Hello Project Life 2013

I seriously don't care that currently my 2012 project life album is sitting on my table, three quarters done. Slowly, I will finish it. The fact that I have recorded stuff is rad. It tells my story for 2012 and that is awesome. I love love love the stories & snippets & memories of life that I have recorded.

Naturally, I thought it would be complele reasonable to start my 2013 album before I had completed 2012. This year, I plan to not get caught up in the project life over load, that happens over here! Instead, I plan to keep it super super simple as that is what works for me. A tag here, a little bit of washi or a flair over there. I don't do layers and fancy scrapbook pages in each pockets. I love that over the past year or so I have really begun to find my style & my approach to this project.

Here is my title page for 2013. Currently, it is at the end of my 2012 album while I wait for the new albums to be in stock. I have used the Seafoam Project Life Kit, which I plant to use a whole lot throughout this album, a free printable from Cathy Zielske's and the quote card is from here.

I love how it all came together.

For those of you who are new to the concept, Project Life is a memory keeping system that is completely awesome. The creator of Project Life, Becky Higgins explains it much better than I could in a cute little video here.


Like last year, I plan to use Project Life as way to document my weeks. The big things, sad things, happy things and everything in between. The photos, stories and stuff that makes up our life. The best thing about starting at the beginning of the new year, is that my album always starts off with summer holidays! I am currently taking part in Ali Edward's one little word workshop and have worked my way through Elise Joy's i choose class. Bits and pieces from both of those will be included in my album throughout the year.

A couple of days after New Years, Brendan and I headed down to Phillip Island with a group of friends for Kustom Nats, big classic car show that is hold at Phillip Island Race Track. It was such a lovely weekend with old friends, new friends and beautiful weather. I had lots of extra photos so I decided to add an insert with some photos just from the track that weekend.
 

There you go. Project Life Week 1 is done and in the books. That, I love that.

I really don't think I will be posting my layouts everyweek, mainly because it's unlikey they will be finished on time and I really don't think I want to put that stress on myself. Remember, the whole concept of Project Life is to make it work for you. I will probably try for monthly updates.

Any questions, ask away. I will do my best to try and answer them. 

Linking up with my creative space today!

creative space | simple square blanket

Love starting a new project. Love finishing it even more.
 
I started working on this blanket, sometime towards the end of January. It has been with me through hard days, long weeks, sick days and times when I need calmness. I think it is the repetition of patterns and stitches that draws me to long term projects like this. I loved that I could pick this project up at the end of a long day and not have to think about where I was up to or that it could sit there for weeks without being touched.

Inspiration for this blanket came from the lovely Pip and her super simple squares. Initially, I thought I would stitch the squares together... that lasted approximately three days before I realised how much extra time it would take me to do that and I decided to join my squares as I went. The blanket ended up being 132 squares and I added one row of treble stitch around the edge (still not sure on the best technique to 'finish' a blanket). I wasn't too fussed with the pattern that was forming, my main criteria was that the same colour couldn't touch! Once again, the most tedious part of the blanket making process was stitching in all the ends, next next, I must remember to do this as I go.

For me to finish a project it needs to be achievable and I need to see it coming together as I am working on it. This blanket was perfect for that. 

Are you glad to see the end of a big project?
What have you been creating?

Playing along with my creative space
(it's good to be back!)

my creative space | split personality pillow

I made my first crocheted pillow!

I was cleaning up my wool basket and found a couple of circles in squares grannys I had made a couple of months ago, which were going to become a blanket. Turns out I never got around to that project. I decided to turn them into a pillow, for my friends birthday. It was Wednesday when I had this idea and her party was on Saturday. Nothing like a good challenge!

I used the join as you go method to join my granny squares. This meant they ended up with two rounds of cream yarn. As I had never made a pillow before, I didn't really know how to finish it. I spent some time on pinterst and google trying to find a tutorial with not much luck, so I decided to just wing it, and make a giant granny square for the back. This was going great, until about two thirds of the way in and I ran out of orange wool, it was late Thursday night and I didn't have time for a visit to the shops on Friday. I finished the square off with purple wool.


I continued crocheting the square until it was roughly the same size. All my searching before, had told me that the most popular way of joining the two squares together would be to use single crochet. Which I planned on doing, until I discovered they were slightly different sizes and didn't have the same amount of treble clusters.. there was no point stressing over it, so I single crocheted the two squares together with my own unique method!

I was really happy with how it turned out. I love that it has two distinct personalities, the calm look of the grannys on the front and the bright orange/purple square on the back, depending on your mood!

Do you crochet pillows?
How do you join the pieces together?
Do you use a pattern or prefer to make things up as you go alon?

I am still working away at this blanket too.
I needed a bit of a break from making the same thing over and over again.

Do you finish one project before you start the next?
Do you like to have a few different projects on the go at once?

Go here to see a variety of fab projects.

my creative space | more squares

Things are getting really busy around here and time for crafting is become harder. I really need to find some of that work/life balance people talk about. My creative space really has to thank a stupid virus that paid me a visit because there isn't really much you can do on sick days besides watch reruns of friends and crochet some granny squares! It's all about finding the good in everyday, right? 

At the realisation of how many squares I am going to need for a queen size bed blanket and the slow process of individually stitching them together,  I started joining them as I was going, using a my own joining stitch, loosely based on this method. I love it. It is so much easier knowing that not only does the last round finish the square but joins it to the blanket. Love watching this blanket grow.

The best thing about making blankets? snuggling under them on cold Melbourne nights.

Take a look over here to see what other lovely people have been crafting this week. I know that is where I am heading :)