The Social Media Vortex & Memory Keeping

For the longest time, I've resisted being sucked into every popular social media app. I succumbed to Facebook long after the hype, then realized that I could keep track of a lot of high school friends and even some of my family. I've also become friends with a lot of scrappers! 

Pinterest is great because it's like having a digital file cabinet! Then, I decided to tweet as part of a work-related experiment. And now, Instagram has been added to the list, thanks to some research I've been doing for a work project.

There's no doubt that social media can be addictive. And do I really need more things sucking up my minimal free time? Not really. But one reason I really like Instagram, provided I don't spend too much time surfing through the zillions of photos online, is that I found a way to capture life on the go! 

It's no secret that I'm into memory keeping. Yes, big surprise. :D  But the fact that I can capture my life in daily photos in a few minutes rather than doing a layout?? Lemme at it! The big challenge is keeping it to about a photo a day (sometimes it's hard to take just one!) and finding something interesting to share.

Here is some of what I posted for fun this week:

Yes, I actually took a picture of the garbage can at the curb. I had planned a photo of my street lined with garbage bins, but most of my neighbors had already taken their bins in by the time I got around to taking the photo. Maybe it doesn't really seem that significant right now, but I can still remember when I was growing up that we had those metal trash cans. I think we actually had to drag those out to the curb - not an easy thing to do when the can doesn't have wheels AND the can is full! See, right there - a memory that can be scrapped about my childhood. :D

Similarly, the pic of the noodles on the shelf can be turned into a layout complete with a story about a favorite childhood dish, which I've now adapted to fit into my gluten-free diet.

I know that lots of you are doing the Photo-A-Day/365 project. I even get daily emails from Katrina Kennedy's captureyour365.com. I haven't been reading the emails on a daily basis, although it would be helpful in trying to capture daily pics for Instagram. Coupled with Project Life or scrapbooking in general, there is definitely not a shortage of page ideas.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not planning on using only my phone for photos. I use my DSLR at least five times a week, and I keep a pocket-sized point-and-shoot in my purse. But I am definitely going to try to take a variety of photos, a minimum of one a day - something I've tried to do the last two years, but haven't been successful in completing. (Sometimes I get too caught up in what I'm doing to actually capture it - that's my story, and I'm sticking with it!)

Oh, and if you're interested in following me on Instagram, you'll find me under "cyranoscrap." (I'll add a link to this page, once I've figured out how to get Blogger to keep crashing when I try to add it.)

Starting Project Life 2014...

Over the last week, I've slowly put bits and pieces of my Project Life 2014 album together. I've printed out journaling cards, started figuring out my title page, and planning out the photos that need to be printed. In the process, I've discovered I've printed practically no pictures whatsoever of the first two weeks of the year. The good part is that I DID take pictures, so I have something for each week so far!

Today, a few photos I printed at Snapfish for PL-Week 2 arrived, but once I put them in the pocket protectors, I realized how much more stuff I needed to fill the 2-page spread, as well as realized that I forgot to print some other photos for that week. I don't know what I was thinking the day I put that order in, lol!

This week, there was a "conversation" (and I use that term VERY loosely here) with my 3 year-old that I wanted to capture. I knew I had journaling card templates in my large digital stash, so I pulled out a couple and merged two different ones to make one. Here's the result:

CREDITS

Papers: Storyteller January 2014 (Just Jaimee)

Elements: Storyteller January 2014 and It’s A Good Life (Just Jaimee)

Templates: Journal Card Templates 1 and 2 (Scrapping with Liz)

It's not an award-winning journaling card, but it definitely serves the purpose for my Project Life album.

And now I've captured a REAL moment in my present-day life.  ;)

Believe in Yourself

Here it is, Day 8 of the new year. I finally finished the second challenge in the Month of Challenges at The Lilypad. I'm starting to doubt that I will be able to participate in all 31 challenges for the month, especially since some of them are more challenging and/or time consuming than I expected. For example, today's challenge was a photo technique where you try to make a photo look like it was partially sketched, so a portion of the photo is sketched or watercolored, while the remainder is the actual photo.

For the record, I did attempt to do so, but even following the provided tutorial did not work for me. So I tried to do it another way, which also failed. I finally gave up after about 30 minutes since I had other things to do. I will try to get back to it, but it will depend on whether or not I have enough uninterrupted free time.

Anyway, I did go back and finish the second challenge, which was a layout with art journaling. I don't know how much this qualifies, but it's what I did, lol.

CREDITS

Papers: Awash in Color (Michelle Godin)

Elements: Jumbo Mats Masks and Fall In Love (Michelle Godin); Twenty Four Seven and My Journey (Little Butterfly Wings); Primavera (Gina Miller); A Beautiful Mess Splatters and Ephemera Vintage Transit Tickets (Just Jaimee)

Fonts: Pea Kung Fu Manda

Usually, I don't put actual "real life" elements or photographs on an art journaling layout, but I wanted to try it on one, having seen others do so. I usually just layer stamps and paint and "grunge" the page to do the art journaling effect. Even with the splatters, it seems too "clean" for art journaling, lol. Oh well, art happens! :D