Friday Five

1. I love Brandon Uranowitz.  I love his personality and his talent. I even wrote about how much I love him (even though I'm a starstruck weirdo).  He's super talented and I think he's been my favorite discovery of this season.  So I was pretty happy when this video came out this week of him singing his 3 bucket list songs.  His Marriage Proposal is always fabulous, and I've never heard Parade before, so while that was lovely, I wasn't fascinated.  What I adored was his take on the song from Company.  He absolutely nailed it.  I have no idea how he sang it so well and so quickly.  I'd be tongue tied after the first few notes.  Amazing!  (If you just want to see that song, it starts about 2:30)
           

2. This is the best possible news!  I am hooked on Miranda.  It's about the funniest show I've ever seen, and it may have everything to do with the fact Miranda reminds me a lot of me - without the adorable Gary to fall in love with.  I'd love for it to come back.  I'd even take a 15 minute Children in Need special!

3. I don't tend to share a lot of the hometown love.  But this program in conjunction with the Orioles and BARCS, is truly awesome!  Teaching kids to read and promoting animal adoption - what's not to love!?

4. I love scrapbooking freebies - especially when they involve National Donut Day!  Speaking of, Happy National Donut Day.  If you're ever in Maryland and need the best donut ever, head over to the Donut Shack in Severna Park. So yummy!!!

Happy #NationalDonutDay - celebrating with a free donut printable for newsletter subscribers. Sign up to receive it: https://t.co/zeuLe0Pzgc pic.twitter.com/09uOtjnJeS

— Kelly Purkey (@kellypurkey) June 2, 2017

5. I discovered the show The New Normal this week. I mean, I knew about it 5 years ago when it was on, but I finally started to watch it courtesy of iTunes this week and I loved it!  It's sweet and funny and the leads were amazing.  I can't believe it only lasted a season.  Based on the story line and the current times, it would be a perfect fit these days.  If you need something to binge and make you smile, I'd definitely recommend it!

Scrappy Hack

As I'm still living without a computer, I've had to learn to do all sorts of things without it. For the most part, I'm doing ok. Though typing on my screen is becoming super annoying. Anyway, in my need to continue project life in my computer-lessness, I discovered a really cool trick, I thought I'd share.

I've been looking for apps to use in Project Life for a while now, but I couldn't quite find one I liked. The PL app is cool, but I don't really like their designs and there's no way to incorporate your own stuff into the app. And as I've said multiple times, I'm pretty obsessed with In A Creative Bubble so there's no living without her adorable designs in my album. Well, I've finally figured out and I'm really not sure why this took me so long to figure out...

First, email or drop box the jpgs of the journal cards to yourself. Then save them to your iPad or iPhone. Now that they're photos, you can use any app you have for adding text - like FontCandy+ - to journal on the go. Then save it down to your device and print. The best part is that the app always saves the original photo as is so you can reuse journal cards again and again.

It's fairly perfect for scrapping on the go, right? I can't wait to try it on my next trip!

Just a Tiny Bit More Project Life

As I said last night, I had some issues getting good pictures of my spreads for Project Life.  It turns out that tonight was no better.  I have pictures, but they are most definitely not as lovely as I had hoped, so don't judge...

So this is it, so far.  I'm noticing now that I tend to repeat items and embellishments quite a bit, but they're super cute so I'm ok with it.  Some of my favorites are:

In a Creative Bubble Journal cards - I love her style and each time she releases new stock, I must buy at least one set of her super-duper adorable journal cards.

My Emoji journal cards from Studio Calico - I mean, who doesn't love a good emoji?

Hearts - I use heart stickers an embarrasing number of times...

Washi Tape - This stuff is addictive and it doesn't help that Hobby Lobby has it on sale almost every week

Font Candy+: This great app adds text and cool graphics to pictures right from my phone.

Zig Writer: My favorite pen for all my scrapbooking needs.  

 I love this one mostly because this so far has been my favorite thing I've done in 2017 so far.  

 But this layout is my favorite.  Not sure why, probably because it has lots of pink.

Thoughts on Project Life - Two Months Down

For the last 3 years or so, I've been willing myself to complete Project Life.  Every January 1st I have the best of intentions, and then every February 15th or so I let it fall by the wayside where it stays until the following January. It's a whole hellish cycle, that I'd really like to end.  Thankfully, it seems like 2017 is the year to end it.  I don't want to alarm anyone but it's officially March 1 and I'm still up to date on all things Project Life. That's not to say that a new cycle won't begin on March 15.  However, I still enjoy doing it, and I can't seem to stop looking at it, so I'm much more confident this year than most. 

So what's different this year?

First, I went simple.  This is where I screw up usually.  I devise all sorts of templates and plans.  I assume each week must have its own theme, or all pieces of memorabilia and all stories must match each other.  I've now learned that that's not the case.  Simple is your friend.  Whatever I like goes into the album.  Most of the cards I use are white with blank ink from In a Creative Bubble.  I try to jazz them up a bit with some colored ink, or washi tape, but sometimes they're just black and white.  And that's ok.  They still tell the story I want to tell and that's all that matters.  

Next, along the lines of simplicity is your friend is organizing monthly instead of weekly. Weekly is too intimidating.  I feel like you need pics and stories for every single day of every single week.  And honestly, there are days when nothing memorable happens and therefore I have nothing to add to the album.  By organizing monthly, I don't feel that pressure.  There's never a month that goes by when nothing happens.  Some months may be more chock full than others, but the important part is that they all have something in them.  Also, 12 title cards is so much easier to handle than 52 title cards.

Lastly, I don't have to rely too heavily on pictures all the time.  If I take pictures of something memorable, that's fun.  But if I read a book that has a great quote in it, then that gets added too because it's something I want to remember in the future.  Along with pics, in the last 2 months I've added trading cards, quotes, pictures from Seth Meyers Twitter, movie tickets, reviews of shows I've seen and a cancer ribbon.  It's all fun and it looks great! 

So that's where I am right now.  I'm still having fun and I still look forward to editing and printing so I can scrap.  I'm super excited by what I've created and I literally cannot stop looking at it.  Honestly, the reason I'm writing this all tonight - instead of tomorrow when I'll have pictures of the pages - is that I was just looking at it all again, and thinking about how much I love it.  Not perfect by any means but I've finally realized it doesn't have to be.

Scrapping on the Go

Over the years I've read tons of articles of women that have learned to scrapbook on the go. Whether they use apps, or fancy equipment, or just their camera, their albums were super easy and gorgeous.  And I've been totally intrigued by the concept for a while.  I tried it in England, and it didn't go too while.  I had high hopes, but I just couldn't get into the rhythm of it.  

That was of course before I discovered the Pic Tap Go and bought my handy dandy Selphy printer.  Both of these things make scrapping on vacation a breeze.  The process is a fairly easy one - one I sort of just discovered on my own, and one that's probably exactly how the women I've been reading about have been using.  

I take the pictures - which is a pretty important step of course.  Then I edit them using Pic Tap Go (if I haven't said it enough, if you take loads of photos on your phone this is the app for you.  It's so simple to use and makes the shots look so much better than before!)  Then, if they're the 3x4" size, I use PicFrame to combine 2 into a 4x6" size.  Then I use the handy dandy Canon app to print to my Selphy. 

Once I've got my photos, I add a few notes about the pictures, and then embellish with some themed journal cards I've brought with me in my kit. And if I don't have something to fill a space, I leave a note to self so I remember what I want to fill it with when I get home.  The kit isn't anything special.  Just a small plastic container filled with the essentials: scissors, mini paper trimmer, glue, stamp pad, a few stamp sets with block, a few pens, and the cards that match the theme of my trip. Then that's it.  In about an hour today, I had 6 pages complete with all the shots of my trip. Why have I waited this long to learn this?  Such a great concept that I'll definitely be using in the future - of course, I also now have a reason to buy the travel bag for my Selphy now too. Shopping and Scrapping - the best of both worlds!  

Adobe Newbie

After months and months (ok, probably about a year or so) of waffling back and forth on whether or not I was a Photoshop girl, I still haven't decided yet I suppose.  I'm so indecisive!  I got lucky and received Photoshop Elements 12 for Christmas (Thanks buds!) so I suppose it was sort of decided for me. And I spent the day researching all sorts of digital scrapbooking goodies on Project Life, Pinterest, and Etsy. Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get home to install the program and get started.  

Well the program is installed and...and...and...I haven't a clue what the heck I'm doing! I took a few classes on lynda.com a few months ago on Adobe and remember thinking it was intense then, but I assumed I'd remember some tips and tricks so I could at least upload a picture or 2.  Yeah, not so much... The worst part about this is that I have all these nifty free downloads and templates to start playing with and I can't even figure those out.  

Thankfully, DigitalProjectLife.com has anticipated these little intricacies of Adobe, and has provided a link to JessicaSprague.com which not only has classes for Photoshop Elements but also nifty Scrapbooking courses for Wacom tablets - of which I have also no idea how to use. Thank God for technology!

Digital vs. Paper

As a fan of everything book related, I have an undying hate for e-Readers.  There's absolutely no way you will ever get me to switch from beautiful, brand-spanking, itching to be read books to a dinky little tablet.  So you'd think this hate for digital would overflow into other areas as well, say for instance, scrapbooking.  But at this point I'm not so sure.  

I've always stuck to the paper, scissors, and stickers route of scrapping.  That is to say, scrapping in the only really making cards and a few other accessories because scrapbooks stress me out sense.  But in the last few days, I've worked in Shutterfly, Costco and iPhoto and I have to say, there are some definite benefits to the whole digital revolution.

Likes:

Time - I was able to knock out a 60 page book in iPhoto in just a few hours where that same book would have taken me months to finish regularly.  There is something to say about a quick turn around.

Cost - Digital accessories in programs like Shutterfly or Snapfish are much less expensive (i.e. Free!) and endlessly re-usable than stickers or Cricut cartridges.  The books themselves are a little on the high-side though, so you have to be careful when adding additional pages. Plus, the cost of printing out photos or using ink to print them yourself, is virtually eliminated since you're only paying for the photos in the books you're creating which is covered in the overall price.

Look - In the end, when all pictures and accessories have been added, the final product looks a whole lot more professional than anything I could have done.  However, there are some serious scrappers out there that could scrap circles around these programs.

Dislikes:

Accessories - Stickers and Cricut cartridges are just more fun to browse at the Michael's or AC Moore than clicking on a digital element in Shutterfly.  And hoarding them is so much more satisfying.

Software and Hardware - To use all the great elements you see as free printables all over the web, you need a program like Photoshop to create in, which is a bit expensive and has a steep learning curve.  If you're planning to stick to Shutterfly or Snapfish or iPhoto, you have to be content with the elements they have and how each of these elements work.  It's frustrating not being able to make certain things work the way you want them to.  Never really a problem in paper crafting.

Thrill of Creativity - Let's be honest, one reason we all love to make things is showing those things off to our friends to make them jealous.  A digital album just doesn't have the same affect as a beautifully created handmade with love album you've slaved over for the last few months.

So I suppose, in the end it's a toss-up.  I like the idea of digital for quick, down and dirty albums, like Project Life.  I personally think Project Life would send me over the edge even in digital, but I can see where it would be a thousand times simpler in a program like Shutterfly.  But for the big stuff, you just can't beat some super cute Cricut die-cuts and some awesome stickers.  There's something about being "retro" that wins out every time!

Crafty Tech

So I received this for Christmas and finally got a chance to set it up today. Since I'm on a creativity kick for the new year, I thought it would be just the thing to finally help decipher digital scrapbooking.  I haven't decoded all the bells and whistles yet but I have to say I quite like it.  The kit came with Art Rage software that I've not installed yet, therefore I really haven't seen all it can do.  But so far I was able to take notes in a specially designed notebook (by me!), and draw silly accents on a photo and play some game with squares and circles that I'm still not sure I understand but on which I was able to do particularly well.

After some trials and tribulations, I've even gotten the hang of the pen-y thing.  I'm not sure I'll be able to use it as a mouse like some people do, but it works in a pinch (especially if you read the tutorial first...learned that the hard way).  Now I'm all aflutter to get into all the really nifty artsy craftsy stuff.  I must admit I'm not an artist but I'm sure I'll be able to draw some easy little embellishments and liven up some photos.  The feature I'm most excited about is using handwriting.  I've always wanted to create super awesome amazing crafty things like this to use in frames or scrapbooks but have never figured out how.  Now that I have this tool, I'm thinking my scrapbooking fun may finally take off.  That is once I get a printer to actually print my masterpieces...