September Blue

Project Life: Week 15 + Freebie

Before I get into Week 15, have you seen Becky's video for new Project Life plastics that are coming in July? Check it out on the YouTube video below! I am soooo excited about all of it! Three cheers for 4x4 pockets!

 

Update on my 2012 New Year's Resolution(s): I am taking Kayla Lamoreaux's "Finding Your Photo Flow" Class over at JessicaSprague.com. I am so excited about this class. I really need to get a grasp on the number of photos I take and come up with a system of downloading, tagging, organizing & storing them on my computer. I'll post periodic updates to let you know how it is all going!

Okay onto Week 15. The layout is small, but I like it! Quick and simple!

I know I posted the Word Art Titles for Week 15 in a quick post last week, but you can download them again by clicking the link below. I used Design A and the 6x12 divided page protectors and a combination of papers from both the Clementine and Cobalt Core Collections.

Download SeptBlue_Week15Titles

My "Better late than never" photo is of a box that was delivered through our mail system. Nice isn't it? Back in the beginning of March I ordered decorations for our Beach Party we were having at the end of the month. Given that I ordered the stuff 3 weeks before the party, I figured that was plenty of time for it to get here. Boy was I wrong! For several weeks our mail was being routed through Istanbul which brought delivery of bulky packages down to a trickle.  There is only one or two flights a week to Riga from Istanbul, but by the looks of my box, you would think it traveled by rickshaw! But there is good news! Our mail is now going through Stockholm and there are daily flights from there to Riga which means our mail will get here much faster. And that has already proved to be true. I received a box in the mail yesterday that was shipped from the States on April 10! Six days-I think that is a record!

Although the temperatures need to warm up just a little bit more, spring has sprung here in Riga. We know this because all of the restaurants, cafes, bars and pubs are constructing their outdoor patios and opening them for business! On Saturday Chris and I strolled through Old Town and stopped for lunch at one of our favorites-No Problem. It felt so good to get out into the fresh air! (I got a new "do" this week as well. Totally happy with it. It's now my new FB profile pic!)

Saturday was also the 20th Anniversary of the Latvian Navy. There were several navy ships from Latvia and other countries in port for the celebration. After lunch, Chris and I walked off our food and drink and went to the port to tour some of the ships. Good day!

 This post is linked with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama

Project Life Week 13 + Freebie

I kinda lost my creative mojo yesterday so my layout wasn't posted like it usually is on a Monday. To be honest, even though the layout is complete (well, almost, but more on that later), I still haven't found it yet. Maybe the two big events at our house this week sucked it all out of me or maybe it was because I wasn't happy with the way my pictures turned out from Saturday night (more on that later too!). But just because the creative wheels weren't spinning was no reason not to work on my Project Life. That is the beauty of this system. You can be as creative or uncreative as you want.

This week I used products from the Cobalt Core Kit along with Page Protectors B and G. You can download this week's word art titles by clicking the link below.

Download SeptBlue_Week13

I mentioned above that we had two events at the house this week. An Admiral was in town and Chris hosted a dinner in honor of visit. There was a mixture of 12 American & Latvian military officers in attendance and the occasion was catered by Restaurant Line 36 in Jurmala. I met the restaurant's chef, Lauris, at one of the Latvian cooking classes last fall I attended and he was more than happy to cater the event! I was a bit disappointed because I wasn't able to be there though. There are times when Chris hosts dinners at the house and I just need to disappear (who wants to stick around and listen to all that talk anyways?). So I went out to dinner with my friend Anna, had a mojito and a few glasses of wine and great conversation. We haven't gone out in a while and it felt good to reconnect with her! 

The rest of the week was spent prepping for our beach party Saturday night. Several weeks ago I ordered awesome decorations for the party as well as a fun tropical skirt for the event. The mail system here has been unbelievably slow lately and it's been taking stuff 3-4 weeks or longer to arrive from the States. It's driving me crazy!!! Thursdays seem to be a big mail day and when we got a note saying we have a box, I was jumping for joy! Good news and bad news...

The skirt I ordered from Title Nine came in (along with a bunch of Mary Kay stuff I ordered), but the decorations did not. Grrr!!! My friend Robyn said "Well at least you'll have something to wear and your make-up will look good!" (she cracks me up). That may be true, but what was I supposed to do about decorations for this party?

Cricut to the rescue!

Instead of using my Thursday to scrapbook with the girls, I was making plumeria flowers with the Cricut machine. A lot of them. I had them hanging from door frames, light fixtures and the fireplace. They worked out great! I wish I had more photos of them, but I don't...

...why? Well, all of the photos I took of the evening I took with my iPhone. I know I have raved about the pics I get from my iPhone, but the iPhone isn't the best in low light. I should have taken the time to run upstairs and get my point and shoot, but with everything going on that night, I hadn't a moment to spare! So, as I mentioned in the beginning of this post, this spread isn't totally complete. I am waiting for several of my friends to forward me some photos from the evening and when they do, I will print them and place them in the 6x12 divided page protectors. Once I get those printed, I will include them in a future post!

I wanted to make a horizontal, bi-fold journal card to journal about the night. The photo above shows what I did. And the photo below shows how I placed it in the slot.

The night was a blast! We had invited the Attaché community as well as several friends from the Embassy. The foreign diplomats weren't sure what to expect, however! The Russian Attachés were a little confused on the dress for the evening (totally tropical). They kept calling Chris' secretary asking for clarification. But once they arrived they all had a good time! Lots of photos were taken by the palm tree and hanging garlands. I got a letter from the wife of the Swedish DATT saying how much they enjoyed the evening and how nice of a change it was from the formal receptions we usually attend!

In typical diplomatic protocol, the Attachés stayed for about two hours and left, but the Americans hung out for a while! We moved furniture around, cranked up the music and turned the living room into a dance floor. Beach balls were bounces and the margaritas were flowing. We had a great time dancing the night away! Again, I will post more photos when I get better copies from my friends!

Whew! I am so glad last week is over though! This week (week 14) marks the beginning of Candice Stringham's "Oh Shoot" Photography Class over at JessicaSprague.com. I've been wanting to take this class for a few years now and am looking forward to learning more about getting out of auto mode on the camera! 

Have a great Week 14 everyone!

 This post is linked with The Mom Creative and One Happy Mama

 

 

Project Life Week 7 + 2 Freebies!

Once again it was one of those weeks that I didn't take a lot of pictures, but instead I have several "things" I wanted to showcase. It was a love-ly week for me-Valentine's Day, dinners out, socializing with friends and the start of Jessica Sprague's The Art of Poster Design Class. Here is my layout for week 7. Keep on reading for an AWESOME freebie at the end of the post!

For this week's layout, I used the page protectors in Design B and Design G and used product from the Clementine collection. Click the link below to download the Word Art Titles for Week 7 (this is the first of two freebies in this week's post).

Download SeptBlue_Week7Titles

Last week I shared photos of the Subway Art I created for Chris as his Valentine's Day gift. I appreciate the AWESOME response to this piece of art here on September Blue as well as other message boards I am active on. I wanted to put a smaller version of it in this layout and did so on the left hand side of the layout. 

I included strings with arrows at the end of them pointing to the various addresses we have lived at throughout our marriage. On the white circles I wrote the years we lived at those addresses. Also on this page I included a photo of the flowers Chris gave me for Valentine's Day. The colors in the original photo were very saturated. I lowered the saturation in Photoshop to fade the color a bit, cropped it and placed it in the bottom corner.

On the right hand side of the layout I included the card I made for Chris and the one he gave to me. The cards were a little bulky and weren't staying in their pockets very well. I ended up using paperclips from SMASH to keep them secure. I used the flags that come with the paperclips to label the cards.

A few weeks ago the Public Affairs Office at the Embassy asked if I would create a sticker for them that promoted the Embassy's Facebook page and Twitter accounts. The intended audience is the young adult population of Latvia and the stickers were to also include the QR codes that can be scanned with smart phones. It was a fun, quick project and the end result is pictured above. 

For Week 8 I really want to focus on taking more photos. I have my camera with me all of the time, I just need to get it out and use it! A new class called "iShot That!" began this week over at ReneePearson.com. It is a class about shooting with your iPhone camera. It's going to be great and can't wait to learn some creative photo techniques using my iPhone's camera!

I mentioned earlier in the post that Week 7 also marked the beginning Jessica Sprague's Art of Poster Design class. I love taking classes from her. Yes, I already have a degree in graphic design, but taking these classes keeps me on top of new techniques and gets my creative juices flowing! I also love the online community within the classes. Being able to communicate on a daily basis with others that share the same passion for memory keeping, digital design and Photoshop is wonderful! 

One of the posters we created this week was an exploration in using only one font along with some clip art to communicate goals, thoughts, a set of rules, etc. Jessica always provides the necessary elements to complete the poster in her example, but she encourages to use our own creativity and make something that suites our needs or tastes. And that is what exactly I did. Below is the poster that Jessica created for class:

Isn't that great? I love how creative you can get just by varying the size one font! I took some creative control and created something different:

I used the same font and banners Jessica included in the class materials, but I went with a totally different topic, color scheme and clip art. The words come from a pin on Pinterest. They are quoted from Audrey Hepburn (LOVE HER). When I first saw the wording I thought to myself how cool it would be to recreate a typographical piece of my own from these words. When this poster project came along, I knew it was the perfect time to do so and I created "All-American Girl."

I posted the picture of my poster on a my personal Facebook page and several other message boards that I take part in. The response was great and I thought I would give share my poster with you as a free download. Please note that this is not a typical size. It's 13x24. If you wanted to download and have it printed/framed at full size, it will have to be a custom job. You can always change the image size in Photoshop to make it smaller and print it at home if you'd like. I will leave this up as a free download for a limited time (through this Friday) Click the link below to download while you can. Enjoy!

BTW! I want to give a BIG shout out to The MomCreative! Every Tuesday, Jessica Turner, the founder, provides a place for all Project Lifer's to upload a link to their Project Life pages on their blogs! I just found out about this and I look forward to being able to share a link to my blog posts there! Thanks Jessica!

Download SeptBlue_AllAmericanGirl.jpg

Have a great Week 8!