needles & vectors

So far, so good, on this whole Life Recorded thing. I’ve managed to remember to take photos far more often than I used to and have kept up with making at least one scrapbook page about my week. I realized I’ve put the completed pages online but haven’t actually blogged about them yet. But, hey, it’s just barely February so I can pretend like it was my plan all along to blog my pages a month at a time.

Week 1
The first part of the week was spent recovering from the holidays and visiting family. You know, getting back to the usual routine of getting up early, going to work, dinner with just the two of us. I love when family visits but, as someone who loves her routines, it’s always a bit stressful how they shake things up. The last day of the week was the FIRST kickoff, where we learned about this year’s game. This was also the week Matt first started playing Skyrim (which is now a nightly fixture in our house – he’s got something like 80 hours of playtime clocked).

I first made these pages using not only a different kit but also a different template for the page protectors, neither of which I really liked. So, I switched kits and protector sets (and bought some journaling cards) and “fixed” them the following week. I won’t show you the first version – it really was a mess – but here’s the pretty-fied versions.  
 

Week Two
Week Two included our first dusting of snow for the year which was only my second time driving in snow. We also got our basement fixed such that is no longer has water coming inside when it rains (which isn’t quite as photogenic as our snowy backyard so I didn’t grab a photo of it). I didn’t take many photos throughout the week so I instead captured the current sermon series at church, the cat’s current favorite sitting location, and my love of Chipotle. The sort of things I would have never thought to include in scrapbook pages but I know I’ll be glad I captured in years to come.

I gave FIRST its own page (a trend I continued in later weeks) because, well, it’s so different than everything else going on in my life. I’m sure I annoy the students with my constant photo-taking but they’ll appreciate that I’ve captured the build process as it goes along. I took something like 50 photos that whole have been appropriate to scrap and somehow managed to narrow it down into just the best ones shown here. (Oh and you’ll notice, FIRST weeks are one week behind “regular” weeks which constantly throws me off.)

Week Three
Week three was the week of zero photos. Okay, not zero but very, very few. Something about the week just killed any desire I had to take photos, including self potraits (yes, I’m trying that whole thing again – missed all of week 3 but good otherwise). So, instead of giving up and not making a page for the week or trashing the entire project, I decided to embrace it. Lots and lots of journaling about the week. And that picture I took while being evil and watching Matt clean off the car from our front stoop. (I cleaned off my car by myself the next day so I got my just desserts, dont’ worry.)

Week Four
Thankfully, I got back into the photographic swing of things in week four (last week, for those keeping track). After looking over my photos for the week, I decided to do a Top 5 page with SPs, cookies, Ada, books, and a really yummy pasta dinner. I struggled to fill the last “block” on the template and decided a summary of the week was probably a good idea to include. I probably got a little too sappy in the review but whatever. It’s my scrapbook, I can be as sappy as I like.

There weren’t any cancelled FIRST days in week 4 (and I took some shots on my iPhone during mid-week sessions) so I had plenty of photos for a whole page about it. I knew I wanted to use the photo-overkill version of the template but struggled with what to do when I had only 16, not 17 good photos to include. I decided the “As of right now” element was perfect for a countdown/progress bar and embraced it. After moving things around a dozen times, I finally stepped back and finalized the layout. I forgot to include any mention of the week or date which I may go back and add (or be very careful when putting these in order in my book once they’re printed).

(Quick note: I forgot to keep the template as the top most layer so these aren’t quite the final versions. In the final, the template is on top and gives the whole thing more of a page protector look like you see in the very last page. I realized this mistake just before pushing publish and am too lazy to make new JPGs right now. It’s fixed in PSE.)

Coming in Week 5:
- No FIRST photos (missed all work sessions due to teacher workdays and our trip)
- Our trip to WV to go skiing
- Current knitting WIP (may be an FO by Sat night!)
- New sidewalk lights

Materials Used on Various Pages:
- Valorie Wibbins: Pockets No 3 (page protector template)
- Karla Dudley: Right Now (Background paper and elements)
- Valorie Wibbins: Today journaling cards
- Robyn Meierotto: Dated 2012 Stamps

Hope I’m not boring you all with these but I’m so proud that I’m being good with keeping up with this pages that I just have to show them off. Today’s page focusing on the only Christmas-y element of today: decorating our tree (while we watched the very exciting Packers-Giants game). Other than tree decorating, today also included Indian food and the Muppets Movie (very excellent) with Matt’s buddy, Mark and the previously mentioned football game watching. And, of course, I made this page.

Our Christmas tree will never be one of those fancy all-in-one-color deals. See, Matt’s been collecting Christmas ornaments since he was little so we probably have over 200 in total. We don’t pick them up nearly as often, usually only on special vacations (though we got zero on our last Europe trip). This year, with this giant tree  - it takes up a good portion of our living room – we finally have more than enough space to show them all off. Even took three full strands of lights to cover it – two mega strands (400 lights) and one normal (200 lights).

I was very happy with the performance of my 50 mm/f2.9 that Matt got me for a graduation gift. The lens let me easily take photos of the tree, despite the fact is was dark out and the only lighting was the tree lights and a light a good 50 feet away in the dining room. In ten shots, I had four perfectly in focus, like the one I picked that really shows off the different ornaments.

No blog post yesterday because I didn’t have a chance to get back on a computer after work (and, even if I had, it would have been the computer without PSE on it, anyway). I had a full day of work then we drove up to Baltimore to see a performance of Handel’s Messiah. We got stuck in a ton of traffic which meant we arrived 30 minutes late to our dinner reservation. Thankfully, it’s a local place and very chill so we didn’t have a problem getting a table, anyway. We then headed to the Meyerhoff for the concert, arriving 5 minutes after they started due to issues finding where to park. The concert was more than worth the traffic and waiting to be seated. I really liked that they provided a copy of the words (not the music, this wasn’t a sing-along). Despite not having any chance to take photos at the performance, I did manage a cell phone shot of some of the lobby decorations so I could still make a page for yesterday.

Today was equally busy. We spent last night at Matt’s parents’ house and slept in rather late. We had breakfast then went out and picked out our Christmas tree. After that, we grabbed lunch and did our usual Costco/Wegman’s trip. Matt and his dad went back to Costco and got a mattress set (you know, so my parents will actually have somewhere to sleep when they’re here in a few weeks). While they were gone, Matt’s mom and I did dishes, finally took down the chairs and tables from Thanksgiving, and cleaned out the room where the bed was going. Day ended with paninis for dinner and scrapbooking while watching Charmed (Matt’s playing on his PC in the other room). Of course, I only scrapped about the tree picking as no one cares about the rest of today. I don’t even think I care anymore. Heh.

[No promises to blog daily but I would like to blog my December Daily pages. December Daily is a scrapbooking project where you, well, scrapbook daily each day in December. My version lasts from Dec 1 to 25th because, well, I can only stick to something for so long.]

It’s only the first of the month so we have almost no signs of the holiday season in our house so far. We’re picking up our tree this weekend and, otherwise, all we’ve got is a wreath on our front door. My plan was to take a photo of that to scrap for today but, well, working a ten hour day isn’t conducive to getting a decent photo of something on your front door. So, I had to improvise. One of the things I promised myself with this whole project was that I wouldn’t stress about making sure my stories were all Christmas-focused.

Today’s focus, then, is on the lack of signs of Christmas (and how Thanksgiving, only a week ago, still lingers in our house). Instead of photograping the not yet washed wine glasses or still taking over our dining room large plastic tables, I captured my dessert: leftover banana bread and vanilla ice cream.

I first made this version of the page but wasn’t happy with how light the background was and how you can’t really see the border.

Here’s a different version, with a darker background and the border recolored a dark green. I rather like this to the point what I’m tempted to recolor all of my pre-made pages like this one.

Tomorrow, we’re going to see Handel’s Messiah up in Baltimore where I won’t really be able to take photos inside but I hope I can capture what I’m sure will be an excellent night at the symphony.

Likely to be followed tomorrow or the next day but Round 5.

Unlike many of you, I had to work today. Despite having to relocate twice and getting kicked out early, I still had a super productive day. When I came home, I made several more pages. I broke down and downloaded the trial of PhotoShop Elements (here’s to hoping I can just enter the code for the real version on Christmas when the trail lapses).

Here’s today’s pages. Nice and simple, as always. I used blog posts for most of the journaling. Really happy that I wrote those posts right when we got back. Despite my extensive notes, I never would have remembered all those other things off the top of my head.

I made a few of these last night and a few today. I feel like I’ve hit my groove with it. Having those blog entries I wrote right after I got back were really helpful. All of the papers, etc are from the Design House Digital Blog Hop.

…and nothing else because it’s my bedtime and I forgot to write today’s post until now.

Because I’m strongly considering doing December Daily, a scrapbook project where you scrap each day in December (or, alternately, each day until Christmas). I even went as far as to buy a Christmas-themed digi kit (Sarah Smutz’s Jolly), brainstorm the things I want to take photos of (lights, tree trimming, wrapping presents, Christmas Eve service), and made six templates. Like I said, I must be crazy.