PLxSU: January 2016

Hi!

Are you a Project Lifer? Have you heard about it, but not sure what it is? Are you wanting to know what all the fuss is about? Why don't you come along to one of my new Project Life by Stampin' Up! classes and find out all about it? For the past few years I have been completing a double page layout each month that is a look into the everyday things we did that month.

Now I really should confess that I often don't complete my pages in a timely manner - in fact I only finished 2014 over the weekend! I haven't even started 2015 yet, although I have sorted the photos ready to print. Does this sound like you? If so, my monthly class is perfect for you. Each month we will complete the previous month's layout. I ran the first class yesterday, where we completed January's double page.

It really is so easy - choose 10-14 photos, print them (you can do this for a small fee at the class), pop them in the pockets and then complete a title and journalling card.  Done! The actual scrapbooking isn't the difficult part at all, the hard part is often making the time to do it. Another reason why my class is a great solution - by having a set time each month to get it done, it will be easy to keep on top of it and stay up to date. Plus, you get to make a mess at my house, and not yours!

You can find more information about the classes here, which just takes you to the Project Life tab at the top of my blog. If you're super keen, but the times I have listed don't suit please get in touch, as I'm sure I can come up with a solution.

Bye for now,

Tina

AWH Blog Hop: Project Life

Hi!

Welcome to the Art With Heart Team Blog Hop for November. This month we are focusing on Memory Keeping (Scrapbooking/Project Life). We all take photos right? Well, capturing every day moments is so special and we need to document these to cherish. We are all passionate about memory keeping and we want to continue to inspire each other, and you, as we move forward in 2016!

Since 2010 I have been documenting our family life month by month.  When Stampin' Up! partnered with Project Life it made the task so much easier! A few years ago my computer crashed and of course I hadn't backed it up in a while, so I was terrified I had lost all of my photos. My month by month albums took on a whole new level of importance! Even if I'd lost my digital copies at least I still had the albums.  Thankfully a mate of Rob's was able to recover the majority of my hard drive, but the lesson was well learned.

My main focus when completing these albums is getting the photos in and the memories written down. Even as I completed this page from a year ago I was struggling to remember the event that some of these photos documented.  Thankfully I keep a written diary so it was easy to go back and fill in the blanks!

My monthly pages are very photo heavy, which doesn't leave much room for prettying up the page.  Luckily the PL cards do all the hard work for me! On this page I've used cards from the This Is The Life Collection, which have a range of bright, happy colours.

I like to use matching cards where possible, but in this case the matching smaller card didn't have any blank space for me to be able to stamp the date information directly onto it. A handy scrap of Whisper White cardstock on my desk and the problem was solved!

I used the Day To Day Project Life stamp set to stamp onto the scrap, trimmed the two banner shapes, adhered them to the card and popped it in the pocket. Easy! The whole page took me around half an hour, and most of that time was printing the photos and tracking down my 2014 diary to refresh my memory on some of the photos.

The rest of the group also have some fabulous Project Life by Stampin' Up! inspiration for you.  The next stop in the hop is Kathryn Ruddick. 

If you find a broken link or have come to this blog hop from a different entry point, you can view the participants below:

1. Claire Daly
2. Alisha Watson
3. Ros Davidson
4. Tina Gillespie
5. Kathryn Ruddick
6. Kate Morgan

Bye for now,

Tina

MKPLxSU: Seasonal Snapshot

Hi!

Welcome to another Memory Keeping With Project Life by Stampin' Up! Blog Hop.  Gee that's a mouthful!  This month we are all using the Seasonal Snapshot 2015 Collection.  It was a collection I had originally overlooked in the catalogue in favour of the Hello December 2015 Collection as I complete a December Daily each year.  This blog hop prompted me to have a closer look and I really liked what I saw!

Seasonal Snapshot covers a wide range of occasions, including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and even Back To School. If you don't celebrate these occasions, the flip side of each card is generic enough to be used for any occasion. I have decided to use some of the Christmas themed cards to complete my December 2014 layout.

I'm working on an album where I do a double page a month that's a bit of an overview of that month.  As you can tell, I'm a little behind!  Actually, I'm only up to May 2014, I just skipped ahead to December so I could use the Seasonal Snapshot cards.

I don't know about you, but December is a really busy month for us! The end of the school year, lots of Christmas parties and travel to see family.

It's such a fun time of year!

When I am doing pages for my 2014 album I don't usually decorate the pages too much. This time I decided to use some sequins from the Accessory pack to jazz up the Christmas Tree card.  Why not?

What possibilities do you see in the Seasonal Snapshot PL Collection?  If you're a Project Lifer and on Facebook you can join our MKPLxSU group and find lots of fantastic inspiration.

Here are the other Design Team blog for you to check out:

Delys Cram New Zealand
Linda Higgins Australia
Julie Kettlewell United Kingdom
Constanze Wirtz Germany
Elizabeth Peterson United States
Kate Denyer United Kingdom

Our Guest Designer for October:
Anna Pickering United Kingdom

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #281: Just Add Colour

Hi!

This week at Just Add Ink we have a colour challenge with a difference: YOU get to choose the colours you use! The very tricky Di came up with this challenge, and gave us a limit: you can only use THREE colours. Which three will you choose?

I decided to go with one of my favourite colours, which is blue. This card is Hudson's 8th Birthday card.  We gave him a water play table and a few little rubber duckies to go in it, so I ran with that for his card.

You can see that my two other colours are yellow (Daffodil Delight) and orange (Tangelo Twist).  The blues I used are Marina Mist and Soft Sky.  There's a bit of Basic Black and Whisper White in the card, but technically they aren't colours, so I think I'm ok!

To make the duckie I just googled 'duck punch art Stampin' Up!', clicked on Images and just went from there.  He's a bit of a cutie!  I made the water by just punching along the edge of the cardstock with my smallest circle punch.

Which three colours will you choose for your card? Pop on over to the Just Add Ink blog to see the gorgeous combos the other girls have selected.

Bye for now,

Tina

MKPLxSU Blog Hop: This Is The Life

Hi!

This month the Memory Keeping with Project Life by Stampin' Up! Design Team are blog hopping using the This Is The Life kit.  It's a kit I'm really enjoying using as it's full of gorgeous colours and patterns on the cards. This month I've created another page in my 'Home' album, in which I'm documenting the changes and renovations we are making to our house.

Today's page goes right back to the beginning.  A few months after we moved in we decided to make over Ada's bedroom and make it a little more girly.  My sister and I painted the lower third of the walls and then Rob and I applied a cute wallpaper border. I still have a section of the wallpaper that wasn't used so I'm thinking I might add an extra part page so that I can include a sample in the album.

I've used the Day To Day Project Life stamp set to include the date on the page.  I try to date everything as I think it's really important.

I really went with a dotty theme on this page!  A lot of the colours in the dots are also in the photos of the wallpaper, so I thought they worked well on the page.

Here are links to the rest of the Design Team that are participating in the blog hop today.  They've done fabulous things with the This Is The Life kit, so why don't you check them out? While you're clicking, we have a Facebook group where you will find heaps of PLxSU inspiration too.

Delys Cram, New Zealand
Julie Kettlewell, UK
Constanze Wirtz, Germany
Janet Morrow Wakeland, USA

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 73 and 74

Hi!

Today I have for you the first two pages in my 2014 album.  Project Life is making it so much easier to create albums like this.  I am trying to do a double page a month.  I started doing this several years ago but I stopped for a few years.  I fully intend to go back and do the missing years - I just need to get organised with my photos!

January is usually a quiet month for us.  The long school holidays are a chance to rest and get ready for the school year ahead.

We did have a few outings though.  There was a hands on Lego display at the State Library that the kids loved.  The bottom right photo is the Lego version of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra that Ada and Rob built together.

We also spent a bit of time at the beach. The kids love going to the beach but I'm not a big fan - too much sand for me!  Still, I love going there to look for sea glass and I'm getting quite a collection.

February was quite busy too, with birthday parties, gardening and a trip to Mildura.

The kids were invited to a superhero dress up party.  Alex went as Steve from Minecraft and Ada went as Cat Woman.  It was a lot of fun!

We had missed out on seeing my family over Christmas/New Years so we all decided to have a weekend in Mildura, as it's about half way between where we all live.  It was a fantastic weekend, even if we scared the local club when all 14 of us turned up for dinner without booking first.  Luckily they were able to shuffle things around and fit us in.

Bye for now,

Tina