On being sick during the Olympics

These past few days have been, in a word, miserable. I began feeling sick on Wednesday evening, and by Thursday morning, I was the reluctant owner of a full-fledged cold. Sore throat, stuffy nose, body aches, fever, and chills — I had it all. It's the worst I've felt in a really, really long time. I stayed home from work on Thursday, and when I felt even worse on Friday morning, I had to skip that day as well.

The only bright spot to being sick the last two days is that I was able to watch the entire men's figure skating competition from Sochi live. I would have preferred to watch the dance or ladies' events live instead, but any skating was nice to take my mind off of my dreary state. The competition was not the best skated event I have ever seen, but Olympic pressure has a way of doing that to even world-class athletes. I was happy to see Yuzuru Hanyu and Denis Ten make history for their countries.

I was also excited to receive my figure skating photo book from Blurb in the mail on Friday. I created it using some of the pictures I took at the Four Continents Championships and Skate America in 2012. (Yes, it took me this long to put something together.) One of the best parts of waiting this long to make the book: noticing that I put two of this year's Olympic gold medalists on facing pages. Volosozhar and Trankov and Yuzuru Hanyu, it was nice seeing you at Skate America in 2012.

You can see my figure skating book below:

Figure Skating Competitions 2012 | Make Your Own Book

Week in the Life 2013

Last week (Monday, October 28 – Sunday, November 3) I completed my second Week in the Life project. There was nothing really special about this week, but I liked that my family would be in town for the UT football game during this time. I tried to keep things as simple as possible; I used my iPhone camera for most pictures and documented my day in Day One, which I do almost every day anyway.

I'm still deciding exactly how I want to pull everything together. At this point, I'm leaning toward using Design F pages in my Project Life album (I took mostly vertical pictures with these pages in mind).

Here's a brief glimpse at my Week in the Life:


Monday | Cheerios for breakfast. Maxi dress day. Walking the stairs. Working hard. Spending time with Sammy. After-work trip to Walmart. Driving home. Sunset. Time for bed.


Tuesday | Good morning, Sammy! Morning iPad time. Brushing my teeth. Weekly one-on-one. Picking up chicken noodle soup at Jason's Deli. Working from home in the afternoon. Currently watching. Currently reading. Daily journal.


Wednesday | Morning blogs. Double vision. Chick-fil-A lunch. Working. Taking the stairs. Making a tuna sandwich. Ring those bells. Rainy night. Red Sox win!


Thursday | Boston Strong. Morning sky. Figuring out the office web cam. Lunch at Panera Bread. Office mascots. Setting sun. Trip to Michaels. Driving home. Getting crafty.


Friday | Skating + Cheerios = Good start to the morning. Morning light. Working. Trip to Sonic. Sammy tries to be helpful. Trip to Target. More skating. Sammy awaits our visitors (or watches a bug). On my coffee table.


Saturday | Breakfast with the family. Dad and his Sam cat. Half-Price Books. UT-Kansas football. Horns win, 35-13. Hook 'em! Checking out at IKEA. Enjoying Amy's Ice Cream.


Sunday | Getting ready for church. Packing up to go home. Mighty Fine Burgers. Target self-portrait. Christmas foxes. Apartment. Evening walk. Sunset. Folding laundry.

This is such a time-intensive project that while I'm always happy with the final product, sometimes the work involved isn't always worth it (for me). I may think about doing a day in the life in the future because that seems like a much better time frame.

You can read about my first Week in the Life project from May 2012 here.

Apartment Projects

Back in March, my mom spent a weekend with me here in Austin. We had a lot of fun exploring Marble Falls and South Congress, and we also worked on several projects around my apartment. I had planned to write about these much sooner, but other things always seemed to get in the way. After a few subtle hints from my mom, I decided to write a quick wrap-up posts about what we did.

Over the course of the weekend, we completed the following projects:

• Painted my coffee and end tables using blue chalk paint
• Painted the bottom part of my sofa table using teal chalk paint
• Hung new drapes in my bedroom
• Added a new duvet cover to my bed
• Created a gallery wall in my bedroom

Seattle Mini-Book

Way back in October, I traveled up to Seattle, Washington, for Skate America. It was my first "big girl" trip, which was exciting and a little scary at the same time. However, most of my time was spent watching skating, so I didn't have a chance to get too lonely, and then I had part of the first day and the entire last day of my trip to explore Seattle. I've wanted to visit Seattle for a long time, so it was wonderful to finally make it up there.

Project 365 Photo Book

This is another one of my "wrap-up" posts. Although I completed my first Project 365 in March 2011, I created a photo book last summer/fall.



It took me over a year to decide what I wanted to do with the pictures from my first Project 365. I thought of doing everything from a huge photo poster to a photo book with monthly spreads. Nothing seemed quite right, however, so I just let the pictures and project sit on the back burner. Finally, I was inspired to get the pictures into a photo book after seeing the Blurb books Elise Blaha Cripe had created on her blog. With this idea in mind, I decided to start on the process.



I decided to go with a 7x7 book because I liked the small size and square format. I uploaded all of my pictures to the Blurb website and began placing the pictures in the layout. It took some trial and error at first, but I finally decided to go with just a few page designs with (mostly) square photos. If I really liked a photo, I tried to make it a full page. I also included the date for each photo as well as a short description.



One of the things that slowed me down in the beginning is that I wanted to include the writing I did each day along with the particular photo. Once I decided to create the book in Blurb, I decided to throw that idea out the window. It's not that the writing wasn't important (it was basically my diary for that 12-month period), but this was primarily a photography project. The photos needed to take center stage. The writing is still there on the blog, and I've backed it up on my computer so I don't lose it.







I like how neat and clean this project turned out, and I am so glad to have all of my pictures in a book I can hold in my hands. Blurb does a great job with photo books, and I've been pleased with both books I've received from them. Since I'm so happy with this project, I'm planning to create a similar book for my current Project 365.

Week in the Life Wrap-Up

After looking back through my blog, I realized I never wrote about some of the creative projects I worked on last year. There was a good reason for that — I was super busy at work and didn't feel like writing when I got home. Now that I have the time, I thought I would spend the next few weeks writing about some of the projects I completed.



One of the biggest projects I took on this past year was Week in the Life. I decided to focus on the week of May 7-13, 2012. I knew it was going to be difficult to concentrate on documenting my life that week in words and pictures, but it ended up being even more challenging than I could have ever imagined. With things so hectic at work, the stress of taking on this project was almost too much. However, I'm so glad I decided to tackle (and finish) this project, and I'm proud I got my words and pictures into a book before too much time had passed.



I created my book in Blurb using a template from Nettio Designs. It took a little time to edit all the photos, write the text, and put everything together, but it reminded me so much of my yearbook days that I didn't mind.



Each day had two spreads: one for the morning and one for the evening. I love how the template includes a big picture and then several smaller ones. I usually had one or two pictures from each day that I really loved, and it was great to be able to show them off.




Some final thoughts:

• Since this was my first time completing Week in the Life, it took me a little bit to figure out what type of documentation worked best for me. I began the week using the daily worksheets from Ali Edwards but discovered as the week went on that the easiest way for me to record everything was to use Evernote. Next time, I plan to use Evernote the whole time.
• I definitely want to schedule any future Week in the Life projects when life isn't as stressful. I know that's difficult to plan in advance, but working on a fun but unnecessary project makes me unhappy. And I like to be happy. :)
• I liked creating a photo book in Blurb, and the template was fun and fairly easy to use. I'm planning on using the same format in the future to keep things consistent.
• I'm looking forward to working on Week in the Life when I'm not working on Project Life. Both projects just seemed a little redundant to me.

Scrapbook on the Road

Before leaving on our trip to Chicago, I decided to take Ali Edwards' Scrapbook on the Road self-paced workshop. I have always loved creating scrapbooks for my vacations, but it usually takes me a year (or sometimes longer in the case of Africa) to finish them. One of the things I loved about this project was that I did most of the creative work beforehand. I focused on writing and gathering ephemera during the trip and then added the pictures after I made it home. It's nice to have everything finished rather than adding another item to my ever-growing to-do list.

I've included a few of my favorite pictures of the book below; once you add all of the different pieces, it can be a little overwhelming to share every single page. (Note to self: I need to buy a white tablecloth before taking any more pictures on my dining room table. The pictures were way too dark before I brightened them in iPhoto.)

Cover

Title Page

An example of one of the 6x9 photos.

The bag from the gift shop at the Art Institute with the ticket stapled on.

A bunny project

This past Easter, I made a cute bunny shadow box as a gift for my mom. I've been meaning to write about how I created it for awhile but haven't been able to find the time until now. This isn't an Easter-exclusive project, so you won't have to wait another year to try it out.

First of all, here's the final product: (I always like to know where I'm going before I begin.)

Cute little bunnies all in a row — with fluffy white tails, of course! (Yes, that's my elbow reflected in the glass.)

To begin, you just need to gather a few supplies:

Shadow box frame (I bought mine at IKEA.)

Scrapbook paper (If you're like me, you have tons of scrap paper from old projects. This is a great way to go through your stash.)

Decorative punch (I used the Bunny Hop punch from Fiskars.)

Foam squares

Pom-poms

Adhesive

1 piece of white cardstock cut to fit in the frame (not shown)

The first step is to punch out your shapes. The bunny punch was so much fun to use, and of course, perfect for Easter. Once you've made all your shapes, lay them out on the white cardstock to see how they look.

Once you have your bunnies (or other shapes) lined up the way you like them, use the adhesive to attach the pom-poms. (After much trial and error, I discovered that the hot glue gun worked best for this step.) Make sure that no bunnies are left unattended during this step (especially if you have a cat).

It was a bunny massacre - tails were everywhere!

Then use the foam squares to attach the shapes to the cardstock. If you use a hot glue gun, you may have to wait for everything to dry. Once the drying process is complete, add the cardstock piece to the frame, and you're done. Easy, right?

Here's the final product at my parents' house:

 

I'm already planning to create one for myself. I'm thinking...cupcakes!

Project 365

In my ongoing quest to keep myself busy, I've decided to tackle a new project: Project 365. The premise is fairly simple. You take one picture each day for a year and post it in a blog or photo album where others can see it. At the end of the 365 days, you'll have a pictorial record of the year and hopefully have improved your photography skills in the process. Most people start on January 1, but I'm going to begin tomorrow, April 1 (this is no April Fool's joke, I promise).

You can find my Project 365 blog at http://kendra365project.blogspot.com/. There's nothing there yet, but there should be something there by this time tomorrow.