March Project Life

The thing that always pleases me the most about Project Life is that it truly is just about documenting the everyday ordinary moments. I don't need to be out there with my dSLR taking photos of the kids when they're dressed in their Sunday-best celebrating some special occasion in order to fill my pages.

I mean, those things happen too, of course they do. But when I look at this double-page spread for March the thing that strikes me the most is that 6 of the 7 photos here were taken on my phone in the heat of the moment. And the stories are just everyday type of events and memories of what we're doing now. I think I'm going to appreciate that as time goes on more and more.

As usual, this spread with all of it's 4x4" pockets needed lots of patterned paper cut to fit, and only a few of the pockets were filled with official Project Life cards. But I'm ok with that, especially since I'm making fewer layouts these days, so sometimes I feel like my scrap stash gets a little neglected.

The few cards that you can see come from the Studio Calico Homespun Documenter Kit including that funky March title card.

But the rest of the patterned papers, along with all the embellishments come from the Pinkfresh Felicity collection which I just adore!

I admit, this spread became a little Judah-heavy and I had to track back and purposely hunt out a photo of each of the girls so I could ensure it stayed a little more balanced. But I guess that's just part of the nature of the Project Life process too. Sometimes just more 'stuff' is happening to one person above the others.

And let's be honest, it's hard to avoid the temptation to photograph every cute thing he does and want to record it .... it's just that age he's at. Whereas taking a photo of the girls going off to school every day might get a little tedious! LOL! But I know it will all even out in the mix eventually anyway. :-)

Illustrated Faith - August edition

Oh man, the monthly kits from Illustrated Faith just seem to be going from strength to strength! I was going to say 'better and better' but I don't think that's quite true. It's more like they haven't missed a beat! Even though each kit is completely different in it's style and purpose (they all have different authors after all) they are all cohesively fabulous!

Let me show you a little insight into some of the previous kits before I dive into what's coming next.

A couple of months ago we had "Blessings or Lessons" and it completely changed the way I approach these devotionals. Previously I would read them, perhaps jot a few notes down as it spoke to me, and then declare to myself that I would later on return to journal those thoughts into my Journaling Bible or Praise Book. But we all know what's it like to actually get to 'later on'..... it never really happens does it?!

So I started doing my journaling and embellishing directly into the devotional as I went along. WOW! It works so much better for me this way. I truly feel like I'm back to that place where I'm able to connect my faith with my creative side and thoroughly enjoy this time spent in His presence.

Now sometimes I still feel like I need to approach it in a more 'traditional' way and get it stuck into my Bible as well.

So when it came to the "Yes and Amen" kit I used some of the entries in my devotional to prove as a sort of testing ground (or practice area) and copied them over into my Bible too.

I found myself using lots of the Printables from the Print and Pray shop throughout this devotional too. It's an easy 'cheat' way of getting some great illustrations onto my pages without needing to possess that type of artistic skill myself!

Now the devotional kit that we're still currently in is called "I am Strong" and it's written by our scrappy friend Wilna Furstenberg. I'm working a little bit behind the Illustrated Faith team so I've only just started mine in the last few days and have nothing to share yet, but if you check out the Illustrated Faith Instagram account, Shanna has just posted all of her completed pages for you to oggle!

This kit is still available in the DaySpring Shop HERE.

But the exciting this is the next kit gets released on Monday and it looks like it's going to be another amazing addition to the line up. It's called "Through Christ" and it's already making my rainbow-loving heart go pitter patter! Plus that blue ink!

You can find the sneak peek for this in the Day Spring shop HERE.


And something that's technically not Illustrated Faith related but which has us all with #hearteyes is the latest lot of Sadie Robertson products. Check out the unboxing video Shanna has done above, and then check out all the products in the Day Spring shop HERE. 

Catching up with Project Life

Forgive me whilst I try and get a little more up to date with posting some layouts here on my blog. This double page spread dates back all the way to February!

j

I'm pulling pocket page protectors out of my stash and trying to get through what I already have, so each page is a different configuration which makes for a little bit of a challenge! Mainly because with these 4x4" pockets I need to mix in some patterned paper rather than just depend solely on my Studio Calico Documenter kits.

But whenever there's a standard-size pocket then that's what I'm reaching for. I'm trying to kill off a few more of those too!
This kit here is called Film Club and was released back in April, so the exception is that February card which I pilfered from the Savannah Documenter Kit.

So then I try and find a patterned paper collection that will coordinate with the colours in the cards and so here I'm using the Pinkfresh Studio Felicity and Life Noted collections. Pretty much all the embellishments you see here are from those collections too.

Personally I just find it easier to create this way. Sticking to only one or two kits or collections means I don't need to make a thousand choices of which product to use, and it means everything coordinates together nicely!

As you can see my Project Life pages are heavy on the photos and journaling which sometimes means it looks a little less 'pretty', but I think it's much more important that I document these stories for future reference rather than worry about what my page looks like ;-)

Anyway, for now I've got pages made up until April, so hopefully I'll be back here again real soon sharing some of them with you!

Neat and Tangled's 4th Birthday Blog Hop

Welcome to the Neat and Tangled birthday blog hop where we're celebrating our 4th birthday!! You should have arrived here straight from the Neat and Tangled blog where each day there's been a different line up of talented artists working with the latest release - it's well worth your time to go back through all the previous hops to pick up a truck-load of inspiration. And don't forget to read right to the end where I share all the details about the awesome prizes on offer for some lucky winners!

But first, let me show you the cards I've whipped up for the occasion ;-)

Firstly I couldn't help but play with the Little Stinker stamp set with it's cute skunk. I'm pretty sure most of us have felt the same and you'll see so many ways of using this set as you hop along!

I giggled at the different sentiment options and had a hard time choosing which one to go on her little placard there, but settled on this one for now. To go with the theme I stamped a bunch of flower pots from an earlier release Neat and Tangled set called Life is Beautiful to fill in the background.

And the fussy cutting was made easy with the help of the coordinating die which also includes a tiny little heart which would have been fun to cut into the background now that I think about it! LOL!

My second card is fairly clean and simple and would be an easy card to make in bulk for something like birthday invitations I reckon.

It's made easy because the products pretty much do all the work for you! All I did was cut out the Celebrate word in white and it's shadow in black and stick them together. It packs a punch doesn't it?!

And the coordinating stamp set once again gives you lots of options for mixing and matching different sentiments to suit your theme.

To make my background more interesting I took the Lucky Stars die and used it to emboss my white cardstock (rather than cutting them out). I had to stop and think long and hard about whether I wanted to keep all the stars together in one piece or cut them apart. In the end I decided to separate them into about 4 or 5 different pieces with a few stars on each. It allowed me to spread them out more sparsely across the background.

And to finish off I sprinkled some Raspberry Red sequins, black stars and gold mist. I can't help but get a little messy when I create!

My last card today features the Hooray die which instantly made me think of using it as a shaker card decoration and so that's what I did! I cut it in both black and white and glued them together slightly offset to create a shadow effect which makes it really pop off the background.

And to be a little different I created a shaker pocket full of Ocean Breeze, Lime Satin and Shamrock sequins to sit behind it, but didn't fill it up too much because I still wanted to see through the clear window.

Now all the products that I've shared with you today are available in the Neat and Tangled shop HERE and form part of the special birthday mini release. In fact, there's only one other product that I haven't shared with you yet and that's the Doily Tag die... so here it is! So many ideas for this but I simply just ran out of time :-)

Thanks for joining in on my stop of the Neat and Tangled 4th Birthday Blog Hop and I hope you've been inspired today! I have to admit I quite like the look of all the cards sitting together like this. I purposefully kept all 3 of them to a similar colour scheme and I think they would even make a nice set to give away to someone.

And speaking of GIVEAWAYS!!!.......

Neat and Tangled are offering up some amazingly generous prizes to some lucky winners along the hop. Someone is going to win a $100 gift certificate to the shop, and two people will win a $50 gift certificate each. How awesome is that! All you have to do it leave a comment on my blog here today, and/or on any of the stops along the way as the winners will be chosen from amongst the commenters.

Now the next stop on your journey today is the crazily talented Laurie Willison. Click HERE to take you straight to her blog where she's just going to astound you with what she's made!

And a happy 4th birthday N&T!

August Mood Board at Jot Magazine

Phew, it's a been a big weekend as usual. Why is it that I always anticipate the weekend is going to be restful but seem to forget that I usually fill it up with all the activities I've been meaning to get through during the week?! Anyway.... lucky there's always coffee! ;-)

It was obviously on my mind when I whipped up this card for the latest Jot Magazine Mood Board challenge because the mood board itself doesn't really lead in the direction of coffee does it?! LOL!

Maybe it was simply because I've had this Neat and Tangled Perfect Blend stamp set in my stash for a while now and I felt it needed a bit more love, or maybe it's because this colour scheme makes me think of elegant lines and clean finishes... much like my local cafe, and it was an obvious jump from there. Who knows!

Meanwhile, if you get a chance it would be awesome if you played along with us at Jot. There is some amazing inspiration by the Jot Girls to get you started. Check out all the details HERE.