Anniversary Album - a recap of 10 years

(Anniversary album cover)

After posting about my "delinquent" years for my anniversary album, I got numerous questions about it so I thought I would do a full recap here. I have never shared anything from this album -no reason in particular, probably just cause I started it in 2004 which was long before I ever posted pages online.

Background - when Jarad and I got married we had nothing, I mean, really less than nothing, so an anniversary present on year #1 was kinda out of the question. I decided to make an album as my gift since I already had scrapbook supplies - and if I recall correctly, I think my mother probably purchased the album for me and the paper too. To start off, I made a title page with our new shared last name and then a page that was a year in review kind of theme. (Note: to date the entire album has used Basic Grey products.)

Brace yourself here are years 1 -7:

I keep all of our anniversary cards in between the pages

I was about three years behind on my anniversary album and in keeping with my finishing up projects plan, I decided to just sit down and start working on picking pictures - those pages weren't going to make themselves! Then I pulled out my basic grey stash and started to work on picking out papers and setting myself up to work on these pages. I took about two weeks from start to finish since I had very little time in my scraproom - but I am happy to report the last three years are complete and in the album. Here they are:

The pictures are a little wonky as I had to retake them numerous times to get them to upload with the correct orientation in blogger. Apparently, blogger does not like photos taken from directly above which, or course, is the best way to photograph a layout!

Scrapbook Binge

Been having a blast getting back in the hang of scrapping since the building is finally open and I have been able to catch up on some projects both at work and home. It was killing me to have untouched kits laying around. Here is the latest from the last couple weeks - will do another post on the Cocoa Daisy Open House Crop soon as that includes some more of what I have been doing recently.

And in between all of this I have been working on the Anniversary Album catch up - three years behind (separate post) and random projects that need a little something - like journaling or just some time to marinate.

First up - made with the May Cocoa Daisy Kit (well, the gold letter stickers are from May and the gray ones are from March) This is what I had left of that lovely Crate Paper sheet after I made this layout.

Here we go to a page made with the December Cocoa Daisy kit - It has been sitting around half finished forever - I just couldn't make it work, so I set it aside for some time and when I came back to it, it fell into place!

So, apparently, I really like that diagonal stripe as a frame . . . another December kit failure for 2013 but a win for 2014. This is my favorite photo from my mother's 70th party we threw for her. What a fun day!

And back to June of 2014 - this one was fast. The butterflies in Elsie's nightgown made it all work. I cut the striped border off the pennant and matted it in aqua since those bold stripes clashed but I like the sentiment.  

And reaching back to November 2013 - a Thanksgiving page - how appropriate. Another that just didn't work and then got buried with paper and sat until I decided to get all these unfinished projects done - they were blocking my mojo!

So that was my binge for the last week or so - super excited.  I even went to Michael's today and finally bought an album for the 2014 pages I have been making - progress. Now back to Project Life!

And to recap - that brings the counts to:

May kit layout count - 7

June kit layout count - 3

More with May and June

Here is the progress from my photo printing session yesterday.  Lots accomplished with a mix of the May and June Cocoa Daisy kits.  I am gonna kill those kits yet!  

Love it when a page comes together the same day or the day after an event - it is fun to get it down right then and there. Plus there is a little part of me that thinks - I am caught up - not that anyone ever is and, honestly, I don't want to be - that's too much pressure.  Also, I am going to submit this page for the stash busters challenge at Cocoa Daisy - this is for the first prompt to use stars on a layout.

This page has been sitting around half done for a while now.  Finally got the journaling done and added just a few touches - washi and the dots and stickers.  It has been feeling a little bare for a while and now feels more finished.  Love the contrast of the first and last days of school on this page.  I saw this idea on a layout in a gallery somewhere and I am super excited I remembered to take the photo that morning (even though we were pushing it to get to school on time) so this layout could happen.  

And finally, this layout, also prompted by that challenge going on at Cocoa Daisy. This one was to do a layout about yourself. I had taken this fun selfie a while ago and had played around with the black and white when I had posted it to Instagram.  I decided to use it and have included some hidden journaling about my love of vintage hats and my frequency at funerals due to my job as a development director with many older donors.

Ok - off to see what else I can pull of tonight and then to see what I can get lined up for this week.

May kit layout count - 6

June kit layout count - 2

May and June at the same time . . .

What can I say, I am a natural multitasker - so when I completely missed working with the May kit, I decided to work on them together, cause, why not?  Here are two layouts made with the May Cocoa Daisy kit.

The patterned paper is Cocoa Daisy exclusive, the doily was from my stash and the tag is a really old My Mind's Eye piece (lovely day) that I have been trying to use forever and was finally successful.  Been trying to put the embellishments that I get with the kits on the pages - I tend to lean toward cleaner pages and have to work hard to add the little bits.  I love the look on other designers work, but struggle sometimes to make it look the way I want on my own.

I have a red problem, so this page makes me super happy plus it includes a rare pic of my mom and brother and me which is another reason for me to like this page.  Experimented with the vignette tool in Picasa and I like the way it works with the black in Howard's shirt and really pulls the focus to the three of us vs. the random background stuff.

And here is what I managed to get printed today for the next round of scrapping this evening and tomorrow.  that should add up to four projects. I am working on figuring out ways to batch things to help not feel so distracted between the scrap table and the computer.  The screen can be a black hole . . .  

I've been on the computer for a while working on two years of Girl Scout photos and mother's trip to Germany - Snapfish has a sale 25% off on orders today so I went for it.  Scout project is ordered - mother's is still in progress.

Then, back to Project Life and anticipating my July Cocoa Daisy kit by weeks end.  Too bad we are going out of town this weekend and I will miss playing with it, but I am looking forward to the time away.  Plus trips to the farm always make for great photos with which to play!

Getting Back to the Scraproom

Feels good to be getting back to the scraproom this week - I have been occupied with summer and work and the building opening and then was just plain tired.  I did do a complete project life binge a few weeks back - caught up on about 8 weeks in one weekend - which feels amazing!  And now I have finally given some attention to my May and June Cocoa Daisy Kits that have been just sitting on my desk for weeks.  

Here is the May Kit - love all of the red and pinks:

Here is the June kit which I hadn't touched till Monday night:

So far I have been able to make three pages with May and two with June.  I have been under the weather a little with allergies and then just plain tired or lacking my mojo for crafting.  I have somehow managed to get it back and was able to create two pages both nights so far this week.  Here are the first two (need to photograph the two from last night still).  

Love the irony of the turtle stamp for this layout - no hurry! The splat stickers also worked perfectly and I had fun with the hashtag since the mudrun this year wasn't very muddy and they complained about not getting dirty enough.

I struggled some on this one with placement, but I finally just committed and gave up moving things around. It seems to have worked out ok - just need to do the journaling, but that is hard for me when the TV is on and three people are constantly trying to talk to me, so I just figured I would wait till a quieter time.  Hope that isn't next year. . . 

I don't know about you, but I feel like I make the most progress when I have photos already printed out.  I need to map out some time to print a few things and then have them waiting when the kits arrive.  I am less concerned these days with the photo actually matching the paper, but I must admit I held onto these two photos cause I new the kit coming in the mail had a lot of black accents. 

Ok - will post the other two shortly and then I have to finish up one I started a while ago which I am kind of excited about - it has one photo from the first day of school and one from the last day. Fun to see the difference.