Project Life 2013 | Weeks 7 & 8

POSTED ON March 5, 2013 IN Project Life

Welcome to Project Life, Weeks 7 & 8.

I realized this past week that I need to give myself a bit more time to put together these Project Life sharing posts. As much as I love sharing my pages, these posts take practically as long to put together as designing the pages themselves! So starting now my goal is to share my Project Life pages every other Monday but with a week in between – so Weeks 7-8 are being shared now at the start of Week 10 and Weeks 9-10 will be shared at the start of Week 12.

Up to this point I’d been trying to put together my two weeks of pages, take & edit photos and write the post all in one day and well, it was so.not.working. So I’m hoping this’ll give me time to play and send my photos out for printing since I know printing at home has been a major sticking point for me. But I do reserve the right to change my mind at any point if this totally doesn’t work either, haha.

With that out of the way, let’s get to Weeks 7 & 8, shall we?

These two weeks were so much fun to put together because it was my first time adding additional inserts to my weekly spreads. I knew I wanted to capture our weekend adventure to Big Bend National Park and since the trip loosely spanned across two weeks (we drove home on Monday of Week 8), I decided the easiest plan was to create a single page each for my everyday type stuff and then use the extra pages and some additional insert for the trip. I LOVE how it turned out.

Week 7: Feb 11-17

Here’s a look at the Week 7 spread. On the left is everyday stuff from Week 7 and on the right is the start of the trip pages.

Included in this week are all 3 of my new Bits & Bytes Project Life themed products released this past weekend at Sweet Shoppe Designs: 2013 Weekly Title Cards, 4×6 Journalers – Paper Love and 4×6 Journalers – Graphic Love. The black accent card was a printable freebie from Studio Calico for those on their Project Life wait list. I thought it seemed fitting for Valentine’s Day plus “you are my fave” – you know I’m going to be all over that. #faveslove

Here’s a closer look at the 4×6 Journalers – Paper Love card. These templates made these cards SO easy to put together and I love the little pop of pattern and color they add to the page. I chose papers from the same kit I’m using for my February title cards (You Hold the Key to My Heart by Zoe Pearn & Jenn Barrette) to keep things cohesive.

In the right corner you can see one of the 4×6 Journalers – Graphic Love. I love the balance of the clean & graphic vs the scrappy and paper-lovin’.

My mom mailed me a Valentine’s Day card and since I wanted to be able to open it and not chop it up to fit in the pockets, I ended up using some tape runner (Scotch Adhesive Dot Roller) to attach it to the front of the page protector.

Here’s a look at the start of the right side of the Week 7 spread. Since the trip was kind of a big deal, I decided to make it it’s own title page to signify that this was the start of the trip. It’s 6×11 and I just added it to the album using an American Crafts 6×12 page protector.

Playing with type and especially adding text directly to photos may just be my favorite part of Project Life.

When you turn the title page, you’ll find a map of the park as well as an 8.5×11 page protector (from We R Memory Keepers) that holds some of the papers we were given at the park.

On the back of the 6×11 title card, I added a printed version of the map of the park. The National Park Service has downloadable PDFs available on their website so I just downloaded that, placed it into Photoshop, cropped and printed.

For my trip journaling, I added two additional 6×12 page protectors to hold four 6×11 journaling cards. To make my journaling cards, I copied the text directly from this blog post and then formatted it using Adobe InDesign. SUPER easy and saved me the trouble of having to rewrite what we did on the trip.

Since the Epson Premium Presentation Paper Matte I have is double-sided, I decided to try printing my journaling double-sided on a single sheet of 8.5×11 paper. A tip for doing this if you’re printing 6×11, make sure you align the text on the backside of the card opposite from the front side – front aligned to the left of the page, back aligned to the right. Otherwise when you go to trim the 8.5×11 sheet of paper down to 6×11, the journaling will be cut off.

Here’s a closer look at my printed journaling. I can definitely see using this format again as a way to get longer stories into my album. I love the way the photos peek out from behind the text like a little preview of what’s to come.

The right side of the Week 7 spread. I used two Project Life Design D page protectors for my trip photos since I loved the mix of vertical 4×6 and smaller horizontal pockets. They worked really well for my photos.

A closer look at the photo page. Since I had more photos than I had pockets for, I ended up printing two 3×4 photos on a single 4×6. I love it plus it reduced the amount of trimming needed!

Here’s the second half of my journaling and photos. I decided to space the journal pages out since the spacing worked out that the journaling on the first card fit with photos on the first two pages and the journaling on the second card fit with the second set of photo pages.

Close up of the left side photo page. These pages are the first ones I’ve done where I’ve laid everything out in Photoshop first and then printed. It was definitely faster than my previous post-it note method!

Back of the second journaling card and more photos:

Close up of the photo spread. I tried to feature a good mix of photos in my larger vertical 4×6 pockets.

Week 8: Feb 11-24

And here’s the Week 8 spread. On the left is the final set of photos from the trip and on the right is everyday stuff from Week 8. It was a little tricky narrowing down 6 days into one page but I’m happy with how it turned out.

Close up of the final photo page from our trip. This page didn’t actually end up having any true 4×6 photos – they all were two 3×4 photos on a 4×6 sheet. I really wish there was a Project Life page protector design that had horizontal 3×4 photos like this!

The trip photos are the first set of prints I’ve sent out for printing since starting Project Life and I have to say, as much as I like the flexibility of printing at home, I love the ease of uploading and slipping in printed photos even more. Sure beat babysitting my printer for 24 photos! I sent them to our local Target and while the blues came back a little too saturated overall I was happy with the quality of the photos.

Here’s a closer look at the right side of the Week 8 spread. Everything this week was fairly normal: Monthly Title Card, Faves card (available for free here), another 4×6 graphic journaler and a couple of photos. The sunset photo was taken one night from our backyard – other than deepening the blacks a little, it’s pretty much straight out of the camera. The sky was really those colors!

The Fragile Handle with Care card is actually a folded 4×6 journal card from the Project Life Seafoam core kit which includes some personal journaling I wanted to capture but didn’t want out for just anyone browsing my album to read. This seemed like a good compromise. That’s also the only card from the Seafoam kit I used this week. Everything else was either photos, my templates or printable accent cards. The take a deep breath card is from Jenn Barrette’s Resolutions: Patience, Relax, Breathe 3×4 cards set.

The InstaLove hashtag card is something I whipped up real quick (and am totally in love with) and the Noted photo card is from my 4×6 Journalers – Graphic Love templates. The Doctor Who themed car decal photo is actually a photo Adam sent me from the parking lot at his work. It was too awesome not to include!

Random thoughts this week:

After 8 weeks of doing this (minus Week 1 which I still have to go back and add), I am starting to see the bigger picture of the album come together and I am so in LOVE with it. It’s a ton of work but so worth it when I watch Adam flip through the weeks and smile at all these small stories captured. I asked him if he thought this format was more approachable than my digital pages and he said he thought so. I think it’s because it’s more clean & streamlined and less product focused. I still love digital pages for more personal journal-type pages but I love this format for these types of stories even more.
This is by far the quickest I have ever scrapped travel photos from any of our trips. In fact, it may be the only complete trip I’ve ever scrapped. #craziness #thanksbeckyhiggins
Slipping printed Target photos into the pockets totally reminded me of the days when I’d drop my film off at Target and add my photos into regular photo albums. #goodtimes
I’m definitely considering sending all my regular sized photos out for printing moving forward. While it’s not quite as immediate, it’s pretty inexpensive and a lot less hassle for me than printing at home.

Supplies used this week: Project Life Design A & Design D page protectors, American Crafts 6×12 page protectors, We R Memory Keepers 8.5×11 page protector, Seafoam core kit, Nettio Designs Bits & Bytes 2013 4×6 Weekly Title Cards, 4×6 Journalers – Paper Love, 4×6 Journalers – Graphic Love, Nettio Designs free Top Five Faves 3×4 card, Studio Calico February Project Life kit, Resolutions: Patience, Relax, Breathe 3×4 Cards by Jenn Barrette, You Hold the Key to My Heart digital scrapbooking kit by Zoe Pearn & Jenn Barrette. Photos/elements printed at home are printed on a mix of Epson 4×6 Premium Photo Paper Glossy & Epson 8.5×11 Premium Presentation Paper Matte and the Project Life 3×4 White Cards.

And that’s it for this Project Life 2013, Weeks 7 & 8 update! How are you doing with your Project Life album? Have you learned anything new after 8 weeks? Are you starting to see the big picture come together?

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. New to Project Life? Learn more here & find all my Project Life posts here.

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New Release | Bits & Bytes: Titles & Journalers

POSTED ON March 2, 2013 IN Shop News & Releases

Happy Sweet Shoppe Saturday everyone!

I am so excited to be here because this week I’m releasing the very first set of goodies in my BRAND-NEW line of products called Bits & Bytes. Just think of them as digital bite-sized pieces of Nettio Designs designed to make creatively capturing your life adventures that much easier.

This week’s Bits & Bytes releases were all inspired by my own personal experience with Project Life which means they’re perfect for both digital and hybrid pocket scrapbooking. After eight weeks of Project Life-ing, there were a few things I found myself needing over and over again so I figured, why not make some templates? A best of all, not only does it speed the process up for me, but it means you can take advantage of these little babies too. That’s what I call a win-win.

Bits & Bytes: 2013 4×6 Weekly Title Cards

The first Bits & Bytes release this week, Bits & Bytes: 2013 4×6 Weekly Title Cards, are based off my own Project Life 4×6 title cards. I designed these as a way to give my album a clean and cohesive look throughout. Included in the templates are two sets of date formats: Sun-Sat & Mon-Sun.

Here’s a peek at how I’ve been using them. I love choosing a specific kit to serve as my inspiration and color scheme for the month…

Bits & Bytes: 4×6 Journalers – Paper Love

The second release this week, Bits & Bytes: 4×6 Journalers – Paper Love were born out of what else? My hardcore love for patterned paper. As a digital scrapbooker, I figure what’s the point of having all these gorgeous digital papers taking up space on my harddrive if I’m not finding fun ways to use them?

So I whipped up these babies to make it super fun and easy to add layered paper-lovin’ photo journal cards to your pages and albums. Included in the download are 12 layered 4×6 templates each with 3 title options: Notes, True Story and The Story.

Here’s how I used them this week. I love the pop of color and pattern it adds to my page, plus you can coordinate it with your title cards to really make things pop…

Here’s a little closer look at the Paper Love journalers in action:

Bits & Bytes: 4×6 Journalers – Graphic Love

Of course as much as I love patterned paper, I also love me some clean & graphic scrapbooking. So I whipped up a set of templates to work with that style as well. Gotta keep things interesting & balanced! The Bits & Bytes: 4×6 Journalers – Graphic Love include 9 4×6-inch clean & modern templates to make pairing your favorite photos with your favorite stories quick and easy. Each template includes 2 title options: Notes & The Story.

Here’s a peek at how I used these this week. I used the single photo template in my layout above as well. I love the clean modern touch they add to the album. (And for all you fellow Doctor Who fans, is that car decal not the most amazing thing ever? The little K-9 just kills me.)

Bits & Bytes: Bundle & Save!

Can’t decide which set of Bits & Bytes templates you like the best? Well lucky for you, if you buy the Bits & Bytes: Titles & Journalers bundle, you don’t have to you! You can get all of the templates for one awesome price.

SAVE 20% thru Saturday

As with every Sweet Shoppe Saturday you can save 20% off new releases thru Saturday….

Click here to pick up the Bits & Bytes: Titles and Journalers today!

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The Truth About Growth: Maximize Impact, Minimize Effort

POSTED ON February 27, 2013 IN From the Desk of Nettio Designs, Memory Keeping

From the Desk of Nettio Designs Issue No. 7

Welcome to From the Desk of Nettio Designs Issue No. 7. Ooo, lucky number 7! So glad to be back chatting with you again!

This past week I started reading The Art of Growth by Tara Gentile. If you don’t know Tara, she’s one kickass lady currently trailblazing a path for entrepreneurs to the New Economy. I’ve been following Tara’s work for quite awhile now and what I love about her is she makes me think and she has a knack for saying exactly what you need to hear at precisely the right moment.

While The Art of Growth is primarily a business-related book focusing on how to grow your business in an impactful way, while I was reading it I couldn’t help but draw parallels to how I look at growth as a scrapbooker.

In The Art of Growth, Tara talks about how growth is about maturity. How it’s like raising a child: in the beginning you have to tend to their every need and then slowly as they mature and grow older, they require less of your hands-on care.

The scrapbooking process follows this same path. When you’re a newbie scrapbooker every decision requires your energy and attention, but as you become more comfortable with your skills and style, you’re able to naturally do things that we at one time difficult, freeing up your time and energy for more meaningful storytelling and creativity.

As Tara puts it: at it’s core, growth is about identifying ways to maximize your impact while minimizing your efforts.

Wow. Let me say that again.

Maximize your impact. Minimize your effort.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the goal of growth stated so simply before but when I talk about the importance growth as part of creatively capturing your life adventures, this is exactly what I’m talking about.

We want to maximize the impact our storytelling, photos, design, even maximize the impact our adventures and memories have on our life, while minimizing the amount of time and energy it requires to do these things.It’s all about getting the most bang for your buck.

This is exactly why Project Life has become so popular as a memory keeping system. Because it maximizes the impact of everyday storytelling as part of a simple and streamlined system.

But what if you don’t want to jump on the Project Life bandwagon? What if you want to keep doing what you do while still maximizing the impact of your scrapbooking and minimizing your efforts? Are there other ways we can do this?

Here’s a few ideas I came up with:

1) Streamline your systems

How much time do you waste looking for photos, finding supplies and coming up with layout ideas? Why not instead use systems to your advantage?

Organize your supplies and photos in a way that not only makes them easy to find but inspires you in the process. Create a content capture system for all your storytelling layouts and ideas that pop into your head at random moments. That way when you have the inclination to get your scrapbook on, you’ll already be one step ahead.

2) Focus on what you love

We all have part of the creative process we love and parts we love not quite as much. So why not minimize the amount of effort you spend on those less fun tasks?

If you don’t love editing photos, embrace actions. If page design isn’t your thang, grab a template!

The less energy you expend on the parts of the process that don’t make you want to dance for joy, the more time and energy you’ll have to focus on the parts you love most.

3) Find your own style

In the scrap world, style tends to be seen as this elusive abstract concept. But in reality, all style really means is having the confidence to repeatedly do something in a certain way.

Understanding your own style takes the guess-work out of scrapbooking. It allows you to make more impactful layouts and designs because you know what you love and you know the steps to take to get the result you want.

Less uncertainty=more stories captured with less effort.

4) Dig deeper

Get to the heart of why you scrapbook and focus your time and energy on the stories that are most meaningful to you. Imagine yourself 10, 15, 20 years from now – what stories/moments/adventures do you want to have captured?

Start with those.

Now It’s Your Turn

I’m sure I’ll be revisiting this idea of maximizing your scrapbooking impact while minimizing your effort more but for now, I want to hear from you:

What’s one way you can think of to maximize the impact of your scrapbooking while minimizing your effort?

I’d love to hear your thoughts so feel free to share in the comments below.

That’s it from me this week! I’ll be back next week with Issue No. 8 of From the Desk of Nettio Designs. See you then!

A little note: I did receive my copy of The Art of Growth for free as part of my KickStart Labs membership (which I paid for) but I wasn’t perked in any way to mention it, so just consider me a happy fan sharing some insight from a wise woman. None of the links above are affiliate links.

This post is Issue No. 7 of my From The Desk of Nettio Designs weekly email series. Want to get in on the action? Sign up for Nettio Designs emails here.

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Weekend Adventures: Big Bend National Park

POSTED ON February 26, 2013 IN Life Adventures, Travels, Weekend Adventures

Over Presidents’ Day weekend, Adam and I took hit the road for a weekend adventure to Big Bend National Park. One of our joint bucket list goals is to eventually visit all the National Parks in the US and since we’d crossed off a bunch during our two-week Southwest road trip over the summer, we figured it was time for us to hit up one closer not really that much closer to home. And best of all, this time it would be a new one for me as well!

I hope you like photos because this post has got a whole lot of them…

We started off by renting a small travel trailer thru the Outdoor Center on the military base. We debated about camping in our tent but considering it was February, we thought it might be a bit too cold. Good decision on our part since it was in the 20s the first night we were there.

Adam picked up the trailer on Thursday afternoon so early Friday morning we headed out. I’d say we look pretty chipper (well Adam looks focused, haha). I totally had to laugh when I realized we unintentionally wore matching color shirts. At least it makes it easy for scrapbooking? #twinsiesforlife

For those not up on your Texas geography (because lord knows I never was before we moved here), Big Bend National Park is located about 6 1/2 hours west of San Antonio down along the Rio Grande near the Texas/Mexico border. To get there you basically hop on I-10 and drive and drive until you get to Fort Stockton and drive another 100+ miles south.

To say it’s in the middle-of-nowhere Texas would be an understatement – they call it “splendid isolation” for a reason. Which is exactly why we decided now would be a good time to go because short of El Paso, this is probably the closest to it we’re ever going to live.

Hello I-10, our old friend. Other than I-5 out West, Adam and I have determined that I-10 now holds the second place mark for most miles traveled by us. I’ve driven all the way across the country on it (thankfully NOT in the same trip, haha), so it’s safe to say we know it quite well.

There isn’t a whole lot out in west Texas but there are parts of the road that are pretty, like this.

Best part of the trip? Rediscovering these little babies. When I used to go on road trips with my family, we’d buy the big individually wrapped bags of them. I’d totally forgotten all about that until these. #ahmemories

After many hours of driving we finally saw this sign. Hooray! We were excited…

That is until we saw this sign…

Wah, wah, wah. Granted we knew this would be the case from the map but somehow seeing it in sign form made it seem that much farther – probably because at this point we were getting more than a little antsy of being in the car.

Which is why I entertained myself by snapping photos like this…

Until we finally got here…

Yes, that’s me doing my best Vanna White impression. Adam played it a little more cool…

Is it weird that my first thought after looking at the sign was how much I loved the font? It’s so cool & retro. #typeloverforlife

Of course even from the sign it was still another 30 miles or so to the main area of the park but eventually we started seeing views like this. The mountains in the distance are actually in Mexico.

Our first night was pretty low key because it was COLD. It was in the 40s when we arrived but the wind picked up and in ended up being in the 20s overnight. We basically ate dinner real quick and then huddled in the trailer to keep warm.

The next morning we headed up to the Chisos Mountain area of the park. One benefit of the wind – it cleared out all the haze!

Our main activity for the day was to hike out to the Window, a small slot canyon that overlooks the valley below.

You can’t tell in this photo but I’m wearing like 4 layers because it was in the 40s. The funny thing is as we headed down the trail, everyone coming back up was in short sleeves and we were thinking they were crazy. That is until we realized it was uphill all the way back and we were in short sleeves by the end too.

The views on this trail were so neat – the Window is located in the little valley to the right of the pointy peek. It was a bit like Vegas – it didn’t look as far as it really was.

I’m pretty sure I said something to the effect of “pretend like you’re hiking” to get this photo, haha…

One of my favorite things about this park was all the desert plants. It was like my succulents adventure on steroids.

Adam was a little scared of these big ones. They looked a bit man-eater-y…

The trail continued to wind thru the rocks…

I’ll just say, this would be a brutal hike in the summer heat – this was one of the few shady areas.

Towards the end of the hike we reached a point where were all these crazy stairs carved out of the rocks. Adam was pretty excited to reach the top of the first flight, haha.

A look back at more of the stairs. I’m just glad I wasn’t the one who had to carve these out of the rock!

Once we reached the bottom of the last set of stairs, we were at our destination, The Window! One of the nice things about this park is it’s really uncrowded so while there was only one family there when we arrived, they left shortly after so we had the place to ourselves. Definitely beat trying to sight see around tour buses full of people like we did over the summer.

We were really careful not to get too close to the edge – it was pretty scary looking! The view was amazing though.

The Window was carved by water that rushes through the canyon during the rainy times of the year. It comes through so fast that it polished all of the rock along the walls. I didn’t get quite this close, I used the zoom lens a bit since it was pretty intense.

We also pulled out the timer and got a shot of us together thanks to big rock acting as a tripod. That was about as close to the edge as we got.

Then it was time to head back. Here’s me hiking my way back up the stairs.

For anyone wondering about my backpack, I use the Clik Elite Cloudscape which is basically like a camera bag and hiking pack in one. It has room for a 3 liter bladder of water and also includes a padded camera insert for holding my camera or any extra lenses. It looks giant on me since I’m only 5’3″ but it’s actually really comfortable to wear.

The view coming back up was really beautiful. I didn’t really expect the desert to be quite so green.

The only downside to this hike was the entire way back was uphill. It was rated Moderate but I’d call it easy on the way there and difficult on the way back. Our legs were definitely feeling it by the time we got to the end!

After the hike we headed back to our campsite for some relaxation, snacks and dinner. Thankfully it was a bit warmer than the night before.

In case you thought Adam always cooperates with my photo taking, this is a look I get from him a lot. I’m pretty sure he asked me to do something (grab the trash maybe?) and I said, “hold on, let me take a photo first.”

But like 5 minutes later he’s like, here take a picture of me doing my best food network chef impression…

For dinner we had chili which was delicious.

We were also treated to an awesome sunset view of the cliffs from our campsite.

Our second day in the park we drove the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive out to Santa Elena Canyon. It really wound around and made us realize this park was much bigger than we thought.

Just to give a little perspective, the arrow is where we were on our hike the day before. The valley we were now in was the valley we saw through the Window. We hadn’t realized that until we saw it pointed out on a display, so it kind of blew our minds a little that we were all the way up there.

A view looking out towards Santa Elena Canyon…

I’ve never considered myself much of a desert kind of gal but I can definitely see why people like it. There’s something cool and textural about the landscape here.

Looking for a fun way to get yourself into pictures? Polarized sunglasses make a pretty fun mirror…

At the end of the drive we came to the Santa Elena Canyon Trail which was a fairly short hike back into the canyon.

After being in the car for awhile, Adam was definitely ready to get his hiking on…

The trail started out on the sand so I was very glad they had these mats down. Hiking in the sand=no fun.

Here’s the start of the Santa Elena Canyon. I think it’s hard to get an idea for just how big these cliffs are until you realize those tiny colored dots at the river are in fact people. The walls were 1500 feet high.

In case you ever needed evidence of the Texas drought. It was crazy how dry the ground was.

Of course one of the coolest things about this canyon is that the Rio Grande, which happens to also act as the border between the US and Mexico, runs down the middle of it, which means the rock on the left side is in Mexico and the rock on the right side is in the US.

We stopped for a quick obligatory hold-camera-at-arms-length-and-hope-you’re-in-focus shot and then headed down to the river.

This is by far the closest I have ever been to Mexico. You were literally a stone’s throw away!

Adam tried to reach out and touch Mexico. Since the dividing line is somewhere near the middle of the river, he was probably pretty close! Apparently the border here in the park between the two countries used to be more fluid but they’ve cracked down on that.

Once we were done with the river we started up the trail, which began with a large set of switchbacks carved in the cliff face.

The view looking back down the switchbacks. Seriously, who was the poor soul who had to make all these things? It’s quite the feat.

The trail wound down into the canyon a little ways…

…until you got to the end point where the canyon narrowed. It reminded us a lot of the The Narrows hike at Zion, minus the hiking in the river part. Kind of a baby taste of the Narrows for non-hikers (since the trail was pretty flat & easy).

Adam set up our little gorilla pod so we could get a quick shot of the two of us.

I’m pretty sure these are our “when is the timer going to go off” smiles, haha.

As we hiked back out of the canyon, the view was amazing. It’s kind of crazy to realize this river carved the canyon considering how little water there was flowing in it while were there. Somehow I expected it’d be a bit more grand.

The final leg of the scenic drive was to take the Old Maverick dirt road back to the paved road. Not going to lie, dirt road+desert+broken car had me worried we’d end up on an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive, haha, but it actually wasn’t that bad. Certainly much less bumpy than our “scenic drive” through Monument Valley!

My favorite part was all the trees! They looked like something straight out of Doctor Seuss. I expected the Lorax to jump out at any moment.

Later that night we were treated with a rather beautiful sunset from our campsite. It was a good way to end the weekend.

Considering we were both smiling the next day, I’d say it was a pretty good trip.

And that was our not-so-little adventure to Big Bend National Park! I have to say, it was totally different than what I expected but in a really good way. I don’t know that we’ll be making the trek out there again any time soon but if you’ve never been, I’d say it’s definitely worth a visit.

Anyone else ever been to Big Bend National Park? Have any suggestions for where our next park adventure should be? Adam mentioned Great Smoky Mountains since we’ve done most of the west already but we shall see…

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New Release | FAVE-O-RITES 2013: February Faves

POSTED ON February 23, 2013 IN Shop News & Releases

Happy Sweet Shoppe Saturday everyone! This week’s release heralds month number two of one of my absolute FAVE (pun-intended) scrapbooking projects: the Monthly Faves!

For those new to Nettio Designs & the Faves, my Monthly Faves project is a year-long scrapbooking project where each month you scrapbook one layout documenting your top-ten favorite things from that month. Your faves can be anything: events, food, tv shows, technology, clothing – the sky’s the limit!

I’ve done my Monthly Faves project twice before, once in 2009 & again in 2011 and I can’t even tell you how much fun it is to look back on those layouts and see what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. It’s like a mini time-capsule of your favorite things from way-back-when.

I’ve written before about why I believe everyone should scrap a Faves layout but here’s the cliff-notes version:

Because scrapbooking lists is fun
Because you don’t remember nearly as much as you swear you do
Because it captures an easy snapshot of your life at the moment
Because it’s the easiest All About Me layout you’ll ever do. Seriously.

And this year I want to make it even easier for you to creatively capture your faves. So I’ve changed the way I release my Monthly Faves digital scrapbooking templates.

Rather than saving them up and releasing them in a multi-month pack at once, this year on the last(ish) Saturday of every month, I’ll be releasing that month’s Faves layout as a new Sweet Single template. Which should give you plenty of time to capture your Faves for that month before the new month arrives.

Which brings me to this week’s release…

FAVE-O-RITES 2013: February Faves

This week’s release is the second FAVE-O-RITES Sweet Single digital scrapbooking template of the year, FAVE-O-RITES 2013: February Faves. It features room for one photo of your lovely smiling face, your top 10 faves for this month and a layered patterned paper-lovin’ heart design – because what’s a Feb Faves layout without a little love, right?

Here’s a bigger look at my 2013 Feb Faves layout that inspired this template. As you can see, my faves list is super random, which is exactly what I love! It’s not something you have to stress out over: make a list of 10 things, scrap it and boom, you’ve captured an easy snapshot of YOU in your scrapbooks. Just think how much fun it’ll be for you or your kids & grandkids to look back on one day!

Team Awesome Inspiration

Of course my team had a ton of fun this month scrapbooking their own take on the Feb Faves:

New Release Discount: SAVE 20% thru Saturday

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Pick up FAVE-O-RITES 2013: February Faves here today!

Well that’s it from me today! Have a great weekend everyone!

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How Can We Turn Our Scrapbooking Struggles Into Assets?

POSTED ON February 20, 2013 IN From the Desk of Nettio Designs

From the Desk of Nettio Designs Issue No. 6

At the end of last week’s From the Desk of Nettio Designs, I asked you to share with me what you’re struggling with right now when it comes to creatively capturing your life adventures. A huge thank you to everyone who did! I loved reading all of your responses.

While I know it can be a bit uncomfortable to admit when you’re struggling with something, I can say based off all the responses that we are all definitely in the same boat. In fact I don’t think there were any struggles I read that I couldn’t nod my head right along with you and say “Yep, totally been there.” And I know I said as much in a lot of my responses back to you, haha.

Speaking of which, if you sent me an email or left a comment on my blog, you should have received a reply from me, so if you haven’t yet, either I missed it or it got lost in cyberspace, so please feel free to send your response again. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Since you were all so kind to share your scrapbooking struggles with me last week, I wanted to share a few of my own scrapbooking struggles with you this week. Because yes, even after 7 years of digital scrapbooking, I still have things I struggle with too, like:

1) Taking WAY too many photos

Ok, so maybe it’s not the taking photos as much as it’s a problem of managing the sheer volume of photos I take. Don’t get me wrong, I love that I have so many more details of our everyday life & adventures captured, but keeping up with the continuous flow of digital photo organization and editing sometimes makes me wish for the old days of dropping off a single roll of 30 exposure film at Target. Photo flow is not something I’ve managed to master just yet.

2) Taking on too much

I love the rush of new projects, ideas, brainstorming – that’s the fun part of projects for me. The actual details and execution stage: eh, not so much. Which means sometimes I get easily excited to start something and lose steam half way, and other times I struggle with not knowing how to give myself permission to without feeling guilty I didn’t finish.

3) Balancing work with scrapbooking for fun

There’s a funny thing that happens when you pair your hobby with your work: the line between what’s work and what’s for fun becomes very very blurred. It becomes even trickier when work from home and love what you do but still want to maintain some kind of work/life boundaries. I struggle with this and I know more than a few of you on Creative Teams expressed you struggle with finding this balance as well so I know I’m in good company here.

How Can We Turn Our Scrapbooking Struggles Into Assets?

So now that we’ve all admitted and shared our struggles (woohoo, group hug everyone!), where do we go from here? More importantly, how can we turn our struggles into assets?

Well, the first thing we need to do is reframe how we look at our struggles in a more positive light. When most of us hear the word struggle, the first thing we think about is hardship, frustration and pain. And yes, struggle often involves all of those things.

But when I look at my own scrapbooking struggles, what I choose to see is opportunity. Opportunity for growth, for improvement, for learning.

Because the areas where we struggle are not a sign of our failures. Instead they represent where we have the most opportunity for true growth – where we’ll get the most bang for our buck, if you will.

If we can conquer what we struggle with the most first, aka the biggest speed bumps in our creative process, then that will free up more of our time, energy, inspiration and creativity to be put toward the areas we really love.

But in order to get to that point, we have to first understand the root cause of why we struggle with these things in the first place.

Back in 2011, I asked a similar “what do you struggle with” question on my blog and being the numbers/infographic nerd that I am, I came up with this pie chart at the time to show the five main categories of scrapbooking struggles based on the responses:

Time & Focus – finding time, avoiding the black hole of social media, maintaining balance
Design – all elements of design: composition, design principles, photography, title work
Inspiration – staying inspired, managing inspiration, finding your own style
Storytelling – journaling, telling your story, title work
Organization – both photos & scrap supplies

All of the responses I received this week could still be classified within these five categories. But that really only tells part of the story.

Two Key Causes of Why We Struggle

When I looked a little deeper at the WHY behind all of the responses from both 2011 & 2013, what I realized was all of these struggles could actually be categorized into two key causes: overwhelm & lack of confidence.

Overwhelm, as I’m sure most of us know, is that feeling you get when you have too much to do and not enough time. It includes struggles like: too many photos/photos/ideas/supplies/projects, not enough time to start/finish, a lack of focus when you do start, disorganization with you supplies or photos.

Lack of Confidence is that little voice of doubt inside your head that makes you rethink your choices (do I put this button here or here?) and whether you really are good enough (news flash, you totally are!). It includes struggles like: lack of confidence in your design/technical/photo skills or creativity, in your ability to tell your story thru your words and photos, and even in how you’ll look in a photo (which is why you hide behind the lens).

How overwhelm & lack confidence manifest themselves in our struggles is going to be a little bit different for each of us, and of course some struggles are going to fall into a combination of these two causes. But at it’s core, when looking at our struggles as opportunities for growth, what we need to do is focus on out how we can take action on these two things: reducing our overwhelm and/or increasing our confidence.

Which brings me to this week’s challenge…

It’s Challenge Time!

This week I want you to choose one of the struggles you shared last week and take action on it by doing two things:

1) Categorize the root of your struggle as either overwhelm or lack of confidence (or both). Really try to be as honest as possible and get at the heart of why this particular part of the creative process is a struggle for you. Don’t be afraid to mull it over for awhile and dig deep.

2) Write down one or two simple actionable steps you can take this week to help combat the root of your struggle – keep it something that is small, simple and doable – no big bold “I’m going to organize all my scrap supplies this week!” statements. We’re trying to reduceoverwhelm, remember?

Since I find having an example always helps, I’ll make it easy on ya and go first. You aren’t getting graded on this obviously, haha, so don’t worry about it being a well-edited essay – a simple list or mind-map can be a great way to do this as well.I’m choosing to focus on my I take WAY too many photos struggle which more me is a combination of both overwhelm and a lack of confidence:

Overwhelm because I get overwhelmed by the sheer volume and ongoing nature of the photo-taking process. Even when I’ve managed to get my photos organized I’ve struggled to keep them that way.
Lack of confidence because I know if I had more confidence in my abilities to compose photos I love in camera or get the right exposure/sharp photos the first time, I wouldn’t feel the need to take quite so many photos in the first place.

For my action steps, I’m going to do two things this week:

Spend 30 minutes one evening adding the rest of my photos into Aperture
Spend a little time (less than an hour) browsing through my pinned photos board on Pinterest and look for patterns in the photos I love. Then try to incorporate one of these patterns into my own photos.

See what I mean about keeping things simple? Your goal is not to solve your struggle in a single night. I just want you to spend some time getting to know your struggle and what it might take to eventually get yourself over the struggle hump. And if you’d like to share your plan, feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what you’ve got planned. We can be accountability buddies, hehe.

This post is Issue No. 6 of my From The Desk of Nettio Designs weekly email series. Want to get in on the action? Sign up for Nettio Designs emails here.

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