crafty mum in changing places

Project life goes on

You remember the start of my project life last year? I wasn't that consistent like all the other thousands or so who did it. But I did weeks from time to time and I am trying to fill in the gaps whilst working on my new project life for this year.

This was the starting point last year: 

And these are the new spreads for the past week:

I started with the latest Studio Calico kit I got to not make it too complicated for me to chose the colours. I found out it is easier for me to limit the choice of paper and ephemera when starting a project because otherwise I have too much choice and I am overwhelmed. (I also prefer restaurants with a very small menue with limited choices ...). I subcribed to the Studio Calico project life kit but it hasn't arrived yet. It takes a bit longer from New Zealand to South korea I think... 

I have been accumulating again things over the week in a little container and everybody could throw in some ephemera. 

I tried this time to include more receipts and packaging because this is so reflecting the everyday life. And because we have been moving countries a lot it is so nice to see all the different receipts in other currencies and also the packaging and writing.

I still have a problem with journaling. I am journaling but still not happy with doing it in the half open of an album. I could do it on this blog but not in my handwriting. That seems more intimate and I know that a lot of people are struggling with their handwriting on their pages.

I also inserted much smaller page protectors to host the exhibition leaflet. I normally keep them but they get lost behind one of these craftroom doors so I better now include them where they belong and I might later be happy to see and grab them when I flip through the pages again.

I did myself a favour and bought these adorable muji baking supplies: the tiny houses. They were on my wishlidt and I am happy to have found them now in one of our muji shops over here.

Last year I had this sweet little calendar with the cameras on it. But instead of putting it on my desk I now include the pages here and got a bigger version for my wall.

I am happy how the first week came out. It would have been so much better with more planning or following the creative jump start advices or the help from the Studio Calico subscription but that would have maybe also prolonged the process or even killed the project. What I learned from last year is: get the pages done. it will look lovely in the end when it is all together and one year is finished.

That said I will be more patient with me when doing the project. I already accumulated a lot (too much?) for this week but I am determined to get this project going because it makes me really happy and I love seeing the children looking at the pages from time to time. 

And because I am also trying to finish the missing pages for last year I will try to show you the current and the old one together whenever it is finished.

See you then

Yvonne

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French Friday (even on a Saturday...)

Dear readers and friends of Paris, the last week I gathered some more things to share about Paris and the preparation for our trip this summer: books, links and paper goods. 

I've been looking for some Paris related books around the house and made two stashes to share with you:

I have to admit there were originally two staples but you know me:

1. It was too high and I could not take a nice picture. and
2. The colours were too mixeds so I had to make two out of the one...

The outcome was quite heterogenous in subject (apart from the Paris theme) as you can see.

But there is also some prevalent theme there: Paris and the Lost Generation. And when I picked up the worn out and yellowed copy of Ernest hemingway's "Paris - A  Movable Feast", I opened the book knowing I had it for so many years know and also knowing I would find a date in ther: When I was a teenager, I started noting the year and the location I read (and reread) it somewhere on the first pages:

So it was 1983 then - I turned 16 and came back from Paris for the first time. I loved learning French at school but I did not like Hemingway's writing. But because the book was about Paris I had to buy it. I read it in one sitting and loved it. I found out about "Shakespeare and Company" and Sylvia Beach and also that so many writers and artists formed a circle back then in Paris (Including F.Scott Fitzgerald  whom I loved reading as a teenager). So it was totally exiting for me. 

It was then back in 1989 when I studied Literature at University after my apprenticeship at a Newspaper when I reread it and dug deeper into the subject and included Gertrude Stein, Djuna Barnes and so many more to my reading list. And I never really got tired of them!

I will reread A Moveable Feast (and add another date and location to the book - reviving this tradition I once started and gave up for whatever reason) and I am already rereading Gertrude Stein's "The Authobiography of Alice B. Toklas" on my Kindle when I am out in a Cafe or waiting for the children at school.

I will leave you here with the book theme but will come back to it in some of the following posts. Tonight I will watch "Surviving Picasso" again because Markus hasn't seen it back then.

 

But now to one of my favorite topics: Paper ( or shall I say Papeterie?)

I got this lovely weekly scheduler at a bookshop here In Seoul. I won't use it as a scheduler that much but I love the papes and Photos. So the children will be using it for their Paris diary this summer and we will continuosly using some of the pages in our crafting and also in the project life album.

I really canot wait to get my hands on them and use them!

And here is more beauty made in Korea:

A set of mini postcards in a metal tin. 

Can you imagine what to with all these cute things? Writing letters, packing presents, scrapbooking etc....

And just in case you might want to know about the must have ingredients for a Parisian cafe, then hop over to this blog post  and have a look! I The cafe is located in one of my favorite streets of Paris: rue Vielle du Temple. 

And how about you? Are you a Paris lover? Have you been there? Are you dreaming of going there? 

I'd love to hear about it!

Enjoy the week end!

Yvonne (written the French way - bien sur!)

 

 

Little helpers on the journey

Hello there dear followers! Today I'd love to introduce to you some of my little helpers on my journey. Or should I better say secret weapons? 

Some of you asked me about how to manage three children and en ever moving household and stay sane or how I am taking some of my pictures and the like. So here are some links to people and Apps and homepages that help me on a daily basis.

I am a follower of these blogs that help me during my everyday struggle, journey, path through life:

• simple mom
• The Happiness Project
• Zen habits
• Be more with less
• Fly Lady

To record the daily happenings for later use in my project life or to remember when scrapbooking or editing photos on the computer I have been using this smart app called Day One recently:

The good thing about it is that you can set reminders throughout the day and it will just signal you from time to time that it is time to write in your journal. That is such a good thing because we know: we have all these plans but during the hassle of the everyday we tend to forget!

You can also perfectly print them out (I take a screenshot now and then) and add them to my journaling for the ongoing Project Life Album.

To help me get fit and reach my goals concerning better health and moving more I also have some helpers on the list:

• NTC Nike Training Club: This is perfect for me because I am sort of a loner and not a person who likes going to a gym. With this one I can be totally flexible and use the training intervalls whenever I have time.

This is such a great App and I love that the workout is shown in photos and you can see how much you accomplished already plus you can add your own music from your iTunes playlists.

• move more eat well with Cathy Zielske: I can combine training and healthier eating habits with scrapbooking. Who would have thought that even exists!?

An then there are the Photograpy Apps that help me a lot:

Isn't it amazing what you can do with photos without an expensive camera and equipment or enormous photography skills?

So this is part of what me keeps going every day - netwise. I did not mention any of these great blogs where I get endless inspiration about food, travel, interior decoration and life. You are following them anyhow and that could easily get redundant if I would also start it. This should be purely every day life "gear" apart from the decorative interior design world. And I did not mention books and people you can actually touch and feel - this will be another post. I just let you go here so you can explore for yourself and find out if any of them could be useful for you as well. And I maybe have forgotten some or will encounter more useful ones. I will keep track and tell you later - promised. One good thing about posting something here is also public accountability, isn't it? It helps me a lot not to get sidetracked all the time - which is so easy in the www....

See you later! Yvonne

 

 

Project Life: Week one to three

Some of you might remember that I started "A page a day" last year in January. I had the idea of daily scrapbooking and filling pages with photos and journaling (EVERY DAY!) in a chosen colour scheme. The outcome: A finished journal for January, a half finished one for February and 10 more boxes filled with colour coordinated precut pages and ephemera in lovely colours like you can see in this basket here. So of course I was disappointed. I had so much energy in January but a page a day was simply too much! So I am now trying the new challenge of Project Life. I don't have Becky Higgins' paper at hand but I am using all my nicely precut pages from last year plus some new paper. I would love to have the page protectors but unfortunately they ship not internationally. This is such a pity! So I am using the rest of my stash of page protectors in 12x12 and add some smaller ones in between, because they are more easily available here. So if anybody could help me getting them, I would be glad. (I could order and pay them via Amazon and have them sent to US-address and then somebody could ship them to me here and I would forward per Paypal the amount for the shipping .) Other than that I have no idea how to get them because I have already tested all sources I know and they simply won't ship to Korea or Germany...

So these are the first three weeks:

Week one:

The sun was shining through the window so I chose Yellow as a starter. Yellow always brings the sun right into a page!

As you can see the page is only divided by 5 what makes it very easy to use some of your favorite paper and have large photos printed out but it does not go well with journaling for me!

So I put a normal 8 to 10 page in between to hold all the small items and paper I collected over the week.

I like that it adds a bit of layering to the book. 

I really have a problem journaling by hand. I think I will add a bit of journaling the Cathy Zielske way with journaling in pretty fonts. But for now I wanted the pages to be ready and NOT go back to the computer to fumble around with font sizes and probably finding more inspiration that would glue me to the screen instead of getting my job done here in the craftroom (you know what I mean!).

Another problem of mine is: pictures of me. I don't like to have them taken and it is not easy for me to take one myself. I started a series of myself driving around in the car. Maybe I will insert some like this or take pictures of parts of me doing things. I will have to work on that, too!

Week two:

Sometimes the pictures themself set the colour for the page like the children here:

I like the iPhone-inserts with the weather forecast for the week. These are daily things one uses to forget. And I wonder how we will think about this feature on the phone in ten year's time...

Week three: 

Sometimes I want to insert a photo but the colours would totally crash the concept. I discovered via some project life veterans that they simply alter the photo to Black and White - how easy is that!

Well, with this shop visit it had to be all Pink, even though Pauline does not like the colour very much...

This really was a lot of fun. I am not happy with everything I did here but the sum of it will be so much more than the single page. I am so looking forward to the next weeks to come!

Have  a wonderful start into the week!

Yvonne