Green Bunny: Week In The Life

Another amazing project from Ali Edwards. I LOVED capturing our life for a week. All the 'stuff' that makes us the McCabe Family. I did my first Week In The Life album in May 2010. I tailored mine after Ali's for the first go round and used her Designer Digitals templates to set up my album. I basically followed her format exactly as I got my toes wet in this process. It is an 8.5x11 format. I used Photoshop Elements 4.0 with the digital overlays and the divided pages are baseball card protectors. Not sure if I will use the same templates this year or try something new. I'm a big believer in "if it ain't broke..."

Ali has set her week in July this year. With Dan traveling, our anniversary, and Carter turning two, it didn't seem like the ideal week for us. I'd like to capture an 'ordinary' week (if that exists). I am going to set aside a week in August (currently looking at Aug 15-21). Consider yourself invited to join in during either time period. Visit Ali's Week In The Life page for even more inspiration.

SERIOUSLY...Give it a try! Last year, I took 80-100 pictures a day (Don't be overwhelmed by this number...that incudes 4-5 pictures of each subject to make sure I got atleast one good one...blurries...etc). It was easier than I thought it would be. I tried to capture several aspects of our lives: foods we were eating, the way our street looked that time of year, our shoes, toys, clothes, dog, the boys wrestling, the boys reading, the boys playing...I also included receipts, packaging, lists, pieces of mail, etc. I kept my Itso bin (mentioned in a December Daily post) on the kitchen counter with a file folder for each day of the week to keep track of everything. At the end of each day, I uploaded all the pics to a dated folder on my desktop. That way, I didn't have to sort through 1000 pictures at the end of the week and try to decided what happened on each day. I also kept a spiral notebook in the Itso bin to write notes and stories from each day. My mama brain NEEDS notes!

It is so fun to look back at last year's album. SO much has changed in just one year (no more bottles, Carter is walking, Logan is potty-trained, the toys have changed). Imagine looking back in 10 years and seeing what your 'reality' was. A glimpse of what used to be. LOVE it!

My hope is to continue doing one week a year and shifting a couple months each time in order to include different months/seasons over the years. I think I'll be able to fit two to three 'years' in one album. May 2010 was 16 pages. Take a look:

The right page is a printed 8.5x11 photo. I used Ali's digital overlays to create the collage and then printed them up on scrapbookpictures.com. I added the patterned paper once they arrived in my mailbox.

A couple of 6x12's for some variation...

The baseball page protectors were a fun size to play with. For the photos on those pages, I created a 5x7 canvas in Photoshop and added four 2.5x3.5 photos in collage format and printed them through scrapbookpictures.com. Just a small amount of cropping when they arrived and they were ALL the SAME size!

Inspired yet? I hope you'll join me! This is a great little book of memories for your family. Feel free to leave any questions you have in the comments section too!

Green Bunny: Special Dates Artwork

I saw this project on a blog called a.steed's.life and knew I had to make one. It is a bit more 'graphic design' than I usually do, but I loved the idea of highlighting our family's most important dates.

This was an inexpensive project. I purchased the 12x12 shadowbox frame for $9.99 at Target. I had everything else on hand. I used the Sure Cuts A Lot program with my Cricut. I love this program! It allows you to use any font you already have on your computer with your Cricut...no cartridge necessary. I used the same font as Andrea did: Modern No. 20.

Based on my 12x12 background size, I cut two inch letters using plain black cardstock for our birthdays. To change it up just a tiny bit, I used a black polka dot patterned cardstock for our anniversary.

Doodlebug Design Beetle Black Dot Grid

When I was ready to lay out the design, I drew a smaller box within the 12x12 cardstock using very light pencil lines (1/2 inch in from each edge). I started working from the outside inward placing the four numbers in the corners first. I used the smallest size glue dot available to adhere the number cut-outs.

After I got all the dates on the page, I cut a small heart from glitter cardstock using my basic shapes Cricut cartridge. Our anniversary worked perfectly for placing the heart since the year we got married had two zeros. Otherwise, you could place it in a random place on the page or not at all. I used a foam square to elevate the heart off the page and give some dimension. I also added small, black photo corners to finish it off.

I chose to change a couple things from Andrea's original project. First, I wanted the colors to be very basic so they would always work in our house. Second, I decided to do 12x12 rather than 8x10...just a personal preference. Third, I wanted to put some extra space between our birthdays and anniversary to highlight our wedding date a bit more. And finally, I wasn't in love with the decorative flourish and decided to keep it super simple.

Just a couple examples of how you can make a project your own and really make it work for your life/house/taste...

Joy!

Looking forward to a magical season!

Happy Carving Everyone!

For everyone making their annual trips to the pumpkin patch...

LOVE this creepy crawly pumpkin! Visit The Family Fun website for Jack-o-Lantern patterns, Halloween crafts, recipes, and more.

And, look for a new post from Sarah coming later today!

You've Got Mail...Kids!

Seriously! Here's something that I am doing to preserve the everyday, silly memories that maybe wouldn't have a place in (or ever make it to) the baby book.

I opened a gmail account for both Logan and Carter (gmail accounts are free).

I know it sounds strange that my babies have email accounts, but it works! Whenever we have a funny day or they say or do something that makes me smile and think, "I don't want to forget that", I email a quick note. No one else has the email address and I don't do it daily. But, just think how often you are sitting at your email vs. pulling out the baby book. I also find that it is more representative of my speaking voice when I tell stories about them rather than small blurbs written in the tiny spaces of a baby book.

I started this almost two years ago and Logan currently has about 11 emails from me and Carter has 5, so it is not CRAZY time consuming, but it is a way to keep those little memories intact for one tired mama. Haven't decided if/when I will print them...make a book...I don't know? I have faith in gmail that they are safe for the moment until I decide what to do with them.

Samples of what I say to my kids over email (tired mama typos and all):

To Logan:

To Carter:

Definitely something to try!