hello {project life} !

i am so excited! project life is now in singapore!!! scraplicious is carrying the Project Life for southeast asia! great news! i am just as glad that PL is finally close to home. singapore is so near that it makes me want to fly there and get the stuff! but that will make it more expensive! good thing i have friends over there to get/send it for me!

i just pre-ordered my PL! Clementine, i can't wait for you!

i am still catching up with project life... i am way behind (more on my approach, i will surely make a post on that), but i love what it has done to me in terms of memory keeping.. it is a HUGE plunge for me, i must admit but it is all WORTH IT!

and seeing my son look at it and hearing him REMEMBER those moments make my heart melt!

looking at one of those unfinished spread... {love that look on his face!}

jumpstart

is it september already? the past months seemed like a blur.

right now, life is a challenge especially with having a new baby and an active pre-schooler in tow. very daunting that it has consumed all my time, energy and effort, shuffling in between the many hats that i have to wear each day. i have totally not forgotten about my goals but more often than not, when i am about to do my stuff, something would come up - a baby that needs soothing or a cry of help from a boy who can't find his fave toy or even an errand to be done for hubby.

right now, there's a nagging feeling to organize and get back into the groove again. yet again, i am overwhelmed. early this year i made an attempt to take my memory keeping into a different level. and so i did (and is still doing) project life. although i want to keep it current, i also intend to work backwards to january so i could get the whole year of 2011. yes, it is a tough thing to do, with the time that i have in my hands. but when i saw what i did for the months of february to half of april, it made me soar. especially when i see my son flipping through its pages. he just loves seeing his photos in an album. and the good thing is that i haven't lost the urge to take photos and jot down bits and pieces of everyday life. when i went through my project life photos, i noticed that there are weeks that come with few photos and there are weeks that come aplenty. i am totally fine with that. i know that when i come face to face with project life again, i can come up with something to make it fit my liking.

right now, i need to make all things work on my side. as the month of september sets in, i intend to update my project life, make it more current and simple. and when i am fully adjusted to being a mother to two adorable kids, i would love to dabble on traditional scrapbooking.

right now, i continue to be inspired by others who share the same passion as mine. their works have ignited that love for creativity that has been put off for quite a time now. i am keeping the spark to make mine aglow.

yey for project life

i am soo excited that finally my project life is here!!! i am happy to be able to get hold of this product (even if it costs me a lot!) but i really believe that system will work for me to record our life now, especially that we will be having baby #2 very soon. this should work because i was only able to put up 1 album for euan - his baby photos (my bad). all the photos are stuck in my computer.

so on top of arranging all the page protectors and title cards, one of the things in my to do list is to select the pictures that will go in this project. since i am so bent to try this out in january (but decided to order on february), i have been taking snapshots of our lives. at first i admit, i planned to do a picture-a-day approach but there are days that i am so stumped, that i decided to go on a weekly approach. i have never taken so many pictures than now so i decided to organize my pictures on a weekly basis and select from there which would go to the PL and which would be for regular LOs. also, since i started with lots of pictures in january, i have been doing some journaling that i have written either here in my blog or in my journal. although i have read in PL community that backtracking is not really recommended as one can really start at any month of the year, i intend to start with the current week and work my way backwards to january and see if i can make the whole of almost 3 months worth of photos. i hope i can manage it since i am almost complete with the journaling. it's just a matter of putting it all together. but if not, then it's ok, i can use those in the regular LOs.

so this is my gameplan. i believe i can do this. all i need is to focus (olw) on my gameplan.

high five

today you are frequently moving. you made sure that your every somersaults and kicks were felt big time. sometimes i feel like my tummy is going to explode because of your mighty moves. but feeling you move so vigorously is the best thing, knowing that you are healthy and you respond to our every tummy rub :)

just like last night. i placed euan's hand on my tummy to let him feel you move. and after a while, you nudged his hand and euan's jaw just dropped in surprise! it was his first time to feel you and that made him so happy. "that's him doing a high five with you", i said. and so when he put his hand again in my tummy, he said, 'baby, high five!".

at this early, i'm just as glad that for that brief moment, you have bonded with your brother. and i just pray that you will be the best of friends for life.

overjoyed

finally! project life is on it's way! i am very excited to get my hands to it although it might take a while before i get hold of this album. got johnny air cargo to ship it here and i have yet to see how things go. as of the moment i'm just so happy that johnny air representative emailed me that PL is delivered already and they are just waiting for the my other shipments (refills and page protectors). hopefully in the next 2 weeks, i will finally be able to start working on project life. yey!

{create}

yes, finally! i was able to pull my act together and came out with a lay-out! Yey! my first for the year! after being so overwhelmed with the amazing creations of Ali Edwards yesterday, i was so inspired to scrapbook.

this is the first time that i am not working on a sketch or scraplifting. i just gathered my photos and supplies and work my way into creating a page. i think part of the motivation also came from the free online class that i joined at Big Picture Scrapbooking entitled Embracing Perfection. and just a few weeks in the class, it hit me to the core of why i don't scrapbook the way i should. sure, i wanted to preserve my precious moments but i was just too afraid that my layouts would look too plain and simple compared to those of what others do. i am afraid to have mismatched colors and unproportioned layouts. i would spend time trying to figure out how my papers match with my limited supplies that i would end up frustrated and quit making the LO altogether. i am just soo afraid to have imperfect LOs. i am afraid that my family will not appreciate what i am doing.

but why do i scrapbook? does a layout have to be more important than the memories that i intend to preserve? sure that's part of scrapbooking but i think more than the visuals, it's still all about memory-keeping. i have friends who wanted to try out scrapbooking but i hear them say that they are not creative or they are not into arts. i always say that to them that we are on the same boat. i am not a born artist nor i am creative, but i just have this passion of wanting to preserve what i enjoy now so that i have something to look back to years from now.

maybe i just got it from my mom who is a "photo addict" because she likes to take pictures a lot and we had lots of photos when were kids. actually, even up to now that we have kids of our own. we have tons of albums! she told me once that she wants to have as many memories of the events in our lives and have those in pictures because she doesn't have any picutres when she was a child. how sad is that? so she delights in seeing those photos - it makes her really happy. and i want that. i think it's a legacy that i want to take on. that's where the passion is coming from.

so for those of us who are not gifted with such creativity, don't be discouraged. scrapbooking is also for us. because the very purpose of why we scrapbook is not how beautiful our layout will turn out, but it is how the memories come alive each time we see what we have created. how it brings us back to the moment and re-live those memories. pure joy!

i am still in the process of embracing everything altogether, slow-paced and all, but i know in my heart that nothing would stop me from documenting the everyday. and i am doing this for my family, to let them know that each moment with them are truly cherished, all worthy of the effort of putting it all up together - in a scrapbook layout.

in a drag

lately, i noticed that i have not been keeping up with the goals i set for myself - stuff that i need to focus on. there is that nagging feeling inside me - longing to create, wanting to document life, craving to get out of the rut.

but i find comfort in knowing that i don't intend to do all this as a task meant to burden - i want to do this because i enjoy doing it regardless of time. i don't want to be bounded by time, although i have known myself to work best given a deadline.

although i have not been literally creating LOs, i noticed that i am writing more, scribbling ideas and taking notes of little stuff which would merit a LO in the future or something that would be included in project life (once i have those in my hands). and although there is a feeling that i should be doing it now, i feel somewhat assured that i have something tangible that i can go back to because i have written it down. my memory always fail me that's why i love the idea of scrapbooking and preserving memories. my journal and cellphone are a mess with scribbled notes and ideas but i like that it allows me to remember my simple joys. for now, i like how it keeps me in the know, how i am more sensitive to the people around me, how i more attuned with my son, how my life is revolving around my family, how i am learning more about myself as a mother and as a wife. and that is what's important.