Excited about...

Popping in to share a few things I am excited about right now -

• Our Lachlan turned 5 yesterday! Wow, it seems like an important birthday milestone, right? I know it's going to be an awesome year for him. He loved spending the weekend celebrating with his friends and family and was excited to practice riding his new big guy bike!

• If you follow me on Instagram, you saw my (many) progress pics of making a quilt for Kenley's bed. I had purchased a pattern and fabric months ago, but suddenly got the urge to make it happen a few weeks ago. I love love how it turned out.

• Speaking of that urge to create, I think it has something to do with spring arriving (finally!). Our days are warming up, the daffodils and rhododendrons are blooming in our yard, and it feels like time for some spring cleaning (& purging) and planting!

• My latest project was an Instagram photo frame to hang above our computer desk. I've seen similar displays around the web, and knew it would be easy to recreate. I bought my 24" x 36" frame at Hobby Lobby and stretched wires across the back of the frame and secured them with nails. I also bought mini clothespins at HL and spray painted them white to pull everything together. The 4"x4" photos were printed by Persnickety Prints (love their quality and customer service!).

• My dad shared an app called Paprika with me this weekend. We've both been looking for the perfect app for sharing and cataloging recipes - he assures me this is it! So I'm looking forward to testing it out... so far I love the way it looks and the ability to import recipes smoothly from lots of websites.

• Speaking of new favorite apps - if you have a little person, check out "Petting Zoo" by Christoph Niemann. It is an interactive animation with a collection of hand-drawn animals. Take a look, I think you will love it.

• I won a giveaway! Oh, so excited to spend my gift certificate on some beautiful blocks! If you haven't seen Design Mom's blog, I think it is a must read. The kids and I all love their web series "Olive Us".

• This week I'm trying to clean up my disaster of scrapbooking supplies to get ready for "Layout a Day" in May. I've never been part of this group before and looking forward to the challenge of fitting a little scrapbooking into each day. I'm hoping it will help to make me a more efficient scrapbooker and get some stories down that I've been wanting to record.

Phew! :) 

Good-bye Google Reader, hello Bloglovin'

Well, I'm sad to say goodbye to Google Reader (Google is discontinuing the service in July), but I'm going to give BlogLovin' a try for following my favorite blogs. So, follow me there if you're doing the same!


Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I'm finished with my first 5 weeks of Project Life for 2013! Thought this Flickr slideshow would be a nice way to share here on the blog. I still have 6 more weeks of 2012 to complete before I can send them off to be printed in a book, but I'm determined to stay current with this year!

Torin's quilt

Last weekend I got to meet our new sweet nephew Torin. Isn't he Adorable with a capital A?

I knew as soon as I found out they were expecting that I wanted to make a quilt for baby. I picked out fun and modern fabric from Home Ec Workshop, and made up a pattern that I thought would show off the graphic prints.


The quilt back was made up of my fabric leftovers, and I think it is neat that the back is interesting in addition to the front. 

On each black and white city bit, I embroidered a color around one building or car, just for fun. (Thanks to Bethany for holding the quilt for me)

I also took a few minutes to embroider a signature on the quilt top before I joined all the layers together.

I recently took a class at Home Ec about free motion quilting. Between my new knowledge on that subject, and my new awesome sewing machine, I knew I had to try quilting it myself. I opted for a square-ish design, to match the city prints.
 


I wish my binding had been a bit neater, but other than that I'm super happy with how it turned out. And even happier that I got to see him snuggled up in it before I headed home on Saturday.

2012 year in review

2012 year in review
Originally uploaded by Kirsten W
I wanted to share this here because I just love how it turned out. I'll be using this as the last page in my 2012 Project Life book. The template was designed by Jennifer Hignite and I put it together in Photoshop Elements. It took quite awhile to choose and add the photos, but I had a great time looking through our photos from the past year.

Welcome 2013!

I always feel drawn to blog around the first of the year. Everyone is thinking about goals/resolutions/changes for the new year and I'm no different. Although I have many areas that I'd like to improve in my life, I've decided to focus on one.

Resolution 2013 - Keep the house "guest ready"
Although I have no illusions of keeping a spotless house, especially with my two little people/mess-makers, I would like to have a house that is more tidy, and presentable on a daily basis. I'm thinking of it in terms of how I would feel if a friend decided to drop by on short notice. Would I be embarrased to let them in? A goal for myself is to put things in their place right away, instead of letting them pile up - and also to teach our kiddos to do the same. I think having a cleaner home will make a happier home for all of us.

Of course, I can't resist taking on a few daily projects...

Daily Project #1 - Keeping a daily/monthly journal - I plan to write a little bit of something that happened in each square, or something I'm thankful for, or even a little drawing about the day. Inspired here.

Daily Project #2 - Keeping a dinner journal. I think this is a cool idea (inspired here). Also hoping to do some weekly meal planning.

Weekly Project - digital Project Life 2013. So excited to start a new year with Elise's Seafoam Digital Kit. Also really looking forward to printing 2012 into a 12x12 book (still have to catch up on a few weeks!). I won't be sharing weekly here on the blog. Instead I will continue to update on Flickr. I even started a Flickr group for other scrappers who want to share digital project life inspiration.

Year long project - 2013 project list - I posted a list of projects I wanted to accomplish here last January, but three of the four got pushed down the priority list and were never completed this year. Which is fine. But I decided to write a list in my journal (same one where the monthly journal lives), so that I can add as I start a new project, or note when I finish one (I think I'll just highlight when complete). I'm hoping that by the end of the year it will be a fun record of all the things I made this year.

December Daily

I created a mini-album for our Decembers in 2008, 2010, and 2011, and they are some of my favorite projects to look back on. This year, I'm not sure if I will follow the "daily" format or just fill it with festive photos and memories from the month. I do know that having the base album ready-made makes the documenting so much easier. As I set out to make my album over the weekend, I decided to make three - one for our family, and two to sell at Craft and Fancy.

My supplies came from Studio Calico and Elle's Studio, and a few things from my holiday stash. I stuck with the traditional red and green color scheme, with a few neutrals as well.

The three books are very similar, with all the same background papers and embossed stamp designs. In some places I've used different embellishments when I didn't have three of the same (as pictured above).

I think this is my favorite page. I just love those polaroid cut-outs! I can't wait to pop a little Instagram print behind one!

Here are the back covers. Sparkly snowflakes!

I'm planning on making more 4x6" albums in different themes to bring to Craft and Fancy. I love these because you can easily hole punch 4x6" photos to add between pages. The rings look really big right now, but I know from experience that these get thick quickly as photos are added. They would also work to use as journals for writing memories of the season, even without photos. Let me know if you have any special requests!