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Since I hadn’t used the canvas page for day 20, I decided to use it for 21. I wasn’t in the mood to print photos today for some reason. So in the front, I added my 49th tag. Since these tags were such a big part of my year, I thought it’d be fun to put one in the album.
Detail.
On the back, I journaled about our week and put some embellishments.
That’s it. I wanted to keep it simple today. So, instead of the canvas page, I printed a photo of the biscuits and added some baking photos in the back.
On the back:
That’s it. Today we baked a bunch more but I didn’t take photos this time. I’ll take some when we decorate cookies tomorrow.
Here is another funny one.
I apologize in advance for posting a bunch of posts in a row. I am trying to catch up so they come in slews. When I was trying to figure out what format might be the best for me to use for my gratitude journey, I decided to focus on what I value the most: photos and words. I take pictures everyday. Mostly of my children, but also of other things that are in my life. This is something I’ve been doing every day for the last two years and I plan to continue doing it in 2010. I also write on my blog every day. I decided that in 2010, each of my daily entries will list three things that I am thankful for on that day. This is something I did for a while in 2008 and I really loved it, so I think it’s good to bring it back. This way, I will have tons of ideas to choose from when it comes to doing my weekly art. Since I am on the computer most of my day, I decided to do my project fully digitally. I made simple photoshop templates that accommodate photos of either orientation and different amounts of text. Each week, I will simply change the date, add a photo, and write my few words. This way, I am not spending so much time worrying about what paper to pick, what embellishments to add, etc. I am just focusing on the core element of practicing gratitude. I have found that sometimes worrying about the “artistic” side can get in the way of things and I don’t want anything to stop me from doing this project and I don’t want anything to take away from the essence of the project. With all that in mind, here is what I made: For a landscape photo:
And for portrait photo (I made two options here). One with smaller photo, more text.
And another with bigger photo, less text.
All of these are 4×6 so at the end of the year (or at periodic times throughout the year) I will print them all out and put them in a photo album or box of my choice. This way, I get to have them in paper form as well. And I can embellish the cover or box as I please. If you’d like to use the same format, you are welcome to download my templates. The only caveat is that I am using two fonts that aren’t free. For the date, I used “Big Caslon” and for the title and text, I used “Avenir” (in different weights.) Since neither of those are free, I changed the fonts in the templates so the dates are in “Old Rubber Stamp” (free download here) and the title and text are in Verdana. If you’re a digi person, each of the frames are their own layer so you can also change their color as you wish. If you have questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to help. And, remember, the goal here is to practice weekly gratitude so when you’re thinking about your own format, make sure to keep it simple and doable.
Today was a quiet day. I spent most of the day working hard. I had some work tasks I really wanted to finish so I spent the day working on them. Jake was home so he spent time with the kids and let me focus solely on work. David’s always been a great player. He can spend hours playing with toys, drawing, and entertaining himself. Since I work at home full time (and I did when he was a baby, too) I cherish that in him. I am delighted to find out that Nathaniel is, so far, similar. Of course, he has the luxury of having an older brother, too, but he also likes to play with toys, discover things, and entertain himself. He does put almost everything in his mouth, so I do have to watch for that, but otherwise, he’s a happy little camper.
I am off to bed. Tomorrow is full of to-do list items and more work. More posts coming, too. About my projects for 2010. December Daily pages. More on gratitude, etc. I meant to note this last time but I forgot. When I changed blogs, my sister commented that it was considerably harder to leave a comment since you had to load the entire page, etc etc. So I now have another link called “leave quick comment” which opens up a small window under the post, without loading anything else. You should be able to leave comments this way if you so choose. If you want to see all the comments, you still have to click on the “X comments” link. Let me know if you have any feedback. I really liked the front of this page so much so I just added some stickers and left it as is.
On the back I wanted to have a little fun so I made some trees.
Here’s some detail.
And the story of Six Flags.
back.
Today we baked.
Here are photos of David baking and Nathaniel watching us.
And here is Nathaniel.
His top teeth are coming. It’s scary how fast it all goes. He’s almost 8 months already. Christmas is almost here already. Yet I am so so behind. I still have to do my tags 49 and 50. I have catalysts to work on. My gratitude blog posts. And the books to finish. Oh well. I guess that’s what life is about. Happy Sunday night. Off to read some.
Catalyst Ninety-Three is What’s something you really look forward to? (It can be something you look forward to every day, week or just one thing that you’re really looking forward to.) I look forward to December all year long. Not just Christmas, which I do love, but the whole month. The lights, the festivities, the joy, the generosity, the jolly spirit – they all make me really happy. Thanks to Ali Edwards and Shimelle Laine, I’ve been doing a December-long minibook for three years in a row and it is my favorite project each year. I love spending more time with my family. Winding down. Snuggling indoors and doing craft projects, watching movies, baking, and just being together. It is, by far, my favorite time of the year.
Most days, I work hard to capture good photos of my family. To make sure that our memories are preserved so we can go back and remember and smile and re-live the precious moments.
But some days are just too hard to capture. Nights and lights and moving rollercoasters make it impossible to capture the essence of the joy that’s in the air. The excitement and thrill of being up past bedtime.
The cold air blowing through our clothes and turning our skin pink. The shrieks of joy and begging for more.
These things cannot be captured in film.
Sometimes you just have to let go and live in the moment. Know that the photos will be imperfect and yet you will still cherish having them so that you can look back and remember the magical night. So you can almost smell the cold air mixed with popcorn and fried dough. So you can almost hear the Christmas music and the jingles and bells.
Sometimes you just let go, get the best photos you can.
Sometimes life’s too magical to be captured in film. David and I made this house yesterday. (link)
Then I made my Day 18 pages. I used the two photos from the nesting post cause I loved them so much.
and the back.
And then I told the story of putting the house together.
and painting it.
simple as that. |
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