A month in photos: November, December, and a year in review collage

Yes, I am not good at keeping up with my blog.  I know.  Bad blogger!  I thought I was only behind on December's post but then realized I didn't post November's either.  Oh well, it is here now and also made a quick year in review collage to put in the back of my photo book.  Hoping to work on that today!  I do hope to blog more than once a month (or two!) and might just start blogging about whatever plus my photo stuff.  We'll see.

A little note on how I did the year in review collage.  I didn't make a template for it, but I used the month flags from my free template that I shared here and lined them up across the top of a 12x12 page.  I reduced them in size by 90% to give them some space in between.  The rest is just dragging and dropping the monthly collages onto the page and reducing their size to 25%.  Then once they are all arranged I reduced each one to 99% individually to create the white line between them.  If you select all of them before reducing they will not be spaced evenly.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

Simple things Sunday

Yesterday we enjoyed the fall day and collected leaves to later press in wax paper.  My daughter was spreading out our finds to see all the pretty colors.

We also enjoyed a paint chip scavenger hunt using fall colors.  You can find the idea here.  It was very fun and kept us busy for a while!

For more information on Simple things Sunday, please check out the Simple as that blog!  Collage template is by Rebecca Cooper and you can download it for free here.

Catching up on a month in photos post

I have been working on my a month in photos project every month, but sort of took a time out from blogging.  It's been on my mind to pick this back up!  So here is a quick post to catch things up.  Stay tuned there is more to come!  I have more projects that I want to share.  If you've used my free template this year, I'd love to see so link in the comments.  Enjoy.

 

A month in photos: 2012 photo book

I wanted to share a little bit of my photo book on the blog to show you a quick and easy idea for printing these collages.  Shutterfly has a coupon every once in a while for a free 8x8 photo book, but I usually don't have anything ready.  This time I quickly added my 2012 collages from the month in photos project and added some quotes to fill in the blank pages.  I kept it simple with an all white layout and the cover has just a simple title and the year.

I got this back in January and we keep it on a table in the living room.  It is picked up and looked at often.  This makes me feel so good to see my photos being looked at and not just stored away on the computer.  I've made a photo book for 2011 using Rebecca's 2013 template and plan to order it soon.

Thanks for reading!

Goals

We all have goals.  Some big and some little.  But, this post is about scrapbooking goals.  My style of scrapbooking has evolved so much.  From digital kits now to simple collages.  It's more about memory keeping and sharing these days with me.  I went from being being very detailed and behind to simplified and getting somewhere.  I'd like to find a happy medium one day of photos, journaling, and embellishments.

There are so many options with scrapbooking today.  You can paper scrap, digital scrap, and hybrid scrap if you can't make up your mind LOL.  One thing that I have really been interested in starting is Project Life.  It's been around for a while, but I have always been a little intimidated by it.  Now they have mini PL albums and mini kits too.  I'm thinking I might order two this summer and work on the kids' baby books.

Smaller goals that I want to work towards with our memory keeping is journaling (read my post here about lists), get back to doing photo challenges (monthly themes and try something new like Simple things Sunday), more seasonal projects (like December Daily), and stay on top of my monthly photos.  What are your memory keeping goals for this year?

Thanks for reading!

Lists

I am a list maker.  It helps me stay on track for the most part.  I keep a composition book that I write in.  It's mainly grocery lists and to do lists.  Around holidays it is special lists and before traveling it is packing lists.  You get the picture.

One thing that I have really enjoyed in the past is photo challenges.  As a scrapbooker, in the past photos have been my thing but journaling is always tough.  The Currently weekly journaling challenge by Kristen is so smart.  It's almost like a tiny time capsule for your scrapbook listing all the stuff that you are into.  This could easily be incorporated in to monthly collages or project life.  If you are feeling really "listy" check out 30 days of lists free month challenge here.

You could certainly use these as a jumping off point for many things.  Like use the currently challenge on a monthly basis instead of weekly, on your birthday month try making a list everyday with details about you similar to the 30 days idea, or occasionally include a grocery, to do, or packing list in your scrapbook.

Added 03/13/2013:  Found another list of lists for journaling by Kelli.  Check it out here!

Thanks for reading!

A month in photos: February 2013

February's collage is done!  Finally!  I some how kept forgetting to put together February's collage.  My intentions for this blog were to start posting more often.  I'll blame it on winter.  BLAH!  I used a template I created for 2013's a month in photos project.  This month I rotated and flipped the template and used a different title block shape since it worked better with my photos this time  You can download the free template here.  Enjoy!