Scrapbooking made easier

I’ve put my 2009 scrapbook on hold after seeing a fun new idea called “Project Life.” 

Copied from www.beckyhiggins.com:  Project Life is a back-to-basics approach to memory-keeping. This simple format requires no skill - only your pictures and a pen. No one's life is perfect but everyone has a story and every family has a collection of memories. Putting pictures + stories together in Project Life makes us more aware of our blessings and encourages us to cultivate a good life. (picture below from her web-site)

So basically her idea is: you slip your pictures, some predesigned journaling cards that you have written on and any memorabilia you have into these multi-pocket page protectors.  There are a bunch of different pocket “layouts” you can buy so all your pages don’t look the same and then you just slip them in a binder.

Anyway.  This got me thinking.  So I am trying a new “simplified” layout style for my 2008 book.  And it’s been really fun!  All the pages have the same big rounded corner square for the layout.  Then I have just broken the square apart to fit my pictures and filled in the holes with scraps of scrapbooking paper.  I’ve put a few embellishments on some of the pages, but most of them just look like simple stickers.

At first I was unsure if this was really any faster, but now that I’ve been working on it for a month and a half I’ve already gotten from January 1st to April 4th done!  Yeah me!  I’m just so excited for this so I can print it for my kids to look at.  Another bonus has been using all the captions I’ve typed into my blog – just copy and paste.  Boy, does that save time.  Also for this book I picked out just one font to use in two colors: a cream and a brown.  (Can you believe me only using one font!)

I’ve added it as a slideshow in the margin on my blog.  You can double click on it to make it nice and big.  Let me know what you think, and if you have any other great ideas for fast scrapping!

How many grapes?

I have such good helpers Sunday morning while we try and get to church on time.
Ken really wanted some steamed carrots to go with dinner one night.  So he peeled them and steamed them and then we were wondering what to do with them, besides just add butter, and I remembered a recipe I had saved from allrecipe.com.  It was SO yummy!  All the kids even liked it, except Neil, he wouldn’t try one, but he loves to sign carrot and sat in his highchair signing carrot over and over again while we all enjoyed them.
Carrots in Dill Butter

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dill weed

I think we had about 8 carrots peeled and steamed.  Then just melted the butter in the microwave and stirred in the spices and poured them over the top.  I think we could have even gotten away with just a bit less butter too.  So good!
I was cleaning off the bar in the kitchen when Neil woke up from his nap.  Since I wasn’t quite done I found something for him to do.  He loved coloring all the doodle cards and telling me what animals were on them.  It was so awesome – I go the whole bar cleaned off and even then he just kept on drawing until the kids came home, probably about 45 minutes worth of fun!Grapes were on sale and they were actually really nice and sweet.  I was surprised it being winter.  Anyway we had some for dinner and before long Jessie had started a little contest to see who could hold the most grapes in their mouth at one time.  The kids all thought this was hilarious!
Jessie got 20, Mark 22, then Neil wanted his picture taken too.  Abbie ended up with 13.


I thought the hilarious part about this was watching the kids try and eat all the grapes, they had stuffed in their mouths, at the same time without making a big mess.
Jessie and I did some horse drawings together.  It was fun to use her little horse models.  We had also made some cookies that day.  Neil came over to sit on my lap while he finished his cookie and thought the horse looked hungry too.  So sweet!
Abbie’s boots just about make great hip waders for Neil.
For Christmas Abbie really wanted to make Neil a pillow.  So she and I went to work on a design.  At first we tried making a train pulling the letters of his name, but that was getting complicated.  We finally decided on this simpler design with some of Neil’s favorites added to it (the bird, the sun and the owl).  She worked and worked on it with only a tiny bit of stitching left on Christmas.  It took us a whole 3 weeks later to finally pick out some material and sew it into a pillow.  Abbie ran the pedal on the machine and stuffed it when we were done.  Then she wrapped it up for Neil.


One afternoon Jessie painted a little balloon on Neil’s cheek and since then he has loved to go into her room and get into her face painting stuff.  Luckily for Neil, Jessie loves to paint, so he doesn’t have to grunt at her too much to convince her to do some more for him.Neil loves to see the kids when they get home from school. He runs from where ever he is into the kitchen to greet them with happy squeals.  He also loves to sit and play the piano while they are practicing, but not really any other time.Poor Mark was sick with the worst stomach flu I have ever seen.  It was really gross and ended up picking out our Saturday activity for us: cleaning the carpets.
That’s OK, because it was time to do it again anyways.  Neil couldn’t stand being away from dad and so he joined Ken in a not-too-interfering way.Spencer was the only other one who picked up Mark’s flu, but his wasn’t nearly so bad (thank goodness!).  Or so we thought.  Then I came down with it a whole week later.  YUCK!!  Ken came home early from work to take care of the kids and I am so thankful that he could!
Last week Jessie had a lateover with Ken and watched the second half of the last Star Wars movie with him.  While they enjoyed Doritos and a movie I made some cards.  It was so fun to craft again, instead of taking a nap, which is what I usually do with my free time right now.