Project Life: August

Posted on October 29, 2012 by elizabeth

I may be really behind in blogging Project Life, but I am not nearly as behind in actually putting the pages together. (And a few days of Hurricane Sandy-imposed hunkering down should help me catch up completely!) I’m still really happy with this project, and I’m finding that as long as I take notes in my designated Project Life notebook each week with what happened/highlights as it were, I can put the pages together after the fact relatively easily. I’ve been trying to plan the pages out as the weeks happen, too, and that also goes a long way.

Week 12 was a pretty low key week; Dan and I went to a Somerset Patriots game with his parents as a late birthday present (and this is vital, because it was at a Patriots game in 2008 that I like to think the Dan+ET spark was lit; we make sure to go to a game together every summer since, and have stuck with it for four years now). I also started to feel the pull between my old job and the one I was about to start.

I used flair from Oromolu to note a good Monday that featured sushi lunch with my brother, and printed a photo from the Patriots game 6×8 to fit into a few pockets.

We ordered our wedding invitations, which was huge, not only because the design was being discontinued; it took some wrangling to even be able to view all of the matching pieces. Luckily, we were able to get the order in. It makes it seem so much more real. I made a 4×6 card in Photoshop with a screengrab of our order confirmation, as well as a 3×4 card so I could write a bit about our Arrested Development obsession. I printed a card with the route from our place to Dan’s brother’s new place, as we went there on Saturday for their housewarming, which was super fun. (I do love using that Elise Joy stamp on maps!)

Week 13 featured a trip to my new job for training, our first movie trip in a long time, and the big one: the annual Day at the Races run by my cousins’ company. It was my first year being there as an employee, and it was such a great day.

(I totally saved the scratch off portion of my guest parking pass – how perfectly Project Life is that?)

I used a Design J insert to document the Day at the Races; I took a million photos that day, and it was really tough to decide which ones to include. I was saving bits of paper all day for Project Life: our entry tickets, pages from the program, betting receipts… and it was totally worth it.

The back of the insert.

Our wedding invitations arrived, which took it to another entire level of surreal. Journaled a bit about finally telling everyone at work that I’m leaving, some instagram shots from a bbq at my sister’s house on Saturday night, and a few tweets. I love how easy it is to make it all look more cohesive, just by carrying the same Martha Stewart Avery labels and washi tape accents throughout.

Week 14 was full of big events: a bbq at Dan’s sister’s house, two fantasy football drafts, and oh yeah: my last week at my job. Super eventful.

We finally started watching Walking Dead, and it totally took over our lives in a way that had to be acknowledged. My heart melts into a puddle seeing Dan interact with his nephew, who was about ten months old here.

I had this plan for a while, and seeing how it all came together is fantastic. I used a Design J insert to document a Week in the Life at my job, the last week I was there. I kept notes each day about how the day went, how I felt, and took phone photos of things I was doing each day that were very noteworthy. (I did many things on a strict schedule at that job: certain reports every Monday, Wednesday, etc etc, so screengrabs of those reports are really cool to look back on.)

The back of the insert, with a photo of the company logo on the door and some of my never-ending adding machine tape. So glad I took the time to do this; this is the kind of thing that will be even cooler to look back on in five years. I’m planning to document a Week in the Life at my new job once I get settled, too, since they are so different.

Paper Source bags make really great journaling backgrounds; just sayin’. I used some thickrs for my last day scalloped card (which was from Elise‘s summer kit), a Kelly Purkey stamp on my Last Day at My Job Happy Hour Vodka Tonic, and cut up an amazingly stripey Lands End Canvas catalog cover for the bottom pocket.

Oh Project Life, you are really damn cool.

Currents

Posted on October 26, 2012 by elizabeth

It finally feels like fall, and I’ve been SO enjoying the colors. It’s hard to spot a pretty tree and not default to Project 365 mindset and think how I can find time to pull over or take a few minutes to get a good shot of the leaves. I don’t have nearly enough photos of the foliage, that’s for sure.

I’ve been having all kinds of really strange subtle anxiety dreams in the very early mornings. Like I’m at my wedding and no one knows who is going to do their makeup, or I’m at a high school football game on the beach and my cousin doesn’t want to introduce me to any of her friends because I’m rooting for the wrong team, or I’m at work and all the bathrooms are flooding, or there’s no copy paper, or I show up at my wedding in jeans. They’re all SO strange, and yet the anxious feeling lingers.

Loving bright yellow coffee cups and hot pink notebooks and bright orange daily calendars.

I am OBSESSED with my new striped circle scarf. Really, really obsessed. I wear it like a scarf, or a blanket, and plan outfits around it. I especially love it with my black and white polka dot sweater.

Last night, we went to an Oktoberfest Beer Dinner at a restaurant one of my brother’s roommates manages, and it was amazing, as expected. Each course was paired with a craft beer, and each course was more amazing than the last: a selection of wursts, braised short ribs with cabbage, and then a mind blowing apple kugan with vanilla gelato and brown butter that had us all unable to speak, it was so, so good.

This weekend, we’re going to the Rutgers Homecoming Game (they’re 7-0 and ranked #15 in the BCS!) with my college friends (who tailgate hardcore with a tricked out Bronco with a grill attached to the back) AND my cousins and brother (who tailgate swanky in a stretch limo) and I’m so excited. I’m also eyeballing Sunday for some serious Project Life time, because I’m more than a month behind and that’s driving me crazy. And I’m trying not to worry about this frankenstorm headed our way early next week.

And since I’m back in an obsessed with music phase (and dudes, it feels SO good, because I haven’t consumed this much music in YEARS and whenever I’m not listening, I’m craving more music), I wanted to start sharing a song of the week, which may not be a new song, but it’s the one whose lyrics are following me around and I just want to listen to on a loop. This week it’s “Simple Song” by the Shins and the video is really creepy but the song is just super, super good.

Wedding Wednesday: 88 Days To Go!

Posted on October 24, 2012 by elizabeth

Last week, we hit what was, to me, a big wedding planning milestone: 100 days to go. I’ve done my fair share of daily photo projects, so I know that 100 days can either fly by or drag infinitely. Somehow, I have a feeling that these particular 100 days? Will be gone in the blink of an eye. Between now and our wedding day, we have a trip to Barbados for Dan’s sister’s wedding, Thanksgiving, my bridal shower, Christmas, our bachelor/bachelorette parties, and New Years, not to mention countless birthdays and other things that need to be celebrated. So yeah, it’s gonna fly by.

Milestones turn me introspective (what can I say? I’m sentimental AND I like numbers and neat, orderly things and traditions; it doesn’t take much to make me introspective) and it started to bother me that I haven’t really documented the wedding planning process much. Some of it is in my Project Life pages, to be sure, but it’s not the same as taking a minute to explain why dress shopping stressed me out so much. Or how I don’t understand why I feel so ambivalent about certain details and VERY intent on how other details should be. So I thought I’d start a weekly series (I’m very original, of course, because no one has ever thought to write Wedding Wednesdays in the history of blogging!) and share some of the details. I can’t promise that I’ll give everything away; some of you out there will be AT my wedding and it’s no fun if you know everything ahead of time.

We have been engaged and actively planning our wedding for about ten months now, and I’m still surprised at myself at how I’ve handled it. Let’s be honest: I tend toward OCD levels of nitpicky sometimes. I can be a perfectionist. I love to make things and have strong opinions about what I like (or better: what I really, really don’t like at all). I’ve wanted to do things a little differently than others my whole life, but I don’t want anyone to be mad at me, either. I am not someone who will ever be called girly. I hate dancing. I always figured wedding planning would stress me the HELL OUT because of all of the details that need to be perfect, or all of the crafty things I could overwhelm myself with, or with wanting to be So Unique and I’ve seen that before so we have to think of something else.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been to a bunch of weddings, or I knew what I wanted more than I thought, or it was easy to eliminate so much because it didn’t feel like “me and Dan”, or because I helped my sister plan her wedding this year, too… but for whatever reason, I have NOT been sweating the details. (That is not to say I haven’t had my fair share of cry-fests during the last ten months about wedding details!) It seems that for most of these wedding decisions, I think about it a bit, have seen some things on wedding blogs or Pinterest, and then I know what I want to do and it’s over. Meg Keene’s A Practical Wedding book was really helpful in suggesting that we come up how we wanted the wedding to feel/look/the basic vibe right at the start, as it would help guide the whole planning process. We knew really early on that we wanted to go for simple, classic, no fuss, but with modern or slightly off-beat touches like black and white stripes and bold yellow. And with that feel in mind, it has been really easy to say “no, roses are more classic and simple, so let’s do that instead of that super pretty mixed bouquet” or “here’s a simple striped wedding invitation that has matching save the dates and thank you cards in colors we love” and just … stop browsing.

I think my “oh crap! 88 days left!” stress mostly comes from the fact that many of the things that are left, like designing and printing place cards and programs, or small details like what will the cards go in at the reception, are things I haven’t thought about yet. Sure, it’ll be 100% doable to print place cards and programs at home. But what about the FONTS! (Dan really, REALLY doesn’t care about fonts.)

So. 88 days. Just under three months. Holy crap.

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.

Project Life: Week Nine

Posted on August 16, 2012 by elizabeth

Week Nine! I still love it!

I am so glad I insisted on taking photos of me and Dan at the sushi place (our favorite) – I felt silly but I love having them. I need to work harder to get photos of us in here, and of us together. But when we go to this particular sushi restaurant, we each always get the same thing. Every single time. (Sushi dinner deluxe for Dan, and spicy California and sweet potato tempura rolls for me.)

We finally sent out our save the dates this week, and naturally, I mailed one to our apartment so I could include it (and the washi taped envelope) in Project Life. Don’t tell me it’s crazy.

The back of the insert (which I used a cut-down Design D page for)

Lots of orange this week.

Instagram photos cropped square, Martha Stewart labels, and a crazy thunderstorm photo.

One of the core kit journaling cards Jodi sent me this week; I’m trying not to buy a core kit because of all of the awesome paper I already own… but it’s so nice when the card already fits into the page so nicely.

A beer sampler photo and the coaster – I may have to be creative next week to make sure the coaster doesn’t look dumb once I fill in the back of this section. And Amy and Emily!

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.

Wedding Countdown Paper Chain!

Posted on August 13, 2012 by elizabeth

Not long after we got engaged, I found an app for my phone that let me see right on my home screen how many days were left until our wedding. (And actually, I kept two widgets: one to count down to my wedding, and one to count down to my sister’s wedding. We both had them and exchanged a lot of amazed texts as the numbers have gotten lower and lower.) I like numbers and quantifying things, so seeing this every day has been both interesting and hard to believe. I’m not sure when I got the idea in my head to make a paper chain to count the days left, but once it lodged in my head, it was very hard to forget about.

But it was one of those crafts that seemed crazy, like, okay, you’re going to cut out more than a hundred strips of paper only to tear them off? Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to wait until there’s a month or two to go? But reasonable isn’t always my prominent characteristic when it comes to projects, so in one of my random Target runs, I found myself buying a scrapbook paper pad. The cheap price was my excuse, but let’s face it: as soon as this idea planted, it was absolutely going to happen. So one Saturday afternoon when we were firmly entrenched with no plans (and Dan reeeeally wanted to spend the day playing Xbox, so I needed something to keep me busy anyway), I started calculating. How many strips would I need? How many of each color to keep it balanced? How many of the 8.5″ square sheets would I need if each strip was an inch wide? You know. And I set to work.

Cutting the strips was a little tedious, but ultimately easy with the paper cutter. I used my tape runner to glue them all together, one by one, starting with 0: Wedding Day!!

I made a special link for our wedding day and for one month to go using my chevron stamp and some washi tape. And I numbered the links to make sure I didn’t lose track of where I was (and so we’d know as we tear them off where we are).

As the chain grew and grew and grew .. into the living room, Dan just kept giggling at me.

I tried to keep the colors disbursed as evenly as possible, and using the scrapbook paper pad was fairly smart on my part, because at least all the colors coordinated without me having to think about it too much. (Because you know I’d over think that.)

Dan helped me hang it up (trusty Command Christmas light hooks to the rescue yet again!) and it was fun to figure out how to drape it across our fireplace artfully. We’re already looking forward to re-hanging it as the links disappear. I took these photos when we had 169 days to go; as of this writing we have 160 remaining. We are both totally loving the visual representation of how far we have to go… it’s hard to believe, but pretty damn exciting all the while. And you know these 160 days are going to FLY.

Project Life: Week Eight

Posted on August 11, 2012 by elizabeth

So the week from July 15 – July 21 included almost all of the big events for summer 2012, namely my sister’s rehearsal, Dan’s birthday, my sister’s wedding, and my 31st birthday. Whoa. It was a crazy, busy, and exhausting week full of some of the best fun ever.

The birthday boy at the rehearsal dinner, the bridal party and a business card from the restaurant… my last Project365 photo, journaling about the first half of the week, and a photo of the wrapping job I’m super proud of.

I used a 6×12 insert to save my sister’s wedding invitation, with her save the date and bridal shower invite on the back.

I included a baseball card sheet protector full of my favorite shots from the wedding – these were all taken by me, my dad, or Dan throughout the day. I knew I’d want to include a lot of wedding photos, but wasn’t sure how to do this, because I didn’t want to sacrifice quantity for size… I still wonder if I might add another insert when my sister gets the professional photos back, but we’ll see. I love seeing everything all on one page like this, too.

My beautiful sister, the moment I will never forget: my dad’s expression and my sister’s smile as they walked down the aisle, and me walking back up the aisle with James’s brother, the best man.

The back of the insert.

My parents, my godmother and her husband, and my grandparents’ best friends, who all came to the wedding. LOVE this photo. (I glued some of their favor ribbon to this card.) And my 90 year old grandmother, doesn’t she look amazing and SO happy?

It was such a great day.

A full page for my birthday!

New pink labels from Paper Source, along with a page from a 6×6 Amy Tangerine paper pack.

A piece of the birthday card from my parents (that I adored), and a 31 I typed up and printed. Oh! And my hashtag stamp from Kelly‘s shop. And my birthday self portrait, of course.

Project Life: Week Seven

Posted on August 3, 2012 by elizabeth

This week was pretty straightforward, although not a lot of “big camera” photos, so I kept the instagram ones square and smallish.

Simple simple simple: but everyday life. And! One of my awesome stamps from Kelly‘s new shop!

The right side: lots of Martha Stewart Avery labels, one of my favorite Arrested Development quotes ever, and washi tape, too.

I love the red card with the orange and white baker’s twine and washi tape, even if trying to get the card into its slot with the baker’s twine tied on is almost impossible.

An awesome, awesome Saturday at Zeppelin Hall (a traditional German biergarten in Jersey City)… I couldn’t get any business cards there, so I screengrabbed their logo and added it to a fun photo of Dan and a photo of more beer in Photoshop.