This is a BIG update. I finally was able to edit the last month of photos and ordered 5 weeks’ worth all within a few days.

Love that I can easily record the stories of a full month. Love that I’m almost done with documenting 2012! More memory-keeping in the last 9 months than I’ve done in the previous 4 years!

Excited to FINISH this year and go on to 2013!

These are my Project Life spreads from November (October 29 – December 2) …. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

I experimented with cropping down the images more specifically to the edges of the layouts. It’s slightly more work, but it looks a lot cleaner in these posts. I think I’ll continue this for next year ….

Week 31 : October 29 – November 4

Halloween and a trip to AZ for a wedding. Obviously needs an insert.

Left side:

I “borrowed” some Halloween photos from Facebook friends. We didn’t dress up, and we didn’t really get many trick or treaters … but seeing all my friends’ kids in their costumes was pretty fun.

Andrew had a recording session mid-week and I got my refurbished computer this week! SO exciting! My first new computer in over 5 years!

Right side:

My office was in the process of moving – so I spent part of this week packing paperwork and another part carting home these new-to-me wingback arm chairs. Full story here. I’m quite excited about these chairs.

The rest of this side is Phoenix. We did a really quick trip out there for the weekend to attend my friends wedding. These are just a couple of the photos I took of the wedding (full gallery here). More in the insert.

While in AZ we saw my brother (who also came down for the wedding) and stopped by to see our friend Mat and his family at their new house on our way out of town. His little boy was almost 2 at the time and the cutest little red-head ever.

Insert front:

All the images used in the insert are from the official wedding photographer – Pinkerton Photography. I included some journaling on the front about the bride and groom’s relationship. They really have a sweet love story and their wedding ceremony was full of it. Very personal. Lots of happy tears.

Back or the insert:

Miranda’s – the bride – parents have been friends with my parents since the late 70s. Before I was born. Miranda’s older brother is my age, Miranda is my brother’s age and we’ve known each other our whole lives.

That’s why I included the middle photo here – Miranda with her 2 brothers. I seriously love this family and this photo of the 3 of them laughing is so very emblematic of how I think of them.

The last photo on the back here is of me and Miranda. During the ‘dollar dance’ … basically the only time I got to talk to her the whole night (understandably so).

Inside the 2 sides of the insert is a pocket that holds this:

2 copies of their wedding invitation. 2 copies of their wedding program. And a copy of their wedding CD that they gave as a favor to guests.

Week 32 : November 5 – 11

Our 7th wedding anniversary and a presidential election. Obviously needs an insert.

Left side:

Anniversary! We both worked – but we had our morning together and drank coffee out of our wedding mugs (that we gave as favors to guests 7 years ago)

Also included – anniversary well wishes on Facebook (my friend Kim got married the year before us, same day so we always remember each other’s anniversaries.

I saved my ‘I voted’ sticker and included that on a journaling card – as well as got a shot of my polling place for the election. Apparently it’s strange that my polling place is in someone’s garage. Totally normal for this town, though.

Right side:

Super low-key weekend. Andrew was off work and just hung out at home with the cats.

The photos on the bottom right are some of my recent favorites. Khaleesi somehow got herself situated so she was SITTING in the chair next to me. With her paws in her lap.

I felt like it must feel to be on Sesame Street and have a small puppet next to you.

She cracks me up

Insert front side:

I was at work when the election results started coming in – and I don’t have internet access at work except Yahoo! News. So I just sat at my desk refreshing and refreshing and refreshing until networks started to call the election around 815p PT that night.

While I was nervously waiting, I journaled a little bit about it. More personal (and definitely more political) than I usually get here, but basically how I spent my evening.

The image at the bottom of this side is just something I found somewhere online a couple days after the election. Interesting to see the electoral votes weighted like this.

Insert backside:

My Twitter feed just LIT UP with election commentary. These images are screenshots from my *favorites* column on my Tweetdeck.

I just favorited the tweets I knew I wanted to use, took the screenshots, and then unfavorited them.

Just a fun little cultural time capsule.

Week 33 : November 12 – 18

Work work work.

Left side:

Andrew has been spending a lot of time mixing at home.

I included one of the first versions of my new site design by Kara.

And Andrew got a copy of Dwight Yoakam’s new record – that includes an engineering credit for Andrew! He gets audio engineering credits pretty regularly, but he’s excited about this one.

Right side:

Andrew’s grandma landed herself in the hospital this week – she crashed her new scooter and fractured her arm. SUPER sad.

Also this weekend, we had dinner guests. Which we don’t usually have because of our schedules. Andrew made the pot roast (under my instruction) and we broke out the tablecloth and matching dishes.

And while our guests were here – when we were sitting around the table talking – Khaleesi jumped into my lap, flipped herself over, and fell asleep upside down with her head hanging off my knees. True story. Weirdo.

Week 34 : November 19 – 25

Thanksgiving! And requisite trip to Arizona.

Left side:

Really Monday – Wednesday of this week was pretty uneventful. Which is why Thursday starts on the left side of this week’s layout.

We left early (early early) in the morning in order to get to Phoenix in time for a mid-afternoon Thanksgiving dinner with my mom’s extended family. I don’t know exactly how warm it was but we ate dinner outside.

Right side:

Friday night my parents hosted Thanksgiving dinner for my dad’s extended family – and I got to meet my cousin’s baby. He was having a bit of a hard time with so many (loud) people, though, and was a bit fussy all night.

We left Phoenix Saturday morning to come back home (Andrew had some recording sessions) and I had a slow day at home with the cats.

Week 35 : November 26 – December 2

Last week of November, first of the Christmas movies!

Left side:

Big highlight was hosting  a chat to help promote the Project Dig Deep ebook. I included a screenshot of the first part of the transcript.

Andrew also started decorating his studio (where he works) for Christmas! Fun part of his job

And we tried to keep the cats from jumping on the kitchen counter by covering it with sticky-side-up tape. Not sure it worked.

Right side:

Finalized the design for my site on Sunday! Included a screenshot of the final OK’d version!

Also this week: Andrew took some new headshots for my new site … and spent another good chunk of time mixing.

And I watched the first Christmas movie of the season: White Christmas. One of my favorite favorites.

Aaaaaand … That closes November! Amazing to see a whole month almost at a glance like this!

And I’ve already started on December!

Supplies used this month:

• Black Project Life Signature Binder
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Variety Pack 2 (60 Pages) – Design A only used
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• magic stamp from Elise Blaha Cripe
• washi tape from Freckled Fawn
• white 4×6 index cards

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

*censored pockets are of things that either too personal or too day-job specific to be shared on the internet

YES! Catching up! Slowly, but still.

SO many photos to edit. Especially now with December Daily too! So I’ve got these 3 spreads done, plus most of another, plus the photos ordered for the next 2 weeks after that. Slowly but surely.

And I am loving it.

My sister-in-law came by over the weekend, and she got to page through the most recent weeks, asking questions about things that she saw.

I love having these books. Right now I can’t picture ever going back to scrapbooking.

These are my Project Life spreads from the bulk of October (Oct 8 – 28) …. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

Week 28: October 8 – 14:

Somehow there are slightly more embellishments this week than usual.

I think that’s because this week is ALL iPhone photos. And some of those are Instagram-cropped into squares, so I had more room to play with than usual.

This is the week that I lost when my harddrive died – so thank goodness for our phones, without which we wouldn’t have any of these photos.

And thank goodness for Andrew who takes photos and emails them to me.

Left side:

I actually stayed home sick from work on Tuesday this week. But, of course nothing much happens those days.

The bottom left image is one of Andrew’s test record for an upcoming release. He did the journaling about it! Also this side you can see he finished building and installing our window screens for around the house (I just asked that they be done before the weather cooled down).

Right side:

Kitten photos. Obviously. But also this collage of photos of piles. Andrew realized that we’ve just left piles of things all over the house (my books, his CDS for example). Love about this: Left side photo me buying new shoes. Right side photos of Fang stuffing herself into the shoe box. Love that little monster.

Week 29: October 15-21:

Middle of October.Most of these photos are from the weekend.

Left side:

I do have to say that the 2 cat photos – Khaleesi on my legs and me and Khaleesi looking at the camera – are 2 of my favorite kitten photos recently.

I love Project Life for giving me a reason to take – and record – photos like this top one of our guest room organization in progress. You can see the lamp in the middle of the room and the air mattress leaned up against the wall.

Andrew had a couple recording sessions and went to a concert this week – I think he really likes having these records of the concerts in particular. When we first met he kept a little running list of all the concerts he attended.

Right side:

One of my prints from my first roll of Oktomat film.

Most of the rest of this side is our weekend with friends Christian and Avalon. They live in San Francisco, so we only see them once or twice a year. Seriously love them. We played cards on Saturday night and went out Sunday afternoon to see more friends. They’re those kind of friends that are super easy to hang out any time – no matter how long it has been since we’ve ween each other.

(These are photos I thought I had lost – but found the memory card with the pictures still on it!)

Week 30: October 22-28:

Last full week of October. Big news this week is my harddrive died and then Andrew went out of town for the weekend.

Left side:

Khaleesi made friends with our guests – that’s her relaxing in Christian’s arms on Monday morning.

Mostly cat photos this week. I can’t help it. It’s either that or screenshots of my computer – blogging, writing, editing photos.

There is (at the bottom) a little iPhone photo from the Apple store when they tried (and failed) to save my harddrive.

Right side:

Mostly photos and Andrew’s journaling from his weekend trip. He attended an industry tradeshow – AES – with his work guys. The left Friday, came back Sunday and packed a lot of networking and socializing and audio industry stuff into just a couple days.

I was at home – changing our bed sheets over to flannel for the winter and working on Andrew’s computer that he left with me. Bless his heart.

But he came home Sunday afternoon and we got to take a family photo   Even though Fang was trying to escape.

Andrew – also – did a bit of journaling for his AES trip for Project Life. ‘Cause he’s the best. He also brought me home that FANG business card. They ate at that restaurant one of the nights in San Fran, and since it’s our cat’s name he couldn’t resist. I just adhered it to the corner of Andrew’s self-portrait and trimmed it down to fit in the pocket.

My 2012 Project Life album is getting lovely and thorough!

I’ve started thinking about what, if anything, I’m going to do differently in 2013. I *think* I’m going to get the Seafoam kit. I am thinking about changing up the weekly design elements. I also re-did my 2012 title page that I’ll show you soon.

If you’re doing Project Life next year do you have any suggestions?

Supplies in these 3 weeks:

• Black Project Life Signature Binder
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Variety Pack 2 (60 Pages) – Design A only used
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• HIS and HER stamps from Elise Blaha Cripe
• washi tape from Freckled Fawn
• white 4×6 index cards

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

*censored pockets are of things that either too personal or too day-job specific to be shared on the internet

The Project Dig Deep book launch continues!

At 11a PT this morning you can chat with Megan of The Nerd Nest – and Friday night you can chat with Annette Haring

My chat was Monday morning (so fun! Thanks everyone for joining me!) and my chat highlights are here – you’ll need to be signed in to the Project Life Community classroom.

My chat transcript is here

Reminder, through tomorrow you get $3 off of the Project Dig Deep ebook.

Save $3! Introductory price of $6.99 ends November 30. Regularly $9.99.

Buy Project Dig Deep here

AND! Finally, as promised, I get to give away a copy of the Project Dig Deep ebook!

Randomly selected giveaway winner is:

MARY from Vintage Patina – I’ll send you an email re: your prize

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

Catching up, y’all.

Even though my harddrive died and I lost *some* photos, I actually FOUND some of the photos I thought I had lost (on an not-yet-cleared memory card) and between that and mine/Andrew’s iPhoto photos I actually do have enough photos for full 2-pg spreads for the weeks in the middle of October.

So all that to say I recently ordered 3 weeks’ worth of photos with more to come.

Loving that Project Life is the perfect place for random stories like the fact that we grind 3+ bags of coffee beans every month

Week 27 : Oct 1 – Oct 7:

Left side:

Little stories: Like grinding coffee, hot SoCal weather in October, Fort Fang, and the random stuff on my desk at work

Right side:

Seeing our nephew! Cutie pie – he’s sitting up (like a tripod, supporting himself on his arms) and laughing at the baby in the mirror!

We also started our scary movies in earnest this week – including Halloween Netflix packaging and Walking Dead Season 2 marathon over the weekend.

Slow week, but totally emblematic of our happy life….

Supplies:

• Black Project Life Signature Binder
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Variety Pack 2 (60 Pages) – Design A only used
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• white 4×6 index cards

ALSO: I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! It’s all about using the Project Life structure to dig a little deeper into your stories. Check out more details including a preview here!

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.

Still plugging along with Project Life. Although – I may need to skip a couple weeks due to losing photos. We’ll see. Andrew may have taken enough iPhone photos to make up for it.

I’ve started planning for Project Life 2013 – even getting the binder (red) and pages (same Design A) so I can start right away.

These is my Project Life spread for the end of September (Sept 24 – Sept 30) …. My weeks run Monday to Sunday – which I love, because they keep the weekends together in a chunk. So the images are *roughly* arranged from Monday on the left to Sunday on the right.

(if you’d like to see the images larger, you should be able to click through to view them on Flickr)

Week 26: September 24 – September 30

This particular week we had a very busy weekend planned, so I had already tentatively intended to include a small insert. Because of that, I felt like I could include other not-earth-shattering images on the first part of the layout. The last half was FULL! And it was so fun!

including insert:

and the full spread again with the insert turned to the other side:

LEFT SIDE:

Since I knew our weekend would be busy, the left side of the spread is basically most of the rest of the week – errands to the DMV and the library. Small around-the-house projects and a simple photo of what I see out the kitchen window.

Oh! And Andrew got an audio credit on the new Green Day album

RIGHT SIDE:

I added just a couple shots of me. Since I usually get so few. Andrew had taken a couple cell phone photos of my on Saturday, and we took one self-portrait together. These just add to the story that I included in the insert.

The right side is mostly about our trip on this Sunday to the Pantages theater in Hollywood to see The Book of Mormon. We weren’t allowed photos during the show, but for something like this it’s not difficult to do a quick google search to find the high-res promotion photos the company provides. I have no qualms whatsoever about using those.

The one smaller photo from the show, I added song lyrics directly onto it. With one of our tickets in the pocket next to it.

The images along the bottom row of the page are ones I took: a self-portrait of Andrew and I, outside the theater, and a quick cell phone shot inside the theater before the show started.

insert (front):

As I’ve mentioned, I am committed to ONLY doing 1 6×12 insert per week in the cases when an insert is needed. In this case, I simply printed a few extra 4×6 photos, adhered them to some 6×12 paper and dropped them in with some journaling.

This insert is literally JUST Saturday afternoon. We had a BUSY Saturday. Andrew’s cousin asked us to come up to Santa Barbara for the afternoon and he hired me to take engagement photos.

I have this long-term goal of visiting all the California Missions with Andrew during our lifetime, so we went a little early and stopped by the Santa Barbara mission.

Will be blogging the fuller story over at Those Crazy Schuberts this week. We arrived just as a wedding was finishing (big group of people in the top photo), and had time to pay our $5 to take the “tour”. Which basically means we were allowed to walk through the mission, around the center courtyard, through the cemetery, into the chapel itself and through a small museum. Clearly over-priced but this is the kind of thing I never mind spending money on.

Insert back side:

One the back of the insert are some of the engagement photos I took of Chris and Kahla. They are both so good looking this was pretty easy We spent a few hours driving around town going to a few different locations, and then the four of us went to dinner. Technically it was a working Saturday, but as I mentioned, Chris is Andrew’s cousin so hanging out with them on a day off is something we don’t really consider work.

(sidenote: If you need a portrait session, hit me up)

You might be able to tell, but the insert is a little fat. I actually used 2 different pieces of paper for the outside part and in the pocket in between included our Book of Mormon program and a couple of the little pamphlets we got at the Mission! Perfect place to keep those since I will likely not make ‘proper’ scrapbook pages of the 2 events.

I’m really happy with how this spread turned out and how I fit everything in!

P.S. I have recently contributed to a Big Picture Classes ebook about Project Life! I believe it comes out next week! More info once it’s released or you can check out a little preview here.

Supplies:

• Black Project Life Signature Binder
• Photo Pocket Pages – Big Variety Pack 2 (60 Pages) – Design A only used
• Photo Pocket Pages — 6×12 insert
• 100 Journaling Cards – 3″ x 4″ with Grid Design
• assorted cardstock from my scrap pile
• white 4×6 index cards

If you have questions about HOW I put these together, you can check out my recent posts on the process with supplies, the process with journaling, the process with photos and the process with design.

Project Life, created by Becky Higgins, is a flexible, easy-to-use, highly customizable way to preserve your memories and record your stories in an easy way. Learn more about getting started with Project Life or check out all my Project Life posts.