The One that's really LONG.

What I blog about. hmmmm...

I like to blog about real life. I like to take pretty photos and document the fun stuff of life. I have some goals, however, to also expand my creativity and make blogging more interesting. That might mean doing more projects and taking more photos! Somehow I think that's what I need.

Life has been a little BLAH here in November.

I'd like to change that. If you are a regular reader, I would love a little advice on what people like to read! I guess I will write a little synopsis of the current stuff I do, so that way anyone can add a suggestion.

1. I do Project Life. I'm a tad behind posting about it (yeah, like six months) but I'm pretty up to date with my actual book. In the past two years I've lived a life that is pretty "documenting" oriented. I save receipts. I steal business cards from restaurants. I methodically print photos and round corners and stick my stuff in little pockets. Its a fun adventure, and not one I'm planning on quitting any time soon. I plan on taking more photos of my pages in the future!

2. I scrapbook. Even though I also do Project Life, I also love to play with pretty paper and embellishments. Matty tells me that I do a little too much! Because I document stuff pretty much daily, when it comes to scrapbooking, its all for fun! That's how I like it.

3. I play in the outdoors. I run. I camp. I am kind of an active gal and I love to write about it. Somehow its nice to brag about how fast I run a race, or how I feel accomplished when I learn how to swim. Its fun to share something that's such a big part of my life.

4. I hardly cook, but when I do I love to blog about it. Every now and then I get a burst of energy and decide to take photos of my cooking process or my daily dinners or my super healthy Paleo foods. And I'm always up for taking pictures of treats and desserts, even when I don't make them myself.

5. I take pictures. This may have been implied in the previous four points, but I thought it deserved a line all by itself. Whether its instagram or fancy camera, I pretty much photograph daily! I'm still not great, but I love the challenge of capturing a moment in a pretty way. That's pretty much how I see photography. I take pictures because I like to remember. And if I am remembering, it might as well look good, right?

6. I have a pretty full life when it comes to friend and family. I do love to share random adventures that I have with Matt and others. Seattle is an amazing place. We may think that we are bored all the time, but when I look through my Picassa album, I'm pretty much convinced that we do lots of fun things. I'd like to do even more. This includes trying new restaurants and traveling to more local areas around Seattle.

7. I travel. Okay, not really, but I do have a ton of Europe photos that I haven't shared yet. Mostly just haven't had the time to write the words to portray such an amazing adventure. I'm not sure that this would be an interesting to topic to read about, so let me know!!

Thanks for reading, if you got all the way to the end. Please, ladies, (or anyone) give me some suggestions on how I can improve what I write. I would love any constructive criticism please!!

Love Jenn

The One with a Scrapbook Tip

How to turn branding strips into something awesome!!

I am a super saver of all scraps and random nonsense. I simply cannot throw anything away. Now that scrapbooking companies have started making their branding strips super cute, I keep them all!! (Of course.)

I emptied out some packaging that used to old border strips and fill them with all my branding strips. I keep them with my embellishments so that I will use them up!

But of course, I don't. :)

 A couple weeks ago I decided to whip them out and make something awesome. I took some fancy cell phone photos so you can see the lovely process and then the finished page.

Here I show my "little" collection of branding strips. I chose a few that I love and thought went well together. I also showed a photo of the backside...you can see these are all just off cuts from a piece of 12x12 pattern paper. I think the companies with the cutest branding strips are Studio Calico and American Crafts.

It was easy! I just taped them all diagonally onto computer paper and then trimmed the excess. 

This little collage shows a little more into my process of making the page. As you can see, I didn't tape the pattern paper strips onto the ENTIRE sheet of computer paper...just planned to cover it up with the photos.

And now the finished page! I also added some Mister Huey on a diagonal line, and sewed on some buttons. Button sewing is not my favorite technique because it is SO time consuming, but at the end I always love the result! I just need to get some more patience!!

Thanks for looking at my little tutorial. I hope to share more scrappy stuff here on the blog in the future, HOWEVER, I am leaving for Europe in just TWO DAYS....so who knows when I will find time to blog!!

(And to Renae...See you in PARIS!!!)

The one with the Night Out layouts

Amidst the swimming, biking, running, eating healthy (and not), photographing, working and spending time with friends, I have been SCRAPBOOKING!!

I haven't really gotten much sleep lately, but I sure have been productive.

I made these two pages with my July Studio Calico kits, as well as some new fun stuff that arrived in the mail last week. I sure love scrapbook shopping!

They will sit side by side in my album so they share some similar papers and colors and are about the same event. This is my solution to scrapbook lots of photos and still not make two-page layouts.

Thanks for looking!

(Only THREE more days until Chelanman! AHHH!)

The One with the Scrap Room Tour

I finally cleaned up a bit!!

This is what my scrap room looks like normally. Its never super clean. Never super duper organized, but still very usable. And I love it. :)

The wide angle photo shows the most. The Iris container the center usually has lots of pattern paper from Studio Calico kits. The computer is super useful for watching Shimelle videos or episodes of White Collar while I scrapbook.

 Here are some washi photos as promised...(I still need to line them up in a rainbow and take photos)

Thanks for looking! I figure my scrapbook room never gets REALLY clean. So I might as well photograph it in its normal glory. Have a great weekend!

The One with a Washi Tape Idea

I think everyone in my immediate family knows that I have a thing for washi tape!

(My immediate family being Matty, Flash, Leo and of course my mom and Renae)

I love to stack it up in rainbows and make it look pretty. Recently I have acquired some new ones and I have the intention of photographing them and will hopefully be sharing an updated photo soon. (The photo above is an instagram from a couple months ago.) I love to use it with my Project Life and on scrapbook pages.

But did you know that you can use it on the wall?

I have been using it to tape grocery lists, meal lists and most recently our camping list onto the kitchen wall. Its super useful and also pretty.

So until I become crafty enough to make my own chalkboard, this washi tape will have to do.

Scrapbook Pages: Tulip Fields

 These pages are about our April trip to the Tulip Fields in LaConner.

The first two pages are meant to sit side by side in my album, that's why their color schemes are so similar. I hate to do 2-pagers, but sometimes I have too many photos to fit on only one page.

I used my favorite supplies, including recent Studio Calico kits, washi tape, and random embellishments that I am trying to use up. Those flowers are big and bulky brads and I have been avoiding them, so glad to get them on a page at last. 

The second page is about our little trip into LaConner for lunch. It was a unique experience involving a brand new cafe, delicious food, and dozens of ferraris.

I think I will post a few more scrapbook pages this week. I haven't really scrapbooked in awhile, but these are older pages that I just recently photographed and put away in my album. Maybe getting these on the blog will inspire me creatively to sit down and scrapbook.

In other news, I am in my second week of eating healthy (mostly Paleo) and working out/running again. Its going really well (not that I've lost any weight) and I am still planning and doing a triathlon in July. I will keep you posted!!

Scrapbook pages to share

Little Garden Cafe

Stuff I used: Dear Lizzy Poloroid Paper. I love that one. I think I will end up cutting it all up and using every little slice.  Studio Calico May Kit: The hexagon stamp is from that kit as well as the grey hearts/wood grain. The background paper is My Mind's Eye Follow your heart. I used some older stuff as well, including the "3" from a favorite thicker's set and some older brads and scrap paper for the hexagons. This was a super easy page that came together easily. 


I love this little garden cafe in Spokane and I was so glad to hang out with my best friends and plan our Europe vacation. It was a really great day. :)

Real Juice

Stuff I used: Studio Calico April kit (I think?) which was the teal paper and bicycle paper. I also used my latest kit for a few quick embellishments, mainly the camera and the orange plastic paper clip. I also used my Sassafras stitching stamps (my favorite ever) and my super old jewel box thickers. The "Real" is the new Heidi Swapp letter stickers which I colored myself with Dried Marigold Distress ink. I also threw on some white paint and some washi tape and a few scraps punched with the Fiskars postage stamp punch. I LOVE that punch!

I really loved this day at Alki because we discovered this juice place that makes fresh juice from scratch. They blended up some apple, mint and ginger. It was slightly expensive but delicious and healthy! I sat the camera on the ground with the self timer so I could capture us sitting on those orange chairs. I just love finding the perfect place for a photograph. If you know me for two days, you will know this about me!

Plans for Week in the Life

For the past two years, I have been following Ali Edward's "Week in the Life" where she documents an entire week with lots of photos and details.

In 2010 I made an 8x10 book with all my photos and words and Matt loved it! I finished the book in the summer of 2011 (finally) and was completely sick of it!

Last year, 2011, I took TONS of photos with my retro camera app on my phone and shared them here on the blog every day. I ended up spending about $50 to have them printed out (4x4 is expensive!) and I still have yet to finish the book. I have everything ready to go in an Iris container and plastic bags labeled by day. Someday I hope to finish that little book, mostly because of the cost of all those photos. Somehow it is just so much fun during the week to take pictures, but really hard to have the inspiration to finish the project.

Next week, Week in the Life 2012 begins! I decided that this year I am just going to add a couple of extra pages to my project life book. I am not sure how many photos I will take, or how many reciepts/memorabilia I will collect, but it doesn't matter. I will just add a few pages within the week for Project Life. Then I wont have a huge scrapbook to make! Matt will be gone most of the week anyway because he is flying to North Carolina. So it wont be much of a regular week.

Next week I will probably be posting every day with photos of the day. It will be a mix of SLR photos (missed those last year!) and Instagram photos.

It is a super cool project and I am excited!

Shimelle sketch

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I actually scrapbooked a real page! I used Shimelle's sketch for this week, which I really liked. I love using 4x6 photos, and she is makes awesome sketches for those.

I also used my recent studio calico kit. The background papers are two sides of the same sheet of paper. I also used the border stickers and cardstock from the kit. The cards and tags are all very random that I grabbed from my stash. Some are pretty old, which I love! I cut the little house out of a 12x12 piece of paper, so glad to finally use that cute paper from Pink Paislee.

Pattern Paper

Today I sorted pattern paper. I LOVE pattern paper. Its a true love and addiction! These pattern papers that I sorted are all from past Studio Calico kits and they are all WHOLE! I also have a ton of other paper so I was surprised to go through all these kits and find and sort the whole papers from the kits.

Aren't they pretty?
These are the papers of a girl who certainly doesn't need to buy any more scrapbook supplies EVER.

Some of the papers I never used because they are too "special." Some of them I just lost track of or never found the perfect place to use them. I hope that organizing them by color will help me cut into them and use them at last.

After all, beautiful pattern paper is more beautiful in an album than sitting in my lap in a row. (Hmmm...maybe they are equally beautiful!)

Here are the backs in the same order. Interestingly, some of the patterns are still somewhat look like a rainbow.
Thanks for looking! This is the highlight of my day. :)

Scrapbooking Therapy

Yay for scrapbooking as therapy! I recently made a scrapbook page about a day in December when we visited the gingerbread houses downtown. I am pretty sure I posted those pictures on my blog. It was fun to go back and scrapbook fun holiday times!
I thought I would also upload my Project Life pages from a few weeks ago. I am pretty sure these are Week 5:

Highlights include: Awesome valentine graphic from a Starbucks mug, bits and pieces from our date on Wednesday night (includes pink spoon from gelato place...pretty proud of that!), a couple photos from Amy's shower...one of them is a self timed shot that turned out pretty blue but I like it anyway.

I printed several more pictures from our date night, but only put one picture of the coffee into this book. I will have to make a scrapbook page about it sometime.I added a cute little tag to the corner photo...one of Martha Stewart's designs for Staples. Love that stuff! I put my airplane boarding pass in one of the pockets and added a little airplane that I cut out of Amy Tangerine paper.

I have a new love!

I went a couple weeks without spending money. Then I just HAD to purchase these awesome office supplies that I found at Staples! They are made by Martha Stewart. I have already used one of the mini page protectors and the labels in my Project Life.
Its a good thing that I didn't have much time, because I would have purchased WAY more things. I am addicted!

Journal cards, exploding spaghetti squash, eggplant frog in the hole

My pictures from this week are a bit odd...

On Monday night I made spaghetti squash w/ sauce and ground meat and veggies. Still sticking with the Paleo diet! But of course, the squash exploded in the microwave. Matt yells, "grab your camera!"



And Tuesday night I took a photo of those journal cards I told you about. They are not perfect, but they are fun and I love them.



This morning I made a delicious breakfast...Eggplant frog in the hole! It was really easy and really delicious! I have extra eggplant that I can use tomorrow. I got the recipe from "Make it Paleo"



1 egg plant cut into 1 inch strips
Sprinkle a little olive oil and salt
Broil in the oven at 500 degrees, on both sides
Cut a circle in the eggplant
fry it up with an egg and coconut oil. Delicious!