With a wintry 5 or 6-inch snowfall this past weekend, it was the perfect time to stay in pajamas, pour an extra cup of Joe, and play with my Thanksgiving photos. In other words, it was Sunday Scrapbooking Time.
It started out with a base template and a computer. First up, select photos:
You know, this part never causes me much stress. I took (or rather, Aidan took) around 75 shots on Thanksgiving, low by Zielske standards, but I knew that a handful or random photos would be just enough for the visual story because I had a whole other page to actually tell the story.
With the key pieces in place, it was time to send files to print. The photo page went onto a sheet of photo paper; the journaling onto a piece of white cardstock.
Now this could have sufficed. Done and done, put it into the family album. But I really wanted to cut and paste. I love scrapbooking with my computer but I also love a little bit of cut and paste. So, I cut apart all of the photos, trimming very close to the edges to preserve the sizes.
Ahhh, there they are. All ready to go.
Next up, select a background cardstock from my stash.
Sometimes I think my colored cardstock gets a bit lonely with my affinity for basic white. But I managed to select a holiday color to complement the bit of color on my journaling page. The other motivation behind the cut and paste was to try out this new Scotch Dot Roller adhesive.
For those of you who were Kokuyo fans, I have been told that Scotch bought them and that this adhesive is essentially the same thing. Honestly, it seemed like the real deal, minus 2 percent. That's my official review. In short, it's a great replacement.
And the adhering began…
After the photos were down, they looked like this.
Just a nice pop of color for a base. Simple. Clean. Done.
But then I thought, "What if I dressed up the journaling page with some stamps and paint?" In other words, why not get a little nutty and crafty?
But the problem with me getting nutty and crafty is that things sometimes end up looking like ka-ka du jour.
Stamp placement? Not part of my overall skill set. Next.
Okay, that's better… whew! I just pulled an old sheet of scalloped cardstock out from my ancient stash and it was just the right bit of scrapbooky goodness to call it done.
Try as I might, I just like simple. Simple designs, simple approaches, simple execution. It's just the thing that keeps me coming back for more. Simple is good.
JOURNALING READS: In the Zielske family proper, there are five kids and we’ve started alternating the Thanksgiving hosting duties. It actually started a number of years ago. One year will be at Joanie’s, then the next, a sibling, then Joanie, and onto the next sibling. Our first stab at hosting the holiday was back in 2006. It wasn’t the first bird I’ve ever made, but it was definitely the biggest of the batch. So this year, it was our turn to host once again. Actually, it was a toss up between us and Deb, but Dan really wanted to host, especially with our house remodeling project being completed. I think we both wanted to test out our new family room with actual family.
I started the preparations the Saturday prior, getting my 18-pound bird in time for a full fridge defrost. I really wasn’t stressed out about what had to be done, even knowing that we’d have less people bringing actual dishes to share, because Joy and John were both eating at their other families’ homes. The night before Thanksgiving, I made Sarah’s yummy cranberry chutney, and a doubled batch of sausage stuffing. We had a Lady Gaga HBO concert blaring in the background.
I always say, nothing like Lady Gaga to inspire a holiday sense of gratitude, right? I also cooked up the squash, and made sure the bird was in prime defrost mode. (Side note: at the last minute, I decided to brine the bird, until I realized you technically don’t brine self-basted, frozen turkeys. Yes, I ended up dumping all the brine after Googling whether or not I should have done it in the first place. God bless the Internet.
The day arrived (with unseasonably warm temps on tap), and after shaking off a wee bit of morning stress (and having a glass of wine at noon) everything turned out beautifully. From the most perfectly done turkey you could hope for, to breaking in our new electric knife that was a gift from my parents, our day was full of family, noise, food and gratitude. There is a reason this is my favorite holiday. It’s just about celebrating all that is good and all that we have. So glad we hosted on Sheldon Street this year.
SUPPLIES: Layered Template No. 97 (Cathy Zielske) • white cardstock • photo paper (Ilford)
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In other news, I'm happy to announce that I'm on board to be part of Becky Higgins' creative team for Project Life in 2012. I dabbled in Project Life this past year, and am really looking forward to working with some of her new products and finding a way to make it fit into my memory keeping process. Plus, I'm honored to work along side all of these other talented women. I'll be sharing my work on Becky's site and here as well beginning in January. Thanks, Becky! Glad to be part of it all, friend.
helena says
phew – relieved to see the final simple page after the scare of seeing paint on your blog !!!! Looking forward to your simple take on project life
Kendra B says
As always love your pages!! I checked out Project Life . . . I’m so tempted to buy stuff and go for it! But I’m also afraid that it will be one of those many things that I’ve started in January, kinda do in February, and then nothing March, April, May . . . . 🙂
scrappysue says
LOL, I can’t stamp either, nice recovery and a fabby LO! Cool that you are on the PL team too Cathy!
cathy says
Yeah, what I saw in my head definitely wasnt what ended up on paper. LOL!
dawn says
I love the way your layout turned out, the leaves were a great idea though.
Congrats on being with the DT for Project Life, sooo very cool!!
Janet says
And SIMPLE is why we love you!
Maureen says
Your simple style is why I love you. Used one of your templates this morning and it’s awesome. Keep those templates coming!
mary says
love to see that you still like to cut and paste even amidst the digital revolution we find ourselves in! Nothing like a good embellishment to finish it off!
And I am so STOKED that you are on Becky’s team for 2012. Have thought of dabbling in Project Life but have felt overwhelmed at times. Can’t wait to see your book…
I will ALWAYS remain a fan of simplicity. The best way to go in scrapbooking — and more importantly, in life!
cathy says
Will do, Maureen. Will do.
Wendy Hammer says
HA HA HA, I loved your stamping though!
Totally going to start using your photo template idea. YES! Just getting back into scrapping after a 4-ish year hiatus. 🙂
Ohhhhh, I got my Project Life kit the other day! Can’t wait to start it. I think I’m starting mine Dec 15 though because that’s when my husband gets home from work.
THANKS for all your inspiration!
Karin Van den Berg says
Oh Cathy, I feel your pain, I know so well what it’s like. My scrapbook style is not quite the same as yours but I, too, struggle to go beyond the photo + paper recipe. I want to but it just doesn’t work. When I take my photo and some matching paper it speaks to me, I know what to do. When I try to add something else I just get lost, it never works the way it looked in my head. My main rule (for anything that requires inspiration): don’t force it. Let it flow. I did the same with my December Daily 2011 cover this weekend (now on my blog: http://scrapbook.karinvandenberg.nl/node/109 ), which I had to alter because of a ‘slight glitch’ and I’m so delighted with it.
Katie Scott says
Love this page.
I’ve started Project Life with the Becky Higgins products – after trying to do it from scratch and I think the BH products are seriously worth it – I love this system and your blog and Ali Edwards blog were very influential in my decision to finally purchase the Project Life Kit.
Thanks for many years of consistent awesome scrapbooking inspiration via this blog.
Christine says
I finally allowed myself to be happy with my simple style and stop trying to make pages that just don’t feel right to me. I love looking at pages with multiple prints, ephemera, etc but making them myself just doesn’t fit……and that is ok. Donated a ton of supplies to a church craft garage sale for charity. I also got a supply of Project Life page protectors a couple of weeks ago. Looking forward to giving it a whirl.
Yolanda says
Really love this layout, especially the long story. I am finally starting to embrace the fact that I am a purely digital scrapper. That if I have to cut and glue, I will never get it done. And what I want more than anything is to simply make sure the story gets told and that the images are in my family’s hands and not sitting pretty on a hard drive.
Lara says
Loved this layout! And I have to tell you, don’t give up on brining! I decided to brine this year for the first time (having done only about 3 turkeys on my own ever)…at the last minute too! I made myself crazy looking up all things about turkey brining on google and panicked when I read you shouldn’t brine a previously frozen turkey. Long story and much research later, my neighbor swore to me it wouldn’t be salty. She’s been brining for 16 years and would never do it any other way. I was up at 4am worrying about that dang bird and whether or not we’d be eating a salt lick. I had read that if you soak it in cold water for 15 min. after it comes out of the brine and then dry it off really really well with paper towels, you will be fine. So I tried that, and it was amazing! And we’ll never go back!
I’m thrilled your turkey was fabulous…even if you dumped your brine at the last minute. I almost did too! : ))
Off to work on my layout. Thanks for the constant inspiration!
Jane Simmons says
Love Project Life! So glad you’re officially working with Becky on it now.When you and Ali both started using it, I dumped my Month-at-a-Glance or whatever you called it in 2010.
What I love is I always feel “caught up” but I can pull out “slice of life” or “moment” or “occasion” photos for a separate page in another album. Also love to stick all kinds of paper ephemera in the pckets, like Ali does.
Love the add-ons you’ve created already for journaling in Project Life, but we need a 4 x 6 that says “Month in Review”, as well as “Week in Review” because I usually do a whole month at a time.
Also love to pull photos and statuses from my kids’ Facebook pages — any help on making that easier would be appreciated.
Jo says
I love your double pager. So simple (ok could have been simpler without the cut and pasting) and yet brilliant – perfect for scraplifting! And congrats on the Project Life team. I’m definitely going to take-part in 2012, hoping I’ll be able to get my hands on the kit soon (I live in England and it’s not in stock yet). It will be so good to see how you approach it.
cathy says
Those are good ideas, actually! : )
Maureen says
I like the orange behind the photos, but no way am I going to cut and paste all that. I’d just do an orange fill and perhaps a bit of texture to that orange. Ditto for the journal border. Of course, I don’t have a paper stash to use up either.
Facebook status updates can be saved with Momento.
hartungfamily@fuse.net says
Thank you for reminding me that simple can be beautiful! I love to create pages, but sometimes I feel inadequate compared to other artsy, frilly people. I enjoy the “telling the story” part. Love your pages!
Heather says
Thanks for sharing the stamped page and admitting it didn’t turn out as you’d hoped.
I love your designs and layouts! It’s refreshing to have the reminder that you’re human 🙂
gypsychaos says
You described me to a T. Yet… I started in September 10, finished with August 11…. and I’ve been jonesing to get started on my next one!! I did the first one as a way to handle my last year as a mom of school age children; my sons graduated from HS in June. There are some bits and pieces to be done – in fact, the album is sitting next to me as I look for missing photos. But even if I put it away now, it’s a great record!
I decided to start with January 1, 2012. Like normal people – truly odd for me. ; ) So I am doing the December Daily for the first time.
Take the plunge!
The water’s fine, and there are plenty of people to hold you accountable if that’s what you want, or give you permission to do two pages per month if that’s what you want.
gypsychaos says
Facebook now has a download button on the page with each photo. Just click and done.
I downloaded a few recently – I just looked at the files. They’re only 72 dpi – 300 dpi is minimum used for digital graphics such as scrapbook paper. But I think they’ll be fine at 4 x 6.
Barb in AK says
Cathy, Thanks for showing me that you still do cut-and-paste projects and use “ancient” materials 😉 Love your style!
Hey, I went to “Les Mis” last night with my dh! I LOVED it. He kept checking his watch!
One of my friends sent this YouTube clip to me. Thought I’d pass it on to you. Enjoy 🙂
cathy says
I love that clip! Just saw it the other day. My daughter is going to see Les Mis in two weeks and is SO, SO excited. : )
Barb in AK says
Tell Aiden to take a couple of bucks and her camera. Pictures are not allowed in the theater, but a couple of cast members stand at the front entrance after the show and take donations for their AIDS charity. (There will be a speech after the performance). I put a donation into the basket held by Jeremy Hayes who played Enjolras. He was very nice to pose with me for a photo and HE even took the camera from me (because his arm was longer than mine) and snapped the photo 🙂 What a nice memory! Can’t wait to scrap it (after Christmas).
shalini says
I will look forward to your updates on PL, I asked for the supplies for the album as a birthday present this year (christmas eve) so I can start bright and early on new years day 2012…
Bec Kilgore says
Nothing to do with turkey but I love the angle on the roof.