619 miles

week in the life 2011 - album part dos

Part dos = COMPLETE! Whohoo! I'm so in love with my project life 2011 album. I think my hybrid approach worked out really well for me. I've been checking out all the posts at Ali's site and I love seeing the different approach that each person took. I love how the simple concept of documenting one week in your life results in so much variation and creativity. The biggest part of completing this album is to just jump in and not to over think it. And if something isn't working it is totally cool to swich gears completely and go in another direction. I did all of the above. I over thought it, and then I started, and then I re-started. And in the end I heart my album. In fact, it is sitting next to me on my couch right now, and I bet that once I finish up this post I'll be flipping through it again.

Sooooo here is the finished project. I didn't photograph each and every page, but I included a variety of pages to show you what I did. If you want a refresher of how it began, you can click here for the "before".

To read more about how I used iPhoto to make my 8 1/2 by 11" album click here. If you want to see my original plan as well as a link to each of the daily posts visit this page. Curious about how messy my desk was during the process... have a peek. If you have any questions about the hybrid process, about using iPhoto, or about any of the stuff I used please feel free to ask! 

messy desk

messy desk = work in progress...OR week in the life album complete!

Yep, I finally finished it. I am sooo happy about how it turned out. I really feel like I left enough white space to add in some fun elements and some more journalling to really make it reflect me. I've never attempted a combination digital/paper hybrid album before (gotta get with the scrapbookin lingo), but I would totally do it again. LOTS of fun. It's too late to take photos tonight, so I'll just leave you with a quick shot of how my desk looked when I wrapped up the project.

I used the free version of picnik through flickr to add in the words. It is really easy and quick. I normally would use photoshop, but I uploaded the photo to flickr from my iPhone, and I wanted to try out picnik.

 

week in the life 2011 - album part uno

As you may, or may not, remember I had set up my desk with all kinds of fun papers, stamps, markers, and stickers to do my week in the life album. I had printed 59 of the 166 photos before running out of printer ink, and even picked up some fresh cartridges to print the rest of the photos. I sat down, and started cutting. And cutting. And then my fingers started getting a little sore, so I started putting pages together. As I was moving a long at a snails pace I thought of how Ali Edwards put hers together. It was a simple formula for each day and I really liked how hers turned out. I also thought about how she mentioned doing the next one entirely digitally and decided that it was going to take me WAAAAY too long to finish up at my current pace. I felt like her, I just wanted it to be finished.

So I put down the scissors and opened up my laptop. I debated between using iPhoto and Shutterfly to print a digital book, but both were giving me fits trying to use the square photos. Note to online album designs: get with the times and have SQUARE photo options, thank you. To solve the problem I opened up Photoshop Elements and made a canvas the approximate size as my album pages (I decided to stick with iPhoto and my album was an 81/2 by 11). I then arranged photos on the photoshop canvas how I wanted them, saved as a single .jpg, and then uploaded that into the "single photo" template in my iPhoto album. For my camping photos I had a bunch that were not cropped to a square plus a couple of panoramic shots, so I just plugged those directly into iPhoto's multipage layouts.

I do have a small amount of emphera (flight plans, movie stub, maps) that I colledted throughout the week, so I left some blank spots throughout the album to go back and add these things. For the words, I simply cut and pasted from the blog posts (Again channeling Ali - why would I want to re-do something?!). I may go back and add some extra stuff in the blank areas around the photos, or I may not. So instead of my original plan, I'm going to have a mostly digital album with some extra embellishments added in later.

Here are some of my page layouts made using a combination of iPhoto's "Picture Book" theme and Photoshop Elements. 

First page - You can see where I left the photo place-holder blank to add in my own stuff. When printed it will show as white space. For the words to the right I really liked how Ali Edwards ended her album, and this is nearly a direct copy of that. The iPhoto templates don't allow for you to put anything on the backside of the cover page, so that will be white.

Each day starts out with the day of the week, the date, and then the blog entry that I posted for the day. You can see the two instagram photos I put together on the right page. I placed them on a canvas in photoshop and then saved that as a .jpg. Then I set the place holder in iPhoto for one photo that took up the entire page.

This page uses three different images I created in Photoshop Elements. I like how it gave me the freedom to arrange the photos how I wanted and to adjust the size. The page on the left uses iPhoto's 2 photo layout with the images being horizontal. It did allow me to adjust the size of the photos even more... I think I made them each just a little bigger. 

This page used the "spread" template in iPhoto. I love how I got my panoramic image to spread across the two pages. I did this twice in the album.

There were a couple of days where I had a lot of text. In this case I opted to enlarge the quote and re-color it to make it stand out. Then I put the rest of the blog post on the right page.

I ordered the album last night/wee hours this morning. I will share the additions I make in part 2. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the 59 photos I already printed out. I'm thinking some coasters perhaps?!? Any ideas or suggestions on what to do with a bunch of 4x4 instagram prints?

week in the life 2011 - pulling it all together

I'm switching gears from quilting to creating the tangible part of my week in the life 2011 project. I was proud of myself for sticking through this for the entire week. Even though I documented with words & photos here on the blog (monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, & sunday), I knew that I wanted to get the photos off my phone and computer and into something I could hold in my hands.

I was inspired by Elise's palm springs minibook to do something like that, with paper and thread. I was thinking a square format (since I took mostly instagram photos) with rings to hold it all together. I decided I wasn't going to buy anything new (I was only going to use the supplies I have on hand). Well.... I broke that "rule" tonight when I places an order with 2peas. oopps. You see, I love paper... as much as I love fabric. And letter stickers... I love them too. Okay, so I went through a bunch of stuff really quick. Grabbing only things that stuck me. As I was doing this I came across an RVA kit that I bought forever ago that full of yarn, felt, cool random papers and instructions on how to take an old hardback book and turn it into new "summer love" journal. The kit was actually created by Leigh-Ann Keffer of Freckled Nest in partnership with Red Velvet Art. So my new direction is going to be using this kit and directions, plus all the other things I pulled out, including a duly uncut paper pack from jamaica makes (blog, shop).

Here is what I have set out on my desk to get started:

I figured if I set it all out I will be more motivated work on it when I have the time. I have 165 photos to print out (I printed a bunch already, but I ran out of ink). When I need to take a break from the hand sewing of the quilt binding I can work on this project.

I'll have AFTER photos of the quilt soon, as well as a tutorial on how I made my blocks. I am sooo happy with how this one turned out. me encanta!

week in the life - sunday

Schew.... I did it! I managed to keep up. Now the true task is if I can get it into something tangible!

random thoughts:

• I have the smallest bladder... and it stinks when I have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom while camping. At least it wasn't cold (that's THE worst)
• exhaustion makes sleeping in a tent easier
• yummy breakfast is the only way to start the day
• me and the man... we make an excellent camping team. We can set up and take down camp like nothing. we just move along in sync and get everything taken care of. He's fun, he makes me smile... even when he tries to kill me ;) He is also great at dealing with me mentioning the "attempted killing" NUMEROUS times. 
• life is about adventure. I love being with someone that will challenge me... and of course is willing to admit when we push it a little into the stupid realm. 
• a day later the hike doesn't seem as scary. it's fun to laugh and joke about, but I'm still saying I won't go follow him on an unmarked trail ever again (even though I know I would.. I just can't let him in on this just yet).
• WV is beautiful. gorgeous sights, worth visiting "if you like that kinda thing".
• ensure the drain valve on cooler is closed before placing in car for 6 hours

 

small bridge near campsites

looking off bridge

structure

New River Gorge bridge

using AutoStitch Panorama app

The New River


driving back to KY

soccer game

skype date - the bachelorette men tell all

• after making more breakfast tacos, we packed up camp and then rolled out around 10am to check out the New River Gorge bridge. 
• We swung by another nearby campsite to check out it's potential (it didn't really have any) and stopped on a small bridge for some photo ops and taking in the absolutely beautiful scenery. 
• We walked the dogs down to the bridge overlook. it is such a cool bridge. It's a single span steel arch bridge that was completed in 1977. It's a little over 3,000' long and you could fit one washington monument plus 2 statues of liberty (one on top of the other) under it. 
• we had a picnic lunch of turkey and cheese before heading back home.
• I had a soccer game at 5 so I drove straight there and too Reese with me. I made it 10minutes late. only 3 of our regular guys were there and we ended up losing 10-5. bummer.
• finally home, it was nearly 100 degrees again. I unpacked car, discovered leak from cooler. bummer again.
• after getting cleaned up I caught up on some tv. Home by Novogratz (love it!), Secrets from a Stylest (Emily is awesome) and Candice tells All (she is SOOO good at what she does).
• skype date watching The Bachelorette (or Ashlorette as Secrets from a Stylist, Emily, calls it). It was the men tell all episode.... I guess it's good to see that there really are some diehard romantic men.
• bedtime - ahhhhh... my bed is sooo comfy and I don't even have to get up early. day off on monday 

I really enjoyed this week in the life project. Focusing on those little, daily things that usually don't get documented, was actually really fun. Now it's time to print photos and get to mini book making.

week in the life - saturday

The theme for Saturday was ADVENTURE. A lot happened today and there were some times that I was not a very happy camper (pun intended). Last night I was chilling on the couch and reading some blogs and I came across the above quote. It is the perfect way to capture our saturday. Sometimes you just have to follow your man, even it it's up the side of a mountain. The full quote is:

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure."   -Helen Keller

• 8-9am woke up, lounged in tent for a while, listened to the quiteness all around... SLOWLY crawled out of the tent to start the day
• made breakfast tacos to start the day - had some starbucks instant coffee (caramel & mocha)... not bad actually
• had a small fire and debated making s'mores for "dessert breakfast" since I didn't make any the night before. It was just TOOO hot to get near the fire friday night. The fire died out before I could get to the s'mores, but that was ok, because I was full from of the yummy tacos!
• plan for the day - check out other campsites nearby for future trips and decide to go for a hike. we made some lunched, packed up some water for the dogs.
• Grandview overlook was our primary destination, but we took a little "detour" down a pathway that lead to a dead end. The man decided we should trek upwards... surely that's were the views were. It was a truly stupid plan, but I followed.. I didn't want to wuss out and maybe, just maybe it would lead somewhere. Well it lead straight up, I'm talking a serious ridiculous INCLINE. There were no views and all we ended up filthy, I was cut up from thorns and the dogs were exhausted. In fact, Reese practically gave up and there were several times I thought I was gonna lose her as she slide down the side of the mountain. Actually there were a couple times when I thought I was going to be sliding down the mountain myself. We had to stop the accent and resort to going back. There may have been visions of tumbling to the bottom, crahing in to trees along the way, ending up at bottom with broken legs.
• after the hiking trip we were filthy and there were no showers at the campsite, but there was a river! We switched into our swimsuites and hit the river to clean up. 
• we ate turkey & cheese sandwiches for lunch and being exhausted we decided to lounge in my 2person hammock (definitely a good investment). Unfortunately just as we were getting cozy and relaxed (I seriously could have fallen asleep) it started to rain. grrrrr
• jumped up, put the rainfly ont he tent, put things that weren't waterproof away, put the doggies in the car and decided it was time to drive to REAL hike to the view of Grandview overlook.
• drove through a sever thunderstorm cell - BRIGHT white lightening. drove out of storm and then back into it just as we got to overlook
• hung out in car, leaned seats back looking out of giant sunroof, being silly, taking photos, making music videos with songs from songify app. this is a seriously silly app... oh goodness I laughed till I had tears with the stuff we came up with.
• finally rain let up and we got the inside scoop from a very enthusiastic park ranger and headed out to see the views - GORGEOUS! walked through tunnel trail and then back into Beckly.
• more rain was forecasted so we hit up chick fil for dinner and bought tickets to Captain America 3D.
• back at the campsite we had no wood and everything was wet. into the tent, played scrabble slam and then crashed hard by 1030pm

scrambling up some farm eggs (so cool working with people who have farms)

start of the hike, there was a trail, Reese was pumped

poor Reese - she had practically given up at this point 

Grandview overlook -- 1,400' up -- overlooking 7 miles of the New River
fast feet

turkey spur overlook

scrabble slam

week in the life - friday

Friday I worked, picked up Reese and then headed off to WV for a fun camping weekend. 

Reese says good morning

Someone is thirsty

getting my gear for the flight

walking out to the plane

hitting the road with Reese

wild & wonderful

meet-up point

fun app - pocketbooth

my car after driving out to campsites - gravel road=dirty jetta

tent & campsite (I took no photos of campsite, so here's a still from a movie I shot)

it was a little hot for a fire, but you have to have a fire when camping, right?!?

• 4am Reese woke me to let her out 
• 7am awake again to start the day - check email in bed and notice that Reese's water bowl has been dropped right next to the bed, I guess she got thirsty in the middle of the night
• 8am get to work
• 8-10 mission plan for our local pro flight
• 10-1230 fly up to Columbus IN (BAK) and do practice approaches and landings
• 1230-145pm home, pick up Reese, grab ice, fill up gas tank and hit the road to WV
• 145-6pm drive to Beckley WV to begin the weekend camping. We had no reservations, but some maps I printed out of New River Gorge National Park. Camping is free and there are several sights along the river. We chose Glade Creek Sandbar. There were some campsites on the river, but all full by the time we got there, so we stayed in the wooded campsites (also nice)
• 630-10pm set up camp, cook some tacos for dinner, build a fire, sweat a little (it was 100 degrees that day), chilled, ate cookies, talked about plans for tomorrow, hit the hay.

I fully intended on using Ali's printable daily sheets, but turns out the only day I used it was Friday. I guess the blog posts will have to do. And I'm hoping to get the weekend post all finished today while the memories are fresh in the brian. I didn't really collect any memorabelia except on the camping trip. I have maps and things we used to prepare for the trip. I'm still not 100% on how the project will come together, but this post by Elise has inspired me to do a mini book with some stitching embellishments. Alos, This post by, Maggie Holmes, on printing instagram photos has me excited to get these photos printed and in hand.

week in the life - thursday

Well, I'm still chugging along with this documentation journey. It's been fun taking photos of all kinds of random things throughout the days. Today was a pretty boring day compared to the past three. I had to work, but no flying. I felt exhausted ALL day. I took initiative on a newsletter project for work and accomplished a bit of administrative stuff. I made it home a little after 5 and spent the rest of the evening shopping and then packing for my WV camping trip this weekend. I had to get everything ready to go tonight since I'm going to work in the morning (get to fly) and then swing by and pick up Reese and be off as soon as we can. We have no set plans other than a general idea of where we want to camp... we are just going to wing it. I'll be taking plenty of photos and have a recap on the fun come sunday night. 

• 7am wakeup
• 8 arrive at work
• 1200 lunchtime thrifting
• 1215 grab lunch to go from Shiraz - kabab yummy
• 1-4:25 more working, give Amy her needles that I picked up at thrift store in Charleston. We chat about her remodeling project and catch up... get ideas for newsletter and pitch idea to boss (he liked it)
• 425 finally leave work (a little later than planned)
• 5-530 stop at target, realize I left my list at home, go home get list, back to target
• 630 cereal for dinner
• 7-1030 pack, organize, play with Reese
• 1030 write this post
• bed asap!

I hope you all enjoy your weekend!!! Any fun plans? It's still pretty hot in this neck of the wood, so it will be a toasty camping trip! 

week in the life - wednesday

Ahhh... I'm back home. The work trip to West Hamptons was nice, the weather up there was certainly much more enjoyable, but I am glad to be back in the 'ville!

breakfast at Duffy's deli - YUM

our tail

West Hamptons NY

East coast

sunny on flight deck

gorgeous day to fly

hazy day in the 'ville

I missed my Reese

organizing

Andrea got a new deck in a DAY

being silly on the new deck :)

• 0745 wake up
• 800 breakfast at Duffy's again, yes it was that good
• 845 get to the base, mission plan for water drops and flight back home
• 930-1100 wait, wait, and wait some more. I didn't mind, the weather was nice and we chilled on the ramp talking about crazy movies and all kinds of random stuff
• 1130-300 take off, water drops, fly back to KY. it was a gorgeous day to fly, so clear and pretty. we got to see NYC and could just see the statue of liberty
• 300 - land back at ville, wrap up things at work
• 430 came home to all kinds of work going on. Andrea's new deck was being built!!
• 430-830 caught up on design star, home by novogratz, vacuum, organize, eat sandwich for dinner, crack up at boys chasing a lazer around like dogs, laundry
• 830-900 admire new deck with Andrea - it looks SOO good
• 9-930 bloggin, catch up on emails and blogs
• 1030 - bedtime goal (we'll see how that works out)

week in the life - tuesday

• 7am wake up
• 815 bagel for breakfast at local deli (Duffy's delo), they were so nice and hooked us up (I think because we were in uniform) and the everything bagel was yummy.
• 900 at plane mission planning for water drops
• 1100 take-off fly around and see the RIDICULOUS mansions and crazy big houses in the Hamptons.. WOW, they are pretty schwanky.
• noon-noon thirty land, button up plane and watch helo hover on ramp next to us
• 1 back at hotel
• 130 meet up to go with other Jenn to wander around ginormous outlet mall
• we ate, and wandered around until about 530. this place was crazy big and had all kinds of stores. we gawked at some of the "outlet" prices, picked out awesome deals on furniture we wanted, and joked about buying something big to bring back on the plane with us. I did good and only purchased a couple things. I cannot resist inexpensive loungey/sleep clothes that are super soft.
• 6pm lobby of Hilton starts filling up for 3 year anniversary celebration, free food, wine tasting from local vineyard, free mini massages, live music, and even a magician. Nice evening sitting outside chatting... then rain rolled in - it's pouring right now -  thunder & lightening even.
• 8pm-now (10ish) skype action for planning the WV camping weekend... realized that the zip line tour looks really fun but ridiculously expensive. checking blogs, and writing this post
• 11pm hopefully bed by this time since I have to get up a little earlier tomorrow.

surprisingly comfortable bed

time to go to work

GARC

the office

low ceilings threatening drops

water drops

helo

watching the helo

my new doggie friend

book press 
dessert

Lots of military related photos lately.... not like my normal crafty and interior design photos, but hey, that's my life these days. Tomorrow we are doing another water drop and then heading on back to KY.