?  Mission accomplished.

We met some friends, armed with cheap tree decorations, and let the kids go to town.

It really was a ton of fun.

We had to hunt around a bit for a tree.  If we do this again, I’ll go earlier in December.

Of course, being surrounded by other brightly decorated trees sure made for some cute pics.  🙂

And some sassiness at my insistence that a certain Raptor let me take her picture.  All in all, I’m calling this one a success, though given the crazy traffic I wouldn’t recommend it for littles.  If we do this next year, I’m pretty sure I’ll be leaving the WonderTwins at home.  🙂

And yes, we will be going back after Christmas to clean up after ourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

I finished!  And only a year late.  lol.

I found my sequins!  I bought these years ago and I love putting them in little pockets.  I just sew the pockets closed with my sewing machine.  I love that you can see the next spread peaking out underneath.  🙂

And here’s the back side.  I didn’t have as many pictures, so I included some of these October Afternoon die cuts.

Once again, the annoyance of the page protectors not being true to size.  I had to add another piece of paper to the strip across the middle since it came from a 6×6 paper pad.

I started running out of number stickers so I experimented with making one out of sequins.  It’s not perfect, but I’m happy with it as a first attempt.

Here you can see that I was just ready to be done with the project.  And I’m ok with that.  Sometimes I love to spend lots of time decorating a page, and sometimes I’m just ready to be done.

Another simple page.

And with that it’s done!

Now I’m trying to decide if I should jump right in to December Daily 2014, or if I should start on Project Life 1014, or if I should just scrap a few traditional pages.  Decisions, decisions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got some more scrapping done this week; it’s a miracle.  🙂

Here’s Day 15, keeping it pretty simple.

Day 16.  Love this alphabet by Thickers!

Day 17.

Day 18- I jazzed it up with a few sequins.

I’m currently working on Day 20 and I’m using one of the page protectors with the 2 inch squares.  If you follow me on instagram, you know that this morning I was stymied by my inability to find my candy cane sequins!  Looks like I might be cleaning my desk this weekend.  🙂

 

 

 

 

As per usual, I’m running a wee bit (OK, a full year) behind.  Better late than never, right?  Here’s part 1 of last year’s December Daily.

 

I used the October Afternoon Daily Flash line for the page protectors and I’m having a love/ hate relationship with them.

They’re good quality, and I like the variety of pockets, but they are far from true to size and, as a result, I’ve had to mat everything.

I like the way everything looks matted, but it’s adding a lot more time and expense to the project.

One of the things that I’m loving about the pocket pages though, is that it’s forcing me to be more creative about the layouts.  I have to think about the layout of 2 days at a time since they share the same page protector layout.

Like here where I wanted to use the photo strip.

This is one of my favorite layouts!  I love the tiny 2×2 pockets.  I stitched confetti in some of them and I think it turned out super cool.  🙂

Luckily it worked out that I had lots of pictures to include for both of these days.

One of the other challenges is that I’m limiting myself to 1 page per day.  In the past, I’ve just added as many pages as I needed to use all of the photos that I wanted, but it ends up taking a lot longer to assemble so this time I decided no more!  Of course, some days, I had no photos.  I’m trying not to let it bother me.

I’m also trying to include some twine on each page.  There have been a few that I’ve missed, but I like that it’s giving some consistency to the book as a whole.

I’m also trying to include more everyday stories and not just focus on Raptor.

She was a bit under the weather for part of December so we had a bit more TV watching that usual.

I always think that maybe someday it’ll be interesting to see what we buy at HEB?  With that said, I’m making more of an effort to take a pic every day this year.  🙂

I included some of Kate’s art supplies on this page.  🙂  She loves it when I do that.

So, what’s the plan for 2013 and 2014 DDs.  Currently, I’m making sure to take a pic every day and write down what we do.  I’m toying with the idea of making this year’s DD 4×6.  It will just be one photo each day that I’ve (potentially) added some text/ embellishment to either in photoshop or with traditional materials.  That seems so boring, but with me working full time this year, there’s just not as much to photograph.  If I decide to do more than that, I’m pretty sure it will be using divided page protectors again.

I’m hoping to finish 2013 up in the next week or 2; I hate being so far behind.  I don’t anticipate posting (or even working on) any layouts from 2014 until I’ve finished 2013.

Until Raptor and I are off for a week!  I had the Teacher Talent Show last night and between that, Raptor’s ear infection, and, well, incubating 2 babies, I dont have anything super exciting to post today.  So, I leave you with a link to my Thanksgiving Pinterest Board.  I’m planning on doing some fun Thanksgiving activities with Raptor next week.  🙂

In twin news, it looks like we’re having a boy and a girl!  We’re so excited.  My other big goal next week is to make some serious progress cleaning out the room that will be there nursery so I can convince RaptorDad to paint it.  I’m thinking teal and orange.  With an octopus theme.  It’ll be cuter than it sounds, promise.  🙂