travelscrapsleeprepeat

This spread covers the week that mom came home from the hospital, so it is mostly house based with lots of little stories. I used lots and lots of white space to keep it from getting overwhelming  and I really like how it turned out. It feels very calm when flipping through the album.

The left side is Design A, but I used 3×4 cards in two of the larger pockets. Since those pockets had 4×6 photos on the reverse side, here I just taped them together on the back to keep them in place.

My love for these date stamps has been well documented, but I really think that using them with these half design cards may be my favorite. I have quite a large stack of them that I just never really had a use for and I am pretty excited to pull them out now.

The day that mom came home, Jayme hit her first ever homerun. We were so disappointed to miss it but I made sure to snap a picture of her with the ball when she got home. Since the look on her face pretty much sums it up I kept the journaling simple: the date and a caption. I was looking for a patterned paper to add to the top of the card and found this greige journal card in the PL Baseball theme kit. Instead of writing on it I used the subtle ball outline as an image. The dark blue label adds a pop of color to the card.

I really love the look of a simple black and white filler card, colored phrase sticker and puffy embellishment. It is crazy simple but looks so classic. Will definitely be repeating this formula.

The right side is a go-to Design F. The upper part pretty much tells the stories of Friday, when Jayme and I went to Milwaukee for the day. The bottom row holds several random stories. Still loving the white on white for titles on cards.

I am totally digging the light blue/dark blue/red combo. I think I have mentioned that I rarely use red hearts because it feels too cutesy for me, but I think it worked here. Another little cluster formula that can easily be adapted for any page.

So, last year I exchanged my Wisconsin driver’s license for a German one and it is their policy to retain all American licenses because some states require it. I was somewhat devastated at giving up my WI identification…we had been through a lot together! Wisconsin issued me a new card as a duel resident and when it arrived I tucked the temporary print into a pocket. The layer of white dot acetate not only makes the print out prettier, but it gave me a base to add the label to without having to adhere it directly to the license. Since I wrote quite a bit about giving up the card last year I went simple here.

The Products

Cards: As usual I started by pulling cards from the monthly Studio Calico set, in this case April 2017  (Written in the Stars).  The card with the small blue pot is from the Ali Edwards Eat Story Kit (digital). The card with the small houses and cars is a 12×12 paper I bought at Joann’s and cut down. The remaining cards were pulled from a bunch of PL kits: Midnight, Moments Like These, Currently, September Skies, and Baseball.

Stamps:  Elle’s Studio Date It and generic roller date stamp. Type font phrases from the Citrus Twist grab bag.

Other: Label freebies, tiny word stickers by Ali Edwards and generic puffy hearts from ebay.

I only have one more spread to share and I am back in chronological order! I also just received a large order of prints for June and July and have laid those out into eleven spreads. Can’t wait to get working on those and of course, sharing them here!

So, this spread carries on through my 2017 album following the zoo spread I shared during TSSR Relaunch Week 2017. I very rarely celebrate Easter in any notable way so I really wanted to make a point of using some of the adorable cards that Studio Calico released last year as an add on.

The left side of the spread is mostly about my flight back to Madison and prepping for mom’s surgery. Because I had relatively short notice I ended up flying through Poland, which was fine. They made a great hamburger. Mom’s surgery was on Friday, which felt like a massive event but was actually just a lot of sitting around. I had this cute picture of her we had sent out to show the family how great she was doing, so paired that with a 3×4 journaling card. And my parking pass….the parking pass was my friend.

The layout starts on the Wednesday that I flew to back to the states and runs through that Sunday, which was Easter. I  use the Monday–Sunday week as a very loose guideline and frequently adjust my dates to better suit my story.

The two prominent photos on this side of the layout were both food pictures, but in very different locals (Warsaw and Madison). I thought that a good way to easily visualize that would be to stamp out the city name straight onto the photo. For funsies I used an older platinum ink that I had, which turned out awesome—in real life the letters are super subtle, but at certain angles the light catches it and it is quite bold like the photo above.

I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do to spice up the solid blue card, but I had this little label end left over from another card and I decided to just use it here with a couple tiny stickers. I always keep these little off cuts of labels to add like this and when possible I use them right away so I don’t lose them.

The right side is almost entirely dedicated to Easter, mostly because I really wanted to fit in those cute filler cards.

My aunt and I alternated staying at the hospital with mom through the weekend that she was there, which ended up being kind of a crazy routine. Luckily my jetleg made my schedule crazy anyway, so I just slept when I could for as long as I could. It worked.

The easiest way to illustrate this was to just type up the schedule. I had quite a lot of white space at the bottom and I thought it would be fun to use a cluster of triangles stamp to make a base for the label. I am loving the platinum colored ink, which as you can see here ranges from silver to gold depending on how it catches the light.

That bunny freaking kills me and I knew I had to use it. I pulled the colors for the layout from the easter egg card also in this set (see below), but since I am not much of a pastel girl I used a lot of the blues and greens and yellows. I even went with these dark blue puffy stars and added tiny pink enamel dot accents to allow a little spring in.

I had downloaded an app (Characters) to “catch” the Easter Bunny in the act of dropping off the baskets at the hospital. However, when I saw this hunched over option I had to do one of him “checking” on mom. She is only pretending to be asleep and was totally in on it. I still wanted to include the other one, so I put a tab on the top of the 3×4 card and tucked it behind.

The Products

Cards: Since I really wanted to use the SC 2016 Easter cards, I started with those (including the title card). I also pulled a couple from the April 2017  (Written in the Stars) to add a little consistency from one page to the next. My obsession with the LDM day freebies is obviously still going strong and the remaining cards are from the PL Fresh and PL September Skies editions.

Stamps:  Elle’s Studio Date It and generic roller date stamp. The tiny star on the title card and the “Currently” box on the bunny photo are from older Studio Calico PL kits (but I got them at goodwill!). The cities are stamped with the Clearly Kelly Outline Alpha and everything else is from the Citrus Twist grab bag.

Other: Label freebies by Kaitlin Sheaffer and tiny word sticker by Tim Holtz. The puffy stars are actually just no brand ones from a local stationary store (I like the keep an eye out for fun generic shapes) and the enamel dots I bought at Wilko a few years ago.

This was a rough week overall, but it worked out in the end and I am very happy with how the documentation turned out. I have two more pages to share that were skipped in TSSR Relaunch Week 2017 and then I will probably share new layouts in chronological order. Or as I am inspired to finish them. We will see. Have a scrappy weekend!

This week sucked. I went back and forth for a long time about sharing this page. I hated the week. I didn’t love making the page. It all just felt bad.

However, there is always much discussion on documenting the less than “best day ever”s. So I decided to post it. Unredacted. Because (project) life is life and sometimes that is just the way it goes.

This week was less about the photos than it is the stories. I was in a bad mood, trying to make the best of my situation and appreciate the great people in my life. And then on Wednesday mom called and used the C word every child dreads….so all the other crap ceased to matter. I was heading back stateside in less than two weeks. Plot twist indeed. (BTW, Mom is a freaking rockstar and is doing great. More on that with the following spreads 🙂 )

Design-wise, I just tried to keep it all simple. Nothing really felt right, so I just picked a title card that I liked and worked off that. When I first moved to Munich, I bought a cheap date stamp at a stationary store and I try to use it for the pages that I am actually in Germany. Just a simple way to add a little local feel. I had pulled out sequins recently for a challenge and had decided against them, so I added them in here for a little subtle extra. Like I said, nothing else feels right for a week that sucked this much

I didn’t take a lot of photos this week. I didn’t do a lot this week. Honestly, I spent an awful lot of time just feeling sorry for myself. In those cases, Design F is my go-to for using what I have, including the stories there are, and using product for the things I can’t otherwise express.

One of my cultural goals for this year in Munich was to figure out the spargel obsession. People go crazy for asparagus. It is super expensive. There are dedicated festivals. I just caught the start of the season before I left, so I was happy I got to fit it in. I mean, it was tasty…but I am not sure it was most expensive meal I have had in Germany tasty….

I think the best thing for the crap times in life is just some hidden journaling. Sometimes I do a little redacting here on the blog for things I don’t necessarily want to share with the whole of the internet. But sometimes there are also stories that I don’t want to even be a focal point in my layout. At those times, I tuck it behind another card and add a tab to remember it is there. I used white on white to add “hard week” to the outside and even the stickers fought me on this one—they aren’t straight, not correctly spaced, and several freaking ripped on me. But I decided to just call it done because this week needed to end.

The Products

Cards: I started with a base from the April 2017 Studio Calico cards (Written in the Stars), but pulled the Plot Twist card from January 2016 (Arendal)! I also mixed in a lot of the PL Fresh edition as well as several neutral patterns cut down from 12×12 paper. Coffee, Netflix, & Yoga Pants (aka my life on a card) is a freebie from Kellie Winnell. The food related cards are from the Ali Edwards Eat Story Kit (digital).

Stamps: As I mentioned, I bought a German date stamp at an office supply store and I think it is a fun addition. I stamped the word “spargel” with one of those cheap peg alpha sets from Michael’s and clearly I kind of suck at spacing them. “Notes” and “Wed” from a cheapo set from Joann’s. Amazing tiny words/phrases by Citrus Twist, of course.

Other: Label freebies, tiny word stickers by Simple Stories and Tim Holtz. Navy stripe washi by Heidi Swapp.

So, not my favorite page in the album but definitely part of my story. Having done Project Life for seven (?!!?) years now, I have had to include a number of not so great moments. Please do share what your approach to this kind of documentation is….