Project Life: 2011 May - August

Hello everyone!  So today I'm sharing with you a post that is old in more ways than one.  Before I started my 2014 Project Life, I was dipping my toes in the PL pool by scrapping memories from years past, starting in 2010.  Then I began my 2014 album, and my 'way back then' album kind of got forgotten.  I never got a chance to share with you the last page I had created at the end of 2013, so it has been sitting in draft mode pretty much since January.  So in the name of clearing out the clutter, here is my spread for May to August of 2011!

Please don't judge these horrendous pictures, they were taken at the beginning of the year before I really started learning how to take decent pictures ;)

The main colors I chose to work with in this spread were green, pink and yellow.  It is already so crazy looking back at how my style has changed over the last 6 months.  Sometimes I feel like I'm making no progress on improving my scrapping skills, but looking back at this old spread again really helps to show how far I've already come in such a short time.  I guess practice does make perfect... or at least improvement ;).

The majority of the left hand spread included pictures from May, with the exception of one June picture at the bottom.  So I decided to dedicate the title card to the May pictures, and just label the single June picture as such.

For the title card, I cut out the month of May using my Silhouette Cameo.  I love how delicate and fancy these letters turned out, I normally have a tough time cutting out scripty fonts.  I had also just gotten my Silhouette for Christmas shortly before making this spread, so I was super excited to start incorporating cut elements into my Project Life.  I then stamped the month and year numerals into the date space on the card.

Dakota and my parents dog Rufio (who readers of LMO have definitely heard about before) don't generally get along.  Dakota is all about her Uncle Rufio, but he doesn't want anything to do with her.  So I always love capturing the rare moments he lets her within 10 feet of him and I can fit both of them into the frame.  For embellishment, I simply included a round label with a funny saying on it.

The above left picture just cracks me up.  Melissa was working hard on a paper she had to write, and Dakota decided it would be helpful to just sprawl herself across Melissa's lap and pass out.  I embellished with a flag sticker to add some journaling, and then cut a piece of the banner on the card so it could stick out over top the photo.

I kept it simple on the right card with a little cluster of tiny embellishments.  I just love clusters of three using enamel dots, brads and other small detail embellishment, and find myself going back to this tactic again and again.

These two cards remained really simple as well.  I guess this was back when I was still really afraid of adding embellishment, and just had no idea how to go about doing it.  Tip: just do it!  I can also tell I had just learned how to cut out the printed banners on the cards to lay them over my images, I was just all over that technique!  And in case you can't tell what the picture on the right is... that would be Melissa sitting Dakota in her shoe, because ya know... that's just how we do it over here.

So the fact that I wasn't always memory keeping conscience is quite obvious with this card.  It was Melissa's 21st birthday, and apparently I only managed to get a single picture to remember the occasion.  Oh well, one is better than none!  I just love these tiny 3D present stickers, and stuck a couple on in Melissa's favorite colors, which coordinates with the color of the card I drew her.

It's so funny what pictures capture sometimes.  I totally took the picture to record Melissa with her parents' dog, Millie.  But when I look at this picture, what I really remember is that Melissa used to wear baseball hats every. second. of every. day.  Totally not what I meant to record, but a fun memory just the same!

The right hand side of my spread is a bit crazy, and I'm not loving the way it turned out.  But the memories are recorded, and that is what is important here.  My style and skill level has changed and will continue to change.  But the memories will always be there.

The right hand side is mostly August, with one July picture snuck in there.  I apparently really stank at recording the everyday.  I'm so glad I've gotten more used to whipping out my phone and snapping a picture of the everyday and things I want to remember!

If I only had to have one picture for July, I'm glad it's this one.  Melissa and I went on her family's boat for the day and it was such an great time.  Somehow Melissa convinced me to go sit out on the bow with her, and I'm so glad she did.  What an awesome picture!  Since there's no real story behind the picture, I let it talk for itself and just added the date with some thickers.

I didn't have enough pictures to fill up this slot, so I added in another date/title card to illustrate that the rest of the page was in August.  I colored in different squares of the grid paper to spell out the year.  This is something I used to do all that time with different words when I was younger, and turns out... it's still fun!  I then circled the month and added a couple small embellishments.

I always love capturing my two girls snuggling together, and include these moments whenever I can in my spreads.

I of course had to include the shopping trip where we bought Dakota her very own pink and white polka dot life jacket.  Isn't she adorable?  We had plans of bringing her out on the boat with us at some point... still haven't done that.

The other four 2x2 slots were dedicated to some of the delicious food we enjoyed that month.  Melissa made me waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar one morning (my favorite) and then we whipped up some chocolate covered bananas and strawberries.  To get the fade effect on the yellow card, I stamped the "oh yes" SC stamp three times without re-inking it.

And next we have more silly Dakota pictures.  The left is her all wet after what I assume was a bath.  And on the right, Dakota for some reason loved to shove her face under the ripped fabric of our old couch cushion and go to sleep.  To each their own I guess.  To get the title, I cut out the letters of "munchkin" (what we call Dakota) using my Silhouette.

And last but not least, another picture of my two girls.  There was no real journaling to go along with this photos, so I just jotted down the lyrics to "you are my sunshine".  A little cornier than I usually go for, but whatevs, it worked!

And that finishes up my 2011 May-August spread!  Now if you count the current 2014 weeks I'm behind on, I have about 2 and a half years of catching up to do!  Gulp...

Anyone else going back and revisiting old layouts?  Don't you love seeing how much your style has changed since the pages were created?  Who loves scrapping years past and remembering things you would have forgotten about?  Because of course revisiting old memories is exactly why we do this crazy project called life!  Happy scrapping!