February Photo-A-Day: Week 2

Week 2 of the February photo-a-day project is complete. Still going strong.

Here's a link to my week 1 photographs and the project life page that corresponded.

Here are the photos from February 8th- February 14:

Day 8: Sun. The morning sun shining through the window on to my mom's piano and the girls' valentine frame.

Day 9: Front Door. Teagan and Addy take turns opening and shutting every door in the house, including the front one!

Day 10: Self Portrait. Me at the computer for a minute. I love my iMac...and my tattoos!

Day 11: Makes You Happy. The girls bouncing in the Little Tikes bouncy house. We pull this thing out every once in a while to let them blow off some energy. I love that they wear princess skirts and jewelry to their bounce parties. 

Day 12: Inside Your Closet. My clothes. Not extremely exciting, I know, but it is color coordinated!

Day 13: Blue. One of the prints I made for M for Valentine's Day for his office. Some good motivation for him on days when he doesn't feel like working his hardest.

Day 14: Heart. The girls' first Valentine's Day party at school today. They were so excited to get up from their nap and tear into all of their heart-shaped goodies.

My project life layout for this week's photos will follow. Stay tuned.

Aesthetically Pleasing: a lesson in color

Color. I love bright colors. I wish I had the you-know-what's to go big and bright in my house decor. My problem is that I change my mind about what colors I love too often to commit to that kind of decor. I love a bright lime green door right now, but will I love it in December? I'll probably want aqua by then. My husband would be none to happy with that many projects.

You've probably noticed that my scrapbook/project life pages seem to also be made up of mostly bright colors. I want my pictures to jump out of the book at whoever is reading it...me, mostly I want them to jump out at me. Let's be honest, I'm going to be the one to read this book the most, right?

So I thought I'd share with you guys a couple of rules that I try to remember when designing anything with color (both in the house and on my scrapbook pages). I'll also try to give as many visual examples as I can as we go along.

A POP OF COLOR
I love a nice pop of color. Something that just smacks you in the face and leaves you wanting more. With bright colors (really with any color scheme), that's the goal, to give just enough of the bright color without giving too much of a good thing. For example:

Pottery Barn...of course. They are the masters of color and the reason I keep their catalogs around my house like magazine's I've paid for. Love that pop of green and aqua.

Here's another decor example from The Nester Website. Blue, white and brown. Love it. Great combo. But that pink pillow is irresistible because there's so little of it in the room. A few flowers to match but they work only to enhance the tiny bit of pink in the room. That ottoman makes this room.

You'll have to bear with me as I post a scrapbook page I made years ago because I haven't done it in so long, but it makes my point, so just go with it. The lime green literally jumps off the page and all you're looking at is a strip of ribbon and a little bit of paint.

An example from Vintage Revivals of 2 color used just a bit to make them stand out. Don't you want more of the gorgeous green and yellow?

You can even incorporate this into your wardrobe selections.

Polyvore put this selection together. This green scarf is going to draw the eye upward toward your face (which many of you might not need but I sure do). It's also going to add interest. People will be drawn to it because it's not incorporated anywhere else in the outfit.

Here's another favorite from Polyvore. Love that salmon color that pops out of this ensemble. A little bit on the shirt repeated on the shoes. So cute.


So the next time you're ready to start your scrapbook page or change the theme of a room in your house, think about what color you like the most and make it pop by holding back.

A LOT, A LITTLE, A PINCH
Basically, this rule is to use a lot of one main or neutral color, a little of an accent color and a pinch of an additional color. I try to use this rule of thumb as often as I can remember to do it, but it is hard for me. I always want to go overboard on my "pinch."

Let's take a look at some examples, shall we? Hmmm? Alrightythen...

This nursery is from the Design, Dining & Diapers website. I look at this room and I see that blue peeking out at me through the gray, white and orange and I want more of it. I start thinking, oh, "oh I could put blue on the sheets, make a blue bird on that wall..." All overboard. Totally not needed to get people to see the blue. It's the fact that there isn't too much of it that makes it work. You've got a lot of the Gray/White, a little of the orange and a pinch of the blue. Boom, looks awesome.

Here's my latest project life page. I used the turquoise kit (which oddly enough encompasses this rule). The pinch color in that kit is red though and I didn't want it to clash with Kennedy's pink sweater (red and pink is a cool but tough combo to pull off because they are so close to each other on the color wheel). I decided that even though the blue and green colors aren't really in the pictures, I could still make it work by drawing the eye to the pink portions. A tiny bit of washi tape, a little digi brush and a pink pin is all I used on the first page. 3 pink elements to echo that in the 2nd page too.

There are 3 lessons for you project life people here: 1) your pictures do not necessarily have to match the color scheme of the kit you're using. In fact, it can make your pictures stand out a bit more if you don't have too much of a repeating color scheme. 2) mix and match your kits if you have to in order to get the look you're going for. I used the Turquoise kit for this layout but that pink heart filler card on the bottom right is part of the cobalt kit (as is the pink arrow). 3) Adding a new color into the pre-determined color combinations is perfectly acceptable.

Here's a family photography example of this rule from Casey V Photography:

A lot of neutral (gray/white), a little pink and a pinch of green. Pop!

Here's another great example of this rule from theknot.com

Lots of navy, a little purple and a pinch of lime green. Mmmmm.

I hope this will help you on your next project as far as color goes.

Our Love Story

My friend, Alexis (I think we can call you a friend now, Alexis, and not just "my friend Kelly's brother's wife, right?) created a really cute blog post based on a prompt from the blog "From Mrs. to Mama" about she and her husband. I thought it would be cute to play along as my Valentine's Day post this year. 

1. How long have you and your significant other been together?
5 and a half years now. It seriously doesn't feel that long though. Based on feeling I'd say 2...maybe 3.

2. How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?}
We met at an Arizona State University football game (November 11, 2006). He was there with a friend and his grandpa and I was there with my friend, Sam. The friend he was with was also a friend of mine and he called to let me know he saw me at the game and we should come sit with them. So, we did. I thought he was super shy (because he was) but cute, too. We all went out for drinks after the game and he hardly said a word to me. We learned that we both worked at the same place at the time, so Monday at work I emailed him to say "hi" and he asked me out later that week. For our first date we went to see The Departed. I met him at the movie theater because I didn't want him to chop me up into little bits if he was psycho and my "crazy-meter" wasn't working. Our second date we drove around town and listened to the Suns game. He got me ice cream. It was fun. I kissed him for the first time that night. The rest is history. We were engaged within a year.

3. How long have you been married? 
Married for 4 and a few months! We moved really quickly from dating to engaged to married. When it's right, it's right, I guess.

4. Where did you get married at? Big or small wedding?
We got married at Ocotillo Golf Club in Chandler, Arizona. It was a very small wedding...perfectly small. We didn't even have a real reception because we were on such a tight budget (a 3 month engagement will do that). We had about 50 people at the wedding and then just went to dinner with our out of town guests, family and wedding party at our favorite restaurant. M has a huge family and we couldn't even invite all of them. I'm quite proud of the fact that my mom and I pulled of this wedding from start to finish for $10,000. Which sounds like a lot but I haven't met anyone who did it on less. We found some great ways to cut corners and had a beautiful, memorable wedding without breaking the bank.

5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share!
Not really, just "Babe." I call him M on my blog. Sometimes he calls me "hon" but he also calls the girls that, so I get confused about who he's talking about. I guess we're boring like that.

6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey.
1. He's the hardest working man I've ever met. Just ask the person who keeps track of his sick hours.
2. He has the best smile and he passed that down to our daughter Kennedy, who has the exact same features.
3. He loves God and he loves his family.

7. Tell us how he proposed?
We had talked about getting married after we realized that we were in love with each other. I knew that he was looking at rings but I had no idea he had actually gotten it when he did propose. He hooked the ring onto the dog's collar and let her jump on me in the morning. It took me a minute to realize it was on her. He designed my ring for me. How cool is that? This dude is a keeper.

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals?
Really neither. Actually, I should say, he would be if I was any of those things. I'm not really into flowers and definitely not stuffed animals. Strawberries and some really good wine I'd never turn down but Valentine's day isn't really something that we've ever really gone "big" on. You know? 

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch?

Oh, i love dinner on the beach but we don't live near one so I'm okay with a movie on the couch. Really, I'd rather be at a football game with him. That's one of my favorite things to do and his too.

10. Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere?

If M and I have anything, we have lots of travel plans. Mediterranean Cruise, Napa Valley Wine Tour, Italian Countryside Wine Tour, Australia, Germany, The Olympics. I think right now, if I could choose any one thing and money was no object, I'd go with him to the Summer Olympics. That would be so much fun. We are good travel partners.

11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day.

Nothing...we have kids and we don't know a babysitter yet. The few people we do know that will watch the kids are going to be out on that night. We'll probably drink a bottle of wine together and have some kind of take-out so neither one of us has to cook. We'll see.

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine's day?
No, all of our extra money is tied up in the girls' education this year. I'm making M a couple of things, but nothing big.

13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love.
For us, it's to keep working toward something. We work toward goals and milestones only to discover we have new things to work for. It gives us a common goal, a joint venture. It makes it much easier to get through the tough times when you know there's an end to the means.

14.  Show us a picture of what love means to you.
This is how M loves his family. Publicly, selflessly, all the time. This is true love.


I love you, M. Thanks for being my Valentine and the girls' valentine too. We're blessed.

My Project Life take on the Feb Photo-a-day Challenge

Here's my week 1 layout for the February Photo-a-Day Challenge.

Pages 26 & 27

A closer look at page 26

A closer look at page 27

Buh-Bye Google Friend Connect

I don't know about you but I use my Google Friend Connect quite a bit. I use it to keep up with blogs I read at a glance without using a reader. I use it to help others stay connected to my blog.

Google is shutting this program down to encourage others to use Google+ instead (I'm assuming this is the reason, of course). Unfortunately, I think Google+ is very confusing. I actually deleted my account the other day because it was messing with so many of the other Google components that I use (Gmail, Blogger, and photo storage).

So, with Friend Connect going away, I set up a page on Facebook to use as a replacement. It's super easy to use, just click "LIKE" on Facebook banner on my sidebar and you're done. The new posts here will show up in your Facebook feed.

Click the icon below to check the Facebook page and say "hey."

February Photo-A-Day Challenge: Week 1

I jumped on the February "Photo-a-Day" Challenge this month (Fat Mum Slim was the originator of this challenge and it caught like wild fire, I tell you). I'm going to make it a part of my Project Life book but I won't do it every month. Maybe this month and perhaps October? Something like that.

Here are the photos I got for the February 1st- February 7th:

Day 1: Your View Today. My girls and I in my bed before heading to the gym.

Day 2: Words. Are any words better than Dunkin' Donuts Coffee? Yea, probably, but I sure do love this coffee.

Day 3: Hands. Boston with as much of my cheap jewelry as she could fit on her body. My girls are obsessed with this stuff.

Day 4: Stranger. Sams Club. A real interesting bunch of people.

Day 5: 10:00am. Church at LifeChurch Reno *iPhone pic. Also, my alarm went off in church to remind me. Ugh. I'm an idiot.

Day 6: Dinner. Southwest Chicken Sliders, Tater Tots, Corn and a side of McD's Hot Mustard for dipping. What, you don't ask for extra for later? My kids loved this meal.

Day 7: Button. I love my husband's work shirts. Everything nicely pressed, great colors. He always looks good dressed up for the day.

I'll post the Project Life pages for these pictures in the coming days. So far, this challenge is super fun.