2 HUGE Projects!!!

I have a confession!

I HATE HATE HATE scrapbooking!!! I know that to some of you out there this might seem blasphemous, that it is your hobby, your outlet, your greatest treasures, etc etc

For me, however, it has always seemed an overwhelming, daunting, and HUGE task that I never wanted to tackle.

I use my blog as my scrapbook, a place to store all my photos and keep track of them in an orderly fashion, to journal and document our exciting (or mundane) lives that we live, the different places we have been, and so I have a record of when things happened. I update it quite frequently so as to keep a pretty good record of things. Thus, the first project will not seem out of the ordinary. I decided to take my blog and slurp it into a book using Blurb, and print out a copy so we would have it as a record of our year in China. Since doing the last 5 years seemed to big a task, I started by just doing 2010: Our life Abroad, and documenting our adventures in China. It was so much fun, and I found myself reliving each day as I remembered it from the past year. I worked on this book for hundreds of hours (literally), as I wanted each page uniform in some ways, customized in others, had to format all the pictures (over 700) and make sure each one looked perfect before moving on. Once I finished all 226 pages I went through and re-edited them to make sure the wording, grammar, spelling, and writing was exactly what I wanted. All in all I feel I re-wrote some of the posts completely, and yet it was exactly what I wanted!!! I had it printed off and was going to give it to Chip for Father's Day....altho he saw it hit the credit card bill first and so after asking if we had gotten it and Cash saying "you can't see it yet because it is wrapped up in a present" he went and found it and opened it early! (this is why you never get presents ON your day honey)! Anyways - Chip loves it, I love it, and it is one very special treasure we will always have! I recommend doing this to anyone who has a blog! It is an awesome way to journal/scrapbook all at once in an orderly fashion! I used every spare moment of Griffin's nap times, and even a lot of the kids awake time, early mornings, and late nights to get this done in just a few weeks and couldn't be happier!

The only bad thing was I upgraded to a higher version of Booksmart after I had ordered it and now my book is lost somewhere. I have a guy from Blurb helping me to try to get it back, but so far have been unsuccessful. I can, however, order more copies just like the one I have, so at least that is good! It made me physically sick though when I first realized this!

Anyways - here is the finished product - shipped right to my house and absolutely perfect!

With 115 posts for the year and my perfectionism demanding that each post had a different font, layout, and pictures customized to that specific post, that is why it took so long!

Here is an example of one of my favorite pages - A post I did on my beautiful sister and then the 9 picture layout that went along with it. Each post is fun, different, and looks awesome!

PROJECT #2:

Up until 3 weeks ago I had printed less than 50 pictures total since before Chip and I got married, over 5 years ago. Although I hate scrapbooking, as I said above, I do enjoy looking at pictures and started thinking that maybe I should follow in my mom's footsteps and do some so my kids have pictures and I have them too. I realized that after computers crashing this past year, many different sites I upload too, and the way things are going if I didn't get started this project would quickly get out of control! (as if it weren't already).

I decided to just jump in and get started, so ordered over 5000 (true) photos of our lives, including all our wedding pictures, graduation from college, moves and new houses, births of our babies, and our lives together since 2006 and put them all into books. After getting most of them in I discovered in my bin downstairs pictures of my HS basketball team, senior trip, HS graduation, college freshman year, ALL my dance photos, dating photos, engagement photos, bridal photos, and more that I had at one time printed but never put anywhere. I decided these must go into books too. Thus, this HUGE project took over my life for the past couple weeks as I worked many hours a day to get each book done. (At least I had something to do since Chip has been working so many hours each week too!) I still have many a photo I need to track down and a few big events I still need to find the pictures of online somewhere, but I must say it is coming along. It seemed an unconquerable idea, and yet I am almost done with my stuff and now can start re-printing some of the pics and doing them for each of my kids.

I don't do anything extravagant, as I don't have the time, energy, or desire to do that - but rather just bought some 3 ring binders, colored cardstock paper, a LOT of gluesticks, the sheet protectors, and then with a pen write a caption for the pictures as they go in describing them and VOILLE!!! There you have my scrapbooking! It has been fun to see the changes and realize how great a life I really have had and the fun experiences my kids have had too!

Phew - it is exhausting to think about but now that I have started I will keep on it and hopefully never have to play catch up quite like this ever again!

Here are the 8 books I have completed thus far!

An example of what my pages look like!

I don't need embellishments, stickers, or any other creative stuff.....I just enjoy seeing the pics and the satisfaction that I have them in a book in chronological order and can access them any time I please!!! Now, where are those pictures of my little Cashee's first birthday? Off to find them to print off and get in the books!

What projects do you have going on right now?