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A few pictures from the first day of summer break.
Did a quick little layout last night.
Been a while since I made a page.
Feeling inspired to do more.
If only my back didn’t hurt so bad that I can’t sit at my computer for more than fifteen minutes at a time. 
I’ve been considering what to do this year for a year-in-review album and I think I’ve decided to do something similar to project 365, where people take a picture a day all year long. I won’t be doing that, but Heather just came out with THIS AWESOME TEMPLATE. It can be used for the picture-a-day approach or as one layout per week. I love it! I can handle that. Now, I guess I should probably start taking more pictures so I have something to fill up my pages.
I just threw this layout together as an example. It took me maybe 15 minutes to choose a few pictures, resize them, drag them into the layout, choose a paper for the strip at the bottom, then I tweaked the color of the journaling/title boxes by changing the hue/saturation so it would match the paper and added journaling to each box. So easy!
This is totally doable. 15 minutes a week. You can do that. Then next January, you can look back and have 2011 fully documented and get all the layouts printed into a photobook. I love it!
I have been wanting to make a photobook from our ’08 trip to Florida for a long time and I finally finished it last week. Here are a few of my favorite layouts from the book:
To view a slideshow of the entire book, CLICK HERE then choose the full screen option to see it best.
I used several of Heather Ann Designs quick fill templates and papers for the design.
This new Project Life kit from Becky Higgins looks so awesome. It’s such a great way to document your everyday life for a whole year in a simple way without stressing about scrapbooking every single picture you take. Just print your photos, slip them in the album, write a little description on the journaling cards. Done. There is even a new digital version that you can make online and then have printed and bound into a Photobook at year’s end. I’m still trying to decide which one would work best for me. I love digital, but the kit looks so nice, too. Decisions, decisions. Click the above image for more details.
Here’s a video that Becky Higgins put on her blog introducing and explaining what’s included in the kit as well as the concept of Project Life. Enjoy!
You can order the kit HERE on Amazon.
I spent the morning at Heidi’s today working on our little crafty coasters. We both saw these on Becky Higgins blog, so we decided to have another CRAFT DAY! It’s been a couple years since we got together with Stacia and made our cute advent boxes (see that post HERE). We had fun putting these coasters together. Heidi picked up the blocks at Joann’s and Hobby Lobby and we each picked out the papers we wanted to use. Heidi did hers with holiday papers and I did some colors that match the living room. We took some pictures using her camera, so if she sends me a few then I will share them here so you can see how hers turned out, too.
CLICK HERE for a direct link to the instructions over on Becky’s blog how to make these.
Heather just came out with the cutest kit for Halloween called Wickedly Cute. Love it. GO GET IT HERE!!!
This year, before our girls days trip, I put together a little photo book with pictures from our trips from 2004-2008 and gave everyone an 8×8 book from Shutterfly. I did a very simple layout in photoshop using white backgrounds and text only. They turned out cute. Here is a slideshow of the design from my Shutterfly gallery.
Wow! Two blog posts in one day! I haven’t done that in a while. But I wanted to share a little layout I put together with Heather’s new Land I Love kit, now available over on her site. It’s perfect, and not just for 4th of July pics. A couple of the girls on the design team are not from the US and they had no trouble using the kit. Check out the gallery HERE.
Spent Saturday evening, National Scrapbooking Day, in a quiet house sipping a mocha from State Grounds while I finished up the design on my Year In Review for 2008. Finally! It turned out cute. Can’t wait to see it in print. I posted the book over on Shutterfly’s Gallery. You can view the little slideshow here or click on the album and it will take you to a larger version over on Shutterfly’s site. Enjoy!
Thank you everyone for commenting on the giveaway post! It was so fun to read what you all love about Christmas. I put all the names in a hat (see the pictures in my header above of Jake wearing the hat?) and had him draw three. For some reason he developed an accent as he was picking.
“Und zee first vinner is …”
Anya, Byron Center MI
“I am pretty faithful at checking up on my Favorite photographer. 
So, my favorite things include the birth of our Lord, CHRISTMAS CARDS, Family and Friends, the smell of cookies in the oven and yummy candles. Merry Christmas Kris, You rock!!”
“Zee second vinner is …”
Josette (Josette forgot to put where she was from, but I’ll forgive her!)
“I love being with my family for the holidays and all of the yummy food!
Hope your family has a great Holiday!”
“and zee third vinner is …”
Liz McCoy, Atlanta GA
“OOOH fun! I’m from Atlanta, GA and one of the things i love about the holidays is that my birthday is 2 days before christmas. Which means my celebrating and opening of presents starts early 
I also really love the time spent with family it’s such a treasure to be able to see them and spend time with them and enjoy their company.”
Josette and Liz, email me with your mailing addresses and I’ll get those sent out to you after the holidays. (Anya, I’ve got your address!)
Congratulations, girls! And Happy Birthday to Liz!
And I’ll leave you with the words of another of my commenters, Erin …
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
AJAXed with AWP
