Right now I am...

... Sitting on the sofa

... Listening to Christopher snore in the next room

... Thinking about how happy I feel when we are together

... Daydreaming about the future

... Planning out my summer

... Thanking God for this wonderful gift of life

Internet Habits

Each time I open my computer, I have a pretty specific routine that I go through.

Facebook. Always inevitably my first stop. I like that I can keep in touch with so many of my friends all around the world through Facebook! It's also how a lot of potential clients get in contact with me about photo sessions.

Email. Send the junk to the trash. Read through the important stuff. Reply if necessary.

These first two are also done on my iPhone throughout the day.

Blogs. I read so many! I have a separate folder of memory keeping blogs and photography blogs. Both always make me feel inspired after clicking and reading through the list of updates!

Random floating. Inevitably, I'll click on a link which leads me to a site with more links, etc... This only happens when I am avoiding doing things that need to get done. =P

What are your internet habits?

Project Life: Week Eleven

Hello Week Eleven! This week was so full of fun and friends and love! It was also full of simple everyday moments. I love the combination. I really hope we can look back at this project someday and feel how full and happy our lives together have been!



On Sunday, we took a trip to the Cleveland Zoo. I took a lot of Instagram photos. Just adding one photo to the weekly spread didn't seem like enough to me, so I decided to go ahead and add an insert. I trimmed down a 12x12 pocket protector page from We R Memory Keepers and I had the IG photos printed through Postal Pix. Don't get me wrong, I love the convenience of my at home printer! I wasn't in a rush to have the photos printed, and I just really like the ease of ordering them and having them sent. So I waited a few days, but it was worth the wait, in my opinion! I also saved the map from the zoo, and our tickets and slipped those into two of the 4x4 pockets.


I love this tab from Smash! I picked up a pack of them at Michael's a couple of weeks ago.


I like this 4x6 card a lot, and it was so simple! I attached two 3x3 Instagram photos to a note card and added a little journaling above. I used two stamps by Dear Lizzy to make the little date flag, and added a strip of Washi tape between the two photos.

We had an awesome Saturday afternoon in Little Italy. Funny to me that we visited on St. Patrick's Day, but I still wore my green for the occasion! Anyways, this day was all about beautiful weather, yummy food, and spending quality time together. It was wonderful.

For this I sized the IG photos to about 2x2 and arranged them on a 4x6 canvas in Photoshop. I added the tape embellishment and the journaling on the left side, also using Photoshop. I then opted to print with a border from my printer at home. Pretty simple!

This project is so fun and so rewarding already! I love when my sister or friends come over and ask to see the album! It makes me look forward to sharing it with our own little family someday.

If you are interested in trying Project Life for yourself, you can find out more info here!

Project Life: Week Ten

Week ten was a pretty full week, as far as things go for us. I feel like most of the things I record for us happen on the weekends, but this week was kind of an exception. There are still a lot of weekend happenings, mostly because we just tend to do more and get out more on the weekends, but the weekdays are represented more this week. Kind of nice.


I left a couple of elements from last week to peek through to this week. You can see the back of my business card in one of the 3x4 pockets, and part of the Chipotle menu in on of the 4x6 pockets. I enjoy being able to see both of these!


Had to represent a cool new addition to my arsenal! Loving the sewing machine!


Added in most of what was written in this blog post... I wanted to remember my learning experience, and also the story my grandmother told me about her nut roll fiasco!

I used a lot of photos from my Instagram app this week, and I love the way they look! This might be my favorite element of week ten... And all I did was print the IG photos on one 4x6 canvas, cut them to size, and attached them to a plain old note card. =)

So there's week ten in the books, with week eleven almost over as well! This is such a fun project! I'm fairly sure I am going to try and get my younger sister set up with a PL kit for her birthday. She turns 18 in May, and she is also graduating from high school the same month! She always wants to check out our PL album when she comes over, and has shown a lot of interest in trying this out for herself. Plus, I think it will be awesome to have an album dedicated to her 18th year of life, and her first year after high school!

If you are interested in learning more about Project Life, you can learn more here!

A failed attempt at bread making...

Today, I attempted to make bread. Just plain old white bread, nothing too exciting. The only other kinds of bread I have made before are zucchini + banana bread, so that hardly counts.

Everything was going well... I was kneading, dough was rising, and I was feeling like a happy housewife at this point! Until I put the bread in the oven. Our oven tends to get very hot as it is small + electric, so I am already used to dialing down the temperature. Well, 30 minutes later, the bread still came out burnt on the outside + not quite done on the inside. I felt so upset + discouraged!

Then, when I told Mimi the story, she told me about her failed attempt at making nut rolls so many years ago. I felt a bit better... And now I know why she always buys them and doesn't make them herself! =)

I'm not going to let this throw me off, though. Live + learn (to lower the oven temp even more... Haha!)

December Daily 2011

So... I know it's March now and December was quite a while back! Well, I finally got around to finishing my December Daily project last night, and I wanted to share some of my favorite pages!



A big reason why I didn't finish it in December, I think, is that I was just tired of running to the store to have my photos printed all the time! So I was still taking photos each day, but I just didn't do anything with them.

I don't know what inspired me, but last night I was determined to finish this project! And so I did. And I am so happy that I finally have the album completed! It was soo much easier to be able to just use my printer at home! This years December Daily project is going to be a breeze! =)

Project Life: Week Nine

Week NINE! This week I was feeling more creative than I have felt with any week thus far, especially with adding things to the 3x 4 pockets. You may be able to see that I added captions to the photos in a variety of ways this week by stapling a bit of a journal card to the photo, adding a label, or writing on the photo itself by hand or in Photoshop before printing. I love the way it all looks together.


I randomly got the idea in my head that I wanted to do a 'Day in the Life' for myself on Wednesday. I wanted to document what I did on Leap Day. So, with the use of my notebook and iPhone, I kept track of times and activities, and I took pictures along the way using Instagram. I mean, it was a pretty average day, but I think that will be really neat to look back on later in life, ya know?

I typed up the schedule of my day on two separate 4x6 canvases in Photoshop. Then, I sized all of the Instagram photos I wanted to use to 2x2 and added those to a third 4x6 canvas. After printing (and rounding the corners, of course), I stuck all of these into an additional insert with three 4x6 photo pockets. It was pretty simple, and I like the way it came out!


Initially, I wasn't sure what to do with the back of my 'Day in the Life' insert, and I was even thinking of just leaving it empty... Until I saw findingnana (as I know her on Instagram) use Instagram photos for a sort of monthly round up, which I loved! So I went through my iPhone and chose 15 of my favorite photos from the month of February and used the same technique as I describe above to arrange them on three 4x6 canvases, leaving room on the first one for a title of sorts. So happy I did this rather than leave the pockets empty!


I stapled a tab from Smash just to add a little detail to the insert. Man, do I want one of those tiny attachers I see everyone using! Haha.


When we had lunch at Chipotle on Saturday, I grabbed one of their little menus, knowing that I would want to use it somehow for Project Life! I was just going to fold it and stick it in the pocket when I got the idea to circle and label our 'usual'. Just an extra little detail to look back on.

So there we have it! Week nine. This project is really such fun for me! It is already an awesome feeling to look back and see how much of our everyday lives is recorded, and I honestly never would be doing it without Project Life!

Want to try Project Life for yourself? You can find out more info here!