Project Life: Weeks Four, Five and Six

Posted on March 5, 2013 by elizabeth

The end of January and beginning of February was full of big events and yet almost nothing compared to the first few weeks of 2013. It took me a while to put these pages together, but my method of keeping a notebook with each week’s spread planned, as well as getting the photos printed at home (or at least organized into my week by week folders on my laptop) relatively soon after the week itself, seems to be making it pretty easy to catch up quickly.

Week Four was our first week as a married couple, and it has lots of journaling, which I know I’ll be glad for one day.

I took that picture of Dan in the lobby of the hotel while we were waiting for my family to help us load the car, and it will forever be one of my favorites. His face conveys the blissed-out but completely exhausted feeling of the Day After SO perfectly. I also had to get a shot of our first married dinner of burritos.

The right side featured lots more journaling, of Dan’s sister’s 30th birthday party (an 80s party), dinner with my parents, and more. It was crazy how cold it got, and the frosty windshield picture feels that cold. The quote is a lyric from our first dance song, “Just You & Me”.

Week Five felt a little more normal, a little more routine, even as we still had to get used to living normal lives so soon after such a big day.

I included a few photos I took for my 52 weeks of no color project, and I really like how the black and white balances out the pops of color. Otherwise, a story of Dan’s wedding ring and a busy week at work.

I really loved Ali Edwards’s plan for a Day in the Life once each month in 2013, and jumped on the chance to follow along on the last day of January. I used her 6×12 template to fill in the details of the day. (I think 6×12 inserts might be my favorite ones.)

On the back of the insert, I collaged the photos I took that day with both my phone and my real camera. Notable ones include lunch at the dining hall, the crazy self portrait I took to document how windy it was, and the totally bundled up on the couch shot that Dan took. I set the whole insert up as a 12×12 page in Photoshop Elements, and ordered it from Persnickety Prints. I was so amazed at how quickly the print arrived.

The right side has lots of brightly colored fun bits from a really fun weekend. On Friday night, we went to two back to back laser light shows at the local planetarium, which was AWESOME. Sunday was the Super Bowl, which we watched with Dan’s brother and his girlfriend. And Bluecat and Penny. Who cooperated quite nicely for photos for my book.

Most of what I remember from Week Six was trying to take more photos during the day (hence the top to photos on the left page), and the hullabaloo about this snowstorm that hit our area.

The biggest thing was that some forecasts predicted 20 inches of snow, and others predicted 3-6, and people were going nuts. I was going equally nuts, because we had big events at work during the storm. I’m glad I got the screenshot of the dueling forecasts, for sure. The other big thing was the start of the Name Change Process. It was a big day, and one that had to be documented for posterity. I saved my old license, and love how it looks against the striped paper. (I also have loved that license photo since it was taken when I turned 25, and have been recycling it each time my license renewed since then. I wasn’t allowed to this time, and my new photo is HORRENDOUS.) (See again: why Project Life is so great: a logical and perfectly perfect place to keep my old driver’s license. Because I was keeping it whether I had this scrapbook or not, and I adore the fact that it now has a home.)

Saturday of this week was one of the first lazy, totally free Saturdays we’ve had since last summer. The combination of wedding plans, family stuff, and holidays meant that Dan and I didn’t have one single weekend day that was just for us for months straight. So thanks to the snow (which, okay, we got six inches and it was mostly blown away by the time we were up and about) we stayed in most of the day. Dan played his game (and let me take a photo of him doing so), we got Sonic for dinner, we spotted my dad on TV, I crocheted until I realized how badly I’d messed up… and it was pretty spectacular.

I just adore this project.

Currents

Posted on March 1, 2013 by elizabeth

Happy March, dudes! I love the start of a new month, and let’s just say tearing off 4ft by 3ft calendar page to turn to the new month is pretty emphatic. I took those last two photos of the tree outside our apartment, on the last morning of February and the first morning of March. I know March is supposed to come in like a lion, but the sky has been (mostly) blue, and the weather is (mostly) warmer and after the coldest winter in years, I’ll take all I can get. Bring on spring, bring on daylight savings, bring on sunshine.

Here’s a list of things that have been really awesome in the past few weeks:

how light it is when I leave work
the AMAZING quilt that Eleanor and Liz made for us as a wedding gift. I mean, it’s got tiny old timey baseball dude fabric!
nights when Dan works late and I have living alone flashbacks
the night AFTER Dan’s late nights are over, and I actually get to hang out with him again instead of attempting in vain to stay awake until he gets home at 11:30.
planning and imagining big picture stuff for the next few months

I have been working long(er) hours to tackle an intense project that I haven’t been able to get to since I started this job in September, and it’s really satisfying to be making progress. After a few days of feeling gross, I decided to make some changes in my (awful) eating habits. I make these resolutions every few months and never stick with them, but I’m really tired of feeling this way, so my intention is to mean it this time. My name change is 95% official, which is crazy, and yet each time I sign my new last name, it’s a little easier. We finally made plans for a very-mini-honeymoon next weekend, and we’re both SO excited. I ordered some insanely red sneakers to wear for the days of walking, and Dan’s both horrified by them and sort of resigned to the fact that he did marry the kind of girl who would always choose bright red sneakers with aqua accents over a more standard gray or black.

I’m trying to read more, which was tough there for a little while, because although Cloud Atlas has been on my “to read” list since 2003 when I worked at Borders, and a million people whose opinions I respect LOVED the book, the first two chapters just really didn’t grab me. And when a book doesn’t grab me quickly enough, I just don’t read it. But I don’t pick anything else up, either, because giving up on books is just not something I do lightly. But I stuck it out and am now hooked (but reservedly so; ten years of hype is kind of a lot), so time to read is definitely on my list for the weekend. Also on the list: catching up on Project Life, working on the scarf Dan asked me to make for him (I can’t tell you how much I HATE changing colors when I’m knitting. I know it’s easy but ugh. Or, I should have made the stripes smaller so I could carry the yarn up the side), and hopefully getting to see Dan’s nephew (although I’m realizing that he’s actually our nephew now, isn’t he?).

I leave you with this video of the song I walked down the aisle to, “Specks” by Matt Pond, because his new album came out in early February and I know you mostly tend to love new albums from your favorite band ever ever, but the new album is just SO good. Even if there aren’t any good youtube videos from it yet.

Project Life: Documenting the Wedding

Posted on February 18, 2013 by elizabeth

I wasn’t sure how to approach documenting our wedding in Project Life. I tend to think of Project Life as our whole lives, and there are so many events (like vacations, or ahem, a wedding) that could be (and probably should be) documented more thoroughly with another method. So I guess I’d say that my arbitrary rule about Project Life is to try to avoid overloading it with too much of any one thing. The wedding wasn’t just a weekend away or a fun party (although it was both of those things, really), it’s a Huge Life Event and obviously needed to be treated as such. However, because we had mostly “normal” days before and after, I really like how things came together in the album as a whole – because yes, there’s a lot of wedding, but you turn the page and it’s back to work. And that’s what our actual LIVES were like, so it makes a lot of sense to me.

There were SO MANY things I could have included in Project Life related to the wedding. SO VERY MANY. And they’re all important and noteworthy and worth saving…. but I had to draw the line somewhere. Could I have included other things, like the sign that the brewery put on the door saying that they were closed for a private event (because of course my parents swiped that on his way out!), or the inserts from our gift bags at the hotel, or a picture of those, or pictures of our families…. yes, of course. So many things. But I sort of wanted this to feature the highlights. (The things that didn’t make the cut are happily stored in our wedding box, a big hat box that my mom gave me when we got engaged. So the bundle of cards and rsvp cards and my veil and the official Event Planning Sheet from the brewery and our candles are all stored safely for posterity, don’t worry.)

The other executive decision I made was to include photos taken by our friends and family, rather than the professional photos. For one, we only have about ten preview photos from the professional photographers, and I really didn’t want to wait a few months to get the wedding documented in the album. Two, several friends posted some fantastic photos on facebook and flickr, and my dad took a ton of really great photos (as well as a bunch taken by my uncle using my dad’s camera) – and since these were the first photos that we saw, we’re really sentimental about them. (I’m thinking to make a big, thick bound photo book from shutterfly or blurb or snapfish or somewhere using the professional photos down the line.)

So here we go! (Click through to flickr to see bigger versions of these photos for more detail.)

The first batch of photos – our first look, walking down the aisle, sheer joy just after the ceremony ended, the bridal party, entering the reception (photo stole from Jodi), and me and my amazing Grandmother (I look all weird because I’d just cried like a fool while dancing with my father to Wildflowers by Tom Petty.)

I then used an 8.5×11 insert. The front side included our invitation and reception card, as well as the beloved black and white striped ribbon that was on my bouquet, the boutonnieres, and the centerpieces. We had a very small bit left over and it was such an integral part of the wedding look that I had to include it. The back of this insert included our save the date, a blank rsvp card and stamped rsvp envelope, the outer envelope that the calligrapher (Rachel Carl, who was amazing) addressed to us (yes, we actually mailed an invitation to ourselves. So I could put it in the album, duh.)

Next, I cut down a 6×12 insert (and sealed it with washi tape, because I still don’t have a sewing machine) and slid our wedding ceremony program in. I made these in Photoshop and printed them on cardstock, and was so proud of how they turned out.

This insert is probably my favorite ever. Dan and I wrote our own vows, and it was one of the most meaningful parts of the entire wedding. I was a little skeptical about writing our own vows – would we be able to convey the true importance in our own words? Would I be able to talk at ALL in order to say them? – but Dan was really set on writing our own, and I felt a little bit like (a) I had to see what he would say, since he’s not the kind of guy who gushes about his feelings super often and (b) it forced me just a bit outside my comfort zone, and that’s part of why I love Dan in the first place. We saved our real life wedding day copies of our vows (mine printed on a Project Life 4×6 grid card, his written on a torn out piece of paper from my wedding notebook the night before the wedding). I very carefully taped them together with washi tape and slid them into a landscape 8.5×11 insert, so you could see both sides of each set of vows.

This insert is so simple but probably a tie for my favorite, more because of how glad I’m going to be that I made myself do it in five, ten, fifteen years. In the week or so after the wedding, whenever I had down time, I worked on typing out the story of our wedding day in a Word document. As many details as I could remember. I wanted to write it all out as quickly as I could, before details that were so clear faded into fuzzy glowy happiness. I wanted to do this even more because so many people told us how much of a blur the wedding day was… I know that it won’t always be this clear in my head. I started with when I woke up, and ended with the end of the reception, just after the last song. It was 7 pages, almost 5,400 words total. I shrunk it to 9 point font so it fit onto four pages, and used two 8.5×11 inserts to hold those pages. I know I’m already missing details, and I don’t know what else I’ll do with that massive story other than have it here to read again whenever I need a jolt of happy, but I’m already glad that I wrote it all out.

And finally, the second page of photos from the reception. Featuring a photo of our first dance (stolen from Eleanor & Liz), a photo of the flickr people (using Cynthia’s fisheye, stolen from Summer), a photo of us cheesin’ about our wedding converse, our best man and matron of honor giving their speeches, views of us and the crowd from the balcony (I really, really love that one on the bottom right), and a screenshot after we made our marriage “facebook official”, mostly because of that insanely cheesetastic photo of me in pink plaid making my idiotic face, that seems to haunt me on facebook no matter what I do.

Five inserts is probably a record for any given spread for me so far, especially considering the spread is only for one day, rather than a week but… I am pretty freaking jazzed about it. And this is exactly the kind of thing that will make Project Life that much more worth it later.

Sneak Peek!

Posted on February 1, 2013 by elizabeth

Guys. I am SO excited to share these photos with you. Our wedding photographers were Liesl and Randy from Photo Pink, and they were so amazing to work with. They kept us calm, took the stress out of getting the portraits we wanted, and just made everything so easy. We didn’t have to miss our cocktail hour, we didn’t tie up the bridal party half the day, and if these sneak peeks are any indication, they took some truly fantastic photos. I was so surprised to get some sneak peeks so soon, and I’m so, so jazzed already.

our first look

the whole bridal party – don’t they all look so awesome here?

just married!

outside the brewery

black chucks for him (a surprise – I had no idea he had this planned!) and glitter for me

they handed out tiny beers during the cocktail hour

our first dance, to “Just You & Me” by Chicago

one of the photos Liesl took along the railing, looking down on our loved ones. One of our favorite moments of the day. (also: bokeh!)

I secretly wanted to use a photo like this for our save the dates, so I’m SO glad Liesl got this one.

seriously. LOVE.

(All photos in this post were taken by Liesl and Randy from Photo Pink.)

Engagement Photos!

Posted on December 13, 2012 by elizabeth

We had our engagement photo session in New York City with Liesl from Photo Pink back in November, and we were both SO nervous. (Or, okay. I was nervous, and Dan was not 100% looking forward to an afternoon of getting his picture taken.) We stopped at Stout for a few beers before we met up with Liesl near the High Line, and that really helped. (Should I not advertise the beers part? hehe). We were originally going to do this photo session on the boardwalk in Asbury Park (well-documented as one of my very favorite places EVER), but since we’d booked it for two weeks after Sandy hit, it really didn’t seem like the best idea. (I still haven’t been to the boardwalk and I’m kind of afraid to go to see what state it’s in now.)

I was afraid we’d look awkward, or feel awkward, or smile too big or not know how to stand or act. But Liesl was awesome at getting us to chill out; we laughed a LOT that day and I think the laughter and general happy comes through in the photos we’ve seen so far.

Liesl kept telling us to, you know, act like we were just chillin on a stoop in the West Village, and we’d giggle about how that’s totally what we normally do on a Saturday afternoon. But these photos look like us being ourselves which is the whole POINT.

I love them. I can’t wait to see more. I’m so excited for Photo Pink to be there on our wedding day, too.

Wedding Wednesday: My Bridal Shower!

Posted on December 12, 2012 by elizabeth

I have to be honest: bridal showers aren’t always my favorite things, and when I first got engaged, my shower was probably on the list of things I was sort of dreading, rather than the things I was looking forward to. Showers just never seem very “me” somehow; the idea of being the center of attention, and people giving me so many gifts, and games and applause and hugs… it just seemed so overwhelming.

Planning my sister’s shower this spring really helped snap me out of that kind of thinking, though. Being the guest of honor at a shower is VERY different from being a guest at a shower. It was so hard for me to remember that instead of knowing a handful of people in attendance, at MY shower, the room would be full of ladies who I know well and love and WANT to be surrounded by. The center of attention part was a little overwhelming (you can see my face getting redder and redder as the photos progress!), but it was overwhelmingly GOOD to be in a room full of so many people I like so much.

I knew what day the shower would be on (December 1), and I had a guess as to the location, but that’s all I knew. Dan was remarkably silent on the topic, which is impressive given how much I tend to badger him when he’s trying to keep a secret. (It’s a lot. Sorry, Dan.) I knew what time we had to leave, but not how long it would be until we got there; that morning I was a wreck. When we got to the restaurant and rounded the corner, I caught the first glimpse of my sister’s pretty hair and okay, I was still pretty nervous and agitated… but I kept noticing who was there and thinking “aww, I’m so happy X is here!” with each face I saw. (There were a few very close friends and family members who weren’t able to come; this isn’t to say that I didn’t miss them and wish they were there – because they’re awesome, of course.)

I think one of the coolest things (even cooler because it was something I was anxious about ahead of time) was seeing how these people from different parts of my life interact with each other. Logically, if I think all of these people separately are awesome, and they think I’m awesome, why wouldn’t they ALSO get along with each other? And yet, when you’re talking about internet friends and Dan’s sisters and my sister and my cousins and former coworkers and college friends and wives and fiances of Dan’s friends who are now my friends… what if it was silent and awkward and each person only talked to the one other person in attendance they knew before? But I was – and still am – so, so jazzed to see them all at the self-described Cool Kids’ Table, laughing and breaking into the centerpieces for cheese balls and having an awesome time together. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Just like seeing Dan’s sisters and my sister get along. Worlds mashed together, people, and it was so cool.

The details of the day were also crafty and bright and simple – which is exactly how I’d describe myself anyway, so nice. They framed recent pictures of me and Dan (downloaded from my own flickr page, I might add, hehe), made a bunch of tissue paper flowers (like I made for our apartment; now I have way more!) But the coolest were the centerpieces. I think Lindsey said she got the idea from Martha Stewart – each centerpiece was a vase filled with a selection of my favorite snacks, tied with a bow, and then filled with a selection of super pretty flowers. As I said hello at each table, I couldn’t help saying “wait – is that centerpiece full of Swedish fish?!”. They color-coded them too: lemon heads, butterscotch candies, cheese balls, strawberry hard candies, mint m&ms (green), weird blue candy, skittles and Mike&Ikes for a rainbow…. so awesome.

It was such a happy day, and I loved seeing everyone together. I got some amazingly thoughtful gifts, and I just feel so lucky to have such awesome ladies in my life.

I couldn’t narrow down the photos I wanted to share, and this post is already novel-length, I’ve put a few more photos behind the jump. Continue reading →

Perpetual Birthday Calendar

Posted on August 21, 2012 by elizabeth

I have always tried hard to keep track of my friends and family members’ birthdays. Theoretically, this is so I can remember to send birthday cards in a timely manner; this doesn’t always pan out. I bought a perpetual calendar from A Little Hut when I moved into my first apartment and it has been hanging on the wall ever since. I have wanted to find a new one, one that looks more like a grid-style calendar, but my Etsy searches have turned up nothing of much use. So I decided to make one myself, and it felt more important to do this now that we have friends and siblings who have anniversaries we need to keep track of, not to mention the birthdays of little ones and in laws.

I found kraft calendar paper on the Paper Source website that was perfect. (It’s not on the PS site anymore, but I saw it at a local store as recently as last weekend. It’s “black and kraft stamped calendar paper” from Canvas Corp – also online here.) I’ve had it for months, but only got the motivation (or free time) to put the new calendar together this past weekend.

First, I chopped up the old pages from my Paper Source Big Wall Calendar into a size I could feed through my printer. I made a canvas in Photoshop Elements with the month names and then printed on the back of the old calendar pages.

I glued the month names to each page, and decorated with washi, each month slightly differently. I then used number stamps to stamp the days onto each month. Again: tedious but so worth it for the cute factor.

I used a vintage hanger to hang it in our kitchen next to our blackboard, and now we have an easy reference for birthdays and anniversaries. Simple but perfect.

(Project # 50 for Handmade52!)

Project Life: Weeks 10 and 11

Posted on August 19, 2012 by elizabeth

Weeks 10 and 11 (the last week of July and the first week of August) weren’t uneventful, per se, (actually, week 10 was really hugely eventful) but I didn’t take very many real photos either week, so these pages aren’t perhaps the most interesting I’ve ever put together. But as wiser people have said before, Project Life is more about the sum of the parts rather than every spread being the best thing ever, so I’m not unhappy about it, either.

Week 10 seemed like it would be a return to normal life, but it ended up involving some big life decisions that I’m really happy about. Apologies for all the blurred journaling – there are some things I don’t really need the whole internet to know.

I’m most excited about the half circle – which is the Triumph coaster from last week. I printed a pretty sky photo on cardstock and cut it to the shape of the coaster, and glued it to the back, journaling right on top. (That’s a quote from a Weakerthans song that has always resonated and seems apt this week.)

I finally got to use the Thickers I bought at Michael’s a few weeks ago – so fun. And lots of washi tape this week, now that I’m free to use what I bought for our wedding stationery.

The right side – again tons of journaling this week. I’m loving the chevron stamp I got at Paper Source a few weeks ago (and that’s actually extra paper from my sister’s wedding invitation pocket fold – that color is the best and I couldn’t let it go to waste).

Photos from our celebratory dinner; a quote I printed from Pinterest this week, and a glimpse at our wedding day countdown paper chain.

Week 11 wasn’t boring, I just didn’t take many photos, camera or phone. Dan’s nephew was so serious when he woke up from his nap while we were there on Saturday – and seeing Dan interact with him is one of the sweetest things ever.

Ice cream – the first cone I’ve had all summer (how is that possible?). I used one of the stamps I bought from Kelly Purkey’s stamp shop, and I love how it looks on the photo.

Journaled on a library card and stuck it in an envelope (that wasn’t quite the right size, so I cut it down). Included some photos from a normal weeknight dinner at my parents’ house (that’s flair from Ormolu). The transparency was included in the summer paper pack from Elise’s shop, and I keep forgetting to plan ahead to be able to make the most of it over a two week period.

Willpower

Posted on August 15, 2012 by elizabeth

Dan and I have lived exactly 175 steps (I counted, obviously) from a homemade ice cream shop for over a year now… and we’ve only been there once. We may be the only people on earth who could resist ice cream for that long. The lactose intolerance on my part helps, but I don’t know what Dan’s secret is. Either way, we realized last week that we haven’t had ice cream all summer (!) so it was high time to fix that. So one night after he got home from softball, we took a walk.

We walked past the tow truck place, the auto glass place, and the strange lot with lots of trucks. Barbed wire and a cell tower sure make a pretty sunset even prettier, don’t they?

We were greeted by creepy paintings, neon window coverings, and the 50s satellite radio station.

There was also a walrus.

Dan got his very favorite: cherry vanilla. (How did I not know that was his favorite? These are things you should know about the person you’re marrying, aren’t they?)

And I get my favorite, which is soft vanilla in a waffle cone with rainbow sprinkles: the ice cream I hardly EVER get because when you’re driving to and from the ice cream store, you don’t get a cone. But when you’re walking, no problem!

We watched the sunset get prettier and prettier as we ate our ice cream, and it was such a classic summer evening thing to do. We probably should do this more often.

Project Life: Week Six

Posted on July 31, 2012 by elizabeth

The first week in July was jam packed with fun stuff that I absolutely wanted to document (or, I wanted to save at least a full page to devote to the Mets game so I adjusted accordingly), so I included a full 12×12 insert to have four pages for this week’s spread, and I’m so glad I did: this is one of my favorite weeks in Project Life so far.

The left side includes one of the busiest weeks I’ve ever seen at work, made even crazier thanks to the short week, as well as a super fun and low key barbecue at Dan’s sister’s on the 4th of July.

Here I’m using an Ormolu flair button along with my absolute favorite Martha Stewart/Avery labels.

Dan’s nephew is getting so big and he’s so happy all the time. The bbq we went to was full of amazing meats (ribs! chicken! steak!) grilled by Dan’s brother in law, and easy funtimes with Dan’s sister and brother and their significant others. This was my first foray into using Photoshop Elements to cut out and combine two photos (the colors were off thanks to the warm indoor light + backlit sliding door so I’m glad I was able to salvage them to include them in my book after all).

This is the front side of the insert, which is a Design D page (which I incidentally thought I’d use SO often because I like taking vertically oriented photos, but it’s so easy and straightforward to just keep using Design A all the time, plus I love the consistency). This covers Thursday and Friday, in which we met up with our former-NJ friends who were visiting from PA, I got some pizza lunch, and then hung out with Amy and Emily while the boys were at their nerd weekend.

I’m really happy with how the scalloped card looks, and I had to include the logo for Dan’s nerd conference.

The back of the insert, full of photos and journaling from the Mets/Cubs game I went to on the 7th at Citi Field with Kelly, Jodi, and my brother.

Favorite use of Elise‘s “you are here” stamp to point out our seats on the Citi Field map that came in the mail with the tickets. And the screenshot of us on the replay of the game, of course.

I had the hardest time getting these photos to work with Design D. I kept coming up with ideas that worked with Design A and had to keep messing with them and reprinting. I’m so happy with the result – because I love both shots (that came out cute despite how insanely hot and sweaty we all were!) and really wanted to include them. I ended up fading a corner of the shot of Kelly, Jodi and me and typing some journaling right on the photo using Photoshop. Plus, I couldn’t handwrite that much in that space, so getting to adjust the size until it fit perfectly was definitely the way to go.

And the coup de grace, of course: a full page photo of Citi Field, which I’m SO JAZZED about. I attached my ticket stub, too, of course. I ordered a 12×18 poster print from snapfish and then cut it down to fit into the slots. The price and quality of the print were perfect, and I was almost sad to cut it up into pieces, except that I knew how worth it would be.