Crate Paper

Project CP Life :: May 2013 w/Janna Werner

 Hello everyone, this is Janna with a new Project Life double spread!

Once again, I combined two weeks to create a full spread - instead of dedicating one side to each week, I decided to mix my photos and events. I used a journaling card to write about each week separately.

It was my husband's birthday during week "16" - he turned forty!! Given that number, it's a rather big anniversary, so I dedicated most of the space to the special event. Funny enough, we hadn't taken any pictures during the big party - can you believe it?! We had been so busy preparing and celebrating that I totally forgot to get the camera out! I'm still shocked by the lack of images, but hey, I'm more than happy to make up for it via Crate Paper's "Party Day" collection. It includes lots of fun and festive "Happy Birthday" embellishments, like the balloons on the bottom right and the birthday candle near the bottom left.

As to the right side of the double spread, I used supplies from Crate Paper's Party Day, Maggie Holmes, DIY Shop and The Pier. Although the four cllections differ in theme and color scheme, they go together extremely well. 

I have to admit, I'm still not happy with my handwriting in my PL album...I like my handwriting, but not in the album itself. This might be because I like things straight and my handwriting is rather curved. I used to write in big letters, which allowed the journaling part appear more structured and straight, but to me, it's a bit less personal, if you know what I mean. Guess this will be my challenge for the following weeks ahead - trying to find a way to incorporate my handwriting so that it's pleasing to the eye. ;)

When I started the double spread, I was a bit clueless how to fill the four squares on the left. I don't have a printer that prints photos in that size. I imagined in place of the missing photos I'd use cards, which made it a bit easier for me to envision how best to decorate them. Of course, I got outplayed by the "stacking-curse" and the page got thicker and thicker, *laugh*.

Sometimes, when the cards get too thick, they tend to slip out of the pockets. To fix this issue, I use transparent sellotape along the opening seam, preventing the cards from slipping out anymore.

I love to sew on my PL cards. I love the look of the leftover, dangling thread that hangs from the sides. I also like to write on my photos with a photo pen and fixative. The fixative addition is to prevent smearing.

You might know that this album started off as a weight loss album, though over time, it has evolved into an everyday life thing. In the first weeks of 2013, I used to take a picture of me on the scale each week and added it to the album. I used a Polaroid to take the photos, but the camera film filled up quickly. I was too lazy to run out and buy a new one. I then resorted to using my iPhone instead, but didn't print the photos *another sigh* - and then I realized that I felt totally pressured to weigh myself each week - the weighing became more important than moving more, eating healthier and everything else that I wanted to change in my life. Sometimes, You just need to admit to yourself that you failed on something, right? I still abide by my goal to eat healthier, move more, etc, but without the pressure. I still weigh myself from time to time, but not every week. It works for me!

My idea of this album changed a bit; I'm now documenting our life and adding pages about my weight loss when it feels right. I like having a PL album that is dedicated to one topic, but as you know, PL can get quite time consuming and is sometimes stressful. Beneath all that though is PL's popular motto; have fun, enjoy the process and share the outcome with friends and family when ready. That's exactly what I'm doing at this point in time!

On that note, I wish all of you a great day! Thanks for checking in at the Crate Paper blog!

Project CP Life :: May 2013 w/Megan Klauer

Welcome to another Friday full of Project Life inspiration. This week, I'm starting with my title page for April. I'm highlighting the bright colors of the brand new collection, The Pier, but using it in a rather unconventional way.

The colors in The Pier collection make my heart skip a beat. I love that it makes me dream of being on the beach, but I also love that it can fit right into my PL pages full of everyday life; many miles from a beautiful ocean.

Don't forget to tell your story by fitting journaling in where ever you can! Using the diagonal striped paper creates a unique journaling spot.

The chipboard slide frames..swoon! Perfect for framing my many instagram photos. 

Spring in the Midwest means rain, mud and for me; trying to keep three kiddos from tracking it all into the house.

During the middle of April we were blessed with so much rain it caused the rivers, creeks and basements everywhere to flood. This spread captures a bit of that experience.

I love all the geotag icons included in the collection, and they worked perfectly flipped upside down to create rain drops!

(Ella's face in this photo - I'm not even sure what it was about, but she cracks me up! LOL!)

I also tried to use the word elements such as "lazy days" and "sunshine" in a way that worked with my rainy theme. Think outside the box and you can use a collection in a whole new way! 

Project CP Life :: May 2013 w/Naomi Atkins

This week, I wanted to highlight a trip we took to Washington D.C., as well as the beautiful Spring blossoms that are popping up everywhere!

For the 12" x 12" side, I had been driving by an orchard/landscape place with the most beautiful trees I'd seen all week. I just had to visit the location with Camille one night and grab a few photos. There were drifting, purple blossoms everywhere! When I returned home, I glanced over the images right away and went straight to locate some of Crate Paper's 'old school' collections for matching purple supplies; Little Bo Peep, On Trend, as well as some of the newer embellishments from DIY Shop.

In the end, you can see that I went with a mix of purple, violet, mint, olivine and trendy black & white. The right side of the spread caters to a large photo of my little girl, while the left opens the door to embellished sections and another cute photo. In the lower left corner, I sewed strips of patterned paper along a diagonal and housed on top of it, a DIY Shop Stand-Out bingo card dotted with the word, "sweet". At the very top, are a couple On Trend Fabric Florals and "Hello" tag.

 

For this Washington D.C. layout, the pictures varied in color. A few of them were warm, while others felt much cooler. To mend the temperature difference, I used the Vintage Frame Overlays from DIY Shop on a couple of the images. Amazingly, the overlays worked like magic and the photos coordinate beautifully!

With two small pockets and one large pocket awaiting paper and embellishments, I chose to work with both The Pier and DIY Shop collections. You can see I ventured to use another DIY Overlay Frame, though this time, on top a pre-cut piece of patterned paper.

Inside the other remaining pockets, I fit one vertical and two horizontal pictures. I intentionally went with a smaller spread this time because it fit my pictures perfectly! It's what I love about project life most - making it your own with little though involved (big or small)!! It's easy to make layouts "pretty" when they're already sketched out for you, too!

With Spring upon us, I hope today's Project Life brings you one step closer to scrapping your pretty Spring photos! Have a great weekend!

 

Project CP Life :: April 2013 w/Janna Werner

 

 

Hello Everyone, this is Janna with a Project life double spread of week fifteen, 2013. I used Crate Paper's new scrapbook collection, The Pier, to create the pages. I don't think I need to tell you how much I'm in love with this new line -- balloons, popsicles, sequins, tickets, gold, kraft, mint and pink; a 100% Summer!

I went on a mini-cruise to Oslo, Norway recently, so my week 15 is all about that trip. Sadly, the weather wasn't that great and most my photos turned out rather dark and grey (at least there wasn't snow!).

Using The Pier patterned papers and embellishments helped very much to add a happy and summery touch to the double spread. I mounted the patterned papers on white cardstock to let the pages appear even lighter. 

I think I'm finally getting used to not using too many layers. It's still challenging to me to forgo the extras, but I'm starting to enjoy the "flat look". I mixed photos and memorabilia with the help of 6" x 6" patterned paper (Mini Paper Pad) for journaling about the vacation.

When I started Project Life, journaling was the hardest part for me. I don't journal a lot, but a Project Life album definitely requires it. I'm getting better at making a habit of jotting down words and love looking back and reading text from previous weeks. 

What is the hardest part of doing Project Life for you? Keeping up with the day-to-day activities, or journaling, like myself? What is your favorte part of Project Life? Tell us more about your Project Life likes and dislikes. Have a lovely weekend, wherever you might be!

CP Project Life :: April 2013 w/Piradee Talvanna

Hi Everyone, Piradee here to share another week from my Project Life album.

A few weeks ago, we celebrated my birthday with a simple lunch, me and my hubby dearest. I haven't been feeling really well the past few weeks and therefore wanted something simple and light, and lunch was just perfect. Not only did we have a chance to chat with the chef (I found out that he and hubby were boy-scout buddies back in the day), but the food was exactly what I needed (wished I had taken pictures of the dishes - was in awe of the presentation and taste. LOL).

Then, I had one of the biggest surprises the next day when a bouquet of flowers showed up at the door. For a moment, I thought I had a secret admirer because they surely weren't from my hubby (hate to admit it, I can't remember the last time he got me flowers, but to be fair, he did get me some "girl's best friend"). Surprisingly, the flowers were from my parent-in-laws in Belgium, wishing me a very happy birthday and congrats. Wow. Speechless and aren't they the best :)

With this week (and the week after) being about birthday celebrations, I automatically reached for the very fun Party Day collection. I just love it's lively, bold color palette and also, all it's cute coordinating embellishments. The 6 x 6 paper pad is perfect for PL card making as the designs are shrunken down. Another must have item when I'm working on PL cards are Crate's accent stickers - I especially love the quote "older, wiser and way more attractive" written on one of the Party Day stickers (Oh yeah, still struggling with the old part though. LOL). Which types of products do you guys usually reach for when working on PL cards?

In putting together this week's spread, I tried to keep a balance between the two pages. All the items that I used are from the Party Day collection. Sprinkled throughout are hints of gold via gold glitter thickers and gold sequins. Also, to balance out the color scheme of the spread's right side, I added the collection's multi-colored vellum paper. It works on bringing the colors together without being overly distracting. As a whole, the pages work and blend seamlessly!

Here are a few of the individual cards alongside one another and a quick close-up...

I enjoyed a wonderful birthday thanks to family, and my sweet spouse - this Project Life spread captures it all! Thank-you for stopping by - have a great weekend!

Project CP Life :: April 2013 w/Megan Klauer

I spent most of the month of March planning and preparing for a surprise baby shower for my little sister. I'm excited to say it went off without a hitch and best of all, she was completely surprised! Along with my other three sisters, and our Mom, we snuck into my youngest sister's house while she and her family were at church. We did a quick sweep through the house, seet up lunch, and prepared baby themed activities for them to do.

I used a combination of the Little Boy Blue and Little Bo Peep collections to create decorations for the neutral gender shower. So, it's only fitting that I also used those lines in this month's Project Life spread. 

I used a large amount of punched circles from the different pattern papers to create banners and table decorations at the shower, so I wanted to mimic that in my scrapbook by creating this banner for my title area.

You may also notice I created little picks for our sandwiches (shown in the photos above). I used extras I had on hand and incorporated them into my page as well.

And, incase you're wondering, they welcomed a healthy baby boy on March 29th. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever got to photograph.

CP Project Life :: April 2013 w/Naomi Atkins

Hi everyone! Naomi here with another installment of Project Life!

Last Week, we celebrated three children's birthday's in one party. Their birthdays are VERY close together, and they all agreed..so it worked!

I really wanted to do layouts that went well side-to-side, but each were a bit different. I had a lot of photos of my son and oldest daughter that were blue and red, and pictures of my daughter that were gold. I made her a gold tutu and shirt, because all of my kids love the song "Gold" by Britt Nicole. So, it became the running theme and took over the right side of the layout spread. 

For the left side, I used more candid shots and then my son actually stuck his whole face in his train cake, which was a bit of a surprise! I wanted to highlight the photo, so I used an AC Page Protector and dedicated a 4" x 12" space to it. I filled the entire page with Crate's Party Day. I love the line for birthday photos! As to the other layout, I stuck mostly with DIY Shop. I did so because there's a lot of fabulous, blazing gold in the line that fit well with the theme.

Even though the two sides (spreads) are different, they still fit really well together. This is because Crate's lines blend seamlessly and I've zero issue making them match no matter the project. One technique I love is the creation of clusters between pockets/photos. I actually tucked journaling underneath some of the photos because when I do a more fancy Project Life spread for special occasions like birthdays, I don't always like the way my journaling appears.

In looking at some of these close-up images, you can see that I used a lot of gold Thickers for the titlework and also, red "bingo" style Thickers. I noted the birthday year of each child with gold Thickers. This helped to tie both spreads and create unity between the two. 

Even this random spotted gold "period" mark is identifiable as a member of the Thicker family. Don't forget to take advantage of the extra's on the backside of your Thicker sheets - exclamation marks, quotations and periods demand use, too. :) Try to find creative uses for them if and when the right moment arises. Thickers shouldn't just be for titlework!

With the birthday celebration officially over, and two beautiful spreads to remember the special day, today's Project Life is forever ingrained! I'll rejoin you next month with a whole new theme! Have a fab weekend!

Project CP Life :: March 2013 w/Piradee Talvanna

Sometimes, I feel as though things are moving at fast forward speed as it's already March; I'm pretty sure that the next time I look up again it might even be December. It's a challenge to keep pace with the passing months. It's just one reason I enjoy Project Life so much; it allows you to record memories in an easy, simple format without losing track of time. Given everything that's been happening lately, I'm thankful for this vital Project Life benefit.

Today, I bring you week seven. It entails a trip to Bangkok, amongst a few other details. To put it all together, I used the bright and lively Maggie Holmes collection.

The first thing I grabbed from the collection is the double-sided journaling cards. They're conveniently printed on a standard 12" x 12" sheet of patterned paper. They're affordable at under a "buck" and quick to cut-out! They're also perfect as Project Life inserts! You have the option to choose from multiple designs depending on your needs. I usually use them as the base for my 3" x 4" cards. 

 

Another thing I love about the collection is the combination of colors - pinks, blues, turquoises and yellows. They're especially gorgeous when backed with dark woodgrain patterned paper. Just look at this card and how the colors "pop"! 

A third fave from the collection are the light-hearted, sweet designs. The Ephemera Cardstock Die-Cut Pack includes a large selection of shabby chic images. The pink butterfly and blue tag, above, are just a snippet of what's inside! I highly recommend this collection's Ephemera options!

 

At the heart of this week's Project Life spread is a series of trips and a brand-new learned hobby. It was sad to leave Bangkok as it'd been a while since my last visit there. The food is fabulous and I miss it dearly! In Singapore, I had a chance to attend a stamp carving workshop/class. I have to admit, this might be a new hobby addiction for me. The stamps are a lot of fun to make, and the image possibilities are endless!

 

Last, but not least, I managed to squeeze in a stroll down the quieter streets in Chinatown where you can still find old shop houses/town houses in Singapore. I have to admit, one of the things that I really appreciate about Singapore is that they invest in preserving the past. Visitors are able to get a glimpse of how things use to be before the arrival of newer, fancier buildings.

Thank-you for stopping by today - have a great weekend everyone!

Project CP Life :: March 2013 w/Janna Werner

Incase you hadn't a chance to investigate "The Pier" collection, click this link; SUMMER. It'll take you directly to the premier! Also, a full collection giveaway is in progress - be one of the first to own "The Pier"! Hurry, warmer days are soon expected, as are those fun beach photos! 

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Hello everyone, this is Janna with a small Project Life spread. :)

 

I've been extremely busy these last few weeks. I was stuck behind my desk doing an abundance of computer work. Therefore, I didn't have a whole lot of photos for week 8 and 9 of my Project Life album. Instead of insisting on creating a double spread each week, I've decided that it's ok to combine two weeks. Honestly, that is the beauty of Project Life; scrapbooking at your own pace without the burden of deadlines. It's about scrapbooking life as it happens and making the process as convenient as possible. 

 

This is the first time I combined a two week period and it was way more fun than I thought it would be. I picked a few highlights like my new tripod (which makes my work so much easier!), the opening of my Etsy shop, our sweet dog and meeting friends for dinner. I added pictures of the scale as well.

 

I used Crate Paper's Sleigh Ride Thickers for this week and adhered them in a non-straight way. This kind of typography set-up makes the page feel more playful and happy. 

 

I punched out a couple of butterflies from DIY Shop, Party Day and Maggie Holmes. The large one on the left is from the Maggie Holmes Ephemera Pack. I also used punched scraps. The butterflies are a synonym for my desperate need of Spring, and Sunshine!!

 

There are two journaling spots; one on the left, the other on the right. Both include highlights of those two weeks, like my addiction to Game of Thrones, working and visiting Ikea. 

 

I embellished all the photos. Some have either a sticker or patterned paper attached to them. I used my sewing machine on nearly all the parts - I love the shabby touch it adds. 

 

If you've been following my Project Life, you know that it's a weight loss album. I document my weight loss on a day-to-day basis. Right now, it's a bit up and down, but all in all, the weight is falling off. I try to focus on eating healthy and exercising more. Most the time, it works just fine, though other times, it doesn't. In truth, that's ok because pressure is by no means beneficial, nor helpful. 

Already, I covered 9 weeks of 2013!! It's fun to go through the existing weeks, study the things that have happened and read about them. On the other side of things, it can be challenging to keep pace with it all! I try to jot down notes throughout the week so I don't forget the day-to-day stuff. That being said, what sort of tricks do you use to track stories for your Project Life album?

Have a great weekend! See you in four weeks!

 

Project CP Life II :: March 2013 w/Megan Klauer

We're back with the second half of Megan Klauer's "Project Life" entry from last Friday. She's a few more pages to show you, plus more ideas for incorporating "Crate" into your Project Life albums! 

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Welcome once again! It's Megan rejoining you for the second installment of my "March" Project Life entry. Today, I'm going to start off where we left off, a beautiful two-page spread with a unique presentation twist - what sets this spread apart is that it extends the design over "two" pages, rather than just one. The page protectors themselves are different, too. One is a standard 12" x 12" page protector, while the other is a "mixed" pocket page.

Inside the 12" x 12", is a large photo with a small cluster of Crate goodies (perfect for filling up white space). If you look closely at it, you'll notice an ombre butterfly. It's actually the backside of a die-cut from the Maggie Holmes Ephemera Pack. I simply used three different colored mists on it - super easy to do!

I love the Stitched Fabric Frames from the Maggie Holmes collection, but they don't quite fit into the PL protectors. So, I attached one to the outside instead! I carefully attached it to the top most portion of the insert so that I could still get full use of the pockets on both sides. 

The other half of this page highlights our Valentine's Day. Very simple, yet a memory we'll cherish forever.

This spread takes note of three different activities, which is one thing I love about the Project Life process; it's all about the everyday stuff! There's no right or wrong way of doing it! It's all about getting it down on paper and recording those memories. 

You'll see that I did quite of bit of stamping on the middle journaling insert using the Party Day Clear Stamps. Truthfully, stamping is an easy, fun means to spice up a page, or a PL card! If wanting to take advantage of a stamp design, try using only a portion of it. You aren't required to use the stamp as a "whole". Break-it-up!

In capturing the everyday, don't forget to include things like weather maps and other random bits of information. I pulled this one from my local weather channel's Facebook page and added circling around the area in which we live with the help of Photoshop.

On the backside, I printed and marked my top five favorite instagrams of the month. I numbered them accordingly and jotted down a few words about each. 

I thank-you for sticking with me through this two-part post! I hope you're enjoying your PL process as much as I am!! Have a fabulous weekend you guys!