A sweet smile and a great camping trip . .

Today I'm posting two different layouts I recently completed . . .

The first one . . . of my youngest son in our backyard on a warm summer day in 2009 (ya, I know . . I'm a little slow in getting to some of my photos sometimes . . LOL).

I love these photos of Joe . . I love that floppy camo hat and those sunglasses and his adorable little preppy shorts. I knew I was going to scrap these photos as soon as I saw them printed and I wanted to keep them all together, so I scrapped them in a bit of a cluster with one of my favorites (think he looks so cute with his hands in his pockets and those sweet bare feet - a kid after my own heart) blown up to 8x10 on the left page. . .

Close up of the left page:

Close up of the right page:

The second layout is some photos from a camping trip we took in the summer of 2009 to Dungeness Campground in Sequim . . .we had so much fun at that campground! We were camped with some good friends of ours . . . our spots were right across from the playground . . it was crab season so we dined on fresh caught crab and Chinese camp food - gotta love that! Our good friends are from Hong Kong and let me tell you . . . if you want some awesome camp food, you need to hang with the Fus! Pork lettuce wraps like you've never tasted before - makes me hungry just thinking about it!

Anyway, we took hikes out to the Dungeness Spit - longest spit in the world (just in case you were wondering *grin*) . . . and rode bikes around the loops through the campground. Of course, my only pictures are of the playground - ha! But it was a great camping weekend . . . one we definately need to repeat!

Close up of the left page:

Close up of the right page:

That's it for today . . . I'm hoping to wrap up my Project Life pages today and post them as soon as I can get good photos (hopefully tomorrow or Tuesday) . . . I'm excited to share my pages and let you know the system that is finally working for me!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

My Project Life . . . coming soon!

I'm ecstatic about Project Life this year . . .
I bought my kit in March of last year
I was so excited to do it, but I got so far behind . . . so quickly.

I don't have (make) time to go out to Walmart and order pictures.
For one thing I usually have the boys with me and they don't have the patience
(nor do I) to sit there for an hour and go through my photos.

I even tried ordering them online, but it just takes to long to upload, etc, etc, etc. . .
so . . . .
my Project Life sat and sat . . .

But now . . . a New Year and a fresh start!
I'm excited all over again and . . . . I have a plan. . . a process, if you will . . .

Part 1 of MPLP (My Project Life Plan) - I got a Canon Selphy for Christmas . . .
now it is so easy to print out my pictures
daily/weekly - however often I want to print them!

Part 2 of MPLP - On January 1st I started a daily journal - I just jot down a few sentences every night before I go to bed about what we did that day, the weather, etc. Simple, not too thoughtful, nothing deep, just notes about the day.

Part 3 of MPLP - I still take tons of photos and the date I take the photos is recorded in my camera . . . so . . .

if you put them all together, I can piece together a week quite easily by looking through my photos and reviewing my journal . . .

I run to my Selphy and . . . VOILA! Project Life is happenin' in my house!

Simply put . . I love it!

I'm finishing up my 3rd week of January . . .
. . .how's that for a good start to the year!

Another thing that helped me . . . (baby steps) . . . is I'm doing 1 page (rather than 2) per week. It's more doable for me right now . . .
I may find that I need 2 pages if I continue to make this process work . .

but for now, the one page per week is working for me!

Gonna run now because I'm going to try to work on some embellishing tonight . .
hopefully by this weekend then I'll be ready to post my first 3 (completed) weeks here . . .
for all the world to see . . .
yikes!

Hope you all approve! *grin*

Have a great night!

Brothers

One of my favorite photos of the boys . . . taken in the summer of 2007 . . . Joe was 2 and Josh was 5. The paper is from a new pack I got at Joanne's (Colorbok - Flea Market). I got the adorable quote tag at Doodlebugs in Sequim . . it says

"He is mine. I am my Brother and my brother is me. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson"

I love this layout - fun. simple. and aren't they so sweet!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Captain Josh

It's fun to do layouts from pictures that are several years old . . . takes me back to when my kids were really little . . . this layout is a perfect example. I've always loved these photos of my oldest son, Josh. I took them when he was 2 years old . . we were camping out at SilverKing Resort . . . which is no longer open to the public for camping (we missed out on our opportunity to buy a camping spot when they went up for sale to the public - dang!).

Jim let Josh drive the boat and Josh looked right at home at the helm! So cute . . love the lip in the middle photo!

Left page:

Right page:

I've got other layouts I've done lately that I'll get uploaded so I can post tomorrow. We're on our 3rd snow day now . . . and it's snowing like crazy outside as I post here, so we may be looking at having an entire week off due to snow! Wow!

Enjoy your day!

Animal Lover

My youngest son, Joe, is a total animal lover . . . he loves all animals and is so amazingly caring. He'll be 7 in March and is the sweetest boy. We have accumulated pets (cat, fish, bunny) in part due to his desire to be around animals. My husband and I think he'll be a veternarian when he grows up! Animals are just drawn to that kid . . it really is something.

Anyway, this is a layout I did a while ago but I've never posted . . it's using an older CTMH special offer kit called Felicity. In these photos he was hanging out with with my mother-in-laws dog while we were taking care of him for her.

Left side:

Right side:

Enjoy your day!

Simple scrap Thank You cards and . . . Winter!

I always enjoy making Thank You cards because we usually have so many to send that it's a great opportunity for me to use up scraps - which, if you are like me, you have an over abundance of! Here are the Thank You cards the boys sent out to family/friends for Christmas gifts. Fun, simple and quick!

And last night we got a bit of snow, which rapidly froze . . . and when we woke up this morning, it was snowing like crazy. Not much has accumulated, but it's our first snow of the winter and the boys are having a blast playing in it! Supposed to stick around for a couple days and maybe even snow a bit more tonight and tomorrow . . . so Happy Winter!

Hope you enjoy your day!

Papa and Joe

I did this page quite a while ago and always loved it, but since my Dad's passing right after Thanksgiving it has become very near and dear to my heart. Photo was taken on my son's 2nd birthday in 2007. Love you, Dad.

Recycled Friday

I've seen so many cool recycling ideas lately, that I thought I'd share at least one idea every Friday. Saw this recycled rake on Pinterest and had to share it. Next to scrapbooking/cardmaking . . . gardening is my next passion.

Unfortunately, we completely tore our garden/yard out last summer to level it (it was terribly uneven) so I'll have to start from scratch on creating a inviting retreat in my backyard again. This is definately a fun idea I'd love to incorporate.

Hope you enjoy the new Recycled Friday posts.

~Jeani