What documenting life means to me?

What does memory keeping and documenting life mean to me? A quote from the movie Shall We Dance (2004) sums up why I do, what I do. 

"Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. 

Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness." 

By taking the time to document my children's day-to-day, I am showing them they are important and loved, and I am a witness to their lives. And in turn, by also documenting my own life, my children become a witness to mine.

I was recently compelled to share with a fellow memory keeper whom I admire and respect, the story of the first time I heard this quote. I wanted to tell how I had a moment of profound clarity, joy, and gratitude for my husband who was most certainly a witness to my life, during a time of adversity. This quote resonates with me on many levels.

I believe we are giving our children and our loved ones a priceless gift when we document their lives - for them to know they are loved, important and that they really matter.

I have created some 3x4 filler cards with the quote, which you are welcome to download for your own personal use. Maybe you will come to love this quote as much as I do. xx

Daydreaming

I admit it. I'm a daydreamer. 

As a mother of two young boys, I spend much of my weekdays chauffeuring the little cherubs to and from school, after school activities, and running errands. All in all, I spend a significant amount of time in the car. 

Lately, I have been beeped at regularly by the cars behind me because mid-daydream, the lights had turned green. Sometimes i get to my destination and have no idea how i got there. It's almost like I was daydreaming the whole time.

Note to self, must focus more when operating a moving vehicle.

Anyhow, my in-car daydreaming has inspired this little 3x4 filler card. Feel free to download here for personal use. And please share on Pinterest so others can download as well.

Hope you all have a dreamy weekend! xx 

Mother's Day printable freebies!

To celebrate Mother's Day, here are some freebies!

Download the 3x4 Mother's Day filler cards in seafoam, midnight or honey. 

And here are some 3x4 journalling cards to document your Mother's Day.

Download the 3x4 journalling cards (pictured below) in seafoam, midnight or honey.

There are also 6x4 journalling cards which provides the option to add a photo to your journalling about your Mother's Day.

Download the 6x4 journalling cards (pictured below) in seafoam, midnight or honey.

These are free for you to download for personal use.

Be notified of new blog posts and freebies by subscribing to follow The Making Table blog :-) 

Happy Mother's Day and enjoy! xx

"This Week" AND "This Month" journalling cards

It all started this morning when one of the lovely ladies from the PLA group was looking for a "this week.." journalling card.   

This gave me the perfect excuse to spend some time playing in PhotoShop :-) 

I have made a few variations which you can download as individual jpegs. They are based on some of the Becky Higgins core kit colours. They may not be an exact match so please bear this in mind. 

These are free for you to download for private use. If I could please ask a teeny favour - i would love if you could leave me a comment below, and let me know which ones you like best. And of course, I would love to see them in use, so feel free to send me a link. 

You can download the above "THIS WEEK.." journalling cards here.

You can download the above blank "THIS WEEK.." journalling cards here.

You can download the above "THIS MONTH.." journalling cards here.

You can download the above blank "THIS MONTH.." journalling cards here.

I also did these 3x4 filler cards a little while ago for another one of the lovely ladies in the PLA Group. Thank you for inspiring me to create - you're all truly amazing.

You can download the above "A MOTHER'S LOVE" 3x4 filler cards here.

Our Story is Their Story.

It's been a little quiet here at The Making Table blog, but there's been some crazy crafting happening at my Making Table in real life!  

Last Friday, SJS and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary! I love that we still talk lots, and laugh lots. I feel very blessed.

Although I had been busy planning ways to document memories for the the boys, I hadn't given much thought to documenting the memories of SJS and I. After all, our memories are just as important because although we remember them, our boys do not. Our story is essentially, THEIR STORY. 

I had 4 weeks to gather what photos i had from our pre-children days and organise them into an album as an anniversary gift for SJS. The limited number of photos i had were taken on a compact film camera my grandfather gave me when i was 14. And the photos were previously thrown into an album that was literally falling apart. 

I have fully embraced the Project Life way of scrapbooking. It's truly awesome and I love it! I also like combining my traditional 12x12 layouts with my Project Life spreads from time to time. 

I think it fitting that this album I have started will continue on to be our family album. Today I will share mostly the Project Life spreads and leave the 12x12s for my next post. Warning: this post will be very image heavy :-)  

The 6x4 and 3x4 cards in the Airlie Beach spread were created in PhotoShop. Here's the link if you wish to download them. I am very much in love with the Amy Tangerine camera stamp from the Lovestruck set.

Again, the 6x4 and 3x4 cards were created in PhotoShop. Here's the link for you to download if you wish. The RHS will be a traditional 12x12 layout which i am yet to complete so i just inserted a sheet of 12x12 patterned paper (Amy Tangerine's Surrounded from Ready Set Go). I had been looking for this design EVERYWHERE and finally found it at Polka Dot Creative (thanks Jodie!) 

The very cute Studio Calico wood veneer alphabet I used for the title was another item i had been searching for EVERYWHERE and once again, found it at Polka Dot Creative - it's a little treasure trove of goodies over there. 

For the "2001", I used Amy Tangerine's Goodness Thickers which i inked up with Brilliance Granite Black Ink. Also loving Amy's Yes, Please range.  I've used the Commitment paper here in this spread - the cameras are fantastic.

I also bought a whole heap of Ali Edwards' stamps - so glad that I did. They stamp really clean and crisp and I have more on my wish list. I used the Just Awesome tabs, Life Circles and Kids are Cool. I have used Amy Tangerine's Draft and Lovestruck stamps here too. And incase you were wondering, yes, that's me with my crazy windswept hair as i run away from the camera into the ocean.

I'm really happy with how the Farm Trip spread turned out, and as you can see, i LOVE sunsets. I wasn't a big fan of green until now, and the Damask patterned paper from Echo Park (For the Record 2) seemed to highlight the greenery in these photos quite well. 

Using the Ali Edwards stamps again here. And washi tape.

I trimmed up some Simple Stories Sn@p! Yellow/Grid paper for my journalling. I also used a Jillibean Soup sticker on the 3x4 filler card.

Well, if you have stayed and read up to here, THANK YOU. I will be creating a few traditional 12x12 layouts to fill in the gaps in this album. I'll post them when they're done. Feel free to leave a comment - always love hearing from you!

Hello Project Life!

It has been a while since my last post. But i have a very good excuse. You see, I have been admiring people's Project Life pages! Yep, that's all i have been doing for weeks! And i have finally completed a few pages of my own which i will share with you soon.  

If you haven't heard of Project Life, please visit the Becky Higgins blog and be inspired!

From a very young age, I loved lettering. My favourite part of doing school projects was bringing out my stash of lettering books and tracing them with my pencil onto tracing paper, scribbling on the back and retracing onto my project. And then colouring it all in - ahh, those were the days.

I spent hours writing, and then rewriting my projects to get my handwriting just right because i couldn't decide which of handwriting styles i wanted use. Straight up and and down, curvy, curly, angled, right leaning, left leaning. I'm sure my gorgeous mum was a little baffled as to how i could possibly have so many types of handwriting.

To this day, I am still fascinated with handwriting and fonts. And I love inspirational quotes and sayings that either make me laugh, smile, trigger a memory or bring me to be in the present moment. What's even more fun is combining the two! 

When putting together my first Project Life pages (randoms dating back to 2000!), I wanted to use quotes or write my own sayings that conveyed the emotion or story of my layouts.

Here's s few of them and they are free to download for your own personal use. Aside from my handwriting, I have used a free font called Typenoksidi from dafont.com.  

If you use the cards in a layout that is shared on your blog, would be lovely if you could link back to this blog. 

Send me a link or photo of the cards in your albums. I would LOVE to see them. 

  

 3x4 "To the Moon" filler cards in pink and aqual. Download here.

3x4 "You are my Sunshine" filler card. Download here.

Set of 6x4s to match the "You are my Sunshine" 3x4 card. Download here.

Set of 2 6x4s and 3 3x4s in The Love Starts Here theme. Download here.

Thanks for visiting. I'll share some more as i create them xx

Home

You may have noticed, I am in catch up mode with my layouts. And I am going back 8 years to when we welcomed home our first baby. I think mentally, I need to scrap some of those very early photos so I can really feel like I have made a good start. So bear with me for the next couple of layouts, it's going to be all about baby!

I had always thought I would use lots of baby blue cardstock when doing these layouts. But what I'm discovering is that I love the aquas, mints and kraft colour combinations. It is so fresh, versatile and well suited to baby layouts.  

This first layout titled HOME is a photo of Isaac when we first brought him home from the hospital. Oh, so tiny! I chose the Aspen Place paper from American Crafts' Dear Lizzy collection because it has these cute pictures of houses and sentiments such as "no place like home" or "home sweet home". To frame the photo is the flip side of the Aspen Place paper. The journalling is a grid paper from the Simple Stories SN@P Life paper pad and held in place by some washi tape.

Supplies: Paper - American Crafts, Cardstock and Vellum - Stampin' Up! Stamps - Amy Tangerine,

Stickers -  Jillibean Soup.

For the title, I glued the patterned paper onto chipboard and die cut the letters with the Simple Letters alphabet dies (retired) from Stampin' Up! Using the same paper in the title gives repetition and visually ties the page together.

Here's a close up of the patterned paper. So pretty! I also used some stamps from Amy Tangerine and VersaFine ink in Onyx Black. 

I used a circle punch to punch out a sentiment from the Aspen Place paper and I also punched another 3 circles from kraft coloured card stock. I glued all the cardstock circles in a stack, and then glued the sentiment on top. This gives the punched sentiment dimension.  I also lightly sponged the edges of my circle stack with Soft Suede ink (Stampin' Up!) to further add the illusion of dimension. I have also used some washi tape and a sticker from Jillibean Soup.

Thanks again for visiting! I have a few more baby layouts of Isaac to share before I start his toddler years. I love this trip down memory lane - very special!

Be inspired to document everyday life!

Today i want to share with you a video I came across about documenting everyday life.

More than ever before, I realise how important documenting life and memory keeping is to me. There's no time like TODAY to begin! 

Documenting and memory keeping doesn't have to be just about scrapbooking. It can be anything you want it to be. Maybe you might like to keep all your keepsakes in a box, or put together a digital photobook, or keep a written journal, or you may choose to put together a paper scrapbook, or even a digital scrapbook. 

It's entirely up to you. As long as it suits you, and fits into your life without it becoming a chore.  

Have a look at this 3 minute video. I hope it inspires you, as it did for me. 

Memory Keeping

The past couple of weeks have proven to be a time of reflection and refocus for me. I began my crafting journey a few years ago with the intention to create scrapbook albums for my two boys. What has ended up happening is I have become somewhat of a cardmaker - which i have discovered i thoroughly enjoy. But I have become side-tracked and lost sight of my original intention - creating memory books for my babies (who really aren't babies anymore). 

I realised what is important to me is being able to put together a collection of photos and journalling for my boys. Something they can look back on when they are grown up and remember those little moments of ordinary life that will one day become the extraordinary. Things like being taught how to swim by their dad, or wrestling with eachother whilst watching cartoons, or riding their bikes up and down our street.

I have big plans. And big plans = big time investments. But that's okay, I have already made a start, and sometimes starting is the biggest hurdle! 

In my pursuit to find the perfect way for memory keeping, I have spent hours (and I mean HOURS!) surfing the net for THE ANSWER. I have found lots of inspiration. But with more information comes more options, which means decisions must be made! Digital, traditional or Project Life style? 

I am still undecided. For now, I am going traditional.  Here's some of my recent layouts. Let me know your thoughts on memory keeping, would love to hear from you! 

Supplies: Cardstock, Paper, Stamps, Ribbon from Stampin' Up.
Thickers (title) and Date stamp from Amy Tangerine.

These two ultrasound layouts are meant to go side by side - I am really glad I had the originals scanned in. I resized them all in photoshop so they could all be printed at the same size.

I used the Amy Tangerine Thickers (Goodness) for the titles - makes it so quick and easy! I just can't seem to get enough of Thickers at the moment - absolutely love them!

In this next layout, I was experimenting with the layering. I'm quite happy with how it turned out. My biggest challenge was trying to fit the ankle bracelet into the layout without it looking out of place. In the end, I made a small envelope out of patterned paper and it worked into the layout well. 

The next layout uses multiple photos from the one "photoshoot". By using a semi-grid format, I was able to display all your my favourite shots on the one layout and highlight one image by enlarging and placing in the centre.

Thanks for visiting! I have more layouts to share in the next couple of days. Be sure to subscribe (via Follow by Email) to receive new posts straight into your inbox to keep updated :-)

Be Mine, Valentine.

February 14th. Valentine's Day. The cynic in me says, "Total waste of time, just another ploy to make us spend more money." But then, the girly romantic in me says, "Oh, I hope i get showered with gorgeous flowers and pretty card where my man tells me I light up his life with my presence everyday". Ha! A girl can dream, eh? 

I have been making some Valentine's Day cards. Lots of fun with lots of red cardstock, red ink and Paris themed red washi tape! (thanks Dee, love love love the washi tape from NYC).

The first card uses the Stampin' Up! Core'dinations card stock in real red, which was embossed with the Lacy Brocade embossing folder. I then sanded the paper to reveal the inside layer of card stock. 

Card Stock: Core-dinations in Real Red, Whisper White, Real Red. Stamp Set: You are Loved.Inks: Real Red.
Accessories: Rhinestones, sponge dauber. 

The next card uses the You are Loved stamp set, where the heart image has been heat embossed using white emboss powder.  I really like how the stamped image turns out crisp and clean!   I used the same heart stamp randomly on the crumb cake card stock with crumb cake ink to create a subtle background. The polka dot paper was created by inking up the emboss folder with real red ink, inserting a piece of whisper white paper inside the folder, and then running the whole thing through the bigshot. Really love using this technique.  And lastly, my new love... I added some washi tape.

Card Stock: Crumb Cake, Real Red, Whisper White. Stamp Set: You are Loved, So Many Sayings (retired).
Inks: Read Red, Crumb Cake, VersaMark. Accessories: White Emboss Powder, Polka Dot emboss folder, Washi Tape. 

This next card was inspired by a little paper envelope I made for one of my scrapbook layouts (will post in next few days!). I cut out the envelope in real red card stock and then stamped only the front panel with the "Valentine's Day" stamp from the You are Loved stamp set. 

The little pink and red hearts were punched out with the Owl Builder Punch, and the larger heart that's tucked partially into the envelope is the from the alphabet dies (retired). I wanted to create something to symbolise being overflowing with love.

Card Stock: Real Red, Pink Pirouette, Very Vanilla.  Stamp Set: You are Loved, So Many Sayings (retired).
Inks: Read Red.  Accessories: Owl Builder punch.

The last card i made also uses the real red card stock which has been stamped with the Very Vintage Jumbo Wheel stamp in real red ink. I like the subtle effect that comes with using the same colour ink as the card stock. The word VALENTINE uses Amy Tangerine's Thickers with a Stampin' Up! pearl to dot the letter "I". 

Card Stock: Real Red, Crumb Cake, Whisper White.  Stamp Set: Very Vintage Wheel stamp,
So Many Sayings (retired).  Inks: Read Red.  Accessories: Amy Tangerine Thickers, Pearl. 

I had a lot of fun making these cards, and I hope they inspire you to make something too.

Who says you need to wait until Valentine's Day to give someone a card, why not make one today and tell someone how special they are to you!?