December Daily

What am I doing to myself?

I really struggle at this time of the year. It is so busy!1 And I don't do well with busy.

However, I have decided to do a December Daily album. You can find details about it here on Ali Edwards blog. Mine is going to be extremely simple. With Meredith heading off to University next year and Isobel going to High School, I'd really like to record what our Decembers are like right now, then do it again next year or in a couple of years' time and see how we have changed.

Given that we are 5 days into December already the first few photos are a little lame. Most of them will be taken on my iPhone so the quality may not be the best.  Plus I'm really dumbing it down and going as simple as possible to make sure I stick to it. I'm doing it all digital and using Cathy Zielske's 30 Days of Thankful templates to complete it. The templates are designed for a 6x6 album, but I'm going to break that rule and do them all 4x4 and put them in these cute little albums from Scrapbook Nerd.  I'm going to do my best to get these done daily and post them here. Wish me luck!! I'm going to need it.

Here are the first few pages:

Another Camp Page

I don't think Camp was easy for Isobel. She likes her time alone. She likes her sleep. She's particular about her food and she likes her 'comforts' (eg. a soft bed).

The hardest part about the trip for her was the out trip. Her cabin canoed 18km. I'm sure it was exhausting. The 'Trippers' did the portaging for them and that impressed me. I have so much respect for these young women who head out in the wilderness with a group of tweens and help them navigate from campsite to campsite lugging canoes and food and setting up and taking down camp each night. Wow. I'm sure they had to deal with their fair share of tween drama too!!

One thing I wanted to stress for Isobel was for her to focus on the positive aspects of her out trip. Not the fact that it was hard. Not the fact that she had to use the wilderness as her bathroom. Not the fact that she had to navigate her canoe through some difficult rapids. And certainly not the fact that her canoe tipped and her gear floated away. But that she did something that was difficult and survived - more than survived - she experienced things not everyone gets to experience.

Camp

When Isobel was younger (9?), she and Meredith went away to Camp for a week. Meredith loved it but Isobel really struggled. She didn't connect with the girls in her cabin and she really missed being home and she didn't go back. Meredith loved it and went until the time came that she was required to do a one week out trip and stay for a month.

In the summer of 2013 Isobel reconnected with a friend from preschool who had moved to the US. This friend had gone to a Camp in Ontario for years and loved it. She ended up moving back (yay!) and convinced Isobel to try Camp with her. It was a 2 week Camp and involved a 4 day out trip. Isobel thought it might be better to go with a friend and she really wanted to have the positive experience Meredith had.

She came home tired and hungry but found it to be a better experience than before. She is our homebody though and really missed her bed!!

She took so many photos I didn't know what to do with them, so I chose the one of her leaving for camp and pulled many (but not all!) of the others into Picasa and made a collage. Picasa is great for collages.

A Page From Hawaii

During my 'blogging hiatus' we took the most fantastic trip to Hawaii. We were able to meet friends who live in Australia for 2 weeks on the Island of Hawaii and it was amazing.

One thing that struck me when we were there was how early the sun set. Here in Canada the sun was setting around 9:30pm but in Hawaii, it was setting around 7pm. I actually quite liked it. First because it was very easy to be out and about while the sun was setting and enjoy the beautiful light that comes at sunset but it also provided a nice break from the heat. The nights were not hot at all and I'm sure it was partly because of how early dark arrived.

Meredith And Her Flute

Meredith is very serious about her music. Her intention is to go to University to study Music and hopefully, get into Music Therapy. She has it all figured out. She could teach, she could perform, she could practice Therapy. But most of all she gets to do what she loves the most - play.

She likes to practice every day. We were invited to a friends' cottage in August and I was sure she would look forward to the break from practicing, but no, she brought her flute with her and practiced with her music tacked to a tree.

I'm so impressed that she has such a good idea of where she wants to go at such a young age. I certainly didn't.

Three More Pages For You

I'm feeling like this blog is a little outdated. When did I set it up? At least 3-4 years ago. I'd really like to change things up a bit but there are so many things I like to do! The pages I post here are primarily digital pages. I'd say for each digi page I make, I do at least 6 paper pages. I haven't liked the way my scanner scans them and I haven't figured out the trick to take good photos of paper pages so those tend not to go up here. In addition to the scrapbooking, I love to read, I knit, I take photos, I try to exercise as close to daily as I can. I know it's ridiculous because I'm not working right now, but finding the time for this blogging business is tough!!

Here are the next 3 months of my 2014 album:

~July Left~

~July Right~

~August~

~September~

Just Like I Promised!! Another Post.

Things around here are moving along nicely. The girls are busy. Meredith is busy getting ready to apply to University (I know right? Where does the time go?). We're off for the next few weekends on Campus Tours. My plan is to encourage her to visit and apply to as many Universities as she's interested in to give her as many options as possible. She is still working at a local grocery store and participating in a local youth Orchestra. I'm so proud of her each and every day.

Isobel is busy as well. She loves her trampoline and her guitar but the highlight of her life right now is Robotics. She made it onto the school team again and is busy building her robot for the tournament in December. If you've never been to a Robotics Tournament - you're missing out. I know it sounds terribly dull but it really is the exact opposite. There is so much energy! It's great to be involved in a competitive venue for children who are not athletic. She is growing into a lovely young lady who is sure of who she is and what she wants out of life.

Here are my monthly pages for April, May and June. I'm enjoying doing the project this way but I am planning something completely different for next year! I'm just in the planning stages right now!!

~June Left Page~

~June Right Page~

Thanks for looking! I've got 3 more pages for you next week.

I'm Going To Try . . . Again

I think about this blog often. I love the idea of blogging, I just somehow seem to think of things to blog about when I'm not home, when I don't have the time or when I'm falling asleep at night and then I don't remember in the morning!!

I worry that my life isn't that interesting. I worry that people will get tired of my many scrapbook pages, but I've decided I'm going to just post when I can, if I can and what I can.

You may remember from my past posts that for a number of years I have tried to document our daily lives. First, with a Project 365 album where I took a photo a day for the entire year, then with a Project Life style album where I just documented our daily life. This year I did a page a month. These pages consist of photos I took but haven't turned into a stand alone page.

Here are the first 3 months of the year. (I'm feeling like I need to spread these out so I have more to blog about!!)

I'm going to write the post for the next 6 months of 2014, so I can guarantee you more posts!! Stay tuned!!

2013 PL

Who's a bad blogger?

I'm a bad blogger!!!

Better late than never though, right?

There's nothing much going on around here so I wasn't really sure what to blog about.  I thought I'd go back to those 2013 PL pages and share the last few of the year. 

Yes, I did finish it but no, I'm not doing it again this year. 

I need a bit of a break. 

You'll notice I switched to single pages to try and make things easier.

I am, of course, documenting 2014 in my own way and I'll share those pages later.

Thanks for checking up on me. I'm still here!!!

UYS Weekly Challenge

Happy New Year everyone!!

This weeks challenge on the Use Your Stuff Blog is to use the theme 'New Beginnings'.

Each year, I start a new scrapbook album. Usually the pages I do take up at least 2. I've been very good about buying the albums and page protectors right away but am always bad at getting a cover page together. Most of my albums are missing cover pages which makes it hard to tell which year the album is for.

I used this challenge to get my cover page for 2014 done. 

(2013/2012/2011/etc. are not done yet!!)

I found the quote here.

Thanks for looking. What will you do to commemorate 'New Beginnings'?

UYS Weekly Challenge

Oh dear. Oh dear.

It's been a long time since I posted here!!

Unfortunately blogging tends to take a back seat when things get busy around here.

This week on the UYS blog we have a guest designer sharing her tips and tricks for doing a Month in Review album. Be sure to check it out. She's got lots of good tips, tricks and information on there.

I chose to do a page for my Project Life album for this weeks challenge. I am a bit behind so I jumped ahead and did week 52 of 2013. This will be my last full week for this album and my last post with Project Life pages. I have loved doing these albums but I have other projects on my list that need my attention.

Here's Week 52:

Thanks for sticking with me. Have a wonderful New Year's Eve. See you in 2014!!

Another Week, Another Challenge

This weeks' challenge on the UYS blog was mine and it was to use Butterflies on your page. This page still needs a bit of work but everything going on around here these days, this is as far as I managed to take it.

The photos were taken of Isobel after her back to school haircut. She is a sassy little thing!!

Join us in the challenge this week!!

Weekly Use Your Stuff Challenge

It seems all I'm managing to get up on this blog lately are the weekly UYS challenges. And even then, they're not all making it. Between my photography class, upgrading my computer and Christmas preparations, there doesn't seem to be much time for scrapbooking.

This week on the UYS blog, Barb challenged us to use this ad as a starting off point for our project:

I really like this ad. In fact, I really like most things from the Real Simple magazine!! I like the simplicity and clean lines. I chose to do a page about our annual end-of-the-summer trip to The Ex. I flipped the ad on its side, but basically left it the same.

How will you challenge yourself this week?

Weekly Use Your Stuff Challenge

This week on the Use Your Stuff Challenge blog, Tammy challenged us all to do a project featuring snow. That's not a hard one for me. I love the winter and I love the snow. However, the only photos I had were of a car accident we were in a few years ago on a very snowy day, so here it is:

There are snow many opportunities for good snowy projects!! What will you do?

Weekly Use Your Stuff Challenge

This week's challenge was to limit the supplies you used on your project. I took this quite literally and created an extremely simple page. I used just my photo, some plain cardstock and a single digital stamp across the bottom of the page.

 

Very simple indeed!! This is the cover page for our New York trip album that I hope to complete one day!!

 

Check out the Use Your Stuff blog to see what some of the other members did. They managed to create some very seriously beautiful stuff using limited supplies.

 

What will you create?