Project Life- Week 8

Week 8 came and went pretty quickly. It was a short week with President's Day and all, but we  seemed to have gotten a lot in.  We had birthdays to celebrate, a music audition, some organizing and creativity, a baby photo shoot to take, a meeting with a teacher, books to check out, baseball season to start, friends coming over, a family meeting and of course- The Oscars to end the weekend!

Wow! So I took as many pictures as possible, missing some moments in between but its all good.




On the left side-  I continue to use and actually depend on these collages. They're such a breakthrough in fitting in lots of pictures without having to fill up all my slots. And journaling on the pictures...another huge time saver for me.














On the right I used a couple of Oscar freebies (found here) that I got from our page sharing site. Thank you Laura Kate for those!! I was so excited to use the movie wheel card as it was the apropos way to represent the week. And the Oscar statue was just too cool not to use. I love the generosity I'm finding amongst the PL Community, and how people are so willing to share their mad skills with others. I truly appreciate any help I can get.


 


We didn't do anything special for the Oscars per say, but I love awards shows and I do love watching them so why not remember them. Also, our first born was born on an Oscar's night back in the day when they used to be held on Monday nights usually in March (remember that??) so I have a soft spot for them anyways. I put in a 4x6 card after the fact of this picture with the main winners of the night.

One thing I tried this new this week was using a combination of print screen shots from my iPhone and my Inst-Collage app to make up this one picture of a Facebook post I wanted to include. My BFF's came over for a last minute visit last Friday night. We didn't do anything exciting per say, but of course I forgot to take a picture while she was here, and she thought it was important enough to post our time together on FB so I wanted to include it here as well. 




I did a photo shoot of my baby niece this week with all these cute little newborn hats and bands my SIL got her. It was soo hard to pick just one picture to represent this (a blog post to come on those). To journal it, I tried using an Ali Edward method of writing in cursive straight on the picture to give it a different effect and I liked the way it ended up looking. I will be doing that again.

 And that's a wrap for Week 8...

So now I'm off to prepare for this week's pages. Week 9 is my birthday week! I'm not doing anything outrageous but I am intending on having some me time and getting some pampering that I'm looking very forward to. So I'm hoping to have some special pictures to share with you next week.

For now, I'm heading over to The Mom Creative to do some more sharing.

From my corner to yours...Happy Wednesday!

Getting DIY Creative

So yesterday, I told you a little about my organizational missions, and today I want to show you know how in the midst of doing that, I found a chance to get creative and completed a dare to work on a DIY project at the same time.

So as I was on the mission of cleaning off my desk, I also realized that I needed a new desk organizer because this is what I had on my desk before the 'cleanse'. Sexy and cute, right?! Yeah, Not so much...

So where do you think I turned to?? …Yup, Pinterest - Love that place!! I searched for DIY Desk Organizers and I found a few samples of what others have done, and I picked this one out to try for myself and mixed in a little bit of this project  of tinting bottles with it.

Check out those highlighted blogs for details and further instructions but I took the information and tried to make it my own and modified it where I needed to.



I am also very big about using what I have around the house because 1.) I hate having to wait to go get what I need or 2.) I usually have something at home that will work just as well if not better.


So I did exactly that- I looked around and found a couple of salad dressing jars that look a lot like mason jars, a couple of empty Starbucks Frappuchino bottles, a vinegar/oil dispenser I wasn't using, and hot sauce bottle and a few other extra ones. I took Goo Begone to them and took off any attached labels and washed them out completely.

I followed the directions to tint my bottles and I started off with making some pink jars, then I made some light blue ones, and I figured since I was already at it I might as well make some green ones for my bathroom.

The next step was to take the colored bottles and oven bake them to make to bake in the color and and make them clear. I almost didn't believe it could be this easy, but it was!

 after 20 minutes or so @ 170 degrees.

 

While the jars were "cooking" I looked for a photo frame I could use as the base of my desk organizer, but instead I found the cover of a cookie tin that I used upside down. And since I didn't have any available fabric scraps for this project, I used some heavy card stock paper I had to line the bottom of it as shown.

 

 

My next step was to start adding some embellishments to the votive candle holders I wasn't tinting and the finished base. I found some twine that I hot glued around them and the tin base to give that similar rustic look from the sample I picked. 

After the jars were done, I let them cool off for a little bit and then continued to decorate them in a similar manner to complete the look I wanted which included adding some white twine to change it up.

Once I had them all decorated I hot glued them down to the base,
 filled them up with some supplies and placed it on my newly cleansed desk to use.

 Yay!

Then I took the extra bottles I had made, and put 2 of them on my bathroom as window decorations, and the 2 others are now my make up brush and cosmetic holders. They match my bathroom colors and add a nice touch!

What do you think?? Do you like these ideas?? 

Its different, totally easy to make, and it was pretty much FREE!!

The whole project took less than a couple of hours to make, and more importantly 

its all totally useful and a bit more stylish compared to what I used to have.

Would you make this for yourself? Are you inspired to try something like this?
I hope so.

Honestly, what I love about any of these ideas I see on Pinterest
is that you can always make it your own.
You just saw me take 2 simple ideas to make 1!

There are so many possibilities so there's no excuse not to try.

There is no perfection!

If this doesn't work for me in a few months, I can always try again.

From my corner to yours...wishing you some fun- find a project and get creative!

Thanks for stopping by!

Getting Organized

So on my list of things to do a few weeks ago was to get organized around my house. Not always the easiest thing to do or something I sadly don't have a lot of time for, but I am trying to gain the feeling of some control and peace by getting things in order a few things at a time.

 

My husband and I have a home office where we each have our own desk and are each responsible for its tidiness or lack there of as it were. That being said, I will be leaving my hubby's side out of today's discussion because let's just say I can only control so much ;)

I have not consistently worked in my office for over 6 months due to the fact that my desk has been a COMPLETE MESS!  I just cannot work well in that situation. So I’ve been much more comfortable working in my den, on my sofa or on the kitchen table where I know I keep my space a bit more free and clear.

So last week I took a weekend to start chipping away at this Mission Impossible….

 

And after a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, and a TALL basket full of waste,

 papers (and crap) I finally got it done..

OMG!!
Space! Clarity! Organization!
Freedom!!!

Now here... I can work!

Oh it was so nice to let things go, throw things away and put things in there rightful spot. I felt so accomplished getting this done, and it gave me a sense of control over my space, and THAT felt good!

So I don't know about you but once you get organizing you start finding other things to work on because you get on a roll? Well I was on one too. 

My Kitchen Pantries
So the next thing I hit up was my kitchen pantries. I got the inspiration last week as I was looking through Pinterest of course, and I found this great blog called Lewisville Love about home DIY projects where the blogger Up-cycles her pantry amongst many other wonderful projects (see for yourself.)

I loved what she did! She up-cycled plastic almond/ice-cream containers, and uses simple paint and gives you some other great ideas.  It was beautiful and clean and I wanted something similar for my kitchen and I got totally inspired...at 12:30am last Sunday night. WHAT??!!

Yup, that's how I roll. I get an idea in my head and I've got to see it through asap (and then I wonder why my Mikey is relentless??) Anyway, so at 12:30am I decide to start organizing my pantries! Unfortunately, because It was soo late when I started this mission I actually forgot to take a 'before' picture to show the difference once I was done....I just went for it! I threw all kinds of things out, recycled food boxes, washed things, rearranged, shifted ingredients from one container to another, and put like items together.  I was clinging and clanging soo much that Jerry had no idea what I was doing.

But I finished... at 2:00am!! OMG I was sooooo tired but soo exhilerated!

My pantry looked so organized and maybe even... pretty.  I don't have absolutely everything in its own glass or plastic clear container, and it will never look like the one on this blog (because they're completely different setups), but it worked for me!







 And I wasn't  going to feel like I was completely done until I got everything labeled like she had done. I really wanted to get this look!! So the next night (not as late), I took my favorite free font from Ali Edwards (available here), and I made labels on Word, printed them out on card stock, and cut them out and labeled my glass and plastic containers accordingly.

Yes, some of the stuff I labeled was pretty self explanitory as my husband pointed out. BUT as I pointed out to him, we have boys, whom in looking for something in the pantry, can look straight at it and amazingly NOT see it...so hence, I felt it very necessary to state the obvious!!

So again, this all worked really well for me. It gave me a sense of control, order and a lot of satisfaction in getting this done. We'll see how long this order lasts, but taking that step to label everything really does give me an incentive to keep it up...it just looks cool! I found a few other ideas to add order to my pantries, but I haven't had a chance to put those in place, but I will let you know when I do. That just means more projects to do...oh poor me! ;)

So I just wanted to share a little of my week's organizational "achievements," and hopefully I have inspired some of you to take the plunge to organize that something or somewhere in your own home you've been avoiding for a while. Oh come on...you know its true! Get to it!

Stop by tomorrow as I show you how after getting organized, I decide to get creative too.

From my corner to yours... may you find the will, may you find your way, and may you find a sense of accomplishment in getting rid of your own disarray. (hey, that worked out nicely- haha)

Happy Monday,

Project Life- Week 7

I truly hope you all had a really nice Valentines Day with your sweetheart and/or those you love the most. I had a quiet one at home with my boys, my mom and my aunt, and Jerry and I celebrated on the weekend....Nothing like celebrating love a few extra days, right?

So here is Week 7 under-wraps and as you'll see its got Valentines written all over it, but it made for an easy design and the pictures spoke for themselves really.

Left side- 

Once again I used collages to get in the pictures I needed, 

but it also helped me give the pages a more defined look 

by setting up specific picture or themed sections.

Right side-

Like on this page, I was able to use the left section of the right page

to talk just about our Valentines day.

                              . 

And then tie them together to unify the look of the Valentines section

I believe a friend had posted this on Facebook and it spoke to me this weekend as I worked on taking steps to getting organized and in control of my desk (pictured above) and many areas of my home, and let me tell you...that can be a journey in itself!






So that's it for Week 7!  Short and sweet!

I'll leave you now as this week has proven to be a busy and eventful one for me so I'm off to get Week 8 ready to go.

Thanks again for stopping by and I am linking up to The Mom Creative to join the others in sharing.

Project Life- Week 6

As promised, Its time for Week 6 pages and this totally catches me up on this project and that makes me soo happy!

And speaking of making me happy...these pages make me even happier! As you'll see, week 6 turned out to be a very special week for my family with the birth of our new niece, and I couldn't help but to try to make them as special as possible as well.

     side by side with front of insert

 Left side with insert

I had to use an insert for this week as you could imagine with having so many pictures I wanted to include. I used the left side to do the first part of the week, and I was also able to do something a little more creative with my weekly title by using the insert and I was really happy with how it came out.








I had a heck of a start for the week. On Tuesday, I went out for lunch with some friends, and in  making sure I got a picture of the day for the sake of my Project Life page...I end up losing my car keys at the restaurant!!! I found them after an hour of searching, but Ugghh! Go Figure! Hense, the title of my foldable journaling card that contains said story!
 THEN the next night my computer decides to crash on me!!! Omg...major FAIL!!!!




I was just happy that I had something to look forward to and lift my spirits by the end of the week!

Right side with insert:

I used the right side to put as many pictures of my Brother and Casandra's delivery and of course the baby right after she was born. I had to make a few collages just to get all my favorites in. I love the black and white pictures that I took  in this format and I got the effect I wanted. It was a very special photo shoot for me and she was just too cute to stop.  Can you tell I was a proud Auntie??  ;)



     side by side with back of insert

                                                                                                     

As you can see the pictures are pretty self explanatory so I just added a few words (knowing I had already spewed everything on an earlier blog post), and I even included my visitors passes from the hospital to remember that by.

I had many baby themes going on this week too! My friend Bethany had her Baby Shower this past Sunday given by her Mom and MIL, and I was asked to take a few pictures for them as well. Coming from the other side of pink for my niece, It was soo much fun to catch some baby boy blue! It was just a beautiful shower and soo many creative things were done by her mom that I had to get on film for future reference ;) Thank you Debbie, Diana and Bethany for having me that day! 

So I got to use my Canon dslr camera in abundance this week and was soo happy for the time and the results I got! It was just nice not to depend soo much on my iPhone camera as I have been doing lately.

 Couple of things I did different: 

•  I also took the pictures of my PL pages with my dslr this week and what a difference it made! I think I'm going to have to continue to do so. I just have not been able to get clear pics of my pages using my phone camera and I tried some of Ali Edwards tips (other than using a white background) for shooting PL pages and I feel like it helped a little. 

• The other thing I did a little differently this week was that I left the pictures square as opposed to rounding the corners as suggested. For some reason I was just really craving that clean, straight edge, and I feel like it just gave it more of that puzzle look and I love it! Not sure if that's how I'll keep the rest of my pages that way but these pictures seemed to call for that this week. We'll see.

So that's it! Week 6 is done and posted and I'm completely satisfied...Feels good!

Sorry for the length, but there was lots to share this week! Thanks for stopping by, and I am linking up to The Mom Creative to add my pages to the group. 

From my little corner to yours... Happy Valentines Day!!

Project Life- Week 5

Ok, so I am behind a week! Not by choice or because of non-completion because this post should actually have been up last week, BUT because my computer crashed mid-week and I couldn't do anything about it until now. I HATE when that happens! :(

So I will be posting Week 5 and Week 6 pages this week between today and tomorrow. I thought about posting them together, but each week deserves its own post. AND I continue to choose not to stress myself out on getting these pages done by any particular schedule because I truly want to concentrate on enjoying this project instead of stressing. So here we are...

I kept them pretty simple this week, just getting in as many images to describe the week's events and as much journaling possible to detail them as well. 

 

  side by side

Project life is about including some of the daily things that may be totally insignificant to most, but that could be a big deal for you. Sometimes it can be a movie ticket, a label to something you love OR in my case this particular week...its a grocery store receipt showing just how much money I saved on this trip!  I love using coupons and having something that can validate just how much it helped me save...yeah, its going in the book! ;)  LOVE THIS!!

I also used a stationary tab to pull out the journaling
card about Danny's 1st Middle School Party

This weekend Christian was supposed to have a baseball game at Taft High School, but it got cancelled when we got there. So Chris asked if we could take advantage of the open/empty parking lot to give him a chance to practice his driving and get behind the wheel...so we did.             

 And so instead of writing about that experience myself, I figured this would be a good chance to get him involved in this project! I think I'd much rather look back later at what he wrote in his own writing  since its more his moment than it will ever be mine, right? I will hopefully be doing this with all my boys, including my husband Jerry. We should all be able to leave our "handprint" on our memories...don't you think?

There were a lot of fun times this weekend to remember including a friends special 40th B-day Redo party, Superbowl Sunday festivities, and Danny's 1st middle school party that had a Game Bus for entertainment.
All great times!

So this was Week 5 and as usual I will be linking up at The Mom Creative and catching up on all the great samples the other ladies have to share.

From my corner to yours...Thanks for stopping by!