Here’s my week 7 spread. First the left hand page:

This is the highlight of the week insert in close-up. I machine stitched the ribbon and the date tag to the index card and then finished with a bit of washi tape:

A close-up of the very pink insert. It’s the time of year when a particular species of tree flowers here. When it sheds the flowers, the ground is carpeted ankle-deep in this vivid blanket of intense fuchsia. I started out with just the little JB label on the photo but wanted to include some thoughts, whilst not obscuring, too much, the vivid colour, so I wrote on vellum, punched with a heart punch. Not terribly sure I like it so it will probably be taken off.

Had to give this photo its own place, in 6×4, in this week’s spread. She did, indeed, make her own bed in the midst of all this mess and slept for three hours like this…..

The right hand side of this week’s spread, one insert missing:

Yes, this is my son, pulling my daughter along in his school bag! Nothing complicated here: a journal tag I printed myself, from here, date added with a date stamp, journalling and some heart stickers (to cover all the mess that was lying around the house, that was captured in the photo!).

A little ‘LO’ type insert: Crate paper background, journalling tag printed from here, plus two small photos, one of son-son at school and the other of a piece of his artwork he did at school with a friend:

Another really simple insert: Crate paper background, 3×4 photo plus a journalling card from Elle’s Studio here.

And that’s my week 7. I included two inserts this week…..

The front side of the first one has some Valentine’s Day memories: a card from a friend of son-son’s, a little note he received from another friend, plus a photo of some Valentine’s treats we made together for his friends at school. I did the journalling on some hearts I printed from here:

The reverse has a painting of a puppet son-son is planning on sewing. It’s a monster inspired by Matisse’s color collages, apparently:

The next insert has some photos of son-son doing a presentation at school in the front and, on the back side, has a 6×12 sheet of Crate paper, as a background, and a copy of his interim report from school. The book he made for his presentation will go in here too, once it’s back from school:

I also finished my ‘January in review’ page this week. You can see my ‘month in numbers’ insert – from Julie’s fabulous ‘month in numbers’ idea sitting in the top left hand corner.

This is the ‘January highlights’ insert: the base is an index card with a tag from Elle’s Studio here and a bit of ribbon, both machine-stitched on, plus a random photo that’s pretty typical around those parts – toys EVERYWHERE!!!!

I love this insert! I made the Dr. Seuss ‘We’ve been reading’ card myself and we noted some of the books that we read in January on there. Added in an Amazon receipt and a little tag. It’s always cause for celebration, in this house when we spy a kraft-coloured box with Amazon written on it!

One of my favourite inserts in this month in review page. A little LO-style insert about all the things son-son has been doing this month. Added a photo, a bit from his Bey Blade packaging (he is Bey Blade mad at the moment!) and a ‘Jan’ label from Jenni Bowlin here.

My other favourite insert: a little LO-style one about my daughter’s January. It has some Crate paper as a base, plus several tags/cards (these ones and these ones). I wrote about some typical things she says and the things that are so beautiful about her at the moment. Added in a little ‘typical’ photo of her. LOVE LOVE LOVE this insert!!!!

Wow – very photo-heavy post.

I’ve been thinking about the process I use to compile my PL pages and find it amazing that despite the sheer volume of ‘stuff’ I’m faced with when I sit down on a Sunday to do my pages, I still seem to be able to produce a fairly representative version of our week in only 12 6×4 pockets!!!

Would a review type post interest anyone, looking at how to ‘edit’ down all the ‘stuff’ (photos, papers, artwork, paperwork etc) that could, potentially, be included in a PL spread?

If so, leave a comment and I’ll see what I can come up with!

Have just found this site – The Mom Creative – lots of PL inspiration to be had on the PL Tuesdays……

I also love having a place I can store their artwork mixed in with photos of them producing that art, plus photos of them – and us – just being. Childhood is so fleeting, it’s wonderful to have a place to store these things, a place we’ll be able to look back on in future. Pages from a few months ago already feel like a lifetime away – so much happens, they change, advance, so so fast. I can’t imagine how wonderful it will be to look back on these albums in ten, twenty, thirty years time.

Here’s the week 3 spreads (well, part of them, I need to figure out how to collage them together using something other than my Diptic app which cuts a section of them off! and then to figure out why WordPress chops even more off of them!):

Some close-ups:

A collage of photos of son-son’s artwork and some school work. I have no patience with Photoshop so I’m most definitely a hybrid PL-er. I collaged three photos, in my printer software, leaving a convenient space to add a paper tag for the journalling.

A collection of conversations and snippets of ideas – usually things he tells me in the car on the way home from school or as he’s falling asleep. I love that it includes the mundane “Send me chicken nuggets in my lunchbox but not the ones you cook!” and the deep, “To be able to use all my intelligence to the maximum I also need to use all my other qualities – patience, concentration, listening…”.

Photo of a cat he collaged and a list of his current favourites

Full size photo of my daughter holding my hand as we walk through the park. I was in PL-photography mode as I took this one – framing the photo to leave enough space for the label, to be able to write my thoughts on this moment in time.

A pair of photos from son-son’s art class: he loved doing the still life. Journalling written down the side. Extra journaling stored behind the photo for this one.

Week 4 spread, right hand side….no left hand side as it has lots of photos of son-son’s friends and I not so Photoshop-proficient to be able to ‘Photoshop them out’. Pieces of paper laid on top just looked awful

I always include a ‘highlights of the week’ section on each two-page spread, and love this style of page protectors as I can stick that section in the long space down the side.

A close-up from the left hand side of this week: the packaging from a solar-powered car we built with son-son, with some journaling labels housing the stories. Journaling labels from here. I should say that I don’t use the PL kit from Becky Higgins for this project. I have enough scrapping supplies to last a lifetime and so I ‘shop my stash’. I’ve also found that there are some fabulous free resources online – many of them are collected here on my Project Life Pinterest board – meaning that, for me, its also a low-cost way of recording all this valuable information.

Building said solar-powered car. Labels hold a little comment he made as we were building it.

One photo of him looking very handsome in his posh uniform, which he wears one day a week and which, always, comes home filthy, full of sand and mud and grass stains! The other photo is typical of Thursday afternoons – every Thursday since he was in nursery, he’s always slept for a few hours once he gets home, shattered, I imagine, from all the activity at school. Spruced the photos up with a journalling tab, one his drawings and some wash tape.

One of my favourite snippets from this week. A story about my daughter, illustrated by son-son. Could warrant a LO of its own, but I love the fact its housed here, in this album, just part of our week, our lives.

I love PL! As Ali E says, “It can be anything you want it to be”. So true. Some weeks I find myself writing a lot, other weeks I just jot down a few thoughts on labels. Always, however, its the story that’s important, whether the story is told in pictures, with short annotations, or narratively, in a longer format. I guess that’s why I love this medium: the story is first and foremost.

Random thoughts about PL:

-I’m a lazy scrapper – I have so many LOs laying around, unfinished, because I really hate sticking things down! I have no patience for it! PL is great because the page protector holds it all together and the ever-helpful washi tape holds anything that needs a bit of extra help. Its lazy scrappers heaven!

-It’s made me think about how I take photographs. I frame photos, if I can, to allow a space for journalling. I’ll take a series of photos to tell a story. I use old and new photos side-by-side in the album to illustrate change – displaying the evolution of son-son’s writing, for example. I find I use my camera differently now I’m more aware of what story I want to get in the album and, for me, that’s a really good thing.

-I love that you can add in more information in inserts. I try to add in one insert page, each week, usually with a full-page artwork or a story son-son’s written, or a ‘drawing’ by my daughter. Or just extra photos. Sometimes, like this week, it’s a mixture.

The first side of the 6×12 insert has some of son-son’s artwork, some photos and a little story.

The second side has more photos, a bit of my daughter’s painting and some of son-son’s writing. Just snippets of life. As it is. Right now.

-The whole two-page spread doesn’t take more than a couple of hours to put together, including printing the photos. This means that, even on really busy weeks, its easy to complete. No more feeling guilty because I’m not ‘caught up’ or haven’t recorded something important.

-I can include other things I want to scrap, but don’t want to scrap a whole LO about, like Julie’s month in numbers idea. A 6×4 journaling card makes a good palette for recording my ‘month in numbers’, which sits nicely in my ‘January in review’ spread in the PL album.

On the whole, as many have found, and agree, PL is working for me and my situation.

What do you think? Should I share more PL spreads/random thoughts on PL on here?

Let me know!

Journalling reads:

I whistle. I always have done, always will do, at least whilst I’m happy. Or that’s what my Dad always used to say – that I only whistle when I’m happy. Really loud if I’m very happy. “It’s Wheeze’s Happiness Barometer”, he’d say, those words guaranteed to make me whistle a little more. And the cool thing about my whistling? I can do it without moving my lips. “How?”, you ask. I don’t know, otherwise I’d be selling the knowledge to comedians the world over, so many laughs it provokes when I do it in public and then someone – finally – realizes its me doing it without moving my lips. It’s a guaranteed ice breaker at giant awkward meetings or those awful icy parties where no-one really knows anyone and you can’t take the unnecessary standing to attention. It wasn’t always happiness and laughter, however, oh no. When I did it in class I was told off, rebuked in no uncertain terms, knocked down a peg or two. What a silly teacher! Didn’t she realize I was happy IN HER CLASS and that’s why I was whistling? We never quite saw eye to eye after that incident. With my very forgiving nature, however, it wasn’t long before I was whistling in her class again. This free spirit would never, willingly, be defeated. Especially not as a child. As I’ve aged, as I’ve moved around, lived in a foreign country for a good few years now, I realize my Dad was right: it is my barometer. If I’m not whistling, something’s not right. And that’s just wrong. “The girl’s got to whistle,” as it was explained to Mrs. Taylor, “If she’s happy, she whistles. It’s who she is”. This girl’s got to whistle, Dad. You were right.

Born in the middle of nowhere, in a small, materially poor, community living on a beach on the Pacific coast of South America, his father died when he was 4. He was epileptic and, apparently, although hubby cannot be sure, he had an attack whilst going down the river in his canoe, and then drowned. Hubby says he vividly remembers the day of his father’s funeral, perhaps his first real memory, all the community following the coffin to the cemetery along the beach, the rain hammering on his face, the waves angry, slashing the beach, almost knocking him off his feet. He remembers, he says, the smell of the earth that day and, to this day, is saddened when the rain awakens the earth releasing that very particular tropical smell. 

His mother left him with an Aunt when he was 5, he assumes unable to cope with the loss of her husband. He finished primary school at the school on the beach and, there being no secondary school there, moved to the city, to live with another Aunt, when he was 7. There he was sponsored by Plan, with a family from Holland sending him money every month or so. He never, however, saw this money, as his Aunt used to take it to buy things for his cousin. The saddest memory he has, he says, from a childhood populated with very little happiness, was of his mother’s letters arriving, promising a visit at Christmas. He says he would wait on the street, on Christmas Day, waiting for her to get off the bus. She never appeared. In fact, he didn’t see her again until he was 17. He says, of his time at secondary school, that he remembers being so grateful to be able to study, but so happy when the term ended, for him to be able to go back home to the beach, to fish, to catch crabs, to swim, to not have to wear shoes and to feel the sand in his toes again. He tells, with a smile on his face, that the boat owner always allowed him to ride for free, from the city to the beach, because everyone respected him, the only member of the community who had moved from the beach to get a secondary level education.

Not only did he manage to finish secondary school, he did so with honours, winning a national prize for his achievements. Then, thanks to the generosity of an Uncle by marriage, who worked in the capital and saw the potential in him, he managed to get a place at University, the Uncle paying his matriculation and giving him a monthly amount, for the transport and his subsidized lunch, whilst he was studying. He says of this time that he remembers only the thrill of the lectures, of the knowledge he was acquiring, and the dull aching hunger he felt in the evening, living, as he was, with only just enough money to buy two meals a day. A short time in to his course, a lecturer, also noting his potential, invited him to help him with his administration, writing course notes and what not, for a monthly wage. At this time he started saving for his own apartment and within three years, he had enough saved for the deposit. By the time he finished his undergraduate degree, he was earning enough, from tutoring other students and from helping different lecturers, that the bank felt able to give him a mortgage. He moved in to his first apartment, his own apartment, the day he graduated from his undergraduate degree. Around this time, he started dreaming of going abroad to study for his doctorate. The other day we found a sheet of paper from those days, on it written ‘Harvard’, ‘Los Alamos’ and ‘Oxford’.  Three years later, the boy from the beach was headed to Oxford, for his D.Phil. Three years later, to the day, he graduated, his thesis passed (in his second language) without a single correction, his examiners stating, on his viva, “This marks the beginning of a whole new field of research”. And indeed, it did. He now travels the world, advising research groups, Governments, even, publishing his research findings, and acting as an editor, in top journals, writing text books, supervising doctoral students. He says, of this period in his life, however, that his most important role is to act as a mentor, for students to see him and realize that their dreams are possible and to encourage them not to give in whatever adverse conditions life might throw at them.

I have tears in my eyes writing this very short summary of his story, for the sadness he holds inside him, for the deep sadnesses that made him the man he is and for the sadness that I sometimes glimpse in his nostalgic eyes, but mainly for the hope he offers, and the inspiration he is, to myself and to so many others, in this country where opportunities are so hard to come by. His achievements are nothing short of incredible, given his background, his roots and the grave levels of adversity he faced in his childhood and throughout his studies. He is a model of determination and courage. A model husband and father.

In a few weeks, we will travel to his beach, to meet his family. It’ll be my first time there. I am finally going to meet all these characters I’ve heard so much about, to see all the places I’ve dreamed of for years, to taste all the food whose memories make his eyes light up. It will, finally, become part of my reality.

1. Yay for handmade presents from school

2. Yay for son-son’s 5^th birthday and him (us) enjoying his party so much. The Michael Jackson Wii game has already paid for itself in the amount of laughter it’s generated.

3. Yay for son-sons boundless imagination that took the pirate boat, and suit, I made him for his birthday to new heights

4. Yay for Panche’s dancing. Even better with son-son’s sparkly Michael Jackson glove. Of course.

5. Yay for son-son’s friends loving the pirate cupcakes at his in-school birthday party

6. Yay for seeing son-son rush out of school with a year’s worth of art bundled under his arm and then watching his joy as he proudly showed us each piece

7. Yay for Panche’s increasing vocabulary. How can the word ‘agua’ be made to sound so so beautiful?

8. Yay for chubby baby bits. They will, alas, be gone all too soon.

9. Yay for my stepped-up exercise routine and the extra energy it’s given me.

10. Yay for life itself! Every day I learn something new and every day I’m grateful for all the wonderful things I have and do and all the wonderful moments I share with those around me.

After a walk in the local park this morning, where we saw a tortoise walking along in front of us, son-son decided its shell looked like the hexagons I’ve been sewing together. How could I not make him his own hexagon tortoise after that observation?! Here he is, in the comfort of his grass (made from crepe paper) and his food (leaves made from felt). Son-son is over the moon with him, has been playing with him all day and I have to say I’m quite proud of myself too, having made him without reference to any pattern!

I have been cheered on, this morning, by the appearance of these two little beauties just outside our bedroom window. Its starting to feel a lot like Easter around here.

Son son says he’s going to find some worms for them at school. How cute!

….he made this lion from a cupcake wrapper he decided looked like a lion’s mane. I love that he draws butterflies on everything, just like his Mama.

Oh, for the creativity of a four year old, to see the possibilities in everything.

Look (at my rather poor phone photo)….this is what I’ve managed this week….

…it’s looking beautiful (if I do say so myself!)….

Now I have to Google to find out how on earth I quilt a Grandmothers Garden Quilt – around the flowers? across the rows? I’ve never quilted a quilt top before, as I’ve always chickened out and handed that job to someone else, but this one, I’m determined to do myself. Hopefully my good friend Google will have all the answers!