I think the creative part of my brain works so well at night, even late at night. But stay up until 2:30 (poor teething tutu), get up before 8:00 and I am so DONE. So I did finish seven layouts last night (from about 8-midnight). It was totally fun speed scraping. I mostly used my (extensive) Ki Memories stash and even though some of it is quite “vintage” it all worked. I’m not as up with the latest products like I used to be (I used to work for a scrapbooking company and I could name every. single. product.), and a huge portion of my stash is from 2005/2006. I have continued to buys some things, and love Ki, I like how their new lines still coordinate with older stuff, same color stories. What lines do you go to over and over? Here are some of my favorites from last night:
Ethan setting up the doll house before Tuesday’s party. I love this paper, it’s in my top ten. Sarah turned me on to this Etsy store where I got the little journaling circle (see I still do buy stuff, just not so insanely… I save that for fabric now 🙂
One of my favorite pictures of Tuesday. I don’t think these bunny slippers fit her any more, tear! I used a tiny bit of the Martha glitter I finally got, hmmm I can see myself getting addicted to that stuff. Is there some kind of glitter tray or something that glitter-aholics use to make clean up easy? If so link me! And since I had those colors out already…
Ribbon from my shop, of course. I love flowers on layouts and to me they will never go out of style.
Okay one more.
It was all so fun! This will be my contribution to National Scrapbook day (tomorrow yo!), since I’m going to be busy all weekend. But I think I may tackle my Week in the Life stuff, it seems pretty portable.
I wanted to share the finished Button Cardigan as well, before I forget. I finished it during my photo-intesive week and never linked to the Ravelry project page, so there it is if you want details.
The yarn is from Teaselwick Wools and is a cotton/wool blend. I love it! I manage to squeak this out in four skeins, sweet! I have more to say about the yarn and I think Tracy is going to let me to a guest blog post about it, so I’ll let you know when that posts. Here’s the back:
Oh my goodness can you imagine how small her baby bottom would be with out that cloth diaper, LOL.
Wow combining all these finished things on one post kind of makes me feel like a superstar 🙂 I think I’ll probably be quite on the blog this weekend, so have a great one!
Know when to fold em
Oh goodness. I was really on a roll tonight. Here you see the first of I think seven layouts I did. Of course I had to try to squeeze in one more. At 11:45, not such a good idea. Now I’m blogging from my phone and have a big happy creative mess to clean up before I can sleep (after tutu is done nursing of course). Any advice for babies getting THREE molars at once? The teething tablets help, but all teething toys are too short to reach them. Hmm. Ok going to try to put her in crib.
Snippets vs. Stories
I have started working on my album for Week in the Life, and how fun it is! Of course I never seem to have as much time for these things as I would like. But interruptions need not be all bad (in fact one is very very cute and I don't mind her at all). When I was thinking about how I wanted to put my story together, I was digging through my stuff and also thinking about stuff I can purge (hello swap—it is coming). I wanted to use as many things I had on hand already as possible. An old Kolo album, cardstock, some favorite stamps, and some left over slide protectors from my art school days. I only had two in my craft den, but figured the others would be easy to find. After all hadn't I just seen them in a binder…
Hours later and the whole basement storage area was re-organized, the slide pages were found, and so was a dusty pre-remodel box that had been stuffed away. In it I found lots of goodies. Like the silver bubble blowing wand Bj gave me as our wedding present, and my favorite binder clips. I also found this set of three five year diaries. I didn't really remember them and expected them to be empty. I ofter thrift things like this to tear apart. That wasn't the case with these, however:
They are full of quick snippets from one Joisa Clark, first of Silverton, then Beaverton, Oregon. I've only skimmed them because they don't tell much of story. I know she was into the fiber arts. One of her first entries talked of knitted slippers to be delivered. The second to last reads, "Wrote letters, worked on afghan, took walk."
Dated Saturday, May 20th, 1972. What's striking about finding these now are how little they actually tell about this woman compared to the intense documentation I've just done for my week. She does a lot of cleaning, visiting, yard work, church stuff. But how she feels about it all, NO IDEA. She doesn't seem to give one clue of who is really important. I can just see that certain people visit more. In contrast this is where I am with Monday:
And I still have a page to go, plus detail pages I'm doing on weekly activities like napping, working, playing, etc. Another peek:
I am loving bringing together everything.
The five year diaries still make me a little sad though. I'd like to send them off to be appreciated, mulled over even, but to who? If one of you can use them, or knows someone who would be interested let me know. I think it would only be six dollars to send them in a priority mail box (they are a bit too fragile to go in an envelope I think). They date from 1960 to the day after the date mentioned above. Anyone else come across something like this while thrifting? What did you do with it?
Week in the Life—Thoughts
I always like to focus on the positive, but even so I miss things. Nothing has shown me how wonderful my life is more than this week in the life project. I'm taking more of a big picture approach to the week, and not just because I didn't journal every night. I like to see the rhythms of our day through the lens of the week because no one day ever really seems "typical" to me. We don't do baths every day, or trips to the grocery store (some days we don't even leave the house!), but all of our "regular" things do come up in a week. Looking back on the week I do see gaps. The big one is the lack of exercise for our family. The days seemed packed, but I'm not a fan of slouchy pictures of me. After seeing them I can give some forgiveness to people thinking I'm pregnant again. Also I could use a new bra.
I hope Tuesday sees the record of this week and feels all of the love we poured on her. I hope we remember sweet baby kisses and messy family dinners. I hope the next week in the life shows more outdoor time, less diaper laundry and the same amount of love.
Now I've got to sort through the wealth of memories I've gathered up and start making them into a story with words. I still think I'll go light on them though, as I did take pictures of just about every aspect of our lives! Thank you all for following along!
Week in the Life—Sunday
Week in the Life—Saturday
Week in the Life—Friday
Week in the Life—Thursday
9:28am
10:30am
10:30am
11:20am
11:50am
11:54am
12:45pm
1:18pm
1:38pm
2:01pm
4:37pm
4:51pm
5:21pm
6:37pm
7:08pm
7:23pm
7:55pm
10:58pm
11:24pm
Midweek notes: I don't know if you can tell by the photo essay but yesterday basically revolved around trying to get Tuesday to sleep. Finally my mom got her down. Then I left and she didn't go to night night sleep until I got back (at ten) and then she woke up at 5:50 this morning and I did not get pictures of it because GOOD NIGHT THAT IS EARLY. I'm powering through though and handing off the camera/using the timer when ever I can. I've already had the first two days printed, about fifty each. I haven't been journaling much, but have been thinking about how I'm going to put it together. I think I'm going to take more of a full week approach. Thanks for all the wonderful comments, if you have any questions I'll answer them there.