Category Archives: projects

Upcycle Your Old Vinyl Binders

Upcycle Your Old Vinyl Binders

My camera’s battery died in the middle of recording the video about putting together the Monday pages for our Week in the Life project. That slowed me down a bit! 😉

So, to keep you entertained, I’ve put together a little video for you while my battery charged that will help you pretty up any old vinyl binders you’ve got lying around.

You’ll need a sheet of paper large enough to cover your binder, mod podge, a brush, and a pair of scissors.

Oh, and an ugly old binder.

If you could throw in a few stray cat hairs, I’d be much obliged. I’m not the only one who finds cat hair in odd places, am I?

Let me know if you have any questions! I’m sure I forgot to mention something that you’d find helpful!

Oh, and don’t forget to say “Hi!” to Simon. He loves the attention.

Gathering Materials: Week in the Life Project

Gathering Materials: Week in the Life Project

I’ve got a video for you showing everything I pulled together to use for our Week in the Life project.

How are you doing with your project? Have you gathered together some photos and memorabilia?

I’ve got lots more of this process to show you. More will be coming soon!

Organizing a Story

Organizing a Story

Well, last week was a wash. The story I thought I would be telling? No where in sight. But I did capture a week in our life, and that’s still precious, even if it’s not the story I thought I would be telling.

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Looking back through the week’s photos, I have not a single picture of us eating dinner together, even though we did. I didn’t take any pictures of my feet up on a foot rest while letting myself recover from straining my back and hip. Or of the book I read, or the planning I tried to do to keep myself productive. No pictures of the kids breaking open the piñata, or attacking big blocks of ice with hammers! (Now that could have ended poorly.) In short, there are lots of pictures I missed. But that doesn’t mean I can’t include those stories in my album.

The first thing I will be doing to start telling this story, is gathering all the photos I took. That includes phone photos and computer photos. (Take a picture of yourself while playing on your computer if you can. You’ll be amused at the faces you make!)

Once I have everything together, I will start deciding which photos I should print small, which should be 4×6, and which should be 6×8. As I gather photos, I’ll also make notes about any additional stories I want to tell that I may have missed writing down during the week. I’ll also pull together memorabilia and facebook and twitter updates to add to the story.

That’s what I’ll be working on today and tomorrow. If you want some suggestions on how to choose which photos to print, check out this post. Feel free to pop any questions for me into the comments   below.

Once I’ve got everything ready to go, I’ll show you how to put it together. This is going to be fun!

Tuesday Summary and a Bit of Wednesday too!

Tuesday Summary and a Bit of Wednesday too!

Tuesday started off well, and I got some great shots at the bus stop of my youngest and some of the neighborhood kids, but I didn’t get a lot of shots in the middle of the day.

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I went to pick up some garden soil for our new square foot garden and leveling sand for my mother, and didn’t want to bring my camera, so I tried out the camera on my cheap phone.

garden soil

Maneuvering all that sand and soil around did in my back, and I didn’t get much else documented. I stopped and put my feet up, and took an NSAID to keep my muscles from seizing up.

Today started really rough with the back pain still hanging on and really sapping my energy, so I did a bit more of the feet up and minor stretching and easy motion stuff to get back to normal. It’s still not good, but the down time has helped me cope with it and has definitely helped it improve.

So the documenting for this week has not gone so well! That’s okay. I still have 4 more days to record, and plenty of stories and pictures that I can use for the first part of the week. It just won’t be as intensive as I was hoping.

Especially since my husband hasn’t been hiding from the camera this time around. I love it when he hams it up for me.

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Monday Summary

Monday Summary

Yesterday was extremely busy, and I didn’t cart my camera all over. So I didn’t get shots of party supply shopping, or my husband’s birthday movie and dinner. I did get a few good shots of some of the things we did:

My oldest making himself a lunch for school.IMG_4962

My youngest giving his father a birthday present.IMG_4981

My mother starting the piñata for my youngest’s birthday party.

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Just a few good shots, and quite a few more not so good ones. But Monday’s documented in words and pictures. What did you document?