I have always struggled between finding a balance between documenting and scrap booking. I love the creating of scrap booking - playing with pretty paper and fabric and embellishments.
I enjoy the photo taking and remembering the stories. I love mini books that tell a little story and I have a lot of those too.
Over the last year my actual scrapbooking has died down - I alternate between digi stuff but mostly I document here on my blog.
Some of that has been due to time and work and other have been external factors - I changed to Mac, the girls are growing up and needed lots of my time and I needed to find a new rhythm.
Over the last few weeks I have had to make some had decisions about where I want to go with things in my life and I'll talk about Tari sometime soon.
But for now I want to share the decision I have made about documenting vs scrapbooking.
I feel this year is so important. It will certainly be different and I want to have a creative outlet without a timeline and with no pressure- no need to do list.
So I have made the decision to "GASP" subscribe to Studio Calico- I know my husband freaked out LOL - But you all know how good is it to get a box of goodies in the mail once a month :)
My first kit has arrived and I'm gathering ideas. My plan is to "scraplift " GASP again I know. Not just make my own pages. Nope I'm out there searching for inspiration - If I share I will link the original page of course but I love the idea of just making pretty and there is so much inspiration out there already.
I love that Studio Calico is on Pinterest - so it is easy eye candy
Also I am beyond thrilled to say Iara has invited me to be part of her lovely digi team at Baersgarten. I love digi so much and I particularly like hybrid and Iara's kits lend themselves to that so well. I have found a great way of printing elements which I will share with my first lot of projects. Iara also has some gorgeous real kits available on her etsy store - I have the the girl one which I'm going to use to document the girl's birthday this year.
via www.etsy.com
I always do a December Daily of some description. I'm going to use Iara's Christmas kit
via www.etsy.com
and some of Ali's digital elements
as well as my stash. Our December will be different - the girls are away with my sister for a week while I have one of my treatments and we have no concrete plan for Christmas day yet- though fingers crossed I will be well during the Christmas week. There will of course be plenty of baking, church going, choir, gift making and decorating as per usual though.
And finally I'm embarking on Project Life.
This for me covers the actual ( scrapping ) part of what I want to do. While I don't love the papers etc of the project set I have just purchased the inserts and I'm going to just get an album.
I plan on using the photos and words I use on my blog for documenting and include bits and pieces of daily stuff as they appear.
If you aren't up to speed on project life I have been following along with some blogs for some time. Designed by Becky Higgins and here are all the details. I'll be honest it dont grab me at all until I started looking at some ongoing projects over the year and I have now fallen in love with the concept.
I'd really love a a little printer to make it easier. But I'm not sure which one to look at - I have heard of the Canon Selphy
via www.canon.com.au
Which I know quote a few people are using and love the fastness of it.
Or I have also heard of the Pivi which is by Fuji and only available on ebay at this stage
via gizmodo.com
What I like about this is that it prints to instant paper so like Polaroids staright from your camera card. It won't print from your phone though I have read that some people have had success adding instagram photos to their camera card and printing. I was originally looking at getting an instamax but i think instead I'm going to invest in a printer - one less camera to carry.
I do have a pixma MP170 which I have had few quite a few years but I've never been in love with the way it prints - I tend to go to camera house for printing which is just at westfield -but that's a whole heap more steps and I'm looking for simple. If I'm awake at 3.00am and I want to play then I can you know ?
Ali Edwards of course is always totally inspiring. This is what her project looks like. You can see her whole project here
and I love this simplistic style of Liz from Paislee Press
Marcy Penner is another one that has caught my eye
Via Forever Love
Michelle Wooderson I really love the way she adds the colour and tapes and goodies to her pages
I also love gluestick girl's work- the way she incorporates her iPhone photos into her project - as I am reaching for my iPhone has become my choice of camera - I would love an update I have the 3g and the camera is ordinary to say the least but with apps like camera bag and instagram photos are passable.
I purchased my page inserts from Craft House It's listed as preorder but I already have a shipping notice.
I decided on some 12 x 12 pages - just a dozen and then a 60 pack of random that way as I progress I can decide which ones I like to use the most - I do also like the 12 x 6 and have seen some nice things done with those.
via crafthouse.co.nz
Im excited to get started on this as soon as the page protectors arrive I'll just dive right in - no point waiting till the start of the year I say. And of course a quick flick through Pinterest shows a huge following of project life with much sharing.
Anyone else playing? any other cool links? Any thoughts on printing I'd love to know.
