Month: March 2014

Scrapbooking goals – where I’m at

The first quarter of the year is over and I thought it would be a good time to evaluate where I’m at with the goals I set in January.

Taking more pictures – it’s been hit and miss, but I’ve been trying to get more everyday shots.  I haven’t gotten as many with myself in as I’d like and most of my pictures have been still kidlet-related.  Part of my problem is the fact that we have a big DSLR camera which isn’t easy to port around.  Now that I have my new iPhone which seems to take amazing pictures, I’m planning on using it more for day to day photos.

Photo organization – uploading, organizing and backing everything monthly has worked extremely well.  Editing them and uploading selected ones to be printed, not so much.  I’m really torn about paring down my pictures.  I find it very difficult to look at two or three pictures on a computer and pick the best one, where it’s much easier to do when I have them printed out.   I’m going to attack February and March next week and see how it goes, then I’ll decide if it’s worth the time and effort compared to the money I’ll spend.

Memorabilia – it’s sorted into folders and I’ve included some in my 2012 album.  I think going through it and deciding what to keep, scan or photograph will be something I do on a quarterly basis or when I get to that month in my albums.  Life’s been pretty busy to try and find the time to do it on a regular basis.

Week in the Life – yeah, not so great about that.  I managed to get pictures one day but didn’t write down any notes as the day went on.  I think I can go back and document some of it, and whatever I don’t remember, I won’t include.  Next time, I want to have my husband take some pictures of his day, and also get a few at daycare for Miss A.

Catching up – I completed our cat layouts, journaling my pregnancy pages, putting Miss A’s professional photos into her first year book, and all my pictures and cards are in my album up to December 2012.   I still need to do our engagement story, my month-by-month pregnancy page, journaling up to December 2012, then do photos, cards, embellishments and journaling for 2013 and 2014.

It’s coming along, and I’ve definitely been trying to find more time to scrapbook on a regular basis.

A Week(ish) In The Life – February(ish) 2014

My plan was to do my Week In The Life starting February 24-March 2.  I printed out some photo ideas and daily tracking pages from Ali Edwards’ website.  But, as it always seems to happen, life got in the way and the next thing I knew, it was Wednesday and I hadn’t taken a picture or documented a single thing.

A friend posted a Day in the Life on her blog and that made me think it was a better way for me to tackle this project.  I’ve never done a full WITL and taking pictures of the everyday things is not something that’s second nature to me, so I think I need to work up to it!

Armed with a new plan and a revised page to jot down my notes, I scheduled a Day in the Life on March 3.  Guess what…it ended up being a day I really didn’t want to commemorate because of some work crap.  The rest of the week was a zoo with houseguests, getting ready for holidays, and so on, then Miss A and I headed south of the border for two weeks.  Not a great time to capture a day in our winter life when we were in shorts and flip-flops.

While we were on holidays, my iPhone started to act up.  Thankfully I have an extended warranty on it.  I spent an hour tonight at Best Buy getting it looked at and eventually replaced – now I have a shiny new iPhone 5S.   I’ve heard great things about the camera on it, so I’m going to put it to the test with a Day in the Life tomorrow!

Scrappin’ in the USA

Miss A and I just got home from spending two weeks in Arizona.  We had a great vacation, enjoyed the sun and warmth and a break from the snow.  Of course, there’s many pictures to be dealt with now.

We usually visit Arizona once a year to visit my snowbird parents, but I haven’t checked out a scrapbooking store in years.  So one of the things I planned for this trip was to visit some American craft stores.  Mom and Dad looked after Miss A for the day, and I got to go shopping alone, which was so nice, and hit up Hobby Lobby, Michaels, and Joann Etc.

My first visit was to Hobby Lobby, and I was taken aback by how BIG the store was.  I browsed their scrapbooking aisles because there wasn’t time to look at anything else.  They had a ton of embellishments, especially of their in-house brand.  I didn’t grab anything because a lot of the stuff wasn’t my style, and the things I would have liked to buy were too big or heavy to bring home on the plane.  All the Project Life stuff they carried were items I already had.

After Hobby Lobby, I went to Michaels.  It wasn’t too much different than the ones we have here in Canada – basically the same selection, but the big difference was the prices.  For example, a package of 6×8 page protectors here is $7.99, at the US Michaels the same package is $4.99.  It’s very frustrating to see how much more we pay for the exact same things up here.  I grabbed a couple of page protector packages that I needed and some enamel dots.

Finally, I headed to Joann.  The one I went to was a huge store as well, and I could have spent hours in there.  I had the most success there, picking up a bunch of We R Memory Keepers small journaling card packages that I’ve never seen here.  I got a few more embellishments and walked away with a bag of goodies for probably half of what I would have paid here.

Before I flew south, I’d ordered several items online that I haven’t been able to find here either.  There’s so many options for online shopping in the US, with very reasonable shipping.  I had several packages of wood veneers waiting for me, as well as photo overlays and envelope pages I ordered from HSN.  Some of the online sites are starting to ship to Canada with decent rates – even flat rate shipping, which is awesome!  

While I was away, Becky Higgins went to a few scrapbook stores in the south Valley, and signed all the Project Life items.  I was so tempted to drive down (close to an hour) and pick one up, even though it would be a kit I already had, just to get something that was signed.

Of course, the day before I left, a new kit was announced, which would go on sale only on HSN.  I don’t know if anyone in Canada is going to be able to sell it, so there’s probably going to be one more package arriving at my parents’ door!  It’s a bummer that I’ll have to wait till May for it to come home.