When preparing for a crop, I prefer to bring projects that don’t require a lot of thinking. I can NOT journal in company. Just having people around thinking is too loud for me.

For the crop two weekends ago, I brought Project Life pages with me to assemble, thinking that they would be easy to do while chatting. So not true.

Project Life was intended to make scrapbooking simple. It really doesn’t work that way for me. The simple arranging of photographs and choosing of journaling cards takes much longer than creating a page. Although, PL does allow me to cover more volume quickly than if I were to make a page for every story covered in my PL album.

But then again, I will probably use these photos again to tell variations on these stories, because I’m crazy like that. Who said you can’t repeat yourself? I apparently plan on doing that!

Heh.

Anyhoo… How about a few photos of PL pages for you? Or should I say, 20 zillion?

Welcome to January. And lots of iPhone photos! (In fact all these photos are from the iPhone I got for Christmas. Very cool birthday and Christmas  present from my family.)

You know how you plan on doing something, and then midway thru it, you forgot what you were doing? Yep, that’s what happened with the journaling labels on the star card. There was going to be a rainbow of labels, but I forgot I was doing that while writing. Literally decision made and forgotten within 10 seconds.

I brought an old Studio Calico kit with me to the crop, just in case I wanted to switch gears and make a regular page. I found all sorts of things I could use on my PL pages. Including these stickers. Also, the love is a punch from mirror cardstock. My cheap, use what I have, version of gold foil for the day.

Before I put myself on a spending freeze, I treated myself to the mini superheroes stamp set from Mama Elephant. I love their stamps!

I have a little jar, filled with tiny flat or almost flat things to use on PL pages. I think it’s time to replenish the jar. I used a lot of bits and bobs.

I am loving playing with the filters on Instagram. Also, we’ve made it to February!

I tried a watercolor technique on a Heidi Swapp card, but it came out very subtle. Not a bad thing, but hard to see here. Also, a bit of stamping, and the ink wasn’t completely dry when I slid the card in the pocket, so there’s ink transfer to the pocket itself.

I found the Creeper Valentine’s card on Rebecca Cooper’s blog. I love being able to use something from an awesome scrapper.

Using up some more stickers and chipboard and overlays. And, the super cure kitty from the Mama Elephant stamp set.

The month at a glance cards are from the old Turquoise PL set that I am still working on using up. Fit perfectly to point out when winter vacation was.

A few shots of the paint I put on the walls at my sister’s house. and on my hands as well. The splats of distress ink on the Heidi Swapp card really seemed to emphasize the theme.

A last day at my sister’s and then back home to try to get some work (at least planning) done.

I don’t know about you, but I am very tired of the cold at this point. And getting sick didn’t make it any more fun.

Shhh… Don’t tell my husband there’s a picture of him sleeping on the interwebs! Also, hello March!

My mother and I have been walking more. Laps at the mall when it’s yucky outside, neighborhood walks when it’s nice out. You’ll be seeing that window display again.

Big fluffy snowflakes at the beginning of March and my son dressing up for school. He actually was looking forward to school that day. I wish that was the case all the time.

How about some funky food holidays? Pumpkin pie for Pi day, and very green deviled eggs for St. Patricks. Maybe I should do something funky for Easter and Passover too. (The only traditions we carryover from my Jewish Grandfather, Jewish food on Jewish holidays. Which means latkes and matzos and occasionally matzo ball soup.)

Which brings us to the middle of March, when I went to the crop. The bottom card has space for a photo, and then I’ll finish out the month on the next few pages.

One of the big reasons Project Life takes me a bit longer to do than average, is because I do not consistently take horizontal or vertical photos. I’ve been taking photos for a loooong time. I’m used to turning the camera to suit the composition and topic of the photo. I don’t think I could stick to one orientation to save my life.

How about you? How do you usually take photos?