Giveaway | Project Life Lessons

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to be giving away a seat to the our upcoming Big Picture class, Project Life Lessons. I'm thrilled to be a teacher along with Elise Blaha Cripe and Megan Anderson, both of whom are phenomenal at Project Life.

Our goal is to help you decide what will work for you and find ways to make that happen.

The class is three weeks long, starting September 5. The beauty of Big Picture Classes is that even if life is busy and you can't keep up, you have Forever Access, one of my favorite things ever! It's awesome if you can join in the message boards and gallery, etc while the class is live, but if you can't the class will be there for you when you do have time.

Also, when you purchase the class, you will have immediate access to our Pre-Classroom, which is packed! I've taken a lot of classes and this is probably the most I've seen in a Pre-Class. So exciting. It lets you get started watching our welcome videos, start working on your own process checklist, and check out our workspaces for organizational ideas just to name a few. 

Here's more information:

Project Life Lessons, Expert photo tips, journaling solutions, and organizing ideas for Project Life scrapbookers workshop taught by Elise Blaha Cripe, Annette Haring, and Megan Anderson

Starts 9/5/2013
Cost $45

Class Description

Set yourself up for memory-keeping success in Project Life Lessons! Three experts have teamed up to share tons of insider secrets for making the most of any Project Life project. Packed with videos, downloads, handouts, and beautiful layout examples, Project Life Lessons includes three times the content you'd find in a typical 3-week workshop.

Three experienced Project Lifers to the rescue! Elise Blaha Cripe, Annette Haring (that's me!), and Megan Anderson and will share their tried-and-true tips in the areas of photo management, storytelling, organization, assembly, and more. Whether your approach involves weekly spreads, monthly highlights, or something more custom, you can establish an effective working process that will help you make your albums a better reflection of who you really are and what matters most to you.

Read rest of description here and you can check out the promo video below.

Giveaway information:

To be entered in the giveaway, just leave a comment here and be sure to check out the Bonus Giveaways below.

Giveaway will go through Monday Sept 2nd. Comments will close at 9 pm central US time. Winner will be announced Tuesday.

Be sure to check back Tuesday to see if you have won or leave an email so I can contact you if you win.

BONUS GIVEAWAYS!

In addition to your chance to win here, go check out two awesome memory keepers, Nicole Reaves and Tracy Larsen. Nicole is on the Design Team for Studio Calico and rocks their Project Life kit each month. Tracy Larsen is on the Project Life Creative Team for Becky Higgins. Both are just amazing and are wonderful examples of how they have found a system that works for them. Go check them out and while you are enjoying their Project Life pages, be sure to enter the giveaway on their blogs as well. You can find them here:

Nicole Reaves 

Tracy Larsen

Also be sure to check out Elise's blog--her giveaway for two seats ends Sunday!

Elise Blaha Cripe

For more information about Project Life, which is a simplified system for memory keeping created by Becky Higgins, click here.

Would love to have you be a part of the class. Click here if you want to get started now (if you do win, BPC will credit the class back to you if you have already registered.)

Comments are now closed. Thank you to all who entered!

Summer Happiness MiniBook | Part 1

I know this post is a little late. I keep thinking, "maybe I should just wait and post the whole thing together...I'm only doing it one more month, right?" Sound familiar? Truth is, life and work have been busy and I need to let go of some of my perfectionism and just post it. Right?

So here we go.

My third project for Elle's Studio in July was a "Summer Happiness" minibook inspired by that cute Summer Happiness stamp and Gretchen Ruben's Happiness Project just to simply document what is making me happy this summer. To see more about the project you can check out the Elle's Studio site: click here.

I love the idea of a Happiness Project and was so inspired by Gretchen's post about "How will you make your own summer?" I'm currently doing a Summer Manifesto inspired by Ali Edwards, so initially I questioned whether I should even do this little mini book. As I've been working on it, I realized it's based more on observations than intentions. Sort of like a gratitude journal versus a goal setting album. Both can be excellent projects and worthwhile (at least for me.)

Okay, so for my mini album: the cover is a piece of thin birch plywood from a local hobby shop. I left mine raw and I love the color and feel of it. I've had this for over a year and am happy to finally put it to use. I had been saving it for a beach mini album, which didn't happen last year.

The idea for the wood came from Nicole Reaves and her beautiful December Daily. Also check out this beautiful seashore minibook from Martha Stewart. I simply cut the plywood down to 4x6 and then embossed the summer and 2013 from Elle's stamps with white Zing. I added that cute glitter star from Studio Calico on the front too and just love how it turned out.

By the way, I absolutely love the summer stamp set from the Saltwater collection. So useful even when it's not summer. This stamp below was my inspiration for the book. I initially thought of going neon, but the lighter pink felt more like I wanted it to. Am also currently slightly obsessed with the chipboard stars from Pink Paislee. Here I stitched a plain transparency and the light polka dot vellum paper together to create the pocket with the stars, a few sequins and a bit of small gold confetti. I embossed the summer happiness stamp using Zing embossing powder on the transparency.

Here I used a glassine envelope and a tag with Summer 2013--card from the Elle's Studio June kit-- to create an intro page. The chevron transparency is from Alison Kreft.

I stitched the glassine envelope on and then glued the small polka dot bag onto the back with another one of the Elle's Studio cards--this one is from Saltwater. Here I used it explain what the book is about and the inspiration from Gretchen Rubin. 

Then I just started adding my items. What I did was create a two page spread (meaning a left side and a right side) with a vellum or transparency or something else in between for the number. Think December Daily meets 30 Lists meets Summer mini book.

Number 1: the beach (these aren't in any particular order, just whatever I decided to use for each one.)

I used a ticket from our trip to Stewart beach. Love including some ephemera like that.

 Number 2: my awesome niece Mckayla

Number 3: my daughter

Number 4: Taking time to enjoy the sweet things in life

Number 5: Road Trips

I stamped right on a transparency using the summer stamp to create this divider.

a closer look at the journaling above and the stamping on the transparency below.

Thanks for looking! For more info, check out my gallery at Elle's Studio!

How will you create or observe your own happiness this summer? Would love to hear!

Also wanted to note: Polaroid photos are from Persnickety Prints. I had them printed on linen paper and I adore the feel of these. Perfect for the look I was going for. The texture makes it tricky to stamp on though. They have lots of paper options and I might try the fine art paper next time. 

For more information about "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin click here. 

Will be back after the August reveal to finish up! Enjoy the rest of your summer!