From Window Frame to Picture Frame

Today I'm going to share with you a project that I did with some of our family pictures.

I've had these old window frames sitting around here for about a year. I had spotted them at our local thrift/architectural salvage store and had big plans for them, but I needed the perfect pictures for them :) So when I saw the proofs from our family photo shoot I knew exactly where I wanted some of the pictures to go.

First step was to clean up these babies and seal them. I like the shabby chicness of the roughed up/peeling white paint and wanted to leave them that way. Also, I knew I wanted to use a bunch of colour in the matting so a white frame worked for me :)

Next I decided which pictures I wanted to use and had them printed out in 5"x7" size (the window openings are 9.5"x11.5") 

As you can see I chose 1/2 going vertical and 1/2 going horizontal. (sorry for the really orangey brown background, my desk is the same colour wood as our log walls)

Next, I went through my scrapbook paper stash and selected some papers to mat the photos on. I chose one solid colour (the blue that the picture is sitting on) and four different patterned papers to coordinate with the solid.

oops! I guess I only took a picture of two different types of pattern for this part, but you can see the other two patterns I chose, further down :) I just love that paper with the birds and have been wanting to use it for soooo long!

So, then I decided to round the corners of the solid colour paper with my corner rounder. Next, I centered the photos on the solid 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and secured it with glue dots and centered both of those on the patterned paper and secured it as well.

Ah here's where you can see the other two papers :) I decided to jazz it up a little more and added some rub-on quotes, swirls, stars and words (whatever "spoke" to me :)

Next I had to secure everything to the window picture frame. I decided to use my trusty little glue gun for that part ( I was running out of glue dots!) So I decided where I wanted each picture to go and I carefully squeezed a little blob of glue on each corner of each paper.

And Voila!! Two nice big picture frames showing off 8 family pictures :)

As you can see, the vertical frame had a little handle in one corner so I decided to jazz it up with a little help from my ribbon stash. ( sorry the picture below is so blurry)

Overall I think to total cost of the project was about $15. The frames were 5 bucks each ( if I remember correctly) and the only other cost was enlarging and printing the photos as the rest of the stuff I had on hand. Not bad for two huge personalized frames that I absolutely love! The other bonus? Hubby and kids love them too!

I'm linking to:

i heart organizing- Trash to Treasure Link Party!

(click above or you can click on the button on my sidebar)

Our 2011/2012 Family Photo Shoot

I'm back!!! Did you miss me? Sorry for the three week hiatus. It was very impromptu but I think I was just burnt out (that three months of Sept to Dec are a killer).   I confess I've been a bit of a hermit for the last month or so (ok maybe a lot!) and now I am ready to rejoin the world :)

So, I figured what better way to rejoin the world than to share our family pictures we had taken in the fall! I hadn't wanted to share these till after Christmas cause some of the pics were part of our Christmas card. I will warn you, there are a lot of pictures so you might want to grab a coffee or tea and a snack :) So without further ado here we go...  

These first couple are some collages that our photographer Cindy did :)

 Such a beautiful fall day :)

I just love Cady's smile in the background.

Awww, we have so very few nice pictures of Pat and I that I was thrilled to see this one :)

The above two of the girls were taken near the beginning of the shoot so their smiles are looking a little nervous still :)

And Gabe was just being his normal goofball self :)

Some of you may recognize the picture above :) And those of you who were at a certain wedding here last summer might recognize a certain little cable ferry we were on in that picture :)

More bum shots! Love how Cindy just accented Nyla's bright boots :)

LOVE this picture of Gabe! My little boy is growing up so fast!

The whole famdamily, Stella included :) And I just have to say I LOVE LOVE LOVE the next few pics...

Just the girls :)

And just my handsome guys :)

Pat and Gabe's hands. I don't know why, but I always love pictures of hands, and feet too!( just kids feet though)

Love this one!

Absolutely adore this picture of Cady :)

Kisses!

and more kisses! *snicker* I laugh at this picture every time I see it (though I confess, not too thrilled with my expression) Cindy told us to kiss each other, but I guess we need a bit more direction *snicker snicker *

Love it! all our hands together :)

Daddy and the kids off to explore :)

Awww, I adore this picture of me and my boy

 And of course I love this one of Nyla

*adore*

my handsome man :)

I love pictures on train tracks and I was so happy we could get these with all the beautiful fall colours in the background.

show me some attitude!

*sigh* oh my boy what a goof!

That's all folks!

Our family is pretty casual and just a bit rustic ( we live in a log house people!) so I wanted to keep it real and natural with jeans and fall sweaters (Nyla's sweater was handmade from my grandma! she is so talented)

All in all we lucked out completely with the weather, the timing with all the fall colours, and with our wonderful photographer and friend Cindy ( if you live in the Kootenays of British Columbia, (that's in Canada in case you're wondering) and you are interested in having a photo shoot with Cindy, just email me and I'll get the details to you.

Thanks to all of you who stuck it out through all those pics, these weren't quite all of them, but I had a really hard time just picking out just a few that I loved. And thanks again to Cindy for doing such a wonderful job and for making it fun while we did it :)

P.S Come back next week and see a little home decor project I made with some of my most favorite pics from this shoot.

My "Books I Read" notebook

Last week I mentioned that I was thinking of a way to document all the books I read during the year and I finally got to that project. I decided not to put it with our project life album (which I am still waiting impatiently for...) so instead I found this little notebook around the house that had only been used a couple of times. 

I ripped out the few pages which had unimportant writing on them, then added some cute scrapbooking letter stickers. ( I know it looks a little banged up, but I don't mind it, a little "shabby chic")

And voila! Finito! It only took me about five minutes to complete and it was Free!  

It has a handy dandy elastic attached to keep my page marked and I've already added my first two entries! This weekend was a project weekend for me, got a few things done that I've been wanting to do for awhile, I'll hopefully have a post about that later this week.

Did you have a good weekend? Get any projects done or did you relax and do nothing?

Impatiently waiting.....

The other day I mentioned Project Life, and some of you may know what I'm talking about and some of you are making the "huh?" face. So today I'm going to share a little bit about it because it is on my mind constantly as I am waiting for it to arrive in my mailbox!

Project Life is a scrapbooking product line developed by Becky Higgins ( you can check out her blog on my blog list). But it is not "just" a scrapbooking line, it is a way of thinking about life. I absolutely love the video Becky did explaining project life and it explains the whole idea way better than I ever could. You can check that video out HERE or like I said you can check out her blog over to the right. I love watching it and getting inspired, not just about PL, but seeing the quick glimpses of her home and all the beautiful colourful paints and fabrics she has going on (and her cute kidlets too) :)

I am so excited to start this process and I can't wait to see the product I ordered in person cause it looks so gorgeous on her site!

So, have you heard of Project Life before? Are you as excited as I am to start a new year with a new project?

What I read in 2011

    Well this is just a tiny part of the books I read in 2011. I am an avid reader so when I saw that The Nester has a list like this on her blog as well as a linky party, I really wanted to join in!
     I don't write down all the books I read ( which is something I am going to change starting this year!) But pictured above are some of the ones I remember most. Some I've read in the last two weeks so they are fresh in my mind, some have helped me lots this year in figuring out stuff and some are just fluff that I read to relax my mind and have an easy enjoyable read :)
Here is a list of the books pictured above with links to amazon, I'm an affiliate with amazon so that's cool if you want to go that route but obviously you don't have to order from them. Clear as mud? Alright, here we go...

City of Bones Book One by Cassandra Clare         Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Night Tales by Nora Roberts                                  Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

The Next Always by Nora Roberts                         The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball

The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins                   Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel

Child's Play By Silken Laumen                                Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson

Debt Free for Life By David Bach                           The Knitter's Year by Debbie Bliss

Total Money Makeover Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey    

                                                                 The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
Photo Freedom by Stacy Julian

The Big Picture by Stacy Julian

The Organized and Inspired Scrapbooker by Leisure Arts


I have a short list of books I want to read in 2012 which includes, the rest of the Hunger Games trilogy (LOVED the first one!) and the rest of the Mortal Instruments series (I'm actually nearly done the second one City of Ashes but didn't quite finish it before the 31st) The Backyard Homestead/Farm Animals,  Made from Scratch, and Folks. This ain't Normal, because I want to have a farm someday and The Scottish Prisoner because I am totally addicted to this series.
   As I said earlier, I want to somehow record all the books I read this year, whether I incorporate it into the Project Life album I plan to do, or make a separate notebook, I'm not sure so stay tuned later this week to find out what my choice shall be......


                                                 Linked up at the Nesting Place