Week 18: April 29 to May 5

Click on the photos for a larger view.

Left Side: This side has all of the during the week stuff: getting the new camera, freak snow on May 2, and collected random bits from my Instagram.

I had fun framing the camera photo with a stamp from the Kelly Purkey Project Life Kit. Can’t wait to get my summer photos this week so I can REALLY dig into the kit.

I did something a little different this week, because I wanted extra journaling. I’ve been using a lot of bi-fold cards, but it makes less sense to me to use them on the back side of a page protector, where they are more difficult to access. So I used an exacto knife to cut an opening in the page protector on two of the slots so you can get to the extra journaling from the back! I also included tabbies with a punched circle on one and washi tape on the other so readers will know to look for something back there.

I ran out of room fast just jotting down what’s going on in the Instagrams, so I decided to continue writing on the back of the card. I don’t know why I just thought of doing this.

Also, I love that you can buy just the Studio Calico Moments Cards if you aren’t looking for a full kit. I love the SC kits, but I don’t think I could use a full kit every month (though I may get sucked in later in the year), so I love the option of just buying the cards.

I love that we have a record of the story of buying Jake’s our camera. People may think we’re crazy for spending that much on a camera, but it is so good for our business and our lives. It will be so cool to know later how much stuff like this cost and what Jake had to do to save for it (stay up until 4AM coding many many many days).

This bi-fold card is a make-it-work story. The PL page protectors I got on HSN don’t fit some of the old kit cards well, so I have to trim them down. Which is usually no big deal, but it cropped too close to the words on this bi-fold card. So I just pasted another card (the yellow one) on the front and called it a day. I’m all for covering up mistakes rather than throwing stuff out. I didn’t have enough to say to fill the back, so I just added some cuteness. I’m pretty sure I’ll never get sick of the Dear Lizzy Charm Bits Sticker Book. I should have bought four.

Insert 1, Front: April Day in the Life using the Ali Edwards Day in the Life Template. I always have a ton to say, so I nix the “gratitude” section and double up on whatever time of day was busiest. This time it was morning.

Insert 1, Back: Just as many Day in the Life photos as I can squeeze in. I love this method of documenting Day in the Life and see myself continuing this format throughout the year.

Insert 2, Front: This side of the insert holds most of my documentation for Project Real Life REDO | Week 5. I usually do the front and the back of the insert, but this week I just used the front and spread some of the documentation into other places.

This page protector is a cut down Project Life Design A, and keeping it shut with a few staples is my new favorite.

And another bi-fold card. I used washi tape to separate different topics.

A trick I’m loving is to put a 2×3 photo on a busy 3×4 card. I usually have a hard time working the busy cards in, but I love the way this looks. I make a photo collage with four 2×3 photos on one 4×6 to print in this size.

I am absolutely in love with the Studio Calico Summer Stamp set by Elise Blaha Cripe, which is where the “yes.” stamp comes from.

Insert 2, Back: Star Wars Day!!! We had an awesome lightsaber battle with Eliza’s friends at Union Station.

There’s my quote for the Document Life Workshop Use a Quote challenge. I went back to that post to jog my memory for the journaling on this insert, too.

To Star Wars it up on this page, I used a printable May the Fourth Freebie by Jenn Barrett. I got it printed on metallic paper at Persnikety. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the metallic effect is pretty darn cool.

I put white Kelly Purkey White Letter Stickers (love love love them) on the star card on Dear Lizzy This & That paper, but they ended up being hard to read. To fix it, I sprayed some dark blue Maya Road mist on the card and wiped the mist off the letters before it dried. Worked like a charm.

Right Side: This side was all about our weekend: City Market, soccer practice, hanging with Jake’s parents, and our friend’s birthday party.

The “The Weekend Report” Kelly Purkey stamp was a perfect fit for the page, even though the the journaling on that specific card (typed with my trusty typewriter) is about parenting.

I used another bi-fold card for a quick description of what we did over the weekend.

I love this week more than any other week I’ve done so far, which happens almost every week, but this time I think it’s all of the white space. I love that it gives they eye a break and makes the whole thing feel less cluttered. So I may be doing more hidden journaling, because it’s working.

Do you fall in love all over again every time you do Project Life like I do?

Supplies Used: Paper: Project Life Seafoam Core Kit, Studio Calico Moments Cards, Becky Higgins Project Real Life cards, Dear Lizzy This & That paper, Basic Grey; Digital Products: Ali Edwards Day in the Life Template, May the Fourth Freebie by Jenn Barrett; Embellishments: Yellow & Gray Decorative Tape Set by My Mind’s Eye, Dear Lizzy Charm Bits Sticker Book, Kelly Purkey Project Life Kit, Amy Tangerine Baxter Pink/Yellow Letter Stickers, Kelly Purkey White Letter Stickers, K and Company jewels, Up and Up washi; Stamps: Studio Calico Summer Stamp by Elise Blaha Cripe, stamp from Kelly Purkey Project Life Kit; Ink: ColorBox Black Pigment Inkpad, Maya Road mist; Pen: EK Success Zig Memory System Millennium 0.1-Millimeter Marker, EK Success Zig Memory System Millennium 0.8-mm Marker; Page Protectors: Project Life Design A, American Crafts 6×12; Adhesive: Scor-Tape, Scotch Dot Roller; Printing Service: Persnickety Prints; Tools: EK Success Paper Shapers 1-1/2-Inch Circle Nesting Punch, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, EK Success Honey Bee Non-Stick Craft Scissors, Tonic Studios Guillotine Paper Trimmer, typewriter, stapler.

Affiliate links used where possible. Purchasing anything, even items other than the linked item, through these links supports the Nerd Nest! Items that are not linked are no longer in production or are not available online.

For all posts tagged Project Life, click here.

Project Life is a memory keeping concept created by Becky Higgins. It can be anything you want it to be.

Check out Project Dig Deep , an ebook in which I and six other avid scrapbookers dive deep into the Project Life system, revealing seven amazing strategies that could revolutionize the way you approach Project Life! Foreword by Becky Higgins. The other awesome contributors are Kam Altar, Melanie Britt, Elise Blaha Cripe, Annette Haring, Amy T. Schubert, and Jessica Turner.

For more Project Life inspiration, join the free Big Picture Classes Project Life Community and Jessica Turner’s Project Life Tuesday link-up.

Need to test out the sizes of images on your sidebar? Designing a blog post around images you don’t have yet? Want to see how different sizes of images would look on your new blog layout? Here’s a quick way to insert images into your design before you have images.

Placehold.it is a free “placeholder” service that generates an image for you based on the parameters you pass in the URL for the img src. (If you don’t know how to read image code, check out our post on demystifying image code to become the master of your blog images!) The image defaults to including the size of the rectangle inside, but you can also include custom text inside, as we did for the image above. You can also change the color of the square and the text. All you have to do is change the numbers in the SRC of the image, and the new image size is created! This is so much quicker than having to keep going back to an image generator.

Here are a few examples:

Standard Square:
http://placehold.it/250

General Rectangle:
http://placehold.it/250×50

Custom Text:
http://placehold.it/150×200&text=USERPHOTO

Custom Background & Text Color
http://placehold.it/150×200/AADE1D/2B2B2B

Custom Background & Text Color w/ Text
http://placehold.it/150×200/AADE1D/2B2B2B&text=USERPHOTO

Pretty cool, huh?

This service has many uses, but the major one that comes to mind is that it would be perfect for a sponsorship page to let your prospective sponsors know what sizes are available and what size ad they’ll need. I know that we’ll be doing this to our Sponsorshop Page as soon as we get our new design up and running!.

Want to learn more coding and tech tricks for blogging? Check out these posts:

• HTML Cheats for Beginning Bloggers
• Demystify Image Code
• Learn to Space Your Photos with HTML Padding
• Learn to Align Your Photos with HTML Floating
• How to Write Links That Open in a New Tab
• How to Resize Blog Photos Uniformly Using CSS
• How to Create Picture Packages in Photoshop
• 7 Sites to Get You Started in Web Development
• Faux Polaroid Frame Download and Tutorial

Have you found any cool online services lately?

Welcome to Project Real Life REDO, a project to re-start the (closed and finished) Project Real Life Workshop with some friends. Project Real Life was a 4Expert course by by Becky Higgins I took care of Big Picture Classes. I’m documenting the class prompts and then I’ll include them in my Project Life.

This week was about Memorializing the Past and the content got me thinking about a lot of things, as the content has done in past weeks. Specifically, I got to thinking about my game plan for the big plastic tub of childhood photos in my basement and the heritage photos of my grandmother in my pantry. But I had to think harder about what I was going to document for this week in my Project Life insert, because I wasn’t wanting to do a “2013 so far” sort of thing. I think I’ve got 2013 pretty darn well covered so far. I started to think about the past in terms of history instead of my recent past, and I began to get more ideas.

I looked through my photos from last week and a theme popped out at me: we as a family are very plugged in and LOVE technology, but have been doing more to simplify, which in a way memorializes the past (especially in respect to food).

I think we have to be careful about looking back through history wistfully, because often what we view as a golden age was awash with violence and prejudice. It’s easy to read textbooks and think that we’re worse off now than our great-grandparents were, but reading social history and classics makes me so thankful that I am alive now and was not born in some other time period. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that have been left in the past that should be reclaimed!

Here are the photos that jumped out at me as memorializing the past, as we strive to rewind to grow our own food and buy it from farmers, visit chickens at a little farm by my grandpa’s house, and appreciate the history of our 109 year old house, our even older neighborhood, and our amazing city.

How do you memorialize the past?

If you’re doing a Project Real Life REDO too, head over to Document Life Workshop to link-up and to see what Allie and Alissa are doing!

Today Big Picture Classes is giving away a spot in Hello Story to one lucky reader of the Nerd Nest! Hello Story workshop, taught by Ali Edwards, is a twelve week 4Expert course full of creative storytelling techniques never before seen from Ali.

Here’s a bit more about the workshop, which runs July 8 to September 29 and costs $99:

What’s your story? This summer, say hello to a dozen fun strategies for sharing more of your words, and more of yourself, on your scrapbook pages.

In her new 12-week workshop, Hello Story, Ali Edwards will introduce you to 12 storytelling techniques—never-before-seen in her prior journaling workshops—that will bring creativity and clarity to both your writing and your page designs. Every week, you get to sit over Ali’s shoulder and watch her transform her story ideas into timeless, authentic, story-rich scrapbook pages.

Through dozens of in-depth videos that cover storytelling and design ideas as well as 36+ exclusive layout examples from Ali (12″ x 12″ and 8 1/2″ x 11″ layouts, plus Project Life inserts), Hello Story will inspire you to take action and give you the tools you need to tell your own stories with confidence.

Are you ready to discover (or rediscover) the fun that comes from the interplay of design and words? By the end of class, you may even enjoy the writing process just as much as you love taking photos and playing with paint and paper!

Watch the video above to see a sneak peek of Ali’s class! I was already over the moon excited about the class before watching this video, but now I can honestly say that I’ve never ever been more excited about a class.

Workshop includes:

• Inspiring weekly videos from Ali
• Colorful instructional handouts with step-by-step instructions for each lesson/project
• Printable digital elements in PNG and PDF formats that relate to the weekly storytelling technique
• Supply list with live links to product resources—each weekly handout will include a list of supplies used on the example pages
• Welcome notes from Ali in the classroom
• Class syllabus and pre-class welcome video
• Reminder emails when the classroom is updated with new materials
• Message board to share your thoughts with your classmates
• Private posting gallery to share your work and view the work of your classmates
• An interactive video chat with Ali
• Email access to Ali

Read more about Hello Story here!

New to Big Picture Classes? Learn How it works.

Enter to win a spot in this amazing workshop from Big Picture Classes using the widget below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you can’t wait and decide to purchase the class before the giveaway is over, Big Picture Classes will reimburse you if you are selected as the winner!

We’ll announce the winner sometime after midngiht CST June 25. Watch the countdown on the widget to see how long you have left to enter! The winner will have to contact us with their e-mail address before registration closes July 17, 2013.

Consider following the Nerd Nest so you don’t miss the winner announcement! New to the Nest? You’re gonna love our memory keeping posts.

Good luck!

We are Big Picture Classes affiliates. Purchases made through these links support the Nerd Nest.

This week’s challenge on Document Life Workshop is to celebrate a dad.

Yesterday, we made a point to get family photos with Jake’s dad and my grandpa to celebrate their relationships with their families. I love candid photos that show relationships the most, but it is truly special to get photos where everyone is together! Can’t wait to do the same with my dad later this week (there was a family emergency, so we couldn’t hang out with him on Father’s Day).

Check out the team takes on the challenge!

P.S. Aspects of our photos were inspired by Maggie Holmes. Her photos are so happy and amazing, you HAVE to check her out!

We are on a food adventure, trying to use local meat and produce the majority of the time. Or at least start with what we find at our farmer’s market. Here’s the new stuff we added in the mix last week: Zucchini, red potatoes, onions, ground bison, honey, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, eggs, basil plant, and non-stop begonias (which are not food, but are pretty on our front porch).

Sunday the kids hung out with their grandparents for a bit so Jake and I could work. We went to Tea Drops so we could focus. Sometimes you need to go somewhere were you can’t do laundry to really get things done. Jake had bubble tea and I had a pot of mango black (my very favorite).

Sunday night we went to my grandpa’s for a family dinner celebrating his birthday.

Monday the kids and Jake had leftovers and I had an awesome salad: cucumber, tomato, black olive, feta, and Italian dressing. It’s a delicious combination.

Dessert was apples and Nutella.

Tuesday I grilled all by myself, which is a big deal. I grilled zucchini with this method (SO GOOD). I plank grilled tilapia, which I rubbed with our Caribbean Jerk Dry Rub and marinated in the rest of the lemon olive oil leftover from the zucchini. I added bow tie pasta to the cucumber salad, which was perfect. Also, Jake is anti-fish, so he got a brat.

We ate most of the strawberries as soon as we bought them, but froze the rest. We made smoothies with the rest of the strawberries, frozen blueberries, a bit of white grape juice, and some honey. The kids loved making them as much as they loved eating them.

Wednesday we grilled bison burgers and ate them on homemade buns, using the dinner roll recipe from The Everything Cookbook. We also made homemade french fries, which we baked with olive oil, seasoning, and rosemary.

Thursday morning Jonas and I had breakfast at The Filling Station. He’s obsessed with muffins.

Thursday night we had Chipotle.

Friday night Jake and the kids were at his parents, so I went for a salad for dinner because it was the quickest thing I could make. Lettuce + carrots + cucumber + tomatoes + pepperoni + cheddar + Italian dressing.

I miscalculated, though, because I had a salad for lunch Friday too. And two salads in a day does not cut it. So around midnight I walked to grab some mozzarella sticks at Joe’s Pizza, but they didn’t have any. So I got stuffers instead, which ended up being like huge calzones. I could only eat one, so I’ll have a ton of leftovers to eat for lunches next week. And they’re packed with veggies, so I won’t have to share.

Saturday morning Jake and I went to City Market Coffeehouse before getting stuff at the farmer’s market.

I had an iced lattee and Jake and I shared a bacon and egg burrito. Which is delicious.

You can tell I was working a lot last week (and it was hot), because there wasn’t a lot of cooking going on.

Here’s what we’re rolling with for this week: A ton of blueberries, peaches, red potatoes, ground bison, and bison summer sausage. We still have a lot of stuff from last week, so I didn’t load up too much. That’s also way too much fruit, but we’re freezing a bunch of it for smoothies.

What have you been eating lately? Do you have any yummy recipes to share?

Check out all of the Savory Sunday posts here.

I’m a little obsessed with nighttime photography right now. I recently shared my nighttime photo of the Kit Bond Bridge with you and I wanted to share a few more of the nighttime photos I’ve been taking. Our new camera has helped me to fall back in love with photography that’s just for fun, because I don’t have the limitations that I did with our other camera.

Click on the photos for a larger view.

I like the challenge of night photography, and during the week nighttime is the only free time that I have. Win win. I took this one in front of the Kauffman Center for Performing Arts with one of our friends as the subject. I’ve been wanting to do light painting in photography for a long time, but I’ve only done really simple things with the techniques. I didn’t have a flashlight to “draw” the light, so I used my phone. The camera was on our tripod (a good tripod is essental for nighttime photography because the camera can’t move at all to prevent blurring) and the shutter was open for 30 seconds for a long exposure (I used the aperture to control the amount of light that was let in instead of the shutter speed). I used the light to trace my friend Matt in front of the building. It’s not a perfect photo, but it was so fun and is a great start.

The same night, I took a Kansas City skyline photo. I’ve been scouting out amazing spots to take one and I finally found one! I had to hike a bit to get it. I was going for the city skyline and motion: I love that the cars are swirling lights. You’ve already seen this photo in Megan’s awesome scrapbook page.

My proudest nighttime photos lately have been of the moon. It’s A LOT harder than it sounds. Because the moon is so far away, even the slightest movement causes a blur in the photo. Even the shutter vibrations move the camera too much. I had to go for a near lock up, when the mirror in the camera opens before it takes the photo, to get it. This isn’t my final moon photo (I’ll go to a rural area to get a better one), but I’m progressing! We’re going to print the perfect one HUGE. I’m excited.

I’m loving the challenge and the rewards of doing nighttime photography! Have you ever tried to take photos at night?

This week our favorite apparel company, Sevenly, offered to give away an awesome shirt to one lucky Nerd Nest reader!

And the winner is…

Congratulations Trina! Contact us with your shipping info asap to claim your prize.

Every week buying from Sevenly supports a different cause, this week Sevenly is partnering with Liberty in North Korea, an organization dedicated to redefining North Korea by focusing on the people while rescuing and providing resettlement support to the North Korean refugees and pursuing an end to the North Korean crisis. There’s still time to help with this week’s cause! If you’re sad you didn’t win, go buy something awesome. We’ve chosen our favorites for this week above. (Try to guess which two things we bought this week!)

Don’t have the funds to support this weeks cause? You can still help! Go to Sevenly and share this week’s cause to help them unlock the $10,000 sharing bonus from their sponsor SG Foundation.

This little dude invaded our bed last night, and it turns out it’s because he’s sick. So I’m spending the day snuggling, watching cartoons, feeding him dry cereal, and reading lots of books.

Week 19: May 6-12

Click on the photos for a larger view.

It was a full week, and that means INSERTS!

This week I used mostly the Project Life Jade Core Kit, which is now available on Amazon!

Left Side: I really love Jake’s photo of Kit Bond Bridge, so I wanted to make a big layout to highlight it. I made sure to keep the layout simple, so that the focus really was on the photo. I usually just sort of grab the first papers or embellishments that will work for layouts, but I was much more careful with this one, going through a ton of patterned papers and selecting the one that did the most to enhance the photo.

It’s an old paper, but you can still buy the full Basic Grey OBSCURE Collection Pack. It’s one of my favorite lines ever.

I love the look of this title directly on the photo, but I’ll admit that doing it this way was a liiiiittle scary. I still could have saved it if I messed up, but I was still a little nervous. I always get that way with photo enlargements.

To get this weird sized photo (it’s something like 8×12), I put it on a 12×12 canvas and added other photos in the leftover space by creating a collage. I had it printed, along with all of the other photos this week, at Persnickety Prints.

The title is a combo of Studio Calico vellum, which I got from the Fold It In kit by rukristin, Kelly Purkey White Letter Stickers, a few old K & Company jewels, and triangles stamped directly on the photo with a stamp from the Studio Calico Summer Stamp set by Elise Blaha Cripe and cool metallic ink from this Tsukineko Planetarium pack.

The journaling is Jake’s words and my handwriting. I love pulling journaling from blog posts.

Insert 1, Front: Everyday stuff! I watched baby Ava for the day (this was before I started watching her most weekdays and was the first time I got to babysit her), cooked, went out to eat, met with friends, went to a birthday party, played outside, and painted flower pots.

I’ve been doing a lot of cutting down Project Life Design A page protectors for inserts lately, and I mostly close up the open parts with washi tape or my sewing machine. For this one, I used staples, and that is a winner. Going to be doing that so much more.

I just randomly listed out the stuff we did on a bi-fold card. That’s becoming a go-to for me.

Insert 1, Back: My nephew Nathan’s birthday party. He and Jonas had a blast.

A couple of random things to note for this spread: A lot of the journaling cards have room for noting the date on them. I didn’t need the date, so I covered it up with a little word sticker that says “buddies.” Covering up parts to make something work is one of the best ways to get the most out of your supplies.

I accidentally cut that picture of Eliza too small for the pocket, so I cropped it down a little more and used a PL card as a mat for the photo.

Insert 2, Front: My Project Real Life REDO Week 6.

Insert 2, Back: The rest of PRL Week 6.

Insert 3, Front: A soccer game and hanging out with Jake’s sister.

This insert was cut down from Project Life Design D. The badge in the middle is from the Kelly Purkey Project Life Kit, which I’m excited to use more heavily once I have my first June pictures.

I’m loving punching circles from PL journaling cards in order to get more journaling in the negative space of photos.

Insert 3, Back: Celebrating mother’s day with Jake’s step-mom (we celebrated with my step-mom the week after). And Eliza is gorgeous.

Right Side: All of our fun Mother’s Day photos with our moms and siblings. Funny family action photos are my favorite. We should do it more.

P.S. I skipped week 18 for now, because I accidentally missed ordering a few photos for it. Ooops.

Supplies Used: Kit: Fold It In kit by rukristin; Paper: Project Life Jade Core Kit, Project Life Seafoam Core Kit, Project Life Seafoam Designer Paper
Studio Calico vellum, Amy Tangerine 6 x 6-Inch Sketchbook Pad, Basic Grey OBSCURE Collection Pack, Studio Calico Moments Cards, Studio Calico Project Life Card Grab Bag, Becky Higgins Project Real Life cards; Embellishments: Yellow & Gray Decorative Tape Set by My Mind’s Eye, Dear Lizzy Charm Bits Sticker Book, Kelly Purkey Project Life Kit, Amy Tangerine Baxter Pink/Yellow Letter Stickers, Kelly Purkey White Letter Stickers, American Crafts Flower Sticker, K and Company jewels, Love Elise for KI Memories Sticker, Ribbon; Stamps: Studio Calico Summer Stamp by Elise Blaha Cripe; Ink: Tsukineko 4-Pack Brilliance Dew Drop Inkpads, Planetarium; Pen: EK Success Zig Memory System Millennium 0.1-Millimeter Marker, EK Success Zig Memory System Millennium 0.8-mm Marker; Page Protectors: Project Life Design A,Project Life Design D, Project Life 12 x 12, We R Memory Keepers Multi Pack; Adhesive: Scor-Tape, Scotch Dot Roller, EK Success 3-D Dots; Printing Service: Persnickety Prints; Tools: EK Success Paper Shapers 1-1/2-Inch Circle Nesting Punch, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper,Neon Omnigrip No Slip Ruler 6 x 12 Inches, EK Success Honey Bee Non-Stick Craft Scissors, Tonic Studios Guillotine Paper Trimmer, Stapler.

Affiliate links used where possible. Purchasing anything, even items other than the linked item, through these links supports the Nerd Nest! Items that are not linked are no longer in production or are not available online.

For all posts tagged Project Life, click here.

Project Life is a memory keeping concept created by Becky Higgins. It can be anything you want it to be.

Check out Project Dig Deep , an ebook in which I and six other avid scrapbookers dive deep into the Project Life system, revealing seven amazing strategies that could revolutionize the way you approach Project Life! Foreword by Becky Higgins. The other awesome contributors are Kam Altar, Melanie Britt, Elise Blaha Cripe, Annette Haring, Amy T. Schubert, and Jessica Turner.

For more Project Life inspiration, join the free Big Picture Classes Project Life Community and Jessica Turner’s Project Life Tuesday link-up.