Project Life | Video Tour

Oh man... never realized how much I said 'um' until I watched this video. Yikes! I actually should've said that at the end... now that's all you'll be able to hear. :) We will blame the early morning and the fact that I was trying to beat the clock AND my memory card.



A few general notes about the experience so far:

• To begin with, I only purchased the Project Life page protectors (Designs A and B) and journaling cards. I thought I would want to make my own kit, but after those pieces sat untouched for a few weeks, I caved for the ease of the complete kit. So glad I did.
• Of the extras, so far I have used one of the Design B protectors and a handful of the cards.
• I never approached this with a 'photo a day' goal in mind. Rules have never been much of a motivator for me! That being said, I can count on one hand the days that I haven't taken any pictures in the past several months. The harder part is narrowing them down.
  
• Of the photos in the album, I'd say they're equal parts SLR, point and shoot, and camera phone. I obviously prefer the SLR images, but sometimes I'm just too lazy to get it out.
• I use the kit's days of the week stickers, date stamp, and journaling cards constantly, but not so much the arrow stickers and filler cards.
• Project Life has been awesome for getting me into a regular photo routine. With the exception of one or two weeks, I've spent Sunday afternoons dumping and editing all of my photos from the week, then uploading the PL ones for printing at the local Walgreens. Their quality isn't perfect but it's close to home.
  
• In a perfect week, I'll have my print order picked up by 5 or 6:00 Sunday evening. After dinner, I can spend the last little bits of weekend vegging, corner rounding, writing, etc.
• I LOVE having a place to put all the random crap I collect. Brochures, mail, ticket stubs, etc. I've been either incorporating this stuff into the design or tucking it behind the pictures.
• I add some sort of digital effect to one or two photos a week, mainly month frames, story title brushes, and hand drawn words by Ali Edwards. Also love the Pioneer Woman Actions for PhotoShop Elements. I've created several photo collages using a stitch element by Anna Aspnes. I think it came from a freebie pack, so I don't have the link.
• Also a big fan of Century Gothic. :)
• To the basic kit, I've only added the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, some scissors, black and red Staz On ink, and a hole punch. Use them all the time.
  
• Keeping a pack of journaling cards in my purse works really well for me. I typically do one at lunch time for the previous day. I've gotten behind a few times and rely on technology to help me out. The voice recorder on my phone to record some notes, the Evernote app, Twitter, and Facebook status updates have all filled in the blanks a time or two.
• Constantly looking at my album and my 'big white box' have also helped keep this train rollin'. I will confess that my box/kit has remained on my couch for months. Partly to keep the dogs off of it during the day, but also so I'm always thinking about it.

Last, and certainly not least, please help out Joplin, MO if you can. Joplin is halfway between our house in Oklahoma and where our families live in Missouri, so we're stopping through there at least once a month for gas, food, or shopping trips to Academy or Walmart. Now almost all of that is gone. So crazy. I still can't really believe it. The quickest, easiest way to help is by texting "convoy" to 50555 (donates $10 to the local Convoy of Hope) or texting "red cross" to 90999 (donates $10 to the Red Cross). For more information, please check out this resource from the local NBC affiliate.

Have a great weekend and happy summer!

Project Life | Week Two thru Four

I recorded a nice little Project Life video update this morning but forgot to bring my USB cable! I will try to get that uploaded tonight but there are pictures in the meantime.

Week Two. Experiment with black and white image + story brushes by Ali Edwards [I will do a detailed product list with the video]. Loving the folded journaling cards!



Week Three. The 30th birthday week with lots of inserts! I used the other half of the divided 4x6 page protector I used in Week One to store some birthday cards. All I had to do was trim the cards and punch the 3 holes in the protector. I also printed all of my Facebook/Twitter birthday greetings out on photo paper and mounted them on the 2-sided patterned paper from the kit. A few other birthday cards were added into the page protectors or just hole punched. I used an Ali Edwards month frame to mark the start of my April photos.


Week Four. The week I met Miranda Lambert. :) More black and white, more digi elements from Ali, more ephemera, more photo collages, and more folded journaling cards. One of them I didn't fold - I wrote out the concert story on one side, added a picture of us on the other, and slipped it, our parking pass, and my Meet & Greet instructions behind one of the week's main photos. I added a total of 3 small photos inside the folds of the other card.


More updates to come. Loving this project!

Project Life | Week One

I bought a few components of the Becky Higgins Project Life kit back in January but ultimately caved to the whole shebang a few weeks ago. An early birthday gift to myself. :) The original plan was to start on my birthday, but I decided to start last week with our trip to Milwaukee. Almost 1,600 miles logged on the bike through cold, rain, wind, small hail, sun, and 70+ degree blue skies. Quite the experience. All captured in Week One. The only thing I added to the kit was a divided 6x12 page protector (originally a divided 12x12 protector that I cut in half) with extra photos and ephemera:


Week Two is turning out to be not quite so exciting... sinus infections don't make for lots of photo ops. Blah.

Snowmageddon 2011

Since last Wednesday, I have been to Missouri twice, attended an Adobe class, celebrated the daughter's TENTH birthday, completed my first real photo gig, ridden a high wire bicycle, put about 400 miles on the motorbike, survived a pre-blizzard grocery store trip, and prepared for... SNOWMAGEDDON 2011!

Thankfully, I received some cabin fever relief yesterday before the snow arrived. A little Raylan Givens (I've watched about 8 episodes today) and some Becky Higgins Project Life scrappy supplies. I just ordered the journaling cards and some divided page protectors. I don't really have a plan for them yet, but I'm planning to dive in tomorrow. I DID get all of our extra motorcycle-related pictures into a regular ol' photo album this afternoon though. Small victories.


Yesterday was frantic. I ventured to the grocery store at lunch, which was INSANE. They were out of parking spaces and carts, but I managed to cram 4 bags worth of stuff into one of those tiny baskets. Stopped at two other stores on the way home to acquire plastic sheeting and bungee cords. Scrambled to bring in the shovels, cover the outdoor chicken pen, set up an indoor chicken pen in our laundry room, prepare a cooler and all of the flashlights and oil lamps in case the power went out... all before it got too dark to see.

I also did some mad 'cooking' so we'd have some stuff on hand... pumpkin chocolate muffins (of course), hashbrown ham casserole (also blogged here), and two new ones: chicken wild rice soup and pizza dip. Not health food by any means, but it's all stuff we could reheat on the floor furnace if need be!


The ice started falling at around 11:00 last night. Thankfully the power never went out. Snow came down overnight and well into this afternoon. Lucy thinks it's wonderful. Stinky was finally forced outside once today. He peed about one foot from the door and came back in.



The official Tulsa count was 14", which breaks pretty much all snow-related records we had. I'm pretty sure of two things. 1.) Our house received much more than 14". 2.) It will definitely be at least Thursday before we go anywhere. Chris drove his work-issued Ford Taurus to the office this morning, but had a 4-wheel driving co-worker bring him home at noon. They nearly got stuck. Three other vehicles that left their office at the same time DID get stuck. Took them 3+ hours to get home. There are plow trucks all over the ditches. Craziness.


I've had a bit of a photography fail today, but it's too deep out there to do much wandering around! We did make it out to the chicken pen for a rescue mission. Had to shovel out their door to bring them inside. It's supposed to be well below zero tomorrow. I'll be staying inside. Finishing Justified. Maybe hitting up a little Sons of Anarchy while I'm at it. Trying not to think about the mess work will be in upon my return.

December Daily

It's almost February, but I'm pretty excited to mark my December Daily project as done today! I'll have to go in and add a few date stamps to the last half of the entries, but other than that, it's ready for the shelf. Hooray!

My first two years of this project produced mixed results: in 2008, I played along with Ali Edwards almost exactly, making all of my base pages ahead of time. I went nuts. When it came down to adding actual content though, I only documented about 10 days. I was kind of tired of it before I even got started. I resisted the project in 2009, but ended up with a pretty cool mini of all of our Christmas cards, some photos, and journaling that covered around half of the month. I didn't make an effort to do anything every day and I loved the results.

This year was kind of a combination of the two approaches. I pre-made the pages but kept everything super simple and uniform with 2-sided 5x7 patterned paper, black and white 2x3 photos, date stamps, and graph paper for the journaling. I also threw in our Christmas cards and some ephemera. I kept daily notes in Evernote, but dragged my feet on writing up the journaling. As usual. But it's done now!


In other news, 'Gemma' is dissected and on the table, currently getting a new oil temperature gauge, a navigation something-or-other, and assorted chrome. I've got a review of Hells Angels on Wheels up on the Watchers of Anarchy site. Getting ready for a busy next couple of weeks! Taking advantage of lazy time while I can. Happy weekend!

Snow Day

Yesterday, my Facebook status went something like this, 'Dear Universe, I have all the makings for chicken noodle soup at home. I'd be totally down for a snow day tomorrow. Just one.' Lo and behold, the universe granted my wish... partially. After a lunch outing with the Mister, I resigned to the fact that the roads were too good to justify staying home all day. I worked for a few hours this afternoon, but I did so in jeans, a hoodie, a [Opie] hat, and my new [Gemma] boots.

But before all of that, there was an outing with the critters and the new camera. Not as quick as the SLR and the color is a little wonky, but you win some, you lose some.

Mister's Birthday

So far it's been a lovely birthday weekend for my favorite fella. Blue skies and near 50 degree temperatures today... a welcome change from the dreary 20's we hovered around earlier this week. Perfect for riding (with the help of some leather). Perfect for a lunch and dinner out with great friends (no cooking for me!). Perfect for a bike photo shoot ('Gemma' had yet to be properly photographed). Perfect for cheesecake (with lunch AND dinner). And then there was a Justified triple-header to end the evening, which I had absolutely NO complaints about.

Our first trip to The Cheesecake Factory... yummy. And they sat us at a table with good lighting, which was a plus.


The SLR stayed at home for this photo shoot, but I was pretty impressed with the performance of our new Sony DSC-H55. 'Gemma' photographed quite nicely.