Getting an Entire Previous Year Scrapbooked (Digi)

Storyteller Subscription, 6.99 per month

So, back in 2010, I had a one-year-old, I was working and trying to balance being a mom. I did not get one page scrapbooked from that year, but I did take lots of cute photos. This year I am new to the Just Jaimee Creative Team, but I'm not new to her amazing design work. If you don't know StoryTeller, you need to check it out.

Another great thing that she creates are Ready-To-Go Pages, and they are exactly what you think they are. They come out every week, in time for you to keep up with your Project Life style pages and they are glorious. They are editable, too. By that, I mean you can move things around, or delete pieces that don't quite fit with your photos. Or, leave it exactly as it is and be done super quick.

So, you guessed it, I decided to use the Ready-To-Go 2017 design to go back to my archives and document our lives at my daughter's second year. I found that the first layout required the most photoshop work to change the title year to 2010 and a few other spots where the year needed changing. If you subscribe to Storyteller, you will get all the pieces you need to make adjustments with alphas and elements. The large black 2010 was just recreated with a similar font.

Here is week 6, when we went on a family trip to a vacation rental home that fit our gigantic family. It feels so great to be documenting 2010!

And this is incredible! Right now there is a retirement sale going on at The LilyPad, which ends on March 26, just a few days away. You can get the entire Ready-To-Go Weekly Templates from 2015 for a great deal. Don't let the year 2015 hold you back. I changed 2017 templates very easily to go with 2010. Even the weekly cards! Stay tuned for another blog post with a lot more detail on that. 

Happy Memory Keeping!

Holly Genc

My Scrapping Goals for 2017

I am so excited for my scrapping to begin in 2017.  I am over the moon excited about 2 big announcements that I get to officially make today!  First I am joining Becky Higgin's Digital Project Life Creative Team!!!!  Yes you heard right - my long time idol Becky...one of my first inspirations in scrapping!  Although her style has changed since her original days at Creating Keepsakes mine has changed too!  I love the Project Life system for documenting the everyday happenings in my life.  I have been religiously documenting since Dec 2011 - 5 whole years... that is crazy!!  So much has changed in my life since then but I have all those things documented for me to remember - and maybe future generations too!! I am so excited to see how my style progresses in 2017 and the inspiration I will garner from this terrific group!

Becky's 2017 Creative Team

As I mentioned above my style has changed since I first started scrapping back in 1997 (yes that is almost 20 years now........). A few years ago I made the transition to digital scrapping.  I have talked about some of my reasons before.  I was instantly drawn to certain designers when I made that transition - but always at the top of my list was Just Jaimee from The Lilypad - there was something about her quirky fun and colorful designs that just blew me away with every.single.kit.  I stalked her every release (and bought most of them) - I love the work that her CT puts together every month - and now I will get to be part of that team too!!!

Here is her latest entry - the January Storyteller Kit, isn't it beautiful??

January Storyteller at The Lilypad

I can't believe I will get to work with 2 of my favorites in one year!! 2017 is looking up already! Since I will be busy scrapping a lot in 2017 (don't worry I have lots of older photos that can use some attention too!!) it will allow me to work on another one of my 2017 goals to improve my photography. I have lots to document in 2017 and I can't wait to get started! I will be a much more regular presence here on the blog and of course on Facebook and Instagram.

Hope you ring in the New Year filled with hope and enthusiasm - thanks for coming along!

Day in the Life Day 3 & 4 and completed Day 1

So today I'm going to share a few pics and stories from Day 3 & 4 but also the first day of my WITL all done.

First up the completed Day 1. This year I decided to use the Ready to Go Templates from Just Jaimee May's Storyteller collection at The Lilypad. I love how these are already done for you but with the main kit there are always lots of other word bits and elements you can change out if the pre-designed doesn't work for you. On this page no changes necessary!

I will try to use 1 page per day but if I don't have enough photos for the whole page I won't mind combining them if I need to, since I know that the weekend will have more than enough pictures. Anyways my  intention is really about the stories this year. I am also using Kristin Cronin Barrows 6x12 Stories Templates 5 where I will use some of the stacked cards or frames for a bit of decorating. Here I have lots of space to tell my stories as front and back will divide each page of my book.

See lots of room to write stories for my week!

Speaking of books I will combine 2 years in one Shutterfly book- I also did WITL in 2015. Or maybe 3 lets see how  many pages I get. As I've done in the past with my Shutterfly books I will trim down some intermediate pages and add a small washi tab just to add a bit of interest and break it up a bit. 

Now onto Day 3 & 4. The weather has not been cooperating with taking nice photos or even being in a good mood. Day 3 was super foggy and overcast all day! My usual commuter train in the am. I am so grateful that I can relax (and usually digi scrap) on my way to and from work every day!

My drawer full of shoes at work - match any outfit or almost every season plus "field" shoes

My view is amazing and I love that I captured my reflection in the glass.

The food truck frenzy is starting again in earnest. Luckily I stay away for the most part - too expensive and too many calories but I do love the people watching and the amazing smells that come from these little portable restaurants!

Back from a meeting in one of my pairs of shoes. Love this green rain coat from Target!!

I have made dinner 2 nights in a row - that has not happened in a long while. Tonight marinaded chicken on the grill with grilled zuchini, my favorite white rice and cuban style black beans.

We started back dancing in the fall and I really, really like this group of crazies!!

On Day 4 the sun finally, finally came out!!

But not until after the morning and mid day rain!! McDonald's fountain Diet Coke is my vice... I am trying to do with less but it is hard... especially when the sky is so grey!

Happiness in a 32 oz cup!

Speaking of happy - look at what I pulled out the other day - must use these at work!!

Food trucks and warm weather bring out the patio goers!

On my way home and the sun is shining.. can't be a bad day

Practicing the "Deep Dish" with our long time instructor Elise - she always makes us laugh!!

Finishing up Week in the Life 2015...just in time for 2016

So last year I completed the photos and set up for Ali Edwards Week in the Life (direct link to her blog with lots of resources and tips). I had a great kit and I was using the Project Life App for the actual photo taking. I even kept up to date on the all the blog posts!! But somehow the last little bit - adding the final embellishments and journaling did not happen....fast forward almost 9 months and I finally finished my 2015 album today!!

Without further ado here is my 2015 album and my process...

Here is my cover for the Album.  As I mentioned I used the Project Life app to do all of my documenting....I took all my photos on my cellphone. I love my photos that I take on DSLR but I knew that with work it was too difficult to lug around my big camera at work all week. This year I will do the same since it is also a work week and I cannot carry around a DSLR - people at work already think that I am a bit of a crazy photo geek!  

I used the Memory Pocket Monthly Almanac kit from The Lilypad as my kit for the week.  I am VERY definitely a kit scrapper. I just can't wrap my arms around multiple kits on a single page unless I am just looking for a staple or something small! 

I loaded all of my journaling cards onto my phone using Dropbox so that they were all available to review all of them at once. I picked one font for consistency. This year I might use Just Jaimee's Ready to Go Templates. I really like the May ones. She lets her subscribers pick the color palette each month and in May they picked Black/White/Yellow. 

It's very, very neutral but I think it would be nice to do all Black and White photos.. I will have to see how it looks. Maybe I will keep them in color. We will have to wait and see. 

The one other element I used was Ali's date stamp for 2015. The version had both dated (with 2015's dates) and undated. I will definitely use the same date stamp for the 2016 album. My thought would be to have multiple years in a single week in the life album. In 2015  I started printing in Shutterfly 10x10 hard cover photo books and I am very pleased with the size and portability. 

The only part of my plan that didn't work as I originally hoped was doing the text in a phone app like Phonto. There was too much text and special spacing due to the  journaling cards included in the kit. PS I also used the Sara Gleason Story Cards No. 1 that coordinated with the Almanac kit that were perfect for the Week In the Life theme!

Only 1 of my sons was home at the time as the other had already gone back to college. I got both to take photos for me and my hubby took a selfie even! It was great to have them all involved. This time around it will be the opposite so I will be asking them to take more photos for Mom! Since its Mother's Day I am hoping to get full cooperation...

Obviously any week in the life will need to include lots and lots of food pictures... and I love the current events cards - I had to look up these items and I was very surprised what showed up on the internet....

As you see I have several pages that are in the Design G format...In the Shutterfly books I often add in the smaller size pages so that I can trim the edge and put a little tab.  If I was doing a physical book I loved to mix in several sizes I will do this again with my 2016 book - saving the smaller size pages for the longer journaling since there is not a good option for that on the Just Jaimee's templates..

The highlight of my week was attending the Scrap Expo in Chicago and meeting my idol Becky Higgins!!!! Plus as a bonus her outfit matched my page kit...it was so much fun chatting with her and her team - they were all super, duper nice!

On the last day of the week we had lots of activities including walking around the Botanic Gardens, visiting with my grandmother and mother in law and a BBQ at my sister's house with my little great niece.. it was a perfect way to end a perfect week. I am so glad I followed along this year and can't wait to get started again this year!

My plan for 2016 will also include working on my pages more real time so that I can actually get done in less than 10 months!

Until next time!

January Digi roundup

So a new feature that I want to start this year (and mostly to keep myself accountable) is a roundup of some of my favorite pages and projects that I have completed for the month.  I am very motivated by numbers and a recent conversation started on my Facebook group was asking us how many pages we had gotten scrapped in January.  At the Lilypad January is called their Month of Challenges - 31 different challenges hosted by several Pollys (their Design team), the Lilypad designers and the Admins from the site where you are "awarded" a $20 gift certificate.

It was the first year and I started the Challenge and I am happy to say that I got all the challenges done and upload yesterday early evening! I was actually several days behind when the weekend started but they took pity on us and made the last few fairly easy so I was able to catch up on the 5 days I had not completed. This Challenge taught me so much about how to speed up my process, effectively select templates and pictures so that I could not only complete the challenges but also be happy with the pages I completed. I did not want to just complete a challenge just to do so - I wanted to be able to include them in my on-going projects - finishing my 2015 Project Life, my December Documented pages and scrap more pages for my Spain album from 2014/2015.  Luckily I had already selected several Lilypad kits to use for these projects - and my PL pages can use any kit as long as it’s the same within any give 2 page spread.

In the midst of all this great scrapping I also did several pages for my CT teams - The Daily Digi (where we scrap in advance so I will share those in the future) and for Libby Pritchett's team at Sweet Shoppe Designs (where they will be celebrating 10 years this month!) AND I finished my 2015 pages to be able to print my last volume for 2015 Project Life (yah!!).

Overall  I am very happy with how much I accomplished and how much I have learned about digi scrapping to always get better at what I do! Without further delay here are some of my favorites…

MOC Day 27 - Just Jaimee and Mommyish collab - Rad Lad

MOC Day 20 - Scrapping with Liz Numbers template and Memory Pockets Monthly: Chapter (January 2015)

MOC Day 19  - Just Jaimee's January Storyteller

MOC Day 18 - Just Jaimee's Hunter Storyteller and I actually made an Art Journaling page!!

MOC Day 31: Pocket Page (this one was easy for me!!) using Just Jaimee's January Storyteller - the basic kit and lots of goodies that I get with VIP membership..

I even got a few more December pages done using Just Jaimee's Riley Storyteller kit and DYD 2015 papers

Can you tell I have a love for most things Just Jaimee??

But I also love, love Libby Pritchett's fun, bright style. From Libby Pritchett's store at Sweet Shoppe Designs i had several other favorites this month. A collab with Amanda Yi: Celebrate the Everyday

and this one from Libby: Put Your Records On

I even did a few pages to finish up my 2015 Project Life book so that I could order with one of Shutterfly's frequent coupons. This one I completed with the Project Life app and a few tweaks in Phonto. I even uploaded my own handwriting font!

So I will be making a regular post on my progress every month so that I can myself accountable and our readers inspired! Thanks everyone for sticking with me...