What Surprises You?

A lovely soul (Hannah Marcotti) posted this question on her amazing website a few days ago and I have been rolling it around in my brain for the past few days, slowly working it (probably over-thinking it) out:

What Surprises You?

The love that S and N continue to show me, even though they are growing up

How touchy my sensitive heart is on certain subjects...

How close my dad and I have become in the past year.
*this one needs a bit of back story. My dad and I have always been close. I'm his first born and he would do anything for my baby sister and I. We have always known we are so incredibly loved. Our relationship has always been one where he felt the need to protect, almost a stereotypical Father/Daughter relationship. Now while that need is still very much there (and still very much appreciated on my part), this year we have become friends. I have to tell you, he is one of the most delightful people I know. Somehow I won the jackpot, because he truly is amazing...

How much I am enjoying the people I work with

How much hurt I will let myself endure before I finally say enough. 
 ( must work on this...)

How often the friends I have become close to in the past few years say "I Love You"
 (so very grateful for this...)

At how vulnerable (in a good way) and connected I can feel in the company of some ah-mazing women in an e-course that I am taking

How much travel to a new city (or a re-visit to my favorite city) makes me come alive

What surprises you? I'd really love to know...

Wishing you a life full of great surprises

-S

shake me to my core

nyc you shake me to my core
you wake me up, wash the sleep from my eyes
in fact, it feels like you give me a brand new pair.
you challenge me, exhaust me,
thrill and fulfill me...
you are one of a kind

just a few (of many) shots from my recent trip to nyc

make my heart swoon*

 
I have some exciting news to share...

After a cancelled first trip, many months (20 to be exact) of switched dates and every other possible problem, I am finally going back to visit my beloved city.

I will be in New York City (with one of my favorite people) from May 22 to the 28th.

I cannot tell you how excited I am. Excited for the noise, the smells, the food, the culture, everything

New York, you make my heart swoon...

Love,

-S

Link Love 3*

Here are some of my favorite finds this week

* such a sweet voice, and beautiful lyrics. I can listen to this song over and over: Something in the Water

* The Heart Loves What It Loves from peace.love.free

* The new Neapolitan by Dear Lizzy: I scooped up these beautiful papers in large quantities! I especially love the Mason Jars... so cute!

Wishing you a lovely Sunday,

-S xoxo

Project Life: Making It Your Own

I cannot tell you how excited I was to receive my Project Life Core Kit and begin assembling all my memories of everyday life of 2012. I was in awe of how simple it was, and loved that I had everything all ready for me to go. It really was as easy as jotting down memories on the lovely journal cards, printing off pictures and popping them in to the page protectors....

However, after the first couple of weeks I noticed that I wasn't as excited about working on my Project Life Binder, and it wasn't long before I figured out why.

I am a paper and scissors and glue kind of girl. I love, love, love creating and I was missing this "creative" part in my Project Life Binder. I was longing to go back to my old way of Scrapbooking, just because I missed the creation aspect.

So I decided I would continue to use the pre-designed journaling cards (and filler cards) once in a while. There was absolutely no set rule saying I had to use what was given to me in my core kit.

I got out my paper and my scissors and my glue and made my Project Life Binder my own...


This was the missing step for me. I love Project Life and I love that I will have a collection of memories of what my life was like in 2012. Do I regret buying the Core Kit... absolutely not! I gave me a beautiful jumping off point and materials to go back to when my creativity is just not there. But I love to pull out my craft supplies (and believe me I have a lot!) and spending the time to make it my own...

Wishing you a day filled with creativity,

-S xoxo

Link Love*

Just wanted to share a few links to some of my favorite finds this week!

* A message I totally needed to hear this week : Love Your Life

* It's time to start saying Yes: Opening Up, Saying Yes!

* This Photo: So Much Love!!!

* This Website: It's Me, KP . She lives in my favorite city (nyc) and shares my love of scrapbooking... how could I not love her website!

Would love to hear about the websites you're loving right now !

Wishing you tons and tons of found inspiration,

-S xoxo

Project Life: Weeks 5, 6 and 7

This is me, playing catch up again!

I apologize for the many pictures, but I want to make sure this process is documented. So here we go...

Week 5


This week was a lot of fun for me. Really busy, but packed with family time and laughs. Auntie, S and I took a trip out to Cabela's (a hunting/fishing/outdoors store). S had a lot of fun looking at all the animals. Auntie and I enjoyed the fudge shop the most :)



We also had birthday dinner for my little sister K this week. I can't believe she's already 22 (or as she says: this is her first anniversary of her 21st Birthday). We went to the Melting Pot, and once again, had the most fantastic meal. I added an insert specifically for her birthday dinner this week.


On Saturday, K and I went out for lunch to Montanna's. I had the most amazing drink called a S'more ... so sweet, but so delicious. I love the picture in the bottom right corner of K. She is a total goof, so this picture is perfect. We also went out to our favorite country bar to celebrate her birthday (which is actually on Sunday, so it's a part of Week 6 as well!).

Week 6


On Sunday, we were some tired human beings. Most of the day was spent laying around on the couch, and watching tv. In the evening, my mom's side of the family came out to take some family pictures. I still need to fill in a lot of journal in my Project Life Binder. I use a fantastic app on my iPhone called Day One to keep track of what happened each day. It even prompts you to write! Love it!


I've been playing a fun little game lately called "Black Out Poetry" (full blog post on this soon!) and thought I would add a bit of it to my binder. The picture of my steering wheel is to mark a short trip I took to my favorite scrapbooking store to find paper to create my own Project Life Cards (again, full blog post on this soon!). The last picture is a cup of Jasmine Tea I had at dinner with Auntie at our favorite Thai restaurant.

Week 7


It was Valentine's Day this week. Now normally, I am not in to this holiday at all. I find it to be so commercial (and lonely for those of us that are single), but this year was different. I actually really enjoyed myself. I even went to stand in line after work to buy flowers and a balloon for Auntie. I was the only female in the line!


The second Page has a lot of pictures of every day life. The coffee maker, which is my very best friend in the morning. Our bathroom counter, where you can definitely see that our house contains two females - make up and hair products everywhere! We also had Taco Night one night, and the last picture is of my computer screen loading a game I am addicted to on Facebook! Simple things, but things that will be neat to see 20 years down the road!


I also had an insert this week, with my most current Vision Board (another post on this coming too!). On the back are notes regarding each image and what they mean to me and what I am hoping for in my life. I'm choosing to keep these notes private, at least for now :)

Phew, three weeks of catching up. Must learn to keep on top of this project! Even though I'm not on time with each page, I'm glad I'm getting the pages done. I will be back soon with one of the three posts I promised! Wishing you a marvelous weekend!

-S xoxo

Project Life: Week 3 and Week 4

I'm playing catch-up. Life has been so busy in my world ( like non-stop running, can't catch my breath kind of busy) and unfortunately, it hasn't been busy with all positive things.

So I did something for myself this week. I took a day off from work, and shut all my technological devices down. No phone, no computer... just me and my Project Life Binder.

It took me the entire day Friday, and an hour this morning, but I managed to almost catch up.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on this week (Week 5 already!). But first, here are the past two weeks.

Week 3:



This was a very cold week for us. We've been enjoying a very strange winter this year. Normally Alberta is plunged into a deep freeze (-20 to -30 celsius temps) for months. It has been an incredibly mild winter, until this week. With windchills, we were hitting the -40's. So lots of bundling up and staying in. Lots of internet surfing (probably why there are more "found inspiration" spots on my pages than anything else.


I did manage to get out of the house on the weekend to have coffee with my dear friend A at my favorite coffee shop. I always enjoy spending time with her and catching up. I noticed that I tend to take photos of my friend's hands to document an outing with them. Maybe it's because I know that if I lift my phone up to take a picture of their face, some of them will get uncomfortable immediately. Some of them will put on a cheesy grin, the face that everyone thinks they should have in pictures. Maybe it's because I just have a thing for hands...

Week 4:


This was a really tough week for me. I just felt like I was trying not to drown. I couldn't catch up, I couldn't express myself clearly ... tough, tough, tough. So I tried to brighten my days in any way possible (see the images of the coloured cutlery and the pretty new scarf)


I did have quite a few high points too though. My best friend S invited me to come with her on her trip to PEI (hence the suitcases), so I need to start saving travel money! It was also my dear friend R's birthday this week. Since he lives in Vancouver, I couldn't see him on his birthday. I still wanted a way to document this in my PL Binder, so I asked his love to take a snapshot of him on his big day and send it my way. I adore the picture she took. It captures him perfectly. Also, I used a SMASH Pad insert instead of a journaling card to document some of my favorite songs this week.

I also took a quick trip to my favorite scrapbooking store on Saturday morning and snapped a picture of their lovely decor. Saturday evening, A and I went out for dessert and drinks. My cheesecake was far too beautiful not to take a picture of...

Wishing you a lovely weekend and I will be back soon with Week 5!

-S xoxo

Horizontal vs Vertical

I have a very hard time taking horizontal images...

It sounds so silly, but it's so very very true for me! I will take a hundred or so images, and I would be lucky if I remembered to make even one of them horizontal. This is presenting quite a challenge for me in my Project Life Journey.

Now, there are pages that allow for vertical images (thank you Becky Higgins for thinking about us strange beings that only take vertical images!) but i just find that the rest of the kit doesn't work as well with those pages. So I am issuing myself a challenge... Take More Horizontal Photos!

So far, I'm doing well when it comes to taking pictures on my iPhone, but when my DSLR gets in to my hands... still vertical for almost every shot...

oh well, call it a learning curve...

be back soon with both weeks 3 and 4 of my Project Life!

-S xoxo

Project Life: Week 2

Here's a look at Week 2:


One of the highlights of this week was an amazing Birthday Dinner for a good friend at The Melting Pot. I have never had such a wonderful dining experience. It was quite a long one though! We arrived at the restaurant for our 5 pm reservation and didn't leave until 7:45! But we had so much fun fondue-ing! It was incredibly delicious.

The second page includes journaling about the birthday party (top left pocket). In the top right hand corner, I added an image of my favorite author and one of my favorite quotes from her books. I not only wanted to use Project Life as a way of cataloging life, but of cataloging things and people that inspire me right now. In the bottom left hand corner is the box that a bag of bottle caps came in (the only thing that helped me make it through last Monday was sugar...) and in the bottom right is a picture of a clock that I have seen a few times and completely love.

I thought I would give you a quick glimpse of what our kitchen table normally looks like while I'm filling in my project life album (this is also after I've put away the printer!):


I can never manage to keep everything organized when I'm scrapbooking, it's just so much easier to see when it's all spread out :)

-S xoxo

Project Life: Week 1

Well, it's one week in to 2012 already.

I spent my Sunday afternoon filling in my project life album for the past week. It actually took me most of the day ( and I enjoyed every second of it!). I am sure that not every week will take me this long, but there was just so much that I wanted to document!

I also added an insert for an event that I attended for New Years. I haven't added journaling to that page quite yet, but I should have it done this evening.

Here's a look at the pages:
My first page was all about cooking. One of my intentions this year is to cook more meals, instead of just throwing quick things together. I really do enjoy cooking, and am so lucky that I live with someone who doesn't mind being my guinea pig ;)
The next two pages (a 12x10 insert from American Crafts) was all about this amazing event I attended over New Year's called Intention Alberta. So much love and joy packed in to two amazing days!
I also signed up for Ali Edwards' class called One Little Word and booked our hostel for our trip to New York City in May! Such a busy week!

-S xoxo

Hello Life 2012*

I can't believe we are in to 2012 already. Time just keeps flying by, and I am finding that the older I get, the quicker it goes!

I hope everyone had a marvelous new year, I know I sure did. In fact, I can honestly say that it was the best in my memory (I'm hoping to do a full blog post about it soon, but I can't promise anything...)

I wanted to share with you a new project I am embarking on for 2012.

It's called Project Life and I am so excited to be taking part in the journey this year.

I first heard about/saw this project on Ali Edwards' Project Blog (this is one of the many projects she does, she is truly phenomenal and you could spend days ooohing and aaahhing over her many projects. In fact, I highly recommend that you do!).

I fell in love with the project and ordered my kit. I am using the Amber Core Kit, but am thinking I will also order the Clementine Core Kit as well! I will also design some of my own cards, using the blank journaling cards, like you can see in the picture below.

I am hoping to keep up to date with this project, as I would really like to have a running record of this year (and years to come). In order to make this task a little less daunting, I've decided to take the week by week approach, not a photo a day. Some days there will be more than 1 photo, some days there will be no photos. You can find out more information on Becky Higgins' website, as she has some great videos about project life.

If you are taking the Project Life Journey in 2012, please leave a comment below! I love seeing the many different versions of this wonderful product.

Happy New Year and All the Best in 2012!

-S xoxo