Summer Snapshots

 Hello! I have another fun summer layout to share with you on this happy Friday! This month's Breathe kit is so full of goodies. :) Aren't the pineapples and popsicles just adorable!? Those velum cards are going to pop up on my next page that's still in the works.

This page captures a few more of my favorite shots of my daughter splashing with her great uncle on our family vacation in 2011. I used cards, stickers and stamps from the Breathe kit. Plus a couple things from the Citrus Bliss add-on and 2 Dear Lizzy cards from my stash. I love how each page from this trip is turning out so colorful. It's the perfect feel for these memories.

I've added some journaling about these events and also left some space knowing I'll fill in more details as I look back through my notes from 2011. As I mentioned before, I like to journal in order so I don't miss anything. So while I am jumping around to make pages that fit with my Take 10 kits, I'm still journaling in order. I want to record our story and not just caption the pictures.

How do you do your journaling? Do you have a short story about your summer events? Do your pictures speak for themselves? I hope you're enjoying the June kit as much as I am!

Take 10 Tuesday | Journaling

 Hello! It's Tuesday again. :) Are you taking a little time for yourself today? Just 10 minutes of creative time leaves me feeling refreshed! Today I have a tip for you about journaling. 

I started pocket style scrapbooking as a way to make my oldest daughter's baby book. She's 5 1/2 now and I'm currently scrapping 2011. So it's reasonable to ask how in the world can I remember details from 2011?? When my baby girl was 1 there were so many new details and milestones to record. I knew that someday I wanted a scrapbook or baby book for her. I hadn't found Project Life yet and hadn't started the traditional scrapbook I had laying around, so I journaled. A lot. I've always loved journaling. It's a way of release for me! I record memories, prayers, emotions... It just gets it on paper so I can process and deal with life in my head. :) 

This is my journal that was gifted to me by a dear friend sometime before I was pregnant. I have about 2 years of memories in this one. Now that it's full and I'm documenting memories from this time period, I always have it on my craft desk. I have a bookmark or a couple in the places I'm pulling info from for my current pages. I also used to use a little moleskin planner. So I keep my planners close by as well. If I don't have a journal entry for a few days, I'll check my planner to make sure I'm not missing anything. 

Now I journal and plan in a completely different way... I've gone digital! :) I create a new Google doc each year for journaling and my planner is the calendar on my smart phone. At first I was really annoyed that I was using my phone and not actual paper and pen. I planned to get back to paper journaling as soon as I found a new journal I liked. But I had another daughter and life got busier! So I stuck to my new solution and have embraced it. Now as a mom of 3, I find it much easier to journal on my phone. I always have it at my finger tips and I can even use voice texting if needed. And I need the reminders my phone sends me about my calendar events. Seriously, 5 schedules is enough to scramble my brain that's especially forgetful on an infant sleep schedule!

So this is my solution for journaling and keeping those memories fresh for documenting when I have time. There's no getting behind because it's all just ready and waiting! I hope you find some helpful tips in what I've shared. Take some time to record your story today, even if it's a little journaling to add to your photos another day!

Hello There, Summer!

Good Morning! Can you believe we're nearly halfway through summer!? In Nebraska we are finally in the thick of hot and humid days after a rainy spring, and that means pool time. When I saw the June 'Breathe' kit, I knew I had a batch of swimming photos that were the perfect match.

A few years ago when my daughter was 1 1/2 years old, we took our yearly trip to Pennsylvania to visit family. It's hot and humid in July there too. My baby girl was beyond thrilled when Grandma told Grandpa to get his golf balls out of the baby pool and fill it up with water. For that week, it was her pool. And she loved it!

For this page I used a bunch of cards from the Breathe pocket kit and goodies glam bag, paper and embellies from the Citrus Bliss add-ons and a couple cards from my stash. The colors and sentiments in this months kits were spot on for this layout. I love how bright and cheerful it turned out. It's a perfect reflection of how this day was in my memory!

You'll be seeing more of this trip from me as I use my June kit. :) I hope you have a blast using this month's kit to document your summer memories!

Sunshine at the zoo

Hello and a happy Friday to you! I have a very fun memory to share with you! Visiting the local children’s zoo is a frequent trip for me and my kids. In 2011 it was only my oldest daughter (who is 5 now) and I. The summer of 2011, we went to the zoo almost every week! She loves all the animals but especially the penguins. I just love all the happy faces I can capture while we’re there. This particular trip, we went with friends and it was one of our first trips of the summer so every exhibit was a new treat. It also happened to be wild Wednesday so we had a hands on experience with a few animals. This might be only time I encouraged my 1 year old to touch a rat!

The Bloom Take 10 kit is a perfect compliment to my zoo pages! I used a couple cards from my stash. One as the cute background to the ‘sunshine’ wood veneer. And I made one card using the flower stamp from the Glam Bag with red gelato and yellow ink. One of my journaling cards even got a little extra embellishment when I realized I made a boo boo. A little washi and you can’t even tell.

Whatever memories your spring has been filled with, I hope there were a few bright spots that you can capture. The Bloom kit makes me smile every time I pull it out. I love the bright colors! The stamp set says ‘you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain’. It’s true but this kit can brighten even a rainy day!

This is page 2 of my Sunshine at the Zoo layout! We had a fun day and plenty of great pictures to make another page with my Take 10 Bloom cards. I love these close ups of my daughter. She made all these great faces when she was learning to say cheese!

I had one blank spot once I got all my cards laid out. So I used the chevron stencil from the March glam bag to create a nice watercolor card with my gelatos. The wood veneer camera is also from a past Take 10 kit and I'd hadn't found a home for it. 

I was so excited to see how easily this page came together with the May Take 10 kit and a couple things from past kits! It sure makes pocket scrapbooking fun and easy when I have good supplies that work together!