long weekends

We got a lot of yard work done on our long weekend. It's looking good back there. Final project is a mini grass patch for the spoiled mini pack!

P.S. Cha Cha Chia Chihuahua is by Mike Holzer.

2013: A Year in Pictures

January: Lots of Fresh Grapefruit Juice and Vodka Greyhounds Thanks to our Tree and Electric Juicer

February: Pack Walk With Our Big Friends

March: Dinner With Sara and Angi at Gertrude's is Just What I Need

April: We Say Goodbye to Our Friend Strega Nona

Joe Makes Us a Game of Thrones Dinner

and We See Oblivion with Jake

May: Funny Hat Bike Ride with Stephanie et al.

and Corey Meets Grumpy Cat

June: A Day at Rosie's Dog Beach

July: Kathleen and Mark Get Married

and We Go to a Diamondbacks Game to Celebrate Our First Date Anniversary

August: Corey Fixes the Sliding Glass Door

September: We Eat at Venezia's Like We're in Breaking Bad

October: Stephanie and I See The Avett Brothers Again

and We Take the Dogs on a Halloween Pack Walk After the Trick-or-Treat Parade

November: Corey Surprises Me by Reserving the Cotton Club for My Birthday Party

December: Corey Turns Our House Into a Winter Wonderland

and Greg Takes Tito and I on a Volcano Tour

Love and Happiness to All in 2014!

Happy 1st Day of Fall!

And we even have a chance of rain today! Better get the Pet-Ease ready for Caprica, who is convinced thunder kills.

P.S. I found this picture at theSteward.

Project Life March continued

This is my other favorite week (visually) from March:

It documents the girls ganging up on a cricket, a text from my nephew, watching Napoleon Dynamite, the first day of spring, and spring in our backyard.

Recently I started printing the pictures family and friends text me to include in this Project. This way I can include the people who live far away that are still a part of my life. This picture is of a card and Weekly Reader about Ireland I sent my nephew for St. Patrick's Day, which he texted as a thank you. Love that kid!

Napoleon Dynamite was on t.v. and we got sucked in. I saved this Napoleon Dynamite chapstick packaging when I got it a very long time ago, and my paper hoarding tendencies paid off. The journaling is on the back (see below).

My Favorite Season is from a Smash pad. I popped out the other seasons, put some patterned paper behind it, wrote some journaling, and stamped the date.

On the left you see Caprica Six guarding our backyard. I added the 24/7 sticker since we joke that she is always on duty. She takes her job very seriously.

On the right is a picture I took of an orange tree blossom. I love the smell of our citrus trees blooming. The quote I used came pre-printed on vellum. One of the nice things about this Project is that you don't have to figure out how to adhere your vellum without it showing. This time I just trimmed the quote and slid it in over my picture, no adhesive required!

Maybe I should post more of my pages because now I see I've made a mistake here: it's March not April. Off to fix it...

I'm back. Another beautiful Arizona sunset! I added a Home sticker and Thickers for the title.

The rest of the week documents my book club meeting to discuss Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, finishing Dragons of Winter Night, a family pack walk, playing Hangman with my class, a factoid about the moon, Survivor, a phone call from my sister, and getting the dogs nails trimmed.

I used a magazine ad and stamped it. Free and saved from the landfill!

The distance to the moon was mentioned in The Secret Life of Bees which I was reading that week so I wanted to include it. Luckily I went to the internet to double check the distance before I included it because it was wrong in the book. Actually I went to many websites that gave various distances so I finally settled on the one that had a range of distances since the moon gets closer and farther. That one made the most sense to me so that's what I went with. Hopefully it's right!

I used some scraps of patterned paper, letter stickers, and a sticker (couldn't believe I had a sticker with the moon on hand!). The patterned paper had a star already punched out of it so I highlighted it by rubbing some white stamp ink along the edges.

Finally we have an unfortunate victim of Survivor which I printed off the internet, and the back of the Napoleon Dynamite chapstick packaging (it's as cute as the front) where I added some paper flags for journaling. Free and saved from the landfill!

red

We're back from our trip to California. The dogs loved the ocean, but we learned Stellaluna prefers a private beach to public. Happy birthday to my best friend and life partner.

P.S. Sylvia Needs A Couple Of Eggs is by Robin Faye Gates.

Project Life February

This is the weekend side of one of my pages. The Superbowl picture came from the newspaper (free and saved from the landfill!).

I finished reading an amazing book called Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong by Steven Brower. Did you know he used to make collages and scrapbook?! The picture I used of Louis is a greeting card.

Using the Nerd Nest's Photoshop help I printed the cover of a book I bought online with a gift card. Gift card included with print out of book cover and journaling.

We also walked the dogs with our friends and their giant puppies. Stickers are from Angi.

Almost revealed my secret pirate lair address, then took another picture with an arrow clothespin covering it. I used this Netflix envelope piece to demonstrate how long we held onto this movie...it's a Christmas envelope and we watched it in February. Oops. I read 1408, a short story by Stephen King which is super scary, before watching the movie. We liked the movie until the cheesy twist which is when Corey left to play video games. I wish the movie had stayed true to the story. And the Netflix envelope was free and saved from the landfill.

Stellaluna Smiles

Project Life January

This week documents the weekend, beginning with meeting with my book club to discuss The Casual Vacancy on Friday. We had a great discussion about children living in poverty.

This year I've been arranging my album differently. Last year was almost strictly one slot for each day. Now I skip days I don't have pictures or ephemera for, and use the extra spaces to show more than one photo for days that have more visual interest. I'm also trying to use 1 page front and back per week to give myself a little more room for those types of days.

So for Sunday I used 4 slots to share the story of finally putting all the Christmas shit away. I started a tradition of putting on the movies that were given to us while I put it all away. This year one I watched was The Avengers. It came with one of those paper sleeves so I cut that up to share in my Project. Free and saved from the landfill.

This page documents lunch with friends from Oregon, a thank you note from our friends Erin and Tina, a thank you note from a former student that moved away that day (names covered with new clothespins from Target), a drawing from a current student (and amazing artist) who loves Dragon Ball Z, and a pack walk.

I save all my cards but they always go in a shoe box. Now I have a way to save them while also being able to access them more readily. Also the stamp wasn't cancelled by the post office so I included that as well.

The chihuahua on the pack walk portion is from a magazine ad for dog food. I stamped it with paint and saved it from the landfill. Great way to track the progress of a resolution.

That's my week. If you enjoyed looking at mine, here are some of my favorite Project Lifers out there that inspire me:

Campfire Chic

Elise Blaha Cripe

Finding Nana

Glue Stick Girl

It's Me, KP

Krafty Kat!

The Nerd Nest

Becky Higgins - (more commercial but still cool)

...and my friend Angi. Album only available for viewing in real life.

walking those dogs

Just got back from walking the mini pack. We missed a few walks because we had four days of rain in a row! Unheard of! They did pretty good and it felt nice to be moving our legs again.

P.S. Rainy long walk is by holli.

2012: A Year in Pictures

January: Chad's Annual Bowling Birthday Party

February: Petsmart Charities 5K PetWalk with Stephanie and Corey's Family

March: Angi and I See Fran Lebowitz Together

and a Visit From Amy!

April: Date Night to See Sucre

and Girls Night to See Florence + the Machine

May: 3 Graduations in Kansas

June: Trip to Palm Springs

July: Jaws Pool Party with Mini-Pack

August: Hottest Hike Ever

September: Diamondbacks Lose to Cubs :(

October: Suns Game on Halloween

November: Trip to Titan Missile Museum

and South Mountain Birthday Walk

December: Corey Puts Up Christmas Lights and Declares He Does Like Christmas

Love and Happiness to All in 2013!