Reasons To Love Dogs

I snapped this photo of my dog, Rudy, this morning as he napped in bed next to me. He's so freakin' adorable. He's actually from a shelter. He was found half-starved, living on the streets. How anybody could abandon this guy is beyond me.

Reasons to Love Dogs No. 72
Love in Bloom by Key of D Designs;
Acrylic Indexing Tags by Key of D Designs;
Fonts: Throw My Hands Up in the Air, Stamp Act

Project 12 through the years

I make and print a Project 12 album every year. I started in 2008, although at the time I had never heard of Project 12 or 52 or 365. Each year I make a monthly 2 page layout for each month with photos and journaling that highlight our activities for that month. All the other spreads you've seen in this blog about the things we do and the things we see will be placed behind their month layout in chronological order in the scrapbook. So the month layout gives context to the layouts that follow it.

In 2008 I had just discovered digital scrapbooking and every layout was identical, with a calendar with journaling on the left and matted photos and journaling cards on the right. The paper was by Jessica Sprague from her Brushabilites class and the tag was created in that class. I made the calendars in Word, which did not import into PSE well at all! Here are examples from my first P12 album:

In 2009, I bought a special kit for my P12 project called A Year in Progress by  Denise Zavagno/ScrapDZines, it had a kit for every month with appropriate papers and elements.  I used a free template from Log Your Memory for each left side and used it as inspiration for the photo blocking on the right side. I adjusted the photo blocks on the right for my photos each month.

2010 is  a bit of mess. I began P365, but began petering out in March and basically stopped sometime in April, so I'm going to make my P12 layouts and for the first few months, the monthly layout will be followed by detailed layouts for each week. I'm kind of frustrated with that album so I stalled out in April. You can see from the layouts that follow that the number of photos per month just keeps falling.
I decided to use my Year in Progress kit again for this album.

I was so frustrated with 2010 that I moved onto 2011, besides it's always better to scrap while the memories are fresh isn't it? This year I'm doing something different. All the previous years have the same basic layout repeated for each month. This year I decided to do "One Month at a Time" over at Get It Scrapped! Each month a free template is provided to scrap the previous month. They also provide a page of prompts to help you document the current month. Here are two layouts that I've recently finished.

March 2011
Veni, Vidi, Venti by Sherwood Studio;
March sticker from Time Flies By by Sweet Tomato Designs; 
Fonts: CenturyGothic

April 2011
Template from One Month at a Time April 2011 by Tami Taylor;
Let Me Tell You by Laura Banasiak and Litabells Designs;
April sticker from Time Flies By by Sweet Tomato Designs;
Arrow from This is Me by Captivated Visons;
Fonts: CenturyGothic

Make It Snappy

Last night was the weekly speed scrap at ScrapOrchard. It was a really cool speed scrap. The directions were:

1. We are going to start with photos today!! Choose 3 photos, 2 of the photos must be square and different sizes. We'll get to the third photo in instruction 3.
2. Now choose 3 papers. They can be solid, patterned or a mix. Use one for your background and then stack/layer the other 2 any way you wish. Don't put your chosen papers away yet though as we are going to use the same ones again.
3. Remember that third photo? Well I want you to blend it somehow on your page. Feel free to use a mask of some type if you like. This third photo must be larger than your other two.
4. Place your 2 square photos on you page if you haven't already and make sure these 2 square photos are touching in some way. The blended photo may be anywhere on your page you like.
5. Our 3 papers are going to come in to play again right now. Take 2 or all 3 and create either some paper strips, blocks or a frame. Place them anywhere on your page that you like but they have to be the same 3 you used at the beginning.
6. Wondering about elements were you? Well no fear as we are that part of our page. I want you to use as many as you would like. Yep, all your choice BUT I want to see a little bit of sparkle somewhere. That can be glitter, metal--anything shiny.
7. Add your date, you may also add a title and journalling if you wish.

It was interesting to start with photos. I decided to scrap our recent trip to one of our favorite restaurants. When we got to the third instruction I thought, actually I said (it was a chat after all), "I can't blend Mexican Food!", but as it turns out, I found the perfect paper to use as a background for blended Mexican food.

I also learned how to make frames from paper during this speed scrap! Here is my layout; I actually like it quite a bit:

Gabriels
Sunkissed by Captivated Visions
Font: Bradley Hand ITC TT & CK Newsclips

What?! No products?!

Sometimes I like to make layouts without products. Here is one of my all-time favorite layouts. I really wanted to focus on the journaling and the photo, so I used nothing but a photo, a couple of fonts and Photoshop Elements. As you might expect, it is a two-page layout.

Blue
(click image for larger view) Title Font: CK Elusive, Journaling font: CK Journaling

The journaling reads:
This is a photo of Blue taken at a dog park at the Alamogordo shows. He is so happy to be running and playing. I love my Blue. He is getting older; he’s 12 now and I know his days are numbered. He’s also getting harder to live with as he ages. He hasn’t aged gracefully; he’s now easily stressed. We know he’s stressed by noise; and we’re not talking thunder, although that bothers him as well. He’s bothered by the beeps of cell phones, pagers and smoke detectors. We’ve picked ring tones based on how much they disturb The Blueser. He was such a good puppy, so easily housetrained. He only had two accidents in the house as a puppy. I tried to get him to pee outside the Hartford airport after meeting him for the very first time. I rmember how the airport workers let him out of his crate and he ran to me happily when we met for the very first time. The workers made a comment about how he knew me and was so happy to see me, but it was the very first time we met. At any rate, I digress. I tried to get him to pee once we got home, but the excitement didn’t wear down enough for him to pee until after we got into the house. I was actually on the phone with his breeder, Joy, telling her that he arrived safely when he started to pee on the floor. I remember telling Joy, “I’ve gotto go, he’s peeing on the floor and her shouting helpfully back ”Don’t let him!” The second accident was the fault of my stupid dog book, which told me that puppies had to go the bathroom 15 minutes after eating. Blue had just had his first breakfast in his new home the morning after arriving, and as I marked the time on my watch so I would know when the “15 minutes” were up, he began peeing on the floor again. That was his last accident in the house (other than those cauced by illness). I’ve always taken such joy in telling people that Blue was reliably housetrained with 12 hours of arriving, but that was due completely to Blue and his iron bladder and had nothing to do with my skill as a dog trainer. He was such a good dog. It makes his current destructiveness particulary frustrating. We had to replace the bathroom door downstairs after he destroyed it. Lucklly we’ve discovered that he will happily destroy carboard boxes when stressed, so we try to leave some out for him. We also think that his deteriorating eyesight causes Blue to stress. Dogs are supposed to be far more adaptable than humans when it comes to losing sight or limbs, but not Blue. His opthamologist says it’s because Blue is an active alpha dog with lightning fast relexes who is used to moving quickly. Poor Blue. It is so hard to see him get old. And within the last month he’s become clingy. In his entire life he’s only wanted to cuddle with me when he was ill. So off we went to the vet to report that Blue was not being his normal independent self. (I almost wrote confident as well, but his confidence deteriorated with his eyesight.) His kidney levels are high, so we’ve reduced his protein. Oh my Blue, it so hard to see you get so old. (Journaled by Angela 2-26-11)


Here are the left and right sides:

Blue's health has actually improved slightly since I poured out my feelings on this page.  We finally realized that he was having a weird type of seizures. He went almost a blissful month without any seizures, accidents or weird behavior after beginning anti-seizure medications. He did have a breakthrough seizure just before our wildfire and evacuation and we had a hard time controlling the seizures while we were evacuated. But things seem to be OK for now. We'll just keep him on his meds and hope for the best.

Nosework for dogs

If you've been reading my blog, you may have noticed that I like dogs. Earlier this year, I took a nosework class with my youngest dog, Lylah. It was loads of fun.  She was really good at it. This was simply an introduction to nosework class that began with finding food in boxes and advanced to finding food in lots of places. All these photos were taken on the last day of class. I made these layouts in one of my minimalist product moods. (Sometimes I challenge myself to make a layout with just the photos and Photoshop.) Although in this case, the layout seemed to need some pizazz, so I used some fancy stamps and some doodled photo corners. (Credits: Photo corners from You Are My Sunshine collab by Studio Basic and Twizzles Photoshop Brushes by Carrie Stephens)

Scrappin' My Husband's Everyday Life

The header of this blog reads "I scrap my everyday life in the hopes that future generations will be both interested and amazed." Well, that's not entirely true; I'm actually scrapping the everyday lives of my husband and myself. My husband is wonderfully supportive of my scrapbooking, because I've convinced him that it is "our" scrapbooking as I am preserving "our" memories. I often get his input and sometimes even his journaling on a layout.

For example, I made a layout for a Log Your Memory challenge earlier this year titled "7 things I love right now". (And I've just noted that this is mistakenly dated 2003 instead of 2011. And this layout is already printed and in the scrapbooks! I tell you, I live in time warp and never know what year it is.)

7 Things I Love Right Now

(click image for larger)

7 Things template from Simple Scrapper.
Papers from Moment by Red Ivy Designs.

In order to make the other half of this layout, I enlisted the help of my husband. I asked him for a list of
7 things that he loved right now. He provided a list of 7 "likes" and a short paragraph about each. Now, I happened to have photos in my library for 3 of his "likes" but I had to go around the house with a camera for the remainder. Now I have photos of his favorite things from this point in our lives.  Here is my husband's likes. I flipped the layout so that it would look better as a two-page spread and changed the pink stamps to a more manly brown. I also changed the title (which came with the template) to reflect my husband's strong feelings about like vs love. 

7 Things I Like Right Now

(click image for larger version)

7 Things template from Simple Scrapper.
Papers from Moment by Red Ivy Designs.

Sometimes I need to record memories in our scrapbook that I wasn't a part of. For example, in 2009 my husband and our 11 month old puppy went on an incredible hike. It was more than 20 hours and they really had an adventure. Who wants to forget that? Now he did take a camera, so when I sat down to make these pages I got lots of his input. Which were his favorite photos? Did he want to caption any? And he provided a long paragraph of journaling. Here are the layouts:

To Truchas Peak or Bust(click image for larger version)
Template: LYM Forum Freebie
A Year in Progress by Denise Zavagno, ScrapDZines
Fonts: My Own Topher & Chalkboard

To Truchas Peak or Bust-continued

(click image for larger version)
A Year in Progress by Denise Zavagno, ScrapDZines
Font: Chalkboard

Speed Scrap

Despite the evacuation, I did manage to participate in the weekly speed scrap at Scrap Orchard on Wednesday.  I figured that speed scrapping therapy is good for the soul.  We had gone out on Tuesday to buy the dogs some dog food and there was an Edible Arrangements almost next door.  I've always wanted an edible centerpiece and I figured I might as well go in and see if they could sell me anything.  The nice owner there sold me some luscious strawberries dipped in chocolate.  They don't normally keep food stocked but she had some strawberries made up for a customer to pick up late enough in the afternoon that she had time to make more. They were delicious.  Here are 2/3 of the strawberries in all their glory:

We each had one before I took the photo.  They were that good.

And here is my layout, celebrating chocolate in the midst of a wildfire and evacuation:

Bad Situatition

Credits:

Chocolate by AnnaBV Designs

Tag, flower and alpha from This is Me by Captivated Visions

Scrap the Mundane Everyday

A frequent conversation we have at our house goes as follows:

DH: You're scrappin' that!? 

me: We're going to want to remember this someday.

DH: OK

I am a firm believer in scrapping the everyday.  I have two reasons for doing so:

1. I believe that my life will change enough that I will forget the details.  I have firm evidence of this, as I have already forgotten lots of stuff.  For example, I used to live far, far away (over a decade ago).  There was a park I went to almost everyday.  I loved that park.  I don't have any photos of it and I've forgotten the name.  Two years ago we had our awful, damaged linoleum floors removed and replaced it with tile. Recently my husband glanced at the floor and said "I've forgotten what the old floors looked like."  Document, people, document.  I wish I had been clever enough to take before and after photos of the floor.  In process would have been a good idea too.  I could have journaled about the challenges of preparing every meal with a microwave and a BBQ grill.  

2. As the top of my blog states, I hope that someday future generations will be interested and amazed. Think of how much change there has been in your lifetime, big and small. I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall. I remember a time before everyone had a computer and internet access.  I got my first DVR in September of last year.  We are considering buying a dishwasher.  I should photograph a huge pile of dishes and the spot in the kitchen where we think we'll place the dishwasher. My grandmother died a long time ago, but I used to love talking to her about her life.  She remembered WWI and II and the Great Depression.  I was told stories about borrowing shoes during WWII to go to town.  Can you imagine not owning a pair of shoes? (Shoes were rationed, as was everything else.)  I wish I had written these things down.  (I'm working on a layout about my grandmother; I'll post it sometime in the future.)  My point is we have no idea how different life will be when our grandchildren and great-grandchildren are adults. Document, people, document.  

In the spirit of documenting the mundane details of our everyday lives, here is a two page layout that I made about finding a new "flavor" of dishsoap and unloading groceries after a trip to town.  The first layout was made in response to a challenge to quote a conversation on a layout.  That challenge made me walk around wondering what conversational bit I wanted to remember forever.  I have many small moments in my life, of which I have a fairly clear memory, but of which I don't recall the exact words that made that moment so memorable.  Document, people, document.

Just Another Saturday.

Credits:
Frames: Shabby Princess, Havest Spice
Fonts: CK Academia and American Typewriter

The journaling reads:

We had just come back from running errands in Santa Fe, and I had to gate the German Pinschers out of the kitchen, because they were being especially monsterly by putting their noses in the grocery sacks. When we were almost done putting things away, I told Richard “You can let Dingbat and Banjo out of there.” Richard began laughing and asked “Dingbat and Banjo. Ok, but which is Dingbat and which is Banjo?” And then simultaneously I said “I don’t care.” as Richard said “Wait, I get it.” And simultaneously again I said “No, Ly has to be Dingbat.” as Richard also said “Ly has to be Dingbat.” Richard was laughing so hard, I was able to get my camera and snap this photo of him leaning against the kitchen sink while holding a case of toilet paper over his shoulder and laughing his arse off. I even had time to zoom and frame the photo to cut out the toilet paper, but in retrospect the photo might have been better with the toilet paper. We love our Ly, but she’s not the sharpest crayon in the box. But as Richard wisely pointed out “We probably couldn’t handle two GPs as smart as Blue.”

The second layout was originally made to satisfy my obsession with 2-page layouts. (I'll dedicate a post to that subject someday.)  It also documents some mundane details about the dishsoap we had been using and refers to the same shopping trip as the first layout. 

Just Another Saturday.

Credits:

Frames: Shabby Princess, Havest Spice

Fonts: CK Academia and American Typewriter

The journaling reads:

The dishsoap we'd been buying at Sam's club smells bad. I think it smells like marijuana. Richard says I'm crazy, but I think I know more about what pot smells like then he does. At any rate, I hate the smell of our dishsoap. It makes the otherwise horrible chore of washing dishes even more horrrible. 

We forgot to get dishsoap at Sam's two weeks ago and had to pick up a bottle at the grocery store. Richard pointed to this blue bottle on the shelf and said "That's the kind we got last time." By "last time", I thought he meant the last time we had to buy dishsoap at the grocery store. Imagine my horror when I got home and discovered it was the same pot-smelling dishsoap we buy at Sam's club. I hate that dishsoap and was looking forward to a break. 

Today we ran errands in Santa Fe. Dishsoap was now on our list. I was thrilled when we went to Sam's today and found that they are carrying a new flavor of dishsoap. Yay, no more pot-smelling dishsoap. I am very happy now.

The title I chose to give these layouts (not the title on the page) says it all "Just Another Saturday".  But it is just another Saturday at this point in our lives.  Someday, perhaps, our lives will be totally different. Who knows what a routine Saturday will be like in 10 or 15 years?

If I could give three pieces of advice to help you document the everyday details of your life it would be:

1. Take notes in your journal or calendar.  Jot down your thoughts, snippets of conversations, etc. Note when you've gone out to dinner or a movie.  I like to use my calendar, then all my appointments, trips, etc. are already in there.  Then use these notes to journal on your layouts.  Scrapbooking without journaling is just a fancy photo album, I always say.  

2. Take lots of pictures.  Try P365.  I think everyone knows that P365 is a project in which you take a photo a day.  Try it.  I started it last year and even though I floundered and eventually stopped it really helped me get into the habit of carrying a camera (I keep a small digital in my purse at all times), using my camera-cell phone more often and taking photos of the everyday details. Even though I am no longer doing P365, I still take more photos than I did pre-2010. 

3. Be willing to use imperfect photos on your layouts. Sometimes a blurry, or otherwise less than perfect photo, is all you have to document a memory.  Isn't the memory worth remembering, anyway?