Hello 2015 and Hello 40

Happy New Year!

I'll make it brief so you can get back to fulfilling your New Year's Resolutions. I am just here to share this month's layout for Write.Click.Scrapbook's January gallery. The theme, as it often is for January, is "Decades." And since I turned 40 just a few days ago, it seemed pretty fitting to scrap about that.

Leading up to my birthday, I didn't really have all that much to say about the number. I have been pretty busy with Bar Mitzvah planning, so the big birthday was just at the back of my mind. But then there it was, 11:30-something PM, on December 26th, and suddenly I felt a little sad that I will never be in my 30's again. Not that it matters much, but still. You just get to do it once.

So that little moment,and the thoughts that followed make up this page:

At first, when I wrote out the journaling, I thought, "That's it? 10 years, and you can sum it all up in 14 lines?" But the topics covered there are family, work, scrapbooking, and Israel. So, yes. That pretty much sums up everything I do. (Except for some synagogue work, but that is a longer story, so I decide to leave it off this page.)

Thanks for stopping by!

Write.Click.Scrapbook November

I had a lot of fun making this month's layout for Write.Click.Scrapbook. The theme is  "glitter, sparkle, shine," and it was a great push to use all the beautiful gold products I have accumulated, but that I have not used too much.

And, because Comic Con always happens in the middle of October, and it's a big deal in this home, my November layout will probably always be about Comic Con in some way.

Even with all the costume planning, the morning of of Comic Con is filled with last minute adjustments: makeup to be applied, sheaths to be made, dire wolf ears to be re-attached, Bane venom to be sealed in its tubing, and tubing to be adhered to Bane's mask, etc. 

Something about these photos made me think briefly, that if I had girls, I would be the one on the bed, tweaking a ribbon or a bow, or something pretty and sparkly. And that is how this layout came to be:

Preachy Scrapbooking

I sure have been preaching a lot in my scrapbook pages recently. Not too long ago, I even wrote about using scrapbook pages as a way to record lessons for your children, over at Write.Click.Scrapbook. And since then, I made another page filled with wisdom for Max.

I am well aware, that my kids are not reading my scrapbooks, soaking in all my words of wisdom. In fact, I seriously considered using this photo for the above layout:

But I decided to keep the tone a little bit more serious. I have no expectations that Max is going to read my scrapbook page, and suddenly realize that I am a fountain of wisdom that he has been ignoring all these years. But, I do think the things that we tend to harp on with our children-- it goes in. It just takes a while. 

Write. Click.Scrapbook October Gallery

This month's Write.Click.Scrapbook. gallery theme is "Happy Scraps." Everything on this layout was made with  scraps and  older products. Some of it is just a few weeks old, many are a few months old, and some I have had for a quite a while. 

It is almost always easy to create something with some brand new supplies. You reach into the box, pull out your favorites, move some things around, and voila. (Sure, that voila can take hours. Sometimes days. But still. Voila.)

As the days go by, and the easy products get used, and then the slightly harder ones, at some point you are left with everything else. It is harder to find inspiration with those items. At least for me. But if you stick with it, if you are determined to keep going without the immediate gratification of something new, you can often make something wonderful. 

Which is why I really liked creating this layout. It took several days, and sometimes I was down right stuck. But I think I am rather pleased with the results.

The end.

Sneak Peek Write.Click.Scrapbook

Here she is. I rather like the way it turned out. And it is partly because of this month's theme.

I can't wait to share the rest on the 1st!

Write.Click.Scrapbook September

This month's gallery theme is Back to School. Which is a great theme for this time of year, but in NYC we go back to school after Labor Day, so I don't have any cute back to school photos yet for this year. Back to school does mean goodbye to summer, so that is the direction I took. I had a good summer, and I had a lot to say about it; About all the things we did, and about the joy of not doing anything much at all.

After adding the title and that little heart to my photo, I realized that I used the exact same font (by Amy Tangerine) and heart stamp (by Ali Edwards) in a photo at the beginning of the summer. It turns out that that one was to say hello to summer. 

I totally did not mean to do that. I guess I am nothing if not consistent.

Write.Click.Scrapbook September Sneak

It took me a little while to figure out what to make for this month's gallery. Then I realized that this month's layout would involve a lot of words. The rest fell into place rather quickly after that.

See you on the 1st for the rest of this verbose layout.

In Between

A while back I wrote a post over at Write.Click.Scrapbook. about scrapbooking the in-between stages in our children's lives. The slight changes in personality and attitude and taste and humor that happen as children move from being kids to tweens to teens and then the big one-adulthood. Just thought I'd share those layouts here, plus another that has been made since then.

Max is 16, as I might have mentioned once or twice. He is a full fledged teenager now, and is generally happier, funnier, and more comfortable in his skin than in those earlier teen years. I am hoping that that bodes well for his future self, but really, only time will tell.

Sam, is the tween in the house, and he is often still deliciously small, but I certainly see some teenage attitude and humor peeking through.

Example- attitude. On some of our summer hikes, Sam, the one who loves to be outside exploring, could not contain some of his cynical comments. 

On the positive side-humor. When I pointed out to Sam some of his attitude changes, he shot back with a comment so funny that I cried. It also can't be repeated in decent company. Or any company really. But just in case one day we are ready to share the joke, it is tucked away in this layout. Right inside that little Jillibean Soup mini bag. (For the record- I used every single last one in the package. Which is extraordinarily satisfying, and also a testament to how much I love them.)

A Summer Mini Book

I am blogging today over at Write.Click.Scrapbook. There I share my inspiration and process for this little guy, but  here I will share the pictures.