ami's place blog

January Project Life

On the left hand page, I played with two of Cathy Zielske's Tiny Templates from Designer Digitals. Then two of her larger templates for the date and my Life Jacket pictures. January started out to be mild but ended with snow. Jon spent a few days at home as we live on a steep hill and driving was impossible. The third day he managed to walk to the bottom of the hill and take public transportation. On his days at home we walked in the snow and enjoyed the beauty and quiet.

The right hand page shows a few holiday photos from friends and relatives.  A picture of Jon's Mom having coffee with us one morning at our local mall and our friend, Amrita, as she carried her newest aquisition home, a Cricut machine. 

I began using this routine for Project Life last year.  I did the complete picture a day in 2010 and now like this way of one or two spreads capturing each months activities. Then adding various other layouts and bits of our story in many different sized page protectors. I am hoping to get a pack of Becky's mixed ones soon, to help me add more variety to this album. 

 

My Many Careers

I have recently been having monthly and sometimes weekly, conversations with Tami at Creative Passions and Debbie at Masterful Scrapbooking Designs. During one such webinar it became painfully noticeable to me that they knew very little of my past. I have been scrapbooking for the past fifteen years and my life prior to that is tucked away in albums that I have neither digitized nor shared on my blog. Because of this, I sat down two days ago and pulled a few photos from years ago and made a page with a simple outline of the many careers that I have experienced thus far.

The journaling for this layout reads:

 16-26  Student, Bookkeeper, Boeing

Worker, Married, mother of two.

26-30  Homebuilder, Executive Assistant at

 Drop-In Shelter for Youth.

 30-38  Organizer/counselor of Battered Women’s

 Shelter, Director Runaway Youth Shelter,

 Vista Organizer for Light Brigade.

 38-42 Long Distance Trucker of Refrigerated Foods.

 42-57  Engineering  Art and Technical Illustration.

 42-Until present Happily married and now

 Retired.

It is a quick and simple outline, by my various ages, of the different types of work that I have done. I think that over the course of the next few weeks I may take each of these time spans and do a group of layouts. I garnered immense pleasure from revisiting these memories and realized that not all of my work needs to reflect the present time. 

 

to Share: Aunt Nan's Eclectic Inkandblabula

Please read the article on my friend Nan's blog about organizing. The one from today is about my studio space and has some great pictures. The one just prior to that is Nan's on organizing and it is very good. Julie Balzer used a part of it on her blog the first day of her organizing week.

http://auntnanseclecticinkandblabula.blogspot.com

Creative Afternoon

Today it is grey and gloomy here in Bellevue and I decided to cheer myself up by playing in PSE 9 before I change to PSE 10. I am always a bit apprehensive when I am about to open new software.

Saturday our dear friend Trudy came to visit from Olympia and I loaded a bunch of tutorials into her laptop. She is just beginning to learn PSE and so we sat and played with the tutorials most of the afternoon. It was such fun that I decided to spend the next few days doing it again.

This is a tutorial from Digital Scrapper this past March. I loved the look of the photo mask and I think that after the tutorial today I now know how to create it.  Then I needed to search for a landscape photo to use in it. I discovered that I don't take very many photos of the landscape. It seems that almost on a daily level I am finding different types of photos that I desire for my collection.  This is one I took at Pacific Beach, Washington in June of 2009.

My hands are starting to behave. The weather has been a challenge as it ignites all of the pain in my ostio arthritis. For the past two weeks I have been unable to use the computer for more than just looking at my email. Today was a delightful surprise.

Another ATC set for October

I made these using a set of stamps from Close to My Heart. We both have such a grand time with Halloween and all of the Orange and Black decor. Our home is filled with pumpkin lights, lighted large pumpkins, and spiders. We are actually expecting trick or treaters this year as there are several two to four year old children in the neighborhood. Jon and I will go to our local mall earlier in the evening and be home in time for the 6:00 and on children showing up at the door. I do hope to get some cute pictures this year, also.

I will post the latest 365 pages here later today. Life is busy and great right now. My wonderful husband came home with a "Happy What the Heck Day" gift yesterday after work. He bought me a copy of PSE 10 at Costco. I have a dear friend coming up from Olympia to visit this weekend and she will be loading PSE 9 onto her laptop. As I am to help her figure out some of the basics, I will wait until Sunday or Monday to load my new software onto my desk top.

This past week I started taking the Blending and Beyond class over at GIS with Jana Morton. This is such a treat. She is teaching very well and the webinar with Debbie Hodges last night was a delight. These women love what they are doing and are so open in the sharing of it. I feel honored to have found this site and to be taking the classes that are offered. I am also studying Art Journaling 103 with Dina Wakely. So days are filled with fun.

 

October ATC

 
I was playing today with some of the items that I have collected from Deviant Scrap and really thought that I would end up with an ATC for September. The black cat won out and away I went. It was such fun developing a corner of a room that I think I will try for a school room corner for next month.

It has been busy here as I just finished uploading all 600+ photos from two family weddings to DVD's for the mother of the grooms and my sister-in-law Peggy. I am ready now to put together the travel journal and the week in the life pages. Busy month ahead.

WITL-Sunday

 

Yesterday Jon and I made a strawberry rhubarb crisp and today we delivered it to Jon's sister, Peg. She is in her third month of treatment for an aggressive cancer and she was very weak. It is so hard to see her this way as she is normally such an active person and yet she was still a joy to spend time with. We took Hilda, Jon and Peg's mom with us and stayed for several hours. Jon almost let Dave, his brother-in-law, give him the same haircut that he gave to Peg when her hair began to fall out. When we got home he said that he wished he had gone ahead with it in a show of solidarity. Peg will finish this round of chemo in October and we are all hoping that she will beat this and not have to go through this ordeal ever again. 

Today is also the last day of WITL. I will be putting the pages of photos and stories together over the next few weeks along with my 365 photos for July and the travel journal from our anniversary trip to the ocean. I'll be posting these as I finish them. It may be a few more days before I post again, but I will be back soon. Be sure to check out all of the others who took part in this week long adventure by linking to their sites through Ali Edwards blog.

WITL-Saturday

 

We were at Barnes & Noble today and I realized that I needed a few small journals for a new class at Big Picture Classes called Write Now.  These looked like just the right size and style. Two of them have lines and the paper is smooth and easy to write on.

WITL-Friday

 

Friday we attended the Bellevue Art Museum street fair. Each year we save all of our change in two different piggy banks and cash them in for this fair. It is an awesome art fair with three blocks or more of arts and crafts. I will need to make several scrapbook pages filled with the photos and then post them to give a good idea of the fun that filled our day. We live right on the bus line and so parking is no problem. Jon and I spent the entire day immersed in other peoples art and enjoying the whole scene. The sun was out and we were experiencing one of the first really nice days this summer.

WITL-Thurs.

 

Thursdays are the day of the week when my friend Nan comes to play. We are both taking part in Week In The Life this time.  She is a phenominal artist and I love having this day with her each week. Nan inspires me and makes me laugh. I share a love of alternative art with her and I stretch myself when I know that she will be viewing my work. Everyone should have a friend like Nan in their life.