Project Life!

Okay, truth is .. my husband pretty much sucks at gift giving. Sorry babe! I have sulked about it plenty, but the man's best quality is just not surprising me. Good thing he has other qualities to make up for this. I know. I'm horrible. I decided to embrace it this year and pick my own gift. He told me just what he wanted & I told him what I had my eye on. Hey, no disappointments there. I guess I can't give him too hard of a time. I'm not an easy one to buy for. :P

On to the gift of . . Project Life! Ah so excited. Project Life is a really simple, stress free way to scrapbook. No hours of figuring out layouts and cutting and gluing. Basically you get scrapbooking, minus the hard work. So let me just show you. & if you feel the need to learn more, here's where you begin: Becky Higgins

I got 3 albums with intentions of doing a family album and one for each of my kiddos. For my family album, I am planning on doing 1-2 layouts a week. For the kiddo's albums, it will probably be more like 1-2 layouts a month.


Then I ordered the Becky Higgin's page protector big pack of design A (60 pages for $25, not bad!) and also the Amber Core Kit.

This core kit is amazing. First off, how cute & sleek are these boxes. I know, I am easy to please, but I just love them! They are clean and sturdy. Then when you open it up:

Cuteness overload. The set comes with tons of journaling cards, dated cards, stickers, foldable cards, & such. Just love it. Best part is .. they are already cut to size to pop right into your page protector slots. Nice and neat .. quick and easy.


Really all of her kits are colorful and pretty . . and I would be happy with any of them. I feel like it was money very well spent. My plan is to start with the New Year! & .. I will be blogging my layouts! :)

DIY Magazine File .. success.

Another Pinterest win. Ah, where have you been all of my life! So, thanks to online freebies & deals . . I have magazines rolling in like crazy. I needed storage! I browsed around a bit in stores, with no luck in really finding anything I like. I didn't want to end up with a $10 magazine file that I didn't even care for. I saw from other blogs that Ikea carries a pack of 5 cardboard magazine files for $1.99. Which just made me sad . . because good ole Louisiana does not have an Ikea. I think driving to Texas for them would maybe defeat the purpose a bit, yeah? So it was on to Pinterest where I found a DIY inspiration! Using recycled boxes to cut and make your own. Sounded easy enough.

I started with picking some scrap papers for the front of my file boxes. These are for my living room shelves. I mostly have greens & yellows in there at the moment, but I decided to go ahead and add a couple other muted colors.


Fortunately (& unfortunately for my wallet), I do a lot of online shopping so boxes were easy to find. First thing I did was tape my box up nice & secure. Then I decided on my shape and got to cutting. I actually did my cutting with a steak knife (lol, I know!) and then I just neatened up my edges with a box cutter.


Then I thought for a bit whether or not to paint my boxes white, but I decided that the rough edges of cardboard would still be there and I knew it would irk me. So I pulled out some big sheets of art paper that I have leftover from college. It's really sturdy so I knew it would help the structure of the file and give me smooth edges. I would recommend poster board or something of that nature! (Or you can paint them if you'd like or cover with fabric!) So I traced around my sides, leaving some room to fold under and glue.



& tada! Smooth edges. Yes, by this time .. I was making a big mess of my carpet and smacking myself for not doing this at the table.



Just as I am getting to the part where I need to make a front to my file, UPS knocks on the door and brings me just what I was needing. :)



Now you could just as easily modge podge your paper to the front of the file. I decided that I was giddy to use my laminator, and it would make cleaning my magazine files a breeze. So that is just what I did.



Then . . after I glued my front down in place, I added a little grosgrain ribbon to the top & a laminated label. Presto! One magazine file down.


Once I have my kiddos to sleep, I will be working on my others. I plan to mix match the colors between the front paper, labels, and ribbons. I'll update again when I have them all neatly on my shelves!

<3