2014 Project Life | January Part 2

I finished January Project Life pages this weekend.  I cleaned up my craft room and then promptly covered my whole tabletop again working on my pages.

I planned out my pages in Lightroom before printing out the photos.  I wrote a post with a video about planning Project Life pages in Lightroom last year.  At first when I planned out my pages, I tried to squeeze my January Part 2 photos all onto 2 pages (Design A & Design D).

But that didn’t leave very much room for journal cards & embellishments, so I added a third page (the back of Design D).

That gave my photos a lot more room to breathe.  My final layouts is still slightly different than this, but planning it out gave me ideas of which photos I wanted to print full-size at 4x6 and which ones to print smaller.

To see my pages from the first half of January, click here.

January page 4:  We had lunch with AJ & Meera and the kids at Chipotle; went running at the coast; Noodle antics; dinner with Dejah & Roby at China Max.

Supplies:  One Little Bird “Positive Spin” digital kit; washi tape, sequins, date stamp, Sharpies pens, AC Amy Tangerine “Cut & Paste” mini PL kit; WRMK File Tab Punch; Studio L2e “Labels & Tabs” and “Labels & Tabs: Sentiments” stamp sets; Catslife Press cat stamp; Simple Stories Sn@p letter stickers; Elise Cripe “You Are Here” stamp.

Closer looks:

January page 5:  I got braces; I had lunch with Julio at Ortegas; We went to Sat night church; Todd and I put the finishing edges on my DIY Craft Island; Noodle cuteness.

Supplies:  One Little Bird “Positive Spin” digital kit and journal cards; washi tape, date stamp; AC Dear Lizzy Neapolitan mini PL kit; arrow paper clip; Evalicious Camera Love Puffy Stickers.

Closer looks:  I made the left side 6x4 journal card digitally using the One Little Bird “Positive Spin” digi kit.  The cassette tape was also from the digital kit.

January page 6:  Chinese New Year lunch at Pearl with work friends.  I only filled up half the page, so I’ll add some photos from February when I work on that this weekend.  It doesn’t bother me at all that January photos end mid-page.

I diversified this time and used a Design D page protector, not just Design A!  :) 

Other Project Life Supplies That I Always Use:

• Adobe Lightroom
• We R Memory Keepers 12x12 faux leather album
• Project Life page protectors
• Sharpie pens
• Date stamps
• Scotch ATG
• Glue dots
• Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher
• Cutterbee scissors

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Around Here

Around here |  I printed out photos for Project Life for the 2nd half of January.  I also printed out some digital goodies from One Little Bird’s digital kit “Positive Spin” and journal cards, for use in my Project Life pages.  I’m in love with the cassette tapes.

 

Around here | Todd celebrated a birthday.  The birthday boy got a fitting breakfast and we went out to dinner at Buona Forchetta for his favorite pizza.

 

Around here | I celebrated Chinese New Year (Year of the Horse) by going out to dim sum lunch at Pearl with some work friends.  There were dragon dances and we fed the dragon red envelopes for good luck. 

 

Around here | Last Saturday we went to the Little Italy Mercado (farmer’s market).  It was a glorious blue-skied sunny day.  At the market you could see all the way to the nearby ocean.  There was lots to see and we purchased some awesome veggies to cook this week.

We had lunch at Mama’s Lebanese Deli afterwards.  Yum.

We also stopped by Blick Art nearby, where I purchased some art & calligraphy supplies.  So excited to use them!

 

Around here | We also hibernated and relaxed.  Sometimes the best part about weekend mornings is just laying around the couch and reading blogs on Feedly on my iPad. 

And watching the three episodes of Sherlock Season 3.  So fantastic!

Apparently, Noodle feels the same way about hibernating.  Except he likes to sit on Todd’s lap and snooze and purr.  And watch Sherlock and the Super Bowl.

 

Around here | We cooked lots of delicious food.  Most of which I have to cut into little pieces so I can eat with my new braces on. 

Turkey Piccata (we made it with chicken) + sauteed Chinese broccoli

Had to cut it all up at work for lunch the next day, so I could eat it with braces on without looking like a savage.

Creamy Carrot & Sweet Potato Soup

Thai Grilled Beef Salad – took me forever to eat it, but so good.

And lastly…

Around here | We watched Jay Leno’s last Tonight Show.  The show is moving from Burbank to NYC.  While I’m excited to see it with Jimmy Fallon, I feel nostalgic.  Definitely an end to an era.  I had to dig out our photo from Nov. 12, 1997 when we went to the Tonight Show at NBC Studios in Burbank.  The guests that night were Tim Russert and Matt LeBlanc.  We were still living in Ohio, but visiting my parents in LA and friends in San Diego.  Little did we know two years later we would move here.

Around here | After a full week of work, I’m glad it’s the weekend again.

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DIY Craft Island | An Update

One of the coolest things about my craft studio is my DIY Craft Island. 

It is definitely one of the most popular posts on my blog.  Mostly because it’s pretty cool and I was able to cobble the table together for about $168.  (Whereas the Pottery Barn Bedford Table is $1,200.) 

Since we put it together in mid-2011, the cut white melamine sheet table top has had rough & unfinished edges.  We finally remedied that last weekend!  I found some 3/4” white melamine iron-on edging.  It was EXACTLY what I needed to give my craft island a finished look!  For $8!

Todd and I tag-teamed to iron the strip onto the edge of the table-top.  I held the strip in place while Todd ironed it onto each side.  We used a piece of tin foil so that the glue from the melamine strip didn’t get on the iron.

We cut the strip slightly longer than each side of the table and then trimmed it off after it was ironed-on and set for an hour.

The finished edges were looking good!

My big helper.

Here’s the before & after.  The edging just gives it a much neater finished look.  Plus it’s now smooth rather than rough, which is much nicer when I’m working at the table.

We also moved the whole island about a foot towards the IKEA Expedit bookshelf.  I feel like it makes the room look bigger somehow.

More before and after looks. 

Before:  the cut melamine tabletop had rough and unfinished edging.

After:  the iron-on melamine edging gives the tabletop a finished look.

I love how it looks and I’m all giddy about how much I still love my DIY Craft Island!  :)

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January 2014 Month-In-Review

Photos taken:  292

Hours spent exercising:  8 hours 23 min

Workouts:  running, walking, P90X Plyometrics, weights, T25 Alpha Abs, 30 Day Shred

Pounds lost:  2.4

Books read:  reading "Radar, Hula Hoops, and Playful Pigs: 67 Digestible Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life" by Joe Schwarcz  

Movies seen:  500 Days of Summer, Iron Man 2 (again)

TV watched:  Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl, Revenge, Sherlock, Buckeye basketball, Chargers playoff games, The Mentalist, Agents of Shield, 49ers playoff games, Diners Drive-Ins & Dives, CBS Sunday Morning, SNL, 

Places ate at:  Pattaya, Bad Ass Coffee, Bongiornos, Burger Lounge, Fresco, Punjabi Tandoor, Santouka, Karl Strauss, Donut Touch, Chipotle, Ortegas, Kebab Shop, China Max, In-N-Out Burger, Panera, Pearl.

Cooked:  Broccoli Slaw with Roasted Chicken, Tilapia Tacos w/ Tomatillo Sauce, Greek Cod Cakes, Halibut w/ Bacony Corn, Chicken Soup with Cabbage & Apple, Winter Potage, Tuscan Potato Soup, White Bean Chicken Chili, Roasted Salmon in Tomato Sauce, Thai Style Chicken w/ Basil.

Socialized:  dinner @ Fred & Annie's, Dejah & Roby's wedding shower, met up with Peppermint, Liz, & Kami @ Santouka, lunch with AJ & Meera @ Chipotle, lunch with Julio @ Ortegas, dinner with Dejah & Roby @ China Max, Lunar New Year lunch with work friends @ Pearl.

Out & About:  Prairie Home Companion @ Civic Theater

Crafty/Bloggy things:  Made a 2014 Goals list, blogged 2013 Year-In-Review, blogged "Books I Read in 2013", Project Life title page + pages for January, cleaned up craft room, finished craft table edges, transferred Silhouette library to my laptop for using in craft room.

Significant events:  got braces, started Weight Watchers online again, found out Noodle shouldn't eat chives, got new laptop at work, started journaling in the metadata of photos in Lightroom, Todd gave a speech at Dejah & Roby's wedding shower, did 2013 household spending analysis,  Subaru got new brakes, signed up for Hot Chocolate 15K Run in March, booked our next trip to Hawaii in 2015, did a ton of house-cleaning, Sat night church, set up Lightroom to auto-import phone photos from the Dropbox Camera Uploads folder, Todd started playing piano with his work's chamber music club, Todd is a Charter Board Member and President of the new Toastmasters Club at work.

 

Month-In-Review is a continuing series on my blog.  You can see all the posts here.

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