When I returned from Chicago in early April, I had nine months of Project Life pages to complete. Tuesday I finished them all!!! It took six weeks, which isn’t bad considering all the other things that were on the calendar. Now my goal is to be like Becky, and get the pages done as soon as the month ends. Even with a lot of upcoming travel this summer, I think I can do that. 

Today was the perfect spring day, warm temperatures and sunny. I took a long walk to the Ellwanger Gardens, and then through Highland Park. Today was the last day of the Lilac Festival, and it was very crowded. I’m so glad we have easy access to the park when it’s not under siege! Although there are a lot of lilacs in bloom, it’s not yet at peak.

So sharing a layout from last December seems kind of odd, but in the interest of chronology, that’s what I’m doing. You’ll get a heavy dose of Project Life pages in the next few weeks.

The title card was made with a variety of die cuts from Papertrey Ink, Savvy, and a couple old punches. I used an Ali Edward photo template to collage four photos of the Christmas decorations. I created the journaling card with some washi tape and a cute little house clip that came in a kit (not sure which one.)

I’ve saved Christmas cards that I thought I might be able to use in my scrapbooks for several years, but I think this is the first time I’ve actually used one. The little Christmas tree made the perfect filler card.

We celebrate Christmas twice, once in Rochester on Christmas Day with Matt & Betsy and all of Tracy’s family, and then again in Wilmette with Sarah, Adam, and Caleb.

The top card was created with a Silhouette file, and an old sticker from Michaels. Once again Cathy Zielski’s Tiny Template came in handy for some journaling.

The big event in Wilmette is not Christmas, but Caleb’s birthday which comes very quickly after our Christmas with them. There wasn’t a party, but he had a wonderful day! Adam found a grocery store that created a Thomas Train cake for him; just what he ordered! 

You might remember a craft exchange among bloggers several years ago. Alexa sent me all kinds of wonderful goodies, including these metal letters that spelled out Caleb’s name. She probably wondered if she was ever going to see them put to use! The balloons were die cut from a Simon Says set of balloon dies.

The adorable “three” clip is another of the goodies sent by Alexa. I cut a small slit in the Simple Stories journaling card to hold it.

Now that I’m caught up with Project Life, I’m on to the next BIG undertaking: purging! I’ve gotten a good start on my studio. Despite the fact that I got rid of at least half of what I owned last year, it’s clear there is still way too much stuff here for one person to use. I think it was Ali Edwards who said it’s so much easier to make decisions when you have fewer things to consider. I’ve eliminated almost all my patterned 12X12 paper, I kept just one container with papers I thought I’d use for Project Life or card making. Embellishments have been cut in half as well, and today I packed up 3/4 of the button collection I’d accumulated to take to the paper crafting charity shop. They’ll be happy to see me. 

The rest of the house is in pretty good shape from last year’s purging, but our basement and attic haven’t been touched! We will have been in this house 30 years come September and I’m guessing we’ll be into the fall before this project is completed.

October saw us on the road again, off on the postponed July trip to Petoskey, MI and Door County, WI. A friend of mine lives in Milwaukee and vacations regularly in Door Co. and a friend of Tracy’s made a winter trip to Petoskey and we were intrigued. Of course, we ended up in Wilmette for some time with Sarah, Adam, and Caleb.

I finished September’s layouts with a Design G page so went with a smaller title card: Papertrey’s Monthly Moments die cut, some stamps from the July Monthly Moments set, and a piece of Washi tape on a Becky Higgins’ Midnight card. The photos (clockwise) from top left are Petoskey; my friend, Nancy and her friend, Mary; the lighthouse at Muskegon, MI; Peninsula Park in Door County; and a dramatic sunset after a cold, windy, rainy day in Petoskey. (The photos look a bit out of focus here, but it’s the photo of the pages causing the problem.)

I scanned two pages from my travel sketchbook to show our itinerary, my favorite photos of Caleb at the garden center and Kohl’s Children’s Museum, and ended up with two photos from our stop on our way home to meet our friends, Karen and Mike, for our annual weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

I had fun creating the cards for the Halloween spread. I used an OLD piece of Scenic Route patterned paper for the title card with some equally old Doodlebug border stickers, and a stamp from Monthly Moments on a Keep it Simple Frame die cut. I die cut the Journal Card #5 from a piece of patterned paper from the Lawn Fawn “Beachside” paper pad and layered it over a contrasting piece from the same set. The cute little owl is by Doodlebug that I picked it up recently in a lovely little store near Sarah’s. 

Caleb tried on his Halloween costume which I made for Matt when he was little. The only alteration needed was to hem the pants. He practiced his roars for us, as well. When Halloween actually arrived it was cold with hail. After three houses, he announced he was ready to go home. Candy was definitely not worth slogging through the terrible weather. When I asked on Face Time about trick or treating next year, he said, “NEVER!” We’ll see.

It wasn’t great here, but not quite so bad. No surprise, Skylar was Elsa from Frozen, and had a better time than Caleb. The pumpkins are Matt’s creation; every year he gets a little more creative with them.

The second page of the layout is just photos from the trip. Door County is known for it’s lighthouses as it extends into both Green Bay and Lake Michigan. We visited several of them. Here are a few more photos I added at the end of the month’s pages.

Although it’s hard to read, the third photo on the left-hand page is of the plaque at the 45th Parallel which we crossed twice on this trip. It marks the theoretical half-way point between the North Pole and the equator. The hot dog on the right-hand page is a Chicago Dog–which I actually had in Petoskey, MI. It turned out to be the best one I’ve ever had. (I’ve eaten three of these calorie-laden dogs now, and I’m quite sure there are more in my future.)

Today is International Scrapbooking Day, and with some time off to go to spinning class, and walk down to Matt’s to get our bikes out of his garage, I expect to be working on Project Life. It’s May, and I didn’t quite meet my goal of getting caught up. I did, however, finish all the pages for 2014, so there’ll be more spreads to share soon.

I was up early and thought by now I’d have multiple Project Life pages to share, but it’s been one of those days where other projects have taken far longer than I anticipated. The day’s not over, but we have a play at Geva Theater at 4:00 followed by a trip to BJ’s to pick up some groceries. Hopefully, I’ll get a start on a few more pages before bedtime. 

At any rate, I did finish the February Project Life pages earlier this week . There are just two spreads for February, and only one of them shows any snow! That’s because the best of the photos came from our brief trip to Florida, and the rest were taken inside. When I finished it seemed odd to have such bright and cheery photos for a typically gray and cold month.

I purchased Tracy Larsen’s Simply White templates a month or so ago, and was delighted to find how easy they are to use. I like the clean, white look of the page using them. I also discovered Epson’s Premium Presentation Paper recently. I have a wonderful (but old) Canon printer, but the Epson paper worked beautifully to print the photos as well as the journaling card (Cathy Zielske). It’s a nice weight, and much less expensive that the Canon Luster or Ilford Pearl photo paper I typically use. The journaling card is from the February Cocoa Daisy “Day in the Life” kit.

The title card was created with Papertrey’s “Monthly Moments” and “Slide Frame” dies, the Winnie and Walter “The Big, The Bold, and The Happy” stamp, and the Mini Heart Collection die from Memory Box. 

More Simply White templates, and a journaling card from Cocoa Daisy.  I made a pocket for our Beach and Towel card from the Jupiter Resort with a piece of patterned paper from Simple Stories. I forgot to print a caption for the photos from the George Eastman House, so printed on an piece of transparency and added it to the top of the photos with two tiny pearls. I used a new Papertrey Ink die, “Simply Framed” to create the pocket card “you and me.”

You can see the subtle grid stamping on the bottom of the card. I layered three of the outer frame, so the card is slightly recessed. The banner die is from the “Count Down” die, and the sentiment from “A Few Pointers.” I won another generous gift certificate during the April Papertrey Release party and used it to purchase several of their stamp and die sets meant for pocket scrapbooking. I know I’m going to enjoy them, and have some card ideas percolating as well. The little hearts were left over from the die used on the title card.

This was one of my favorite beach photos. The colors of the sea and sky that day were just wonderful. The day we were at Jupiter Beach it was incredibly windy and the colors were much more muted. The caption was stamped with an older Lawn Fawn set by the same name.

You may remember that our reason for the February trip was to see Tracy’s stepmother who had been diagnosed with early onset dementia. On a happy note, we heard yesterday that Betty is doing much better. They changed her medication, and her memory and ability to function relatively independently have returned manyfold. She’s in a new assisted living facility and doing really well! We needed some good news around here.

Happy Scrapbooking!