Project Life Weeks 32 and 33

Some weeks there is just not much going on or the phone stays in your bag or illness strikes. Whatever the reason, you just end up with very few photos. These two weeks are great examples of that happening at our house.

 

Week 32 was a combination of all three. I was sick for much of the week and didn't take any photos of me lying in bed. Hubby took Miss Three on a couple of fun outings over the weekend and by Sunday I managed to get out and about for a short while.

MT and Hubby went for a big walk around the Singapore River and took in the preparations for the National Day Parade. Scarlett was super excited to see that one of the tanks was being "driven by a girl!" and even more thrilled when the soldiers waved to her and talked to her. The NDP is a major event here and we watch the air force rehearsing over our house in the months leading up to the parade. There are some perks to living in the city!

 

My favourite story of the week is the photo of Miss Three in the guard house with our night guard, Mr Aziz. He is so kind to our daughter and encourages her to sit in the guard's seat and surprise the people coming in and out of our building. He doesn't speak much English but the two of them get on like a house on fire. He is definitely part of our family!

Week 33 really gives you some indication that we are living in the right country. The two national pass times in Singapore are eating and shopping and this week's small spread is devoted to the former.

I love the top photo taken by my husband as I took the shot below with MT and her gingerbread man. Both members of my family are very patient and remind me to take pictures of our food adventures if I forget to have my phone out!. I love these smaller style Becky Higgins sleeves. I have the multi pack with all the smaller sizes and it is perfect for both weeks with an abundance of photos and those weeks where not much happened.

How is Project Life going for you? Are you planning to do it again in 2014? I am, but I may move to a monthly format if I start working as I just cannot see me taking as many photos or having as much time as I do now.

Happy Hump Day!

Stuck Sketches: Driving

I carried on with the same supplies after yesterday's post and continued working backwards through my saved sketches and my July kit. I found a Stuck! Sketches sketch and got to work.





I initially intended to use this sketch with a portrait photo per the sketch but found I didn't have any in my box of printed photos so I adapted the sketch to use a couple of 3 x 4 shots instead.

This is another very aqua layout. The beautiful geometric background paper is from Pebbles Lakeside collection. I also added in a couple of pages from my 6 x 6 paper pads to stretch my supplies. The pink doily print is from Crate Paper and Maggie Holmes and the fussy cut map pieces are from an older Studio Calico travel line.

I finally got to use one of those gorgeous cars from the October Afternoon Travel Girl line. I added a framed image from the Miscellany from the same collection. I had a couple of the grab bags from Freckled Fawn out so I added the geotag paper clips that came in one of them as well.

 

I love the idea of paper strips for journalling but I never type my journalling so I decided to swap my title into that spot and set it up per the sketch. I am not entirely happy with this and may make it a bit more square. Chances are that it will go in my album as is though as I am all about getting things done at present.

The photos were taken on our trip to New Zealand in July. We popped into the Cookie Time store while we were there and Miss Three was very taken with the decorated mini in the centre of the store. We really had a hard time getting her to leave - not even a cookie bribe was successful!

I feel really good about getting these layouts done. I have used most of the kit and what isn't used is going back in my stash. I am going to open the next bag from the pile of shame and work on the next saved sketch. I have some wedding photos printed and seeing it is my wedding anniversary on Thursday I am thinking I might just try and scrap one of those. I can always reprint the photos if I don't love the outcome!

Practical Scrappers December Sketch : Our Favourite Pitstop

I have been saving a number of sketches over the past month through my Feedly blog reader. I have also been studiously not scrapping or blogging during this time. I have a metre high pile of unused kits in my lounge where they were exposed when we rearranged the room for our Christmas tree. They are an eye sore and a reminder that I need to get stuck in. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion I need to stop my sub at Citrus Twist until I get control of my stash again.

With today being Monday and the start of a new week I decided it was a very good time to start scrapping again so I opened up my saved folder on Feedly and committed to completing the most recent sketch I had saved. It turned out to be the new one from Practical Scrappers.
 

I have a number of 3 x 4 pictures that didn't make it into Project Life that I thought would be perfect for this sketch. As I looked at the examples shared by the design team, the layout by Krissy Clark McKee caught my eye. She rotated the sketch and it really appealed to me.

Here is my take on the sketch, having worked on it rotated 90 degrees. I challenged myself to only use supplies from one partially used Citrus Twist kit and pieces that were lying around my workspace. It came together surprisingly quickly!

I had the July Travel kit add on out and it was perfect for our holiday themed layout. Sadly it is now sold out.

 


 By limiting my supplies it really made the layout come together super fast. The October Afternoon Miscellany Pack was full of useful buttons and bits and pieces. I added the geometric print paper on the right of the layout from my scraps but otherwise everything came from the kit.

I loved using the flair from the October Afternoon line as the colours tied in with the main paper (it is the reverse of the gorgeous car print from this line). The colours are not quite right on my screen but they do look great together in real life!

I kept the title and subtitle in the same Basic Grey font. I love the size and font style with this range of letter stickers so much. It is so versatile, especially in the grey colour way. The enamel dots are from Teresa Collins.

I hope you have been managing to get more crafting done than I have of late. I am not working on a December Daily this year so I do not even have that as an excuse. I am still finding it hard to believe that we are over halfway through December. Miss Three is in school until Christmas Eve but we are having a family break from Christmas through to early January. We are not going anywhere but really looking forward to a bit of quiet time together.

If you decide to have a go at this sketch I would love to see what you have created. Have a great week!

Sketch to Scrapbook Page : The Only Home She Knows

I have really missed Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook pages lately so was thrilled to see a new example pop up in my Feedly screen. This week's offering was a simple sketch and I had a photo that I really wanted saved just the right size.

 

As you can see it is a really versatile sketch and really good if you have a bit more to say. I swapped my journalling location around, in part because I like the ombre effect in the lower part of the patterned paper. Otherwise I kept pretty faithfully to the sketch.

This photo was taken on a Daddy/daughter outing that Miss Three and hubby went on a few months back. I love MT's outfit and expression in the photo as well as the location of the shot so I knew I wanted it in my album. The paper choice was driven by the colours in the photo and everything else fell into place pretty quickly. 

I had avoided the temptation of the Freckled Fawn embellishment kits until the November offering. I just adore the scout badges and the little wooden houses that I ordered at the same time all worked in with the theme of the story.

 

I wonder if typed journalling would have perhaps looked a little better but I really like the immediacy of handwritten  words even if they are not always as beautiful.

We have started to embrace the Christmas season. Our tree is up and we did some Christmas crafting last week. Such fun! Now we just need to finish ordering our presents for the folks back home and we can relax and enjoy the season. I am not doing anymore than Fat Mum Slim's photo prompts and reading the prompts from Shimelle's JYC this year. We are not travelling over the holiday period and it is just the three of us for Christmas Day so I don't think there will be enough going on.

I am hoping to take MT to see Frozen on Wednesday as a Christmassy treat. The reviews I have seen have been excellent and she is really looking forward to it.

How are you celebrating the season? Are you doing any major Christmas crafting projects? I would love you to link them up so I can check them out.