Mommy Project: The Abridged Version.

So, another reason for starting back up here at The Mommy Project is that I, once again, have a lot of projects coming up on the horizon. I'll still be working on the photo biz. which I big puffy heart love, but I will also be going back to school to finish up my last two credits in my Landscape Design course! I had almost decided to just let that slide away, but Dave and I have been talking and we have decided to go ahead and expand the landscaping business with a new, fresh, start and new, fresh, name! We have "owned" the new business name for awhile, but we weren't sure if/when to make the leap. Well, we've been working with a designer and we have a brand new logo and we are getting together a website and marketing materials and a whole lotta' other new goodness. So exciting. The new "improved" business will be expanded much more into the design aspect, while holding on to the property maintenance as "the bread and butter" as my favourite teacher, Dennis, would say. Design is the only part I'm really interested in, to be honest. I'm not much with a weed-whacker. Speaking of design...

I am also now signed up to take another class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking with my total girl-crush, Cathy Zielske. Gawd. She is just so darn adorable, isn't she? I think she is super amazing, and super talented, and her personal fitness transformation has been just...well...nothing short of inspirational this year! In fact, I have just started back up with some serious cycling (well, as serious as someone who is completely out of shape can get) because of her. I'd run, Cathy, but...I can't run.  I accept that about myself. 

Anyway! Suffice it to say that there will be a lot going on in the next little while and I thought that it might be nice to share some of it with you (you know who you are). Also, I wanted to beg ask you if you might like to take Cathy's course with me?! It sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun, and fairly simple, and will result in the completion of an actual scrapbook. Crazy talk? No, really. The course is modelled around one of my all time favourite books, "Encylopedia of an Ordinary Life", by the also super talented Amy Krouse Rosenthal (a.k.a. Rosendal). Love that book.

Here...let me get my bud Cath to tell you all about the class herself:

Me: The Abridged Version
An A to Z All About Me 4-Week Album Workshop

Sometimes I wonder what makes scrapbookers avoid telling their own stories. I've heard the claims that journaling is hard and that these stories aren't worth telling -- and I don't believe either claim for a minute. To prove these ideas wrong, dear scrapbooking friends, is where Me: The Abridged Version comes in. By focusing on specific but wholly unrelated random details from your own extraordinary life, I'm going to teach you that you're a lot better at writing than you think. We won't fret over flowery prose and excellent grammar. We'll work with run-on sentences. And fragments. And lists. And stuff that you might not think makes for perfect writing, but that most definitely WILL make for perfect story-telling.

In this four-week workshop, I'll be your guide to making the coolest album that captures a little essence of the person who puts so much time and care into documenting everyone else in her (or his) life. That person is you.

Will you do it? Will you come on this little journey and make this album with me?

• 
  
  
  
  It's not about design (though the design is cute and we will cover some fun digital stuff!). 
• 
  
  
  
  It's not about photos (though you will get to choose 52 shots that best represent your various entries… shots you already have or shots you'll take). 
• 
  
  
  
  It's not about product (though you will need an album, a bunch of cardstock, and your favorite patterned papers to accent the album with!).
• 
  
  
  
  But it IS about you. And when you're done, you'll have the coolest, most interesting snapshot of your life, right now, that you could ever imagine. A snapshot that only YOU are truly qualified to present. In the process, you'll get a handle on journaling the stories from your every day life and emerge a more confident storyteller. 

I think you have stories just waiting to get out, and I want to help you tell them. See you in class!

Run-on sentences? Fragments?? Lists?!? This course is meant for me!! How 'bout you? Hope to see you in class!  If not, at least I'll see ya' around the good ol' bloggity. Jeez! I'll have to post a picture of the baby for you! She's gotten pretty big in the past 6 months!!

Zen and the Art of Scrapbooking.

Oh my gawsh! My Library of Memories Class with Stacy Julian has started today!! I am so excited, but I am also a little worried because 1) I have not finished my website yet (and what I've got done so far looks much better on my computer than it does on my MIL's computer...which leaves me very worried about how good, or bad, it actually does look) 2) The first assignment is, very basically, to label "all your previous scrapbook pages" 3) I don't have any "previous scrapbook pages" 4) I go back to work in one month. Will I be able to get all this stuff done? Be a Mommy to 3 little girls, start up a photography business, start scrapbooking and organize our family's history of photos, and work?

Well...I've really been trying to just Zen-out on all of this. This moment is the only one that matters. Focus on right now. And all of that...

So, I think I'll go find some pretty paper and decorate my Library of Memories "Portable Office".
La-la-laaaa...

Please wish me luck on all of the above. Or, good karma...

Wordless Wednesday.

Just a LINK.

{How cool is that?!}.

Design Your Life.

I soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo want to take this class.

Is that craziness? It starts after Jamie's birthday, after Maddies' birthday, after Christmas...it will end just before I have to go back to work. It will give me a huge kick in the pants to actually get some of these gajillion digital pixels I have into scrapbooks. You know, something someone can actually look at, and love, and cherish. If I don't do it...will I ever get up the gumption to actually get 'er done?

But, it's $99 dollars. U.S. dollars.
Our dollar is pretty good right now.

I'm on mat. leave.
Money is tight.
I tried to win a spot in the class.
I didn't win it.

I sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo want to take that class.

Advice?

Scraptastic!

Hi everyone!!

Did you have a fabulous Halloween? Was it as quiet around your place as it was mine? I'd say we probably had about 60% of the kids we had last year! Crazy. And, we even bought extra chocolate this year so we wouldn't run out. I swear, my butt is getting bigger just thinking about all the chocolate we have lying around this place. I saw on someone's Tweet (I'm really sorry...I forget who said it now) that they buy their kid's chocolates from them. The kids can then use the money to buy a toy, instead. Well, isn't that brilliant! We asked the kids what they thought about that and they thought it was a great idea, so we will totally be doing that next year. But, what do we do with all their junk? Suggestions??


Anyway, despite fewer kids we still had a fabulous time. My family went Trick or Treating with The Fairy Blogmother's family. She and her hubby were so funny to walk around with. I mean, you just had to be there to watch them doing the choreography from "Thriller" in the middle of the road. Priceless! {One of our neighbours sets out a massive stereo system every year and cranks up the theme music. It makes things so festive on our little street!}. You can read more about the night and see one pic. of all the kids (who were able to make it...poor Maya was home sick) right HERE. I'm waiting for my MIL to send me some pics (we just used her camera...) and when she does I'll give you some cold, hard, evidence of how incredibly cute my little girlies were. ;-)


Until then...
I just wanted to say that....
Gawd Help Me
I have decided to take the plunge into scrapbooking. Do I have time for this? No. Not at all. I still have photos to process, a Photo Blog to update, a Photo Website to create (I bought the thing a few weeks ago now, and haven't even looked at it), and two more photo-shoots to do. I mean, don't get me wrong...I'm so thrilled and really, really, um...what's the word? Shocked? Surprised? Happy? Honoured? to have people ask me to photograph their kids...without even having ever advertised my services...but I just wish I could get some block of time to get that whole biz. thing organized. I kind of feel like my horses have gone running out of the barn...or...uh...what is that saying? Well, I haven't started my business, yet...but it's going ahead almost without me!! :-0 What a thing to complain about, huh? Yeah...that and "my wallet is too small for my fifties and my diamond shoes are too tight".

Sooooo...to make a long story (a bit) short-er...I am still going ahead with the scrapbooking thing.


WHY?! you ask?


Well, as the Blogmother will tell you...
my horrible, shameful, secret is...I have picture frames hanging on my walls that contain pictures of other people's kids and dogs in them. I hung them up to see how they would look, fully intending to put, you know, our pictures in them- but I haven't yet!! Isn't that ridiculously awful? And, despite having three gorgeous babies and a burgeoning photography business, I have next to no pictures of them anywhere! No albums, no frames, no canvases...nothing.


So I am officially kicking myself in the pants. And it all starts HERE




(FANTASTIC book my Stacy Julian which has totally helped me with a plan of attack for organizing my stuff so I can get going)


and HERE




(4-Drawer Storage Cube...part of Stacy's "Library of Memories" System)


and HERE




(my very first "I'm a Scrapbooker" purchase - a 3" square craft punch...also to help implement Stacy's system)


and HERE


(Ali Edwards "December Daily" Project. I'm hoping this will be my first paper scrapbooking success. I hope you'll pop over to the link, read all about it, and join the fun. If you do...please let me know so I can check out your progress, too.)


All for now! Gotta go set up my Storage Cube!!!

The BIG Project.

Well, now that life has settled down a bit and become less busy (and Shan has added me to her Blogroll) I can take a second to share with y'all the results of the ginormous project that Shan (a.k.a. The Fairy BlogMother) and I decided to do for our daughters' wonderful kindergarten teacher. Our girls had their teacher for both junior and senior kindergarten and she was just fabulous. She was so good with the kids and they learned *so* much while they were with her that it just amazes me. She is definitely a fantastic teacher and we were very lucky that our girls got to be in her class (and Jamie will be in her J.K. class this fall!! Maya is following closely behind). So, we just didn't want the end to come without doing something special for her. I suggested a scrapbook project which Shan felt would be a great idea.

Shan got the ball rolling by sending a letter into the school for each and every child's parent: explaining what the project was all about (we would ask the students a bunch of questions about their teacher, and what it was like to be in her class, and include their answers along with their pictures in the scrapbook), and sending in the list of questions. We needed the parents to go through the questions with their kids and send in their child's picture. Unfortunately, we didn't get very many responses at all. Several weeks later, I sent in another letter- this time with a deadline (yep, I was forced into another throw-down, folks) and this time we managed to get quite a lot of responses and tons of pics from several great parents (thanks to all those parents for their help with the project!!). Shan and I figured if we could get at least 1/2 the class participating then it would be worthwhile. I think that out of a class of about 20 kids we got 14 responses (including our own two girls). Honestly, I was a little disappointed that not every parent participated because it would have made the gift for their teacher so much more special and a wonderful way for her to remember *all* her students...but, as it was she LOVED it.

Shan, being the great writer of the two of us, did the lovely opening letter for the book to thank their teacher for being...well...for being her! And, me, being the, ummm, the one who knew absolutely nothing about digital scrapbooking...well, I did the layout. Well, I do know how to use my photoshop and I do know how to shop on-line so those parts weren't hard. But, figuring out how to use all the "digital elements" was definitely a bit of a challenge for me. Every single element on those pages was laid down individually. The pages were all put together individually. Everything was done individually! It took for-ever. I would lay down a page and "rip it" then lay down another page to get the two-toned page effects. Then I would lay down the photo frames and then put the photos "into them" so that they have that cool, curvy, kinda' looks like the pictures are raised off the page a bit effect. Then I placed all the individual strips of paper, or whatever I decided to use, to put the kids' answers on. Placed staples, and paper clips, and brads, and drop shadows...and other little "details". Each page took over an hour to do. Then I printed them off onto 8.5' x 11' photo paper and trimmed them down to fit into the 8"x8" scrapbook. But, when you consider the amount of work their teacher did for our kids...on her own time...even above and beyond the in-class work...it was nothing. She even put together scrapbooks for each of our kids so that we could have something to remember their first years of school. And, she provided us all with dvd photoshows, too (although, I still haven't been able to see mine because it won't play on my stupid computer). I heard she spent over 200 hours, at home, doing these things for us. Yeah. Pretty incredible.

So...a BIG THANKS to their teacher. I am SO lucky that she was my girl's teacher and I am SO happy that she was very tickled by the scrapbook we made for her.

Also, thanks to Shan for all her help and support with this project.

Now I've got two more years to come up with an idea for the next one.



Introduction page just explains that this book is from her "Class of 2020" (the year they will all graduate from highschool) and that the questions are all together in the back of the book. I called it "20 Questions for the Class of 2020". I've blocked out the teacher's name and the faces of the kids who aren't my own or who are not already featured in their own blogs. ;-)



This first page includes the "Thank-you" letter written by Shan and this super cute picture of my Jamie James with her new teacher...coming this fall!!



Shan's cute little Abby with her long locks, and her new short 'do as featured on grad. day!



I only asked the parents to include one picture of their child. When I was putting together the book I realized you really need more than one picture to make things a bit more interesting. Plus, all my cool photo frames were for two pictures. Luckily, I took lots of pictures at their little graduation ceremony so I was able to include a lot of photos from that. Plus, since their teacher was running the ceremony...she probably wouldn't have had any pictures from it to remember it by...so I think that worked out pretty well.



I included a pic. of Maddie's "Hippo" on the last page since he became almost like a little mascot for the class since Maddie brought him to school almost every day for two years. Maddie's teacher even mentioned "Hip" in the graduation ceremony. :)

Scrappy Weekend Everyone!

Here's my latest digital scrapbook page. Man, this is fun. I think I could make digital scrapbook pages all day long. I wish someone would pay me to do that - that would be cool. I just love shopping for all the supplies on-line. You don't even need to leave the house and you can shop any hour of the day! I am really, REALLY, wishing for high-speed internet access though. Can you believe I am on dial-up?! It's like I live in Timbuktu or something. You can get dishes for the internet and we looked into that, but when the man came he said that there were too many trees out back of our house and it wouldn't work for us. There is also some high speed available to this area from Rogers and we looked into that, too. Guess what -it doesn't work at our house. It doesn't work at our neighbours', either. The house next to our neighbours? Yep. They can get it. Just not us. We are almost, literally, on the cut-off line. Unbelievable. So, to get the little wings and hats to make Jamie into a Fairy and the cute little polka dot letters and the paper it took me all day to download it. Maybe that's for the best as I think I would do way too much "digi shopping" if the amount of time it took me to download this stuff was a little less completely ridiculous.

Oh, you probably can't read the writing on the page. It says:

At the age of 3

What do you dream of Jamie?

Going to school

Riding the school bus

Making a bunch of your own friends

and going to their birthday parties

(just like Maddie)

Having sleep-overs

Riding a big bike

Sleeping in a bunk-bed

Cooking, baking, lots of painting

Driving Daddy's truck

Wearing Mommy's shoes

Taking Stella for a walk

all by yourself

All that good stuff and more...

Dancing like a ballerina

Singing like a princess

Flying like a bird

The days are full of possibilities and, for you,

the sun can't rise soon enough.