enJOY it

project life 2013 : week 1.

January 13, 2013

HERE WE GO!! It's week one and I'm obsessed with this project all over again.

I have decided that I'll be making my weeks Monday to Sunday (instead of Sunday to Saturday) so I can keep the weekends together. I will continue to share each spread on the blog, but they will go up a week later instead of the day after the week ends. This will give me more time to be sure I am happy with the layout and not just throwing it together so I have something up on the blog. Ideally, this will NOT just give me free reign to get behind on the project. 🙂

I am hoping to simplify the journaling I share on the blog each week by using a bit of Q&A. This is the first week so things may get tweaked, but text should be similar from week to week as I share thoughts, techniques (when appropriate) and ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos just for fun.

click the photo to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.

Week of : January 1 – January 6.

What happened this week? We were up in Sacramento. I decided to include two photos (one of me and one of Paul) from New Years Eve even though technically that's 2012. We were apart most of the week as Paul was hunting in Washington state.

Yep! I know I spelled "embracing" wrong. The error was caught and fixed after I took these photos.

Anything special in the spread? I used a mini calendar card from Paislee Press, I'll be using one of these in a 3×4 pocket each new month. Because it's a new year, and that is exciting, I tucked some colorful sequins into the pocket as well. I also have a few bits from the Studio Calico project life kit in the spread this week too. I am not a subscriber, but I write for their tips & tricks column once a quarter and am lucky enough to get a kit then.

Yep! I know I spelled "embracing" wrong. The error was caught and fixed after I took these photos.

Techniques this week : I talked in my "moving forward with Project Life" post about how I wanted to make my 2013 album "better." At the time that was super tricky to articulate. And even now, looking at this spread, I don't know what makes it "better" but I do know I feel good about it. This week, I used white space on the photos to add handwritten text (which is super normal for me) and incorporated letter stickers right on top of the photos. Love the look and how it feels almost editorial. I'd love to do more of both throughout the year.

Overall thoughts : I can already tell that this album will have more handwritten "paragraph style" journaling. I am obsessed with the 3×4 journaling cards & simple text designs. I am excited to incorporate two or three a week to share extra stories.

Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 9 to 1. Just the photo of bearded Paul grinning at the camera was taken with my real camera. Most (but not all) of the iPhone photos were processed with the AfterGlow app.

Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : 9 to 1. Paul took the landscape one while he was up hunting. The ones of me/us are self timer photos with the TimerCam app for iPhone.

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Studio Calico Project Life kit (ampersand 3×4 card & geotag badge), Elise Joy you're my favorite stamp, Paislee Press calendar card, Freckled Fawn arrow wood chip, Meredith Tilton Love Light transparency, American Crafts letter stickers, Basic Gray for Studio Calico letter stickers, Elle's Studio journaling tag, Studio Calico "man" paper clip, Martha Stewart & Avery labels.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project? Check here.
around here.

January 11, 2013

photo details : do your best pennant from three potato four, letter stamps are super old from Michael's, brave cards are for my one little word album and are part of a lesson from Ali's one little word class.

First, I cannot thank you enough for sharing in my joy and excitement about the launch of Seafoam. I really appreciate your patience too. Launching in mid-January is not ideal and I know Becky and the team were just as anxious as I and you were to see it on Amazon. I am looking forward to sharing more of how I will use the kit in my own album this year and can't wait to see how you all use it! I have loved the peeks I have seen so far from international and digital customers. 🙂

Second, the stamp shop is open & I have a new 4×6 minibook listed in the book shop! These books are just for fun (not seasonal or themed) and called "For the love of _________." I could see them holding love notes for a specific person (a cute Valentine gift, perhaps?) or being added to over time with photos and journaling about a favorite thing or activity. I am a big fan of the paper mix this time around and I have priced them to sell – ideally, I'll get them all out the door before we move.

And speaking of moving: Paul and I are headed down to San Deigo tonight for our first house hunting trip. We have looked at many places online and will be seeing our favorites in real life on a whirlwind tour with our realtor. I'll be taking a lot of photos and notes. My dreams are filled with hardwood floors and clean white walls, but we'll see. Big adventures ahead for our little family and we're so excited (and maybe a bit overwhelmed).

On Sunday we'll head to Anahiem and I am going to get dinner with some sweet ladies then wander CHA for a quick bit on Monday morning. So looking forward to seeing the Project Life booth and checking out what other scrapbook products will be launching this spring. If you see me… please say hello!

Have a great weekend. And thank you again.
project life 2013 : title page.

January 10, 2013

I absolutely love starting fresh with any project. Project life is no exception.

And January is THE BEST time for this project. In January, the whole year can feel super inspiring. It's easy to think that you'll never get tired of printing photos and tucking things into pockets. Spoiler alert : it will get boring. It might get mundane. But it's so worth it. So, so worth it to stick with this project.

Like probably many of you, I begin Project Life 2013 on a major high, thinking I'll somehow manage to stay super up on documentation for the remaining 52 weeks. I mean how could I not? Making my title page this year was SO enjoyable I wanted to make another 10! I wanted to just guess how the rest of January was going to go so I could fill in all the pockets RIGHT AWAY! 😉

But, experience says that rush will fade a bit.

So I am setting myself up to stay inspired : I've got a cleared out desk (I recycled and gave away anything that I didn't want to use right this second to be sure I was down to only embellishments that I am excited about or are realistic for my current style). I've got the Seafoam kit that I can't wait to play with (plus a baby kit with the cutest elephant cards). I've got a goal to take more photos. At this point, that's pretty much the best I can do.

I worked from the Seafoam kit (which hooray!! is available here!) to create the title page. I added extra embellishments here and there, to keep things interesting and inspiring. The 3×4 cards are all meant to be on the front page. (The kit designates some cards for front page or back page in addition to just journaling cards to be used throughout the album.) I added a label with our last name and stitching to one and two flair badges to the other (one from Ormolu and one from Evalicious).

I used the "at the start" journaling card to set the stage for 2013. Fun fact – I totally messed up the text on my "at the start" journaling card, so I just trimmed off the side graphic and glued it on top of another similar journaling card (after I was happy with my handwriting and text on that one). The best thing about the pockets is they hide "errors" like that. Don't be afraid to write on & USE this stuff.

I embellished the gray & white striped card by repeatedly date stamping the first three months of 2013 (before I remembered this album would likely go through four months – oops!). Not sure if in Classic Elise Style, I am just going to pretend that didn't happen or go over the whole thing with APR 2013…

The guy & girl paper clips on that gray tag were from Studio Calico awhile back. Love that we are beginning this year as a family of two and will end it as three.

I decided to stick with the neutral palette and cut down a piece of 12×12 Seafoam paper
for that top right 4×6 pocket. If you want to stay neutral but don't
have the paper pack, you could totally use one of the title cards (and
use that label printed on it to hold your last name or the year).

I like to have photos on my first page, so I added a few (one from August 2012 and one from this past December). I am not picky that my title page photos are super current (obviously), but I am very particular about choosing photos I love. I stitched around one of them with white thread and added a wood chip "love" and gold "C" letter sticker.

Last year, I covered the little plastic thing at the front of the album with pages from my big calendar. This year, I decided to hide it with a trimmed down sheet of 12×12 paper. I added a kraft circle label and a "C" flair badge on top. I currently have my pages in an old album, but will be transferring them to the Seafoam binder when it's available.

So that's the beginning. HOT DAMN, I AM PUMPED TO MAKE THIS YEAR AND THIS ALBUM AWESOME. Fingers crossed I can ride the wave… 🙂 Look for my week one post on Sunday morning.

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Seafoam 12×12 paper, Studio Calico "girl & guy" paper clips, Ormolu and Evalicous flair badges, Freckled Fawn wood chip love, American Crafts gold letter sticker, Martha Stewart & Avery label.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project? Check here.
the seafoam edition is up on amazon.

January 9, 2013

Hooray, hooray!!

It's up.

Shop the core kit here.

Shop the 12×12 paper here.

Shop the Seafoam 12×12 album here.

Shop the monthly dividers here.

the big pack of Design A page protectors are also in stock.

I'll update this post when more pieces (album, dividers) are available.

Look for my 2013 title page on the blog tomorrow and my first week of 2013 will be up Sunday. If you're bored, you can read the Seafoam Story starting here.
i love january.

January 9, 2013

freckled fawn speech bubble wood embellishments, design for minikind DIY 5 minute mobile, alternative apparel henley tee, three potato four do your best pennant, cosmo cricket graphic element tags, little sapling toys wooden toy camera.

Excited about all sorts of things at the start of this year. Here's a short list of instant favorites.
a rocking chair for the baby.

January 8, 2013

This rocking chair is a family heirloom in more ways than one.

In August, Paul's great aunt passed away. Weeks later, Paul's mom texted to see if we wanted her wooden rocking chair. "Tell her sure!" I said. "Tell her we'd love it for baby Cripe."

It was sort of a joke, but sort of serious. Baby Cripe was not on the way yet, but eventually he or she would be, right? We could use a rocking chair then.

On Thanksgiving, because baby Cripe is actually on the way, Paul's family brought it down and I was pleased to find out that it was small and actually comfy. This wasn't going to be a "just for show" rocker, it was one I'd actually enjoy sitting in. The cover was old and dirty and desperately needed to be replaced, but the wood was great.

While I was up in Sacramento for the holidays, I picked up some black and white striped fabric at Ikea that I knew would match our headboard if we ended up keeping the chair in our bedroom but was also generic enough that it could work in any of our rooms (including baby's which will be primarily black and white regardless of gender). Plus, let's get real, "black and white" is more or less the motto in our house.

I took apart the old cushions and used them as templates to re-cut the new seat and back covers. It was a much easier project that I had geared up for. So easy that I decided to take them a step further and add wooden buttons to finish off the look.

AND HERE IS WHERE THINGS GET LUCKY : For a few years, I have had some wooden buttons that my grandpa (the same grandpa that painted a portrait Paul and I) had carved for me and my mom. The buttons had never made it into a project because I had no idea what sort of project would be special enough for them (and I am not a good enough knitter to make a cardigan).

So now baby has a rocking chair that's been in Paul's family for decades, includes details from his or her Great Grandpa and has handmade cushions made by Mom. Sounds like a winner. 😉
the difference between goals and to-do list items.

January 7, 2013
I have been getting a few emails about the difference between setting goals and accomplishing the normal day-to-day activities. What do I consider what? How do I stay motivated to do the mundane or routine stuff over and over again? How do I tackle large goals?

I thought it would be a fun topic to blog about, especially at the beginning of the year.

First, it helps to break it all down. At the simplest point, I think you can separate everything you do into one of three layers.

Layer one is the necessities. You breathe. You eat. You sleep. Those are the basics and items that must occur for you to live. Most likely, if you're reading this blog, these are things you do every day without thinking too much about them (unless, of course, they are interrupted by an outside factor and then they are the only thing you think about).

Layer two includes the actions you preform over and over again to sustain a "normal" life. I am totally generalizing here but this would include everything from putting gas in the car to showering to taking out the trash to going to work. I would consider these the "chores" or "routines" that happen over and over again. Many of these things are habits or rituals that you do once a day or when they are needed without thinking about them.

Everything in layers one and two has to be accomplished by me or someone in my household. They are not exciting, but they are for the most part, necessary.

Layer three is where I see the bonus stuff. It's the more creative, more life-enriching (as opposed to life-sustaining) stuff that I make choices to add to layers one and two. For the most part, "goal-setting" and the majority of goals I set fall into the layer three category. I love layer three. It's the exercising, creative experimenting, house decorating, challenging work ventures, saving money, planting a garden "stuff". All of these are things that I choose to do on top of the "normal" stuff because I have found they make my life better. I don't have to do layer the three items and that's what makes them fun goals to work toward.

With that said, I can explain a bit more how I tackle both layers two and three.

Layer two :

About two-thirds the stuff on "layer two" is just habit that over time has ingrained into my routine. The other third gets added to my daily to-do list because I appreciate the reminder. Like some days I'll actually write "LAUNDRY" on my list and make a point to get through five or six loads as I go about my day. I write "mail rent" or "make pizza dough" or "pull chicken from freezer" on my to-do list in case it slips my mind. Personally, I am able to focus better on the "fun stuff" as well as fully commit to a productive work day (remember, I work from home) when I know layer two has been taken care of and the house is relatively clean. I am able to accomplish more goals and explore layer three when layer two isn't nagging at the back of my mind.

Avoiding Facebook almost entirely, not caving to "in-active" TV watching time and severely cutting down the number of blogs I read has given me more time to accomplish daily tasks. Having a place for everything in our house has helped me stay organized and not feel like I am drowning in "stuff". Having one day a week for tackling laundry (obviously I'll need more than that when we add a little one and cloth diapers into the mix) or grocery shopping has helped me feel like I am not spinning my wheels and getting no where. Turning on music and setting a timer in the kitchen (by literally punching 10 minutes into the microwave) then twirling around like the tasmanian devil and washing dishes, unloading the dishwasher and wiping down counters has really helped me feel like I am moving quickly through my least favorite chore.

Layer two, for me, is about finding the right time in my day and little tricks that help me move through mundane tasks. Finding the right balance is totally a personal preference, but something that I think is important to experiment with and allow to develop so I don't dread the "normal" and just embrace it so I can move on with my day.

Layer three :

A lot of what I share here is layer three. The crafts. The projects. The running. The bread baking. The gardening. The books I read. Even all these thoughts about goal setting. Layer three tends to make for more interesting blog content, that is for sure. Often these things are inspiring and flashy and look great in a photo grid, but really, layer three projects get broken down into manageable bites in the form of to-do list items just like layer two.

When I was running mile a day, I went through my calendar and wrote "mileaday" on each page and then diligently crossed it off. When I am working on something more long-term and intense, like decorating our bedroom, I break the project down into steps (paint walls, move dresser, sew pillow, buy plants, reorganize drawers, hang art, etc) so instead of looking at one giant and overwhelming task, I am looking at 10-15 small and manageable ones.

The lesson, of course, is that at the end of the day, layer three is really just made up of to-do list items (that can be relatively fun). If you don't break big goals up into actionable items they serve as nothing more than wishes and will not be accomplished. It all comes down to scheduling and then following through. I have spent a lot of time the past few years getting a handle on layer two so I can actively devote time to more "enriching" projects. I know I'll have to work hard to re-gain the handle I have when we add a new family member. I am nervous but incredibly excited for the challenge and the joy the baby (and then child!) will add to our lives.

Goal-setting can be SO overwhelming. Long to-do lists can make me want to give up and mindlessly scroll through Pinterest. But ultimately that's boring and ineffective. So I schedule. And plan. And write. And edit. And simplify. And remember how good it feels to accomplish something and cross stuff off. And I practice, practice, practice.

Related reading from previous posts :
Since writing this post, I created Get To Work Book! It's a day planner + goal setting workbook that is designed to help you take your big goals turn them into something real. Learn more and shop the brand here.

Other posts you might enjoy:
the answers to all your Project Life questions.

January 4, 2013
Project Life is a system for documenting everyday life created by Becky Higgins. I created weekly spreads for my album in 2012 and am continuing again in 2013. Every Sunday, I share an update to my album on the blog (you can see all of them from 2013 so far here). I have created this page to answer some of the questions that come up weekly. Hopefully, you’ll find the answer to your question here. 🙂

How much time do you devote to this project a week?

It varies. I can put together a spread in a half hour or I can spend a bit more time depending on the number of photos I have an if I want to create an insert to share more about a story. I will say this though, I spend more time taking photos of the album and sharing it on my blog each week than I spend acutally working on the album. That should be a good indication of how little time Project Life can take. 😉

How do you tackle this project?

Currently, I work on the album throughout the week. In 2012, I had my weeks run from Sunday to Saturday, but will be switching to Monday to Sunday for 2013. I like the idea of keeping the weekends together and this way I am able to share the following Sunday on the blog and don’t have to rush to finish on Saturdays. I will be working primarily from the Seafoam kit in 2013 and I expect that it will help me to simplify the process (as well as help cut back on buying extra stuff) greatly.

What supplies do you use?
What tools to you use?
- pen / Zig Millennium 0.1
- corner rounder / Fiskars
- paper trimmer / Rotatrim 15-Inch Professional Cutter
- stamping ink / exclusively black StazOn
- adhesive / Tombow Permanent roller adhesive.
You used to share quotes on each spread. What font is that quote font?

The quote font I used is a free one called BEBAS. I created a free download of all the quote cards that you can access here.

How do you take your photos?

I have a Canon XSi
that I use for all of my normal shots. I recently purchased a Canon 35 mm f/2 lens and I shoot with that 95% of the time. I also take a ton of
photos with my phone because I always have it with me and it’s so much
less conspicuous. I’d say this album is about 60% camera photos, 40%
phone.

I do very little post processing for my photos. Most are straight out
of camera. This is mostly because I have no idea what I am doing with
photo editing, but also because I like the look of normally lit shots.

When I do use iPhone photos, I use them in three ways. First, I print
them exactly as they were taken. On the spread above you can see three
photos right from my phone that were just cropped to the appropriate
size (3×4 or 4×6).

I also use my Instagram photos in the album. Above are two examples.
In one, I kept the square ratio of the Instagram photo and left a white
border when I cropped it down to fit on the 4×6 paper. And in the other,
I cropped it in PSE to 3×4 before printing. I
use Instagram when the original photo on my phone wasn’t that great –
dark, grainy, etc – and the instagram filters made the photo more
interesting.

And last, I process a few of my iPhone photos using the PictureShow
app. This app keeps the same photo ratio – 3×4 – but adds fun filters to
make the shots a bit more interesting. Sometimes if an iPhone photo is
fine, but needs more “pop”, I’ll apply a PictureShow filter before
emailing it to myself and printing for the album. (The three other
photos on the page above were taken with my normal camera.)

How do you print your photos?

I print all my photos at home. I do this because it’s convenient and I
can play around with custom sizes and when I mess up something, I can
just reprint. I have an HP Photosmart 2575 printer
that Paul had when we moved in together. I love it. The reviews online
are terrible, but I have never had any problems with it and love the
photo quality. It’s expensive partly because it’s so old I think. I
always get asked if it goes through ink fast – I don’t have anything to
compare it to, but I don’t have any complaints.

printingphotos from elise blaha on Vimeo.

The video above shares how I print 4×6 and 3×4 photos at home.

dividing up a 12×12 photo for printing at home. from elise blaha on Vimeo.

The video above shares how I print large 12×12 photos in pieces to fit into the pocket pages.

I print exclusively on Office Depot brand semi-gloss paper. It’s
expensive, but AWESOME and I usually stock up when it’s on sale or I
have a coupon. I much prefer matte photos over glossy and this paper is
perfect. I do think that printing at home is more expensive than
printing in a store or online. But to me, it’s worth the ease and I appreciate the time I save not going into a store or waiting for a photo order.

As mentioned above, I am including Instagram photos in this book. I
talked a bit about the larger sizes, but when I want them small (like to
fit in a coin protector page) I print them using the contact sheet printing option in iPhoto. (You can see the video of my process in this post.) I adore having them together in this grid format because I think they make a much better statement than one alone.

Tell me about the inserts.

When something big happens or I have a lot of text and/or photos to
include, I usually add an insert to the two page weekly spread.

Usually the text that gets included on inserts comes directly from
posts on this blog. I do enough writing here that I don’t need to write
MORE for the album. In addition to a big pack of Project Life Design A
protectors and a variety pack,
I went a little bit nuts on amazon and purchased all different sizes of
page protectors to add inserts. I have the following sizes :
I like having different options for adding more photos and text each week. I included my “day in the life” documentation
right into this album as an insert and plan on doing Week in the Life
the same way this year with a baseball card protector for each day.

How do you photograph the album?

For blog updates, I take pictures off the album on the ground near a
window. I avoid direct sunlight, but make sure there is enough natural
light to get the colors to come through correctly. I shoot directly
above and don’t have too much trouble getting decent images.
baby’s first blanket.

January 4, 2013

Very early on in my pregnancy…. maybe 7 weeks? I decided I was going to stop into our local yarn store to "just feel and look at the yarn" which sounds odd, until you do it and
then you finally get why people always walk out of pet stores or
shelters with a new puppy.

I walked out with four skeins of thick, (machine washable!) gray and white yarn and size 15 circular needles. The brand is Plymouth Encore Mega and is truly some of the softest (but still easy to care for) yarn I've felt. The baby was going to get his or her first blanket. When I walked out the lady said, "your baby will love it!" which I thought was crazy because I hadn't told her it was yarn for my baby's blanket and certainly wasn't showing yet. I took it as a good sign.

This blanket came together in 48 hours. Knitting with mega yarn and huge needles is a dream come true.

I cast on about 70 stitches to start and then knitted two full rows (so back and forth – not sure if that should be called four rows?) of gray before alternating to white. And then of course continuing to alternate back and forth.

I ended up buying another four skeins to finish it off (so much for my "not too expensive impulse project") and the finished dimensions are about 40×40 inches.

I LOVE it. It's super thick and soft and I just know it will photograph so much better with a baby laying on it. 😉

Next up for the tiny one, I am recovering rocking chair cushions and then, once we know gender (mid-January), I'll be starting the baby's first quilt. I am more excited for this baby quilt than any other project I've attempted.
january bold intentions.

January 3, 2013
Last year, at the beginning of every month, I shared a list of goals I wanted to accomplish over the 30 day period. Some times it went better than others (you can read about my experience here). I used "choose," my word for 2012, to remind myself that the goals I set were choices. I was deciding to do these things and could choose daily actions that affected whether or not I got them completed.

This year, I wanted to do something similar but adjust it a bit to reflect my 2013 word "brave." I decided on the phrase "bold intentions" and will be coming up with just three things each month to work on. I am paring down from seven to three with the hope that I am able to commit to each more fully. Each month I will also be pairing an action word with my one little word. This is an exercise from Ali's One Little Word class and serves as it's own intention of something to focus on.

In January, I have decided to invite brave into my life. My three bold intentions are as follows :
1. embrace daily yoga.
2. actively celebrate this last month Paul and I will have together as just two. (Remember he deploys next month.)
3. take the first steps to buying our first house.
Here we go, 2013!

ps. I am currently working on a LONG blog post about the difference I see between goal-setting and "to-do" list items and how I like to manage both. Look for that Monday morning. 🙂