project life :: week 13

first off, my thoughts and prayers are with all the runners, families and bostonians. what is this world coming to where something as simple and freeing as a foot race is a target?makes me sick.

this is week 13, i am currently working on week 14 too. this week also includes a "day in the life." 

i feel i say this every week, but what a busy week we had, never feels overwhelming in the moment but putting the layouts together each week makes me relive all the fun. i love project life. this week includes a lot of school related events, including denton's report card. so i included a journal card from the bridgeport design, i relayed a cute story about d, enthusiastically calling europe, "syrup!" so because i usually miss including his writing, i made sure to this week. i asked him to write his name and draw himself, instead he drew our family. love that. they had an egg drop contest at school, and i added studio calico stickers from the march kit on that picture. 

i decided to do a "day in the life," on march 29th. d had had a sleep over with his best bud the night before and then he went 4-wheeler riding that afternoon, it was good friday, just seemed like a good day. i wasn't as time specific as i have been in the past, i just did a brief summary on the events, morning, afternoon and night. i also made my own template and it was an 8 x 10 inch. behind "day in the life," is d's report card. in case you don't know "day in the life," is a prompt from ali edwards for project life. it just is a reminder mostly of what your daily routine is like this point in time. i am trying to remember to do one a month. 

this is the back side of the journaling of the "day in the life." i mixed both small and large pictures and added on little statement of what event was going on. 

for the journal card this week, i combined a journal card into the week title card. i found some cute envelopes at michael's, recollections brand. inside the envelope i journaled on a becky higgins grid card and just slide it into the envelope. i used alphabet sticker that i also found at michael's, they were from snap, simple stories, to write out thirteen. i used a button, "this week," that was from ormolu. on the picture of Denton and james planting seeds i used a rain, rain go away card that was also included in the march studio calico kit. lastly, on the two images of the boys finding their easter baskets, i used a shrinky bird from darcie's heart and home. the little wooden bunny on james's picture was on the clearance bin at paper source in charlotte. LOVE THE PAPER SOURCE.

so that's it for week 13, i hope you are having a good week. 

project life :: week 12

i swear since Denton has gotten home, we haven't stopped moving. he has taken up all my regular "me" time or just my "get my stuff done" time. but of course i wouldn't change it for the world. 

so here is week 12. i have to put the finishing touch on the week 13 layout and then i will have that ready to share. i am actually on track with my project life production, just not with posting them here.

this week james got his first ever hair cut, he's 3! he looks like such a big boy now. i used cathy zielske, tiny templates from designer digitals to create his before and after picture. the little yellow and white striped bag from studio calico contains some of his curls closed it with some weekday washi tape. i used ali edwards' week day cards also from designer digitals to journal our crazy wednesday. the hello card is from the march studio calico project life kit. have i mentioned how much i love those kits, so fun.

james had an heart echo done this week, at his 3 year appt the dr. heard a murmur, turned out to be nothing, his heart is perfect and beautiful. i used my wacom tablet to write that directly on the digital image before i sent it off to shutter fly. i used another 4 x 6 inch card from studio calico kit to create this week's main journaling card. i also used an technique tuesday ali edwards' stamp and some washi tape.

on the right hand side, i used some small sticker from studio calico to write "gator boys" and "king of rebounds" on the pictures directly. the pictures of d with his promised 4-wheeler for being a good boy while dad was deployment, just make me smile, look how happy he is! the heart card and high five were also included in studio calico's march kit. the little yellow heart sticker was also from studio calico. lots of studio calico this week.

well i have to go pull a margarita cheesecake from the oven, look for that recipe on the yummy goodness link. 

up next week :: lots of easter and school related activities. 

project life :: week 11

still playing a bit of catch up but still very much enjoying my new way of project life'ing. by this time last year i am sure i was much further behind. i am very excited to be going away next weekend with some friends for a scrappin' weekend. my plan is to work on denton's baby edition. if i could just find the time to sit down and get through all his baby pictures. 

the big news this week... Denton is finally home! a lot happened this week but in the end, the only thing that really matters is that he is home safe and sound! so needless to say, much of my layout was dictated to his homecoming.

this week was also my spring break. i had a lot of appts that filled the week and they weren't fun but needed. monday, braxton, our golden had emergency surgery and it was found he had colitis. tuesday, i had two veins removed from my leg. i got to spend a lot of time with james, we hung out in my studio for a tiny bit on friday and we also made cookies for dad's homecoming. i used thickers to create the "going" over my leg, i will take a "gone" picture once the bruises are all gone. i used the technique tuesday stamps from ali edwards to create the "welcome home" week card, along with studio calico stars from december. the you + me card i found free on pinterest. unfortunately i can't find the link now, sorry. the "hello sunshine" little flapper came from the march studio calico project life kits.

the pictures of denton's homecoming just make me smile to even look at. i could breathe when the unit marched in. in formation, i used a studio calico sticker that says "here" i added with precision pens that says "finally you are." also used a location wood veneer. i took a longer picture of us back together again, then cut it down to the correct pocket sizes. i made the shirts for the boys and they wear them on homecoming. cut the vinyl on my silhouette, love that machine! in the last image, the freedom motorcycle riders lead the buses to the armory, the front of the building was lined with flags. i have always considered myself a patriot person, i cry every time in church, at parades, when i see marching bands, hearing and see soldiers. i can honestly say i have never been more proud of my husband or our country then i was the day he came home. the little wooden letters are also from studio calico, #proud. 

lastly, although i didn't show a detailed picture of the insert, out of respect for the family, my heart has been very heavy for a dear family in d's class at school. so saturday had extreme emotions. the high of having my best friend and partner coming home, and the extreme low of knowing that my friend had lost the same thing in her life. bill lost his battle with cancer this week. i never knew bill when he wasn't sick, but i could tell at all the school events that we attended together that he loved his family more than anything in the world. you could see home much he loved his wife, i loved that they were very real in their relationship even in his sickness. bill you will be missed. 

i also started a facebook page, please feel free to leave comments, like the page, let me know your thoughts. here is the link. stephanienacedesign

project life :: week 10

playing more catch up.

this was a really busy week as we had a TON of appts. james had his 3 year well check. were they found a heart murmur. this only scares me given the history of the loss of our first son to HLHS, d having a hole in his heart. i am hoping its innocent and we are in the clear with james but we will find out on wednesday this week. the card with his wellness stats also in the march kit from studio calico. 

since d and i both had dentist appts this week, it only seemed fitting to use the small card from the studio calico march kit. he did great at the dentist and has 4 teeth lose. i used thickers for the week ten card. and both boys got special one or one donut date time. i got a special treat, one of my most favorite things. a shamrock shake from somewhere i almost never go McD's. the "heart" happiness is was so from a card in the kit that i cut down to just the banner. 

d's basketball pictures came in this week. i can't believe how big he is. looks so grown up. the top picture in the newspaper clip is my friends and me at the disney marathon weekend. our little town paper wrote the article and it was about local runners. super fun. so those were in a 5 x 7 plastic page protector from becky higgins and a 8 x 10 size.

i started out running the columbia marathon this weekend. d and his class ran it a mile at a time and finished their last mile with their teacher as she finished her marathon. really cool event. i however, did not finish the marathon. the course was crazy hard, i had a back stomach virus that threw me for a loop for a good 2 days. i was worried about my hydration all week, so in the tenth mile i knew i would make myself sick by finishing the whole race so i humbly bailed out at the half. i used a cathy zielske tiny template from designer digitals for the collage picture of d's race. the picture of my husband is actually printed as a t-shirt transfer, i wore that for every race i ran since he left, that's 19 races! journaling cards are from the seafoam project life kit. and the last decorative card is also from seafoam kit with embellishment hearts from studio calico. lastly, the "being together" die cut is from ali edwards 4 x 6 family sentiment collection on designer digital. which i cut on my new SILHOUETTE, another new love of mine. 

so now we are all caught up. this week's most exciting news is my husband is HOME! safe and sound from a 15 month deployment in afghanistan. in that time i managed to keep myself and the kids alive. i feel very blessed.

have a good week!

project life :: week 9

play catch up this week. last week was my spring break and so i got a little bit off schedule. 

in week 8 i used a 12 x 12 photo of the boys having a sleepover so this week i needed another 12 x 12 to start off the spread. i choose to take a photo of my most prized easter decorations. my mom and gram (her mom) painted these back in the 80's. my mom passed about 3 years ago and these were definitely in my memory vault from my childhood. i am happy that my sister and i didn't fight over them. putting them out each year is bittersweet.

the little tag was from pixel & company and i printed it on vellum. the little bunny is a cute shrink technique from darcie's heart & home. they were in columbia a few weeks ago for the stamp, scrap, art tour. i have some plans to do some fun stuff with the shrink paper. 

the highlight of the week was my new wacom tablet purchase. i love this thing and seriously don't know how i lived life without it until now. the picture with d and the written ouch written on it was done with my wacom. it's so much fun. the picture of more touch boxes coming home says "soon you will be home," was written directly on the photo with a precision pen by american crafts, the home sticker is from studio calico. the "this week card is an ali edwards from designer digitals. the week title card that has all the dates on it was from the studio calico march project life kit. this is my first month getting it and i LOVED it, so worth the money and the waitlist. the hello is the install window from the wacom software, i took a screen grab of that. i thought the typography was fun. we celebrated dr. seuss's birthday with some special cupcakes from sweet. and probably my most favorite image from the week is d's picture of a the bear (or a he spelled it baer). this is the first time that he has written anything other than his name without copying it from a print out or someone else's writing. 

project life :: week 8

last week i think i was on picture overload mode with james's birthday. that i didn't really take that many images this week. 

because of how i decided to create the spread this week, i ended up needing to combine my week title card with my week summary card and i was pretty pleased with the results. i downloaded the cute "love this" card from pixels & company, then i stitched it on top of a becky higgins grid card. i made sure to score the top of the "love this" card so that it would fold open neatly. i used some washi tape on the end of the seafoam card, then i stitched a studio calico, darling dear paper and another seafoam dotted card together, dated it and added the studio calico thought bubble with a thicker 8. 

used the camera + app on my iphone to take the picture of james. love that app! then with a precision pen i wrote "love that kid" on the photo and drew a little border. on the picture of san pants james i added a elle's studio circle tag heart. the picture of d's basketball game i took using slow camera+ app, it's pretty cool for capturing long exposures, i have been wanting to try it at night with car lights and signage. so the picture is intentionally blurry. the metallic S sticker is martha stewart's that i found on clearance. 

so this week i got totally crazy and did the spread with a 12 x 12. the boys had a sleepover and i had found this cute free "like it, Facebook" download from pinterest. here's the link. i actually posted this comment on facebook when i saw the boys sleeping together. put the image and card together in photoshop and sent it off to persnickety prints. 

so that's week 8. naturally week 9 will have a 12 x 12 now. not sure i love that because it doesn't give me a lot of space but it is a nice solution for a week when you don't shoot a lot. 

have a good week.

project life :: week 7

what another busy week we had, love a busy week, makes the time go fast and i don't sit around thinking about how much longer i have to be a single parent. march can't get here fast enough!

on the news front, i got a wacom tablet yesterday and its an understatement to say i don't know how i lived life without it before! love this thing!

our week was busy because there was of course valentine's day but there was also JAMES'S 3rd birthday. (talk about time going too quickly). big d was in the daily newspaper on monday. i also did a "day in the life" on the 15th. i did this last year for james's birthday so i thought i would do it again this year. my plan is to do it the 15th of every month now.

this is how the week turned out. 

i did a screen grab of the weather because we actually got snow here in SC. flurries nothing that stuck. i used thickers over the image of my leg, having a vein removed in the coming weeks, so this is my before picture. the ladybugs were on a present from james's birthday and it super cute so i kept it. the journal card with the die cut 3 was from my recent studio calico purchase. i realized that because i am doing a weekly summary this year rather than the daily one i am going to run out of large journal cards so i made some. its a 4x6 with chevrons. i made a series of these and now i opened an etsy store to sell them if you are interested. 

this is a layered view of the right hand side, it has first a 7 x 5 page protector with my husband's news article in it. then behind that is james's "day in the life" layout, and last the right hand project life page. 

above is the "day in the life" i used the template that ali edwards made. in the printing there was an error so i will be reprinting this one and then adding a nice chipboard 3 that i had zing'ed to the center of the collaged pictures.

we had a minor mishap with my canon 60D on james's birthday. at first i didn't think anything happened when d knocked it off the table while it was open but if you look closely you can see where it cracked the frame around the screen. thankfully it still functions correctly but it makes me sick to my stomach when i look at it. 

this is a page protector design G. i used my wishblade to cut the "a day in the life" from ali edwards. the picture of james dissenting a pen has a heart from studio calico on it. a little wooden love arrow also from studio calico on the picture of the boys and me. (i have been wanting to get into the habit of also taking a family picture once a month).  on james's birthday candle image i used a chic indie garland. then lastly, on d's picture with samson, i stamped an ali edwards stamp from technique tuesday. 

so that's week 7, hope you have a good week!

project life :: week 6

this may be my favorite layout so far this year.  the one element that i keep forgetting is that i want to add more b/w photos into my layouts. however, i find this hard because i feel that my b/w photos always look flat. so i did some research and in that search i found a really interesting article about taking better pictures with your iphone. i jump between my iphone and my canon 60D all the time. but the article gave some great tips. here is a link, thanks grumbles and grunts.

this week we did a lot of new things, in week 6 i officially started to blog regularly about our project life journey. we started the count down calendar on the door for daddy's return from deployment. that has been both a blessing and a curse. the boys have been crazy lately with the thought of dad coming home. 

i wanted to remember to take a black and white this week, and who better than our black and white kitty, boots, he has a twin bother too, oreo. i divided the pictures up among the pockets and i think the outcome is pretty interesting. i finally got my small embellishment shipment from studio calico and two peas in a bucket that i had ordered. so the hashtag and the location mark are from studio calico. the tuesday card is one that i purchase from ali edwards collection on designer digitals.

james has been completely funny lately with what he has said. he has an obsession with chapstick and hand sanitizer, not so much that he uses them just carries them around, like a lot of them, like 6 chapsticks at a time. so i made a jamesisms card with funny things that he has said lately. i used some new paper that i got from two peas in a bucket to make the week card on top of the seafoam core kit, then i stitched the two together. i used a studio calico little wood arrow and inked it black. the ampersand card was a freebie from studio calico and the "keep calm and snap on" card was also a freebie that i found on pinterest. the "so much love for you." is also a ali edwards' from designer digital. 

coming up next week is 

james's 3rd birthday

a day in the life

project life :: week 5

what a fun week! lots going on, lots of fun and lots of sickness. first james then this week denton. blah, knock on wood, i didn't get it.  

i used thickers to detail james's sickness. d had a basketball game and i split that into 3 frames of the protector. it worked out well. this weekend was also a crafty one. we made a hundred eyed monster for the one hundredth day of school. the boys were also crazy for the babysitter putting sticky puffy guys stuck to their face. 

our friend tracy made james's suspenders from masking tape and his headband, which was turned inside out so it didn't hurt his hair. i added a stitched heart sticker there.

i also made a valentine's day wreath made from paper straws. probably the most exciting event of the week was that my huband's foot locker came home! this is a sign in the right direction and we can now start counting down the days until he gets home! i love the bottom left picture of the boys. they look like they were deep in conversation however, d's book buddy at school (its a college student that works on literacy with him) gave him a disposable camera. so d was actually taking a picture of james. 

for the week card, i used a calendar card from jessica sprague. i also did a little shopping this week for small embellishments. i found that most things i had from traditional scrapbooking are too big (i feel) for my project life, got some great deal at two peas in a bucket and studio calico.

project life :: week 2

this was a long week in the making. in july i decided to run the walt disney world goofy challenge. that's 39.3 miles in 2 days; a half marathon on saturday and a full marathon on sunday. it was crazy but i am very much a GO BIG or GO HOME kind of person. it was an amazing adventure. i ran over 750 miles in my months of training. the best part of this was that i was able to drag my best friends in with me too. 

before i left i cleaned the studio in prep for staying on top of my project life this year. the bottom left picture is my fav, that my baby, james (almost 3) in his favorite santa jammies "helping" clean up. i also included my running bib from the races.

i created the week 2 intro using the logo from the 20th anniversary race, then i wrote week 2 with an embossing pen and embossed it with glitter embossing powder. i also LOVE ali edwards, i used one of her technique tuesday stamps from the lower left picture with james. lastly, i created a cut out with my wishblade, "disney baby 2013." 

using the plastics design G i created this right side. the picture of the castle is blurry because i took it while i was running, yep we got to run through the castle. it was pretty awesome. it has beautiful mosaic tile walls in it but with 27,000 people running with me i couldn't stop to take a picture of that as much as i wanted to. the characters were at mile 20, for the 20th anniversary of the mickey marathon. i used a mickey brad on the picture of my running partners in crime. and wood stars from studio calico on the lego picture of woody and buzz. i took a screen shot from my iphone for the facebook post. i think this week captured how excited i was about the trip!

project life :: week 1

this week, we had our girls night, i go out with a group of amazing ladies, there are 8 total, we call ourselves the two tuesdays (every other tuesday night). we went to unwine and painted peacock. it was very amusing, it had been a long time since i picked up a paintbrush. i decided i haven't missed it. the progress of my painting was in the middle. we got some pictures from the hubby that week and i like to include them when we have them. 

on the week 1, i used thickers, seafoam paper, and some washi tape. i also used thickers on the "gone too long" and then stitched through them. on the right hand page i enlarged a picture that denton sent home, i added some star stickers to it. the backwards cut out text is part of next week's spread. 

and yep that's my oldest son balancing a banana on my friend's dog's nose. he will sit like that until you tell him to go. it's awesome!

project life 2013 :: intro

hi! so this is my 3rd year documenting our lives, i love it, celebrating the everyday moments as well as those HUGE moments in life. this year i am changing up my project life, in the previous years i have done the day by day journaling. i found that hard i would get behind, i would beat myself up about being so far behind. so this year i adopted the weekly summary, I LOVE IT! i am up to date. i am enjoy the process tons more and i have been playing. 

this is my intro for 2013. i saw somethings on pinterest that i liked before the seafoam kit was available. i created a color scheme and patterns that i thought would work well with the kit, i also saw some cool things put out by studio calico, but i was on their wait list for the january project life kit. so again, i just designed my own things, pulling some the things i saw that i like. in the end i am very happy with how it turned out, i am not in love with the picture of the boys, but its will stay in place until i find another or fall in love with it. 

there are a few things that i want to keep reminding myself of this year. i made a little list and i keep it in my studio. 

1. be true to you! (basically follow what i like and not what everyone else is doing, cause i think they are doing it right and i am not).

2. mix black and white photos with full color photos

3. mix photo sizes, cross over the borders.

4. journal, journal, journal. i am probably the weakest here.

5. embellish, such a fine line

6. tell the story of the week

5. mix the page protector designs. been having lots of fun with that!