Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Finished December Daily Album

I did it!

This is indeed a labour intensive project. 

Once I'm finally finished it, I can then look at it lovingly. This is one of my most favourite DD's to date. 

This year I ordered product from Ali Edwards. I ordered the main album kit once before, DD2013. [I loved that album too] But if I'm totally honest with myself, I find it hard to incorporate physical product into my albums. I've been a digital scrapbooker for the past 5 years. I love the everything about digital. I do miss 'using' product. However, once I have it, I question everything, and all my pages and layouts seem to take me longer to do. 

I ordered this years album from Ali, because the 6x8 sized albums and page protectors are hard to come by. The supply seems to dwindle a little bit more each year. This year I had an album ordering fiasco. Once December Daily was live, I went onto the website and selected all the things I wanted to purchase for this years album.

Sadly, there is a little bit of 'get-it-before-it's-sold-out' mentality. That is my only complaint about December Daily. Things sell out ridiculously fast. It's easy not to be in the mindset to order Christmas product in September/October. To make a long story short, when my order arrived weeks later, there was no album in my shipment. 

2017 Paislee Press Mini kit - check.
2016 Paislee Press Mini kit - check.
2017 Ali Edwards chipboard letters - check.
3x8 page protectors - check. 
Extra Package of 6x8 Page protectors - check. 

But no album. I checked my invoice, no album. Colossal mistake.  

Talk about the wind rushing out of your sail... 

Obviously in my haste/mad rush to 'get-it-before-it's-sold-out' I must have unintentionally de-selected the album, not noticing upon check out. 

I know for a fact the album was the first thing I put in my cart. I knew there was a limited amount. 

Of course, by the time product was shipped, albums had long been sold out. So no chance getting one of Ali's albums. [The thing I like most about these is they are 6 ringed albums] Gives lots of flexibility for adding smaller size product to the album.

Once I realized I had no album, and got over being bummed out, I was able to order another 6x8 sized album from Scrapbook.com. It came within a few weeks, and I was good to go. 

I put together foundation pages and then just waited for December to roll around. 

There are a few things I wanted to do with this album. Firstly, I wanted to do my best to use physical product for this album. There are a few exceptions, but the majority of this album is created using the product I received or already had from past years. 

Secondly, I wanted to use a typewriter for my journaling. [thanks Mum!] There were a few challenges with this. Journal cards were thick. Hard to use with the typewriter. But for the most part, got the cards in and typed on them. How dependant I am on spell check and the backspace key became apparent almost instantly. There are typos on these pages. And that is something I have to be okay with. Once I used a journal card, it was used. Couldn't print another one.  The spaces between the lines of journalling aren't all the same. I really struggled with getting the paper to move. There are a few mistakes [which my eye goes to immediately] but even with the mistakes, I love how this album turned out. 

As far as DD2017 goes, that's a wrap!!













































I'm missing a page 13. I received both kids hockey/ringette photos, and planned to add them on the 13th. But as of yet, I haven't done it. I'm not stressed out about it. If the page gets done, fine. If it doesn't, well, I'm fine with that too. 

I'd also like to add something on the flip open page of Day 24, but I'm still not sure what. Journal a story of the skating day? Maybe. Again, I'm okay with walking away from it right now. So it may or may not get finished. 

This is something that has to be fun. If I start to stress about the things that don't get done, it sucks the fun away. 

I'm perfectly happy with my imperfect album.  

Monday, January 22, 2018

PL2017 is finished!

I'm finished my 2017 album.

And it's only January 22nd.

[I've also nearly finished my 2017 December Daily album, which is exciting. I'm 95% done, just a couple final things to do. For some reason, those few final things, seem to take the longest. Will share my album here as soon as it's complete and in the FINISHED pile]

Here are November and December of my Project life album.

First off, November: 



  • Volunteering at the casino as a chip runner for our hockey association. I've never done chip runner before, but it was kind of cool. Would totally do that task again. 
  • Excited to pick M&D up from the airport after their Peru adventure. Of course there was a snow storm happening that very night.  [In fact, their flight out of LA was delayed several times] 
  • Loving the new scarf that I treated myself to last year. 
  • Loving the light on our morning walk. It was so pretty and it was chinooking. [Which is absolutely a word for Calgarians, in case you were wondering.]
  • Loving that I can text Mason during school and most times, he answers back. 
  • Mad's team was challenged by the coach to shoot 1,000 rings. It was a struggle, but she did complete the task. 
  • Some of Mason's most common hockey fans.



  •  Madelyn with the ring, heading for the net!
  • Puppy snuggles on the couch. 
  • Date night, Barry was feeling crummy on this night, with his 3rd cold since September. 
  • Putting up our tree in mid-November. It's early, but our calendar is crazy, and we wanted to fit it in and make a night out of it. 
  • Our hockey boy. Feeling a bit frustrated with the season so far. 
  • Celebrating Chris's birthday with burgers and cake of course. 

Finally, December:  

December was a busy month. Madelyn had two ringette tournaments, one out of town, one in town. Mason also had a tournament that was held during the week. [Mon-thur] We get an awful lot of mileage on cars, simply going to and from different rinks across town. [And across Alberta]

  • Vellum covered photo of a picture I'd included in my December Daily album. It was of Mad's tournament in Medicine Hat. All 14 girls were able to make it, and it was a really good weekend of bonding for the girls. [Which was good, because they lost every single game they played.]
  • First batch of Gingersnaps. 
  • Snapchat filters with Miss Madelyn.
  • Pre 'Spa Day' looking Libby.
  • My favourite Christmas display of lit of apothecary jars filled with winter scenes.
  • Weekend two of ringette tourney, where Madelyn came down with a nasty cold. [She lovingly passed it along to me as well]
  • Mace shovelling for a friend who is away for Christmas. [I spy our tent trailer nestled in the garage for the winter]
  • Table set for Christmas dinner.
  • I sent a Christmas card to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge this year. I screen shot this photo that was on IG. However, the first week of January, I received an actual Christmas card from them! So exciting!
  • Too many sugar cookies were consumed this holiday season...
  • The full and relaxed atmosphere that we get to enjoy, after turkey dinner is finished. 
  • Books I read through 2017.
2017, that's a wrap!

Of course I'm planning on continuing on with 2018. I still adore this style of memory keeping. 

Keep your eyes open for my December Daily album, which will hopefully be posted here sooner rather than later.

The following Sahlin Studio products were used:

November

Rough Times - Paper - http://the-lilypad.com/store/Rough-Times-Papers.html
Elements - http://the-lilypad.com/store/Rough-Times-Elements.html

December  

PM  Christmas Elements: http://the-lilypad.com/store/Project-Mouse-Christmas-Elements.html
PM  Christmas Journal Cards: http://the-lilypad.com/store/Project-Mouse-Christmas-Journal-Cards.html


Thursday, January 11, 2018

Pinch Me!

I feel so lucky! My recent Hello 2018 layout was picked from the Lily Pad gallery and loaded here, onto this website! Check it out! How exciting!


Monday, January 8, 2018

New Year, New Layout

Decorations are down. Christmas tree is put away. My house is finally back to normal. The temperatures went from sub-zero [-31 degrees celsius on New Years Eve] to the last few days a high of +8. Snow is melting, the birds are singing. A new year lay ahead, I even re-did my blog header! It's needed a revamp for awhile. I thought I should have recent photos. After all, Mason is taller than I am and Madelyn is shooting up as well. 

Today, the kids are back to school. 

I'm not going to lie, this mornings 6:00 am alarm came as a shock, but man-oh-man, did we have a nice relaxing break. I LOVE that the kids were in school until the 21st. It's been awhile. It seems like the last few years they get that pre Christmas week off school [when let's be honest, we're all trying to buy and wrap last minute gifts, and it's just not convenient to have them at home] This year, I had my last shopping day on the 18th or 19th, wrapped gifts on the 20th. Wrapped last minute gifts on the 21st. Had my kids home for a few days, then it was Christmas. 

Perfection. 

Then all that time, to just 'be' until heading back to school today.

I feel like we're all heading into the next few months, well rested. And the next few months are indeed going to be busy. The calendar says so...

In my last post, I shared December 2017 template freebie from Sahlin Studio. Slightly tardy, and for that I apologize. I promised I would share this months template freebie, with lots of time to spare, so as promised, here it is:


This template is a free download for the month of January. Download it here.

The photos I took were not great quality. It was dark when I took them [obviously, it was midnight after all] and in colour they have that creepy glow that screams WINTER. But we did have fun, and I knew I wanted to document our New Years spent together. I also knew, that this may very well be one of the last NYE's we celebrate as a four-some. My kids aren't going to want to ring in the new year with their parents forever...

It's a quick and easy page, with a some fun photos and some heartfelt journaling. I think my family is pretty awesome. 

The following Sahlin Studio product was used: 


Tuesday, January 2, 2018

December 2017 Template

Well, I kind of dropped the ball here. I forgot to post this layout using the Sahlin Studio template freebie for December 2017. Sorry about that.

Having said that, I promise I will have January's template here, in a timely manner. 

This quick layout was one I did of Madelyn and my niece from last Christmas. Every year they get together with their aunt. They shop, bake and decorate cookies, have a sleep over and usually go for brunch the next morning. I knew that wouldn't be happening this year. Since Madelyn is such a create of habit, I know she'd be missing that, so I wanted to create a layout, capturing last years fun. 


If you're wondering, we did indeed face time her Christmas Eve, we were all able to chat with her for a few minutes. So, SO amazed by technology we have at our fingertips. 

Template can be found by clicking here.

I used the following Sahlin Studio product: