The Other Side Of Me

Hello, I'm back again with some more from my new mini album. I love the fact that this is basically an A5 book, so any sheets of A5 paper fit into it perfectly. I always used to do The Simple Woman's Daybook, which is actually a blog, but it's great for journaling prompts too.  I try to do it every month.  Here are a couple of pages of what's been going on: This is actually a pad of writing paper I bought from 'the book man' at work.  It's got lots of sticky notes with it and the colour scheme is perfect for my pool party/more mustard combo.  I love owls anyway, they are always welcome in my crafting! We've had a bit of a saga with sofas this year, so I decided to take a photo of our new one.  It's such a relief after having two chairs that were really uncomfortable and awkward.  I've photographed my dressing table as John ordered it as a surprise as I've never really had one and it's perfect.  I've used Spice Cake paper agai...

Evening everyone! I'm gradually working my way through my card list for November and December.  Here's the latest creation: I've managed to use up some Everyday Enchantment dsp for this card.  The stamp is one from the Simple Soft stamp set.  I still adore these. I do love my days off work, where I get lots of time to craft. It's a good job really, as I've recently got my eldest daughter into Project Life. We are both doing December Daily this year.  I've made some cards for my daughter to use in her album.  Hope she likes them. Back soon Jane x

I'm really enjoying my 6x8 album now and getting into the swing of things.  I can't believe how much dsp you use up by doing this (which gives me the perfect excuse to go and buy some more!) I've been able to make use of the old, but beautiful Spice Cake papers by Stampin Up, and this way I get to keep them! Have a look: The colour scheme is Pool Party, More Mustard, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla, so I've interspersed the patterened papers with plain matching cardstock. My camera is never far from my side these days, and a visit to the grandchildren reaped some great photos that I had to add to my album.  The stickers are all from October Afternoon, which are becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of in the UK and I absolutely adore them. The little wooden frame was a find in T K Maxx.  I go in there every week now and always come out with some treasure! This folder isn't all about photos, though, as I love to journal as well, and I love fun and innova...

Okay, let me explain! There I was, using my Project Life album, taking lots of pictures, documenting everything and thoroughly enjoying myself. Then things started to get difficult. The size of the album became too big for me.  It takes up a lot of room on my desk and it's quite heavy to lug around. A light came on in my head.  I actually lost sleep over this!  I realised, by looking back at my previous journal, that I am primarily a journaler and use pictures to help tell my story, not the other way around.  The thing with 12 x 12 is that it's great if you've got kids and they're doing different things every day for you to take photographs of.  My problem is that I spend a lot of time at work (including weekends) my children are all grown up and gone and I only get to see the grandchildren once every six weeks, so there aren't lots of things to photograph.  BUT that doesn't mean I don't like my life and I still want to document what goes on. So I st...

I have finally given in and been to Hobbycraft and bought the Project Life Blush edition.  I've bought the card set and the 12x12 paper and today my 6x4 plain cards arrived.  It is such beautiful stuff, I was so excited to play  work with this! We took our granddaughter to Twin Lakes last weekend.  We bought a photograph after John and she had been on the log flume, so I knew I was going to start with a full page spread.  This is what I did: I have liked the look of the Blush colours for a long time, they're very feminine.  I had to wait for my 6x4 cards to come so I could put in the wording 'braver than me!' with my die cut letters (braver than me because I'm too scared to go on anything!)  I've drawn a pen line all the way around the outside, I don't know if you can see that.  I've added some lovely October Afternoon stickers.  The one with the butterfly says, 'Walk in the park.'  How perfect is that? This is the right han...

Hello all! I'm still having loads of fun with Project Life.  I've kept a diary all my life but I'm also a woman who likes a lot of paper and PL definitely satisfies that side to my character.  In fact I've decided that PL is the place to keep all those little stickers, notes, leaflets and postcards that you just can't live without.  So instead of tucking them away in a box somewhere, they'll be in my album where I can look at them and get pleasure from them every day.    This is a spread from early June.  I am dithering now as to which layout I prefer, because at the time it was this one but now I think I prefer Design A because I've learned to treat all the 6x4 pockets as mini scrapbook pages, but it took a while (and many, many hours trawling Pinterest!) to work out how to do those.      The colour scheme for this page turned out to be Calypso Coral and Pear Pizzazz but I didn't plan this at the outset, it just worked out t...

I've recently decided I can't stand it any longer and have succumbed and bought a proper Project Life folder and some inserts.  I've been working towards this for a long time and it's made me so happy to finally have one instead of sticking photos into a book like I have been since last August. So why do I infinitely prefer Project Life? 1.  Because you don't need to stick anything down if you don't want to.  This is a massive bonus because I've changed my mind about this first double page spread about 8 times!  2.  You can be as creative as you like or keep it really simple and everything still looks really good.  I've done everything here from using die cut letters and numbers, typing my words and printing it out, using my own handwriting, using proper photos, using parts from magazines, using free printables from the internet, the list goes on. 3.  PL folders enable you to scrap book, art journal or use it as a smash book, it's all down to ...

This is my second go at a Project Life type of page.  Can I just say I have nothing against PL at all, I think it all looks fantastic, but I just can't afford it and have so much dsp in my house, it would be insanity to go and buy some more. So this is how I'm doing my pages.  The colour scheme for this one is Baja Breeze (good way to use up retired cardstock too, you see) and Cherry Cobbler.  There is a bit of dsp from Echo Park on the first page, which I really love.  This way I get to keep some for myself.  It's the same paper I used to make the Christmas card in my previous post. The biggest development (and there is a pun here, much as I'd like to avoid it) is that I found a photo developing shop in town that develops photos straight from my phone with a great deal of ease.  They print off two photos on a sheet of 4"x6" paper so you can cut them in half, and that's what I've done on these pages.  I was so excited at being able to do this! Her...

I've been keeping a journal since the summer.  I've always kept a diary but I've wanted to add illustrations for ages.  I've just had to wait for the perfect book to use.  This is actually a sketch book from W H Smith. It's part smash book, part diary, part art journal.  I'm very pleased with a lot of the pages And then occasionally one turns out to be a total disaster! Okay, it started out well, went down hill rapidly and then I dropped a stamp on it and didn't know how to cover it up! And all the while, I kept seeing articles and pictures on Pinterest about Project Life.  At first I didn't even understand what it was, but I've gradually put two and two together and decided I really like it.  Anyone who likes scrapbooking is bound to, really.  Then it took ages to find out if anyone stocks the stuff in the UK (Hobbycraft as it turns out.  Probably others).  And then I looked at the price! There's no way, with all th...