Yearbook 2013 | Summer Fun

You may ask, was there any FUN in our summer last year? The answer is YES! Not as much as we would have planned on, but I tried to get the boys out as much as I could and we did have some fun days. The photos above were taken at Kayben Farms, near Okotoks. They have the most fun, most humongous inflated jumping bag I've ever seen. Otto was in heaven.

 

And above: for the past few years, we've joined my sister-in-law's family 

for their annual day at Calaway Park. Lots of fun for the boys.

Yearbook 2013 | Mr. Muscles

I've been busy! Haven't we all? Well, I've been trying to get my pages done for last year. The flood put everything in our lives back, including my scrapbooking and memory-keeping for my family. It's something I believe is so important, so I've been spending some time this month on it all. It has been really hard getting through any pages related to the flood. Many emotions come up, and I find my mind going in many directions at once. It has been taking longer than usual on those particular pages. But here is a page I just finished with a lighter feel. Still flood-time, but this was something fun for Andy as he was working so hard with flood clean-up and recovery.

Smile Brother | Yearbook 2013

I've been working on this one on and off for some time now. I basically scraplifted the LO with inspiration from here and here, but I had to make the digital template from scratch. I'm a little proud of myself for figuring it out and putting all the chevron pieces together. I would love to know how to make the ends of the papers curl in Photoshop Elements, but I'm not even sure it's possible. Probably, but I just don't know how yet.

I love these two boys. They are such a joy. And I love how Otto always calls Atlas, "Brother".  I never encouraged it, but that's just what Otto calls him. It's cute.

Looking forward to working more on our family Yearbook.

Frank Lake | Yearbook 2013

 

 

Three more for our 2013 book.

Absolutely LOVE the minimalistic look of the top page. It could almost be an album cover! This is, I think, the best photo yet this year! These were taken the day before Easter, in March.

April Review | Yearbook 2013

I've finally done some catching up enough to get out this review page for April. This coming week I'm wrapping up piano lessons and having our year-end recital. Otto started swimming lessons a few weeks ago and is completely loving it! {I'm so glad, because we're not really a swimming family, but I want the boys to learn} Atlas was very sick last week, and Otto had his 4th birthday party. I'm looking forward to next week when things will slow down a bit, and the boys and I will be off to visit the cousins again. I love visiting the cousins because there aren't any other nightly distractions for me there - I don't have laundry, cleaning, organizing, tidying, etc - and I can get some digi scrapping done with my sister-in-law. So looking forward to that.

Atlas Sunshine | Yearbook 2013

Here's my little sunshine!

I mostly used a Facebook Hop freebie from Sweet Shoppe Designs for this one. All their designers pitched in and there were some amazing kits!

From You Are My Happy Collaboration: Paper: Melissa Bennett, Studio Basic Designs, Sugarplum Paperie; Elements: Jady Day Studio, Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Zoe Pearn, Meghan Mullens, Melissa Bennett, Llilla Designs; Journaling Card, Word Labels : Meghan Mullens, Jenn Barrett, Julie Billingsley, Juliana Kneipp, Misty Cato, Mari Keogetenberg
Other: Background Paper: Miss Tiina; Hexagon Cutting Mask: Robyn Meierotto; Woodgrain Brush: Just Jaimee; Actions/Styles: Shadows: Gennifer Bursett; Folded Paper: Mommyish

Getting Started | YearBook 2013

 

It's taken me three months to finally make up my mind how I want to do our Family Album this year. I knew I wanted to do digital, so I researched several different companies and finally decided on the company, the size of the book, and the layout style I want to use throughout the book. I decided to use the same template (which I made) for each month's review, then use Project Life style templates for extra pictures, and add scrapbook layouts as I go. Here are the first four pages for our Court Family Yearbook!

I've been downloading the Storyteller collections from Just Jaimee and I LOVE them! They are fun, colorful, and have so many useable products in them. I love the variety of items she has, and that she puts the same categories in each collection. For example, each  storyteller kit this year has had a pack of messy borders, which I have totally used here!

{TIP: If you sign up for her newsletter, she sends subscribers a special price when the kit first comes out!}

I figure if I use the kits from Just Jaimee almost exclusively for the Review pages, there will be a better continuity to the entire album.

 

As you can tell, not much happened in January or February this year! There just wasn't much to tell! We were sick for most of January and February was spent catching up! Just to illustrate how little we did, here's a look at the number of photos we took each month:

January: 63

February: 95

March: 259

Big difference, right?!

So now that I have a plan, I will hopefully be turning out more and more pages! Stay tuned.

PS. What book printing company do you love?