Using repetition with the Slice to make art

I've had this framed corkboard for a while but haven't ever put it to good use. My husband recently hung it on the wall of the kitchen in our new house, and I was inspired to make the most of its new location. The shaped pins came with the corkboard.

I cut 11 jugs from the Faith design card at 2.5" using a variety of patterned papers. It was a lot of fun meandering through my stash and finding papers that worked together! Then I hung the handle of each one on a small pin, with the larger pins mixed in with them. It'll be easy to change out the design when I want something different up there - I'm planning on changing this with the seasons, using it for birthdays etc.

~ Caroline ~

Week in the Life 2012

For the first time ever, I decided to embark on Ali Edwards' Week in the Life project. It coincided with a 2-day conference for work and a bunch of other busyness that I initially justified as ruling me out of WitL. But after telling a friend about the project and seeing her excitement, I decided to go for it anyway!

I knew I'd need to keep it simple if I was going to succeed. I printed out the daily sheets from Ali's website and kept them with me throughout each day. I took ALL the photos with my phone (Droid X - love it!) then at the end of the week made a 2-page montage in Photoshop Elements for each day. I took about 150 photos during the course of the week.

When I put it all together, I repurposed an 8.5x11" spiral-bound folder that was lying around, tore out a few excess pages, then stuck the daily sheets right on top of the original content. Then I used Smash tape to add the photos as an addition on the side for each day. Really simple meant that I actually accomplished this project, and I am so pleased I did!

Here's the front cover:

The "day by day" cardstock punch-out was from a 12x12 punch-out pad from Colorbok that I won at a crop. The rest of the lettering, ribbon and metal flower are from Making Memories (mostly Paperie collection).

Here are a couple of examples of what each day looks like (they're all quite similar):

Even though technically you could do this project anytime, it felt good to go through the week knowing there were other WitL-ers out there all doing the same thing! I think I already take quite a lot of everyday-type photos, but being more intentional about it made me even more aware of my surroundings and gave me a fresh look at things I don't always notice.

I'll definitely try and do this again next time around - I think Ali is planning for that towards the end of 2013 which seems like a long way off right now but will likely be upon us soon. :)

~ Caroline ~

Project Life: shopping my stash

The arrival of National Scrapbooking Day last weekend provided the impetus I needed to get the scrapbooking-related boxes unpacked from our house move and forge some semblance of a creative space in which to work! It's lovely to have a more dedicated space now, so I can leave projects out and work on them for just a few minutes at a time. This has really helped me in my quest to do more work on my Project Life album.

I started scrapping in 2008 and it's amazing how much stuff I have accumulated during that time. I'm more determined now than ever to use what I have in my stash - and I'm finding Project Life is breathing new life into products that I've otherwise been slow in using or not sure how to incorporate into my projects. I'm not banning myself from buying new things, but I am at least trying to "tame the beast" of my growing stash! Some ideas below:

Mixing old and new supplies is definitely one of the ways I'm using things that have somewhat fallen out of favour (I learned this from Noell on Paperclipping and also Glitter Girl on Two Peas) - top left you can see old stickers and new washi tape. On the journaling card beneath is a camera I cut with my Slice. I'm finding that I'm cutting a lot more shapes of actual objects when I have my "Project Life hat" on - and not just swirls and abstract designs. Below right, you can see some patterned paper I've had for a while that I really like (with a big compass on it) but wasn't sure how to use it. I'm finding cutting up large-patterned papers to fit in the pockets is a great way to showcase the ones I find hard to use on a "regular" scrapbook page.

The first photo below doesn't show up too well below (candlelit baths aren't too easy to photograph...) Beneath that I cut out the word "relax" three times from some older patterned paper that matches the watery theme of the photo. I really like the tone-on-tone look. On the adjacent journaling card is a tea cup (Grandma's Attic card again) cut from older patterned paper (tone-on-tone again) and coloured a little with chalk, plus a stamp from my Smash date stamp. In the other photo is another favourite of mine - printing words directly on my photos.

Thickers directly on a photo. Simple and I love it! Above that you can just make out some patterned paper with a button sewn on the top for some textural variety.

I bought these journaling cards from Making Memories (Noteworth line) with the specific intention of using them for PL. I love the fact that they are shaped. I mixed them with the older bow glitter embellishment, cut out the letters from my trusty Slice (Grandma's Attic card) and added some bling. Below that, I cut out "good eats" from the Bon Appetit card and just put it on the back of the journaling card from the previous page. In the next journaling spot is some old patterned paper that I still liked but wasn't sure how to use till now.

I cut "April" from one of the fonts on the Handwritten fonts design card. The green part of the flower is also cut using my Slice, layered with a small paper flower (with some texture) and a purple brad in the middle. I've had the border for a while, and finally found a home for it as the colours went well with everything else on the page. On the journaling card below that I made a word cloud for Easter using the Faith design card.

That's all for now, folks - have fun shopping your stash and finding new ways to use what you already have!

~Caroline~