Heather Johnson Photography

In Minnesota it’s still snowing (we just got a few fresh inches this morning) so I thought I would dig out the Olive kit to make me feel a little more springy. We are sooooo ready to get outside–and tomorrow? It isn’t happening. The low tonight is going to be below zero, so by morning it will only be in the single digits I am sure. I never thought I would say this–but perhaps I AM ready to move to California. Even with all that crazy traffic!

Whole Spread:

Left Side:

Right Side:

What we were up to this week: We had two main events this week, going to open gym time at the rec center and getting sick. That’s it! The cold hit Holly first, and then me and Marie…Justin seems to be doing okay so far. I hope Marie gets better soon…getting woken up nine times (yes NINE TIMES) last night does not a happy mommy make. I am completely exhausted…which explains why this week is pretty much no frills. I have no mojo, and barely enough photos, to make anything happen.

Techniques used this week: Other than brushes, I had a good time recoloring. The dotted paper on the inner mat? Totally recolored. The original is pink–gotta love how with digital you can make papers and elements whatever color you want to coordinate! The “Sisterly Love” 3×4 photo is an image taken with my iphone that had text added with the Photolettering App. I have a feeling this will be showing up A LOT in my layouts in the future.

Other thoughts:  I am in a bit of a slump, I truly haven’t been excited about my pages since I completed the title page a few weeks ago. That’s the last one that had me say WOW…..I am hoping it’s a combination of being tired and sick that will go away soon. My husband and I are headed out of town for a getaway this weekend, so let’s hope that my batteries get recharged and I can get to creating (and posting) more again when we return. (Couple that with the fact that a new PL Edition was just made available digitally and you know next week I will be rocking the Kraft edition. So excited about these new kits and I am hoping that will show in my layout.)

Supplies used this week: Most of the items are listed in icons below. The “cute” arrow is an Ali Edward’s brush available at designerdigitals.com, and the photo flags were a free download from Cathy Zielske. Love those flags!

Here we are. Week Ten. How is it that this year is going so fast?!

This week was an all black and white week for me…except I didn’t exactly keep it ALL black and white. I am so obsessed with black paper with bright florals that I used the second paper pack of the Walnut Grove collection. Love those colors!

Whole Spread:

Left Side:

Right Side:

What we were up to this week: Spending a lot of time reading with Holly, watching Marie with her new love–”Bear Bear,” lots and lots of time around the house just trying to get to the other side of winter. We are going a little stir crazy here–this happens in Minnesota during the winter. The first warm day in the spring? Hundreds of people go outside, it’s crazy!

Techniques used this week: Brushes, brushes, brushes.

Other thoughts:  I really enjoyed making my photos black and white this week. That’s all I got. (Baby Marie keeps getting up at 5am which is sort of killing me…)

Supplies used this week: Most of the items will be listed in icons below. (I forgot my computer cord and the poor old laptop is about to die.) The Week Nine circle came from September Blue’s blog and was, at the time, a free download. It’s $2.99 now, but I still think that’s a great deal for 52 elements. I absolutely love those elements! !

Having just embarked on my first traditional album, a Project Life Baby Album for Her, I really was at a loss on how to get started. And while I do find the tray the supplies come in cute…it just overwhelmed me more than anything because I couldn’t SEE it all. I knew there were prompt cards in there I would need, and I knew there were certain filler designs I wanted to use more than others…but everytime I turned around I couldn’t find the one I wanted. The frustration finally hit the boiling point earlier this week and I sat down and did what I should have done in the beginning.

I pulled out some Design F protectors and got organized!!!

The first thing I did was clear off a big table (trust me you need a lot of space to do this as there are a lot of cards) and separate the cards into piles. I had a pile for:

• Journaling cards that had journaling lines only, front was vertical orientation and the back horizontal
• Cards that had journaling lines on one side, and filler designs on the other–all vertical orientations
• Cards that had journaling lines on one side, and filler designs on the other–all horizontal orientations
• Cards that has specific prompts (like Cost of Living in our Country, or first bath), or cards made for journaling that there was only one of (for example there is only one that says “This was amazing”)

I had some 4×6 card stock cards lying around, so they became my title cards for each category. Here is a look at how it turned out. First up, journaling cards only. I am just showing the vertical side, which is what I kept on the “front side,” since I use Design A most often:

Next, cards that had journaling lines on one side, and filler designs on the other–all vertical orientations. I took a photo of the front and then the back and placed them next to each other below. Isn’t it great that, at a glance, you can find the colors and design you need?! I actually ended up with two full Design F protectors of this type, but will only show you one so you get the idea:

I ended up with one “extra” journaling/vertical filler on the back, so I included it in with the journaling/horizontal filler on the back cards and just made little labels so I knew what was what. Note, this page is missing a 4×6 title card so it looks a little strange:

Finally a Design F I filled with prompt and special journaling cards. I ended up with two protectors of this variety as well. If your doing this from the beginning, there may be more, remember I have a chunk of them in use already:

The tray houses all of the cards, as the Design F protector acts only as a guide and unfortunately can’t hold them all. So that I could find everything easily, I put all of the cards in the order they appear on the page protector in the tray. As soon as I find rubberbands I will band it all together, as the baby has already grabbed the box and spilled it all over the floor! I also put a post it note label on top of the card pile that says which category the pile is (i.e. journaling cards H/V only or journaling cards w/ filler-Vertical).

I really wish I stopped a minute to do this before I started.

I say again, I really wish I stopped a minute to do this before I started. It has helped me soooo much, and I know that when you couple this with Becky’s ideas on how to get the baby album set up, you will seriously have a lot of fun putting it all together. Oh…and don’t forget these planning pages. My husband always says that any project is easy if you have the right tools. He is so right!

I have already filled up some additional Design F protectors with my Studio Calico cards (yes you read that right, this digi gal is starting to collect some paper supplies…uh oh) and thankfully I have an extra binder I have now labeled my “supply folder” to house all of this in. I have some ideas on how to get my digi supplies organized–let’s keep our fingers crosssed that I can get a handle on that!

I know I am not the only one that digi scraps and has NO IDEA of exactly how much, and what kits/elements and the like are in her stash? Right? Please tell me I am not the only one…..

You didn’t think I would create a “Mary and Laura” dress for Holly last week and then not use the Walnut Grove Digital Collection at AC Digitals did you? Of course I did…and I LOVED the papers in this kit! (As usual, though, I never quite know what to do with elements.)

Whole Spread:

Left Side:

Right Side:

6×12 insert for the week, front and back shown together–but will be two 6×12 pieces:

What we were up to this week: The photos probably say it all! It seems like ages ago now, but for three solid days I was cutting, pinning, measuring, and sewing that dress with my Aunt Holly by my side. By far the most ambitious project I have ever done on the sewing machine, and also the best. I LOVE how it turned out, as does Holly. After all of that was done, and my Aunt Holly went home, we were back to our normal routine of school, naps, playdates, chasing kids, and hanging out in the neighborhood. It was a really fun week. (Minus the day I collapsed with exhaustion of course. Sewing will do that to me.)

Techniques used this week: I am not sure if it’s a true technique (I am unaware of the official name unless you go with what Tara Whitney calls it), but I intentionally took the bonfire photo out of focus. I love the feeling I get when I look at it…it actually looks like a memory doesn’t it?

Other thoughts:  I am completely addicted to 6×12 inserts. I think this is already my fifth one of the year. I will be showing my physical album, with all of the inserts, the first week of April. I have shown a few here, but not all, because they tend to take me a lot longer to get around. I decided that showing them all quarterly would be an easier deadline for me to stick to.

Supplies used this week: Most of the items are listed in the icons below. The Week Nine circle came from September Blue’s blog and was, at the time, a free download. It’s $2.99 now, but I still think that’s a great deal for 52 elements. I absolutely love those elements! My favorite new find of the week was Nettio Design’s cards–they are going to be so awesome for my instagrams!!!