I've moved! Find me at www.thosemissingpieces.com

It's official. I have a website and a totally fresh start to my blog!

You can visit me at my new blog www.thosemissingpieces.com

Hope to see you there!

September Project Life App Creative Team Layout

The September Project Life Digital and App Creative team layouts are up on Becky's blog here

And here is my featured layout

This is using the Design A template and all of the cards are from the Midnight Edition and using a Just Add Color overlay. Everything was made in the app and only took a total of about 3 minutes to create from start to finish!!!

This was truly one of my favorite ever layouts that I have created. So simple but the pictures say it all. I love the black and white look and am considering doing an all black and white (maybe with splashes of red) December Daily this year.

Hope you like it!

Creative re-invention....

Every couple of years I go through this need to change things up with my creative process. One year I did all digital layouts. One year I did all 8 1/2 x 11 hybrid. One year I did weekly Project Life. The next few years were monthly PL and I did some traditional layouts here and there. Last year was back to weekly but all in the Project Life app. This year I have stayed in the app for Project Life, which is still working for me, but around the time I started considering going to Story Camp, I started feeling like I needed change. Like something was missing. And I really started paying attention to what Ali Edwards was saying in the plethora of classes and story kits I had subscribed to, and even listened to or read through and never really heard. I was missing my story. Sure it's interspersed in some of my layouts and in Project Life but the real nitty gritty, the stuff I would talk about with my friends and family, the stuff I really want to remember, was few and far between. So I decided to start writing some of those stories down. That turned into the makings of a 6x8 album which I already have about 20 pages for (and counting!)

But I am also considering how this will change my Project Life scrapping in the future. I feel like I need to document with more intent. Take photos with intent. Write down stories with intent. Spend my day with intent. Maybe if I do that, I will start to see those things that I have been missing. Those things that I never documented before and maybe never really appreciated because they were outside of the scope of what I was already used to seeing. But now if I look with intent, maybe new things will be visible and that's just the change I need in my creative process this time around. I usually wait until the new year to start a new creative process, but maybe this is something that losing two dear friends in the last year has taught me. Life is short. Don't wait. Start now!

Story Camp - Here I Come!

I made it! I made it! I made it!

That’s right there is me doing a happy dance!

A few weeks ago, Ali Edwards announced that she would be hosting Story Camp in October. I have long admired her work and her ability to tell great stories in her scrapbook pages, so I knew I wanted to try and get in. Tickets went on sale at 10 a.m. on June 27th and I knew they went in less then a minute for her first story camp earlier in the year and that there were only 35 tickets available, so the chances were slim to none. I was so excited leading up the 10 a.m. launch, I was shaking! But somehow I managed to snag two tickets before they sold out in a matter of seconds. So my friend Brenda and I will be headed to Eugene, Oregon in late October to attend Story Camp!

I am SOOOOOOO excited about this opportunity, I can’t even begin to express it. Thankfully, the other people attending have been posting the same sentiments about feeling like they won the lotto, so at lest I know I am not alone in my fan craze of all things Ali.

Part of that excitement has made me go back and revisit some of the online classes I have taken with her and even in a couple of weeks, I feel like it has really revolutionized my documenting process. I want to tell those stories! So at a crop yesterday, I actually got four layouts down with some pretty awesome stories. I decided to switch my micro-stories process up to 6x8 size and the process seems much more manageable. Simplifying the process and reducing my product choices to just Ali Edwards , Felicity Jane, and handful of letter stickers, helped me crank these four stories out yesterday and into an album.

My friend that attended the crop with me complimented the amount of journaling I had on my layouts and said she realized that she doesn’t do that enough. I told her I really want to make a mission of telling stories more. Don’t get me wrong, I love the pretty papers and getting photos and events into albums. I still love Project Life and getting the quotes and current favorites into albums too. But then I told her when I think about what I would like to see in an album if my mom or my grandma had ever scrapbooked, I know what I would want most is to hear their stories. To hear their voice in the narrative. To know what they thought and felt and what life was like for them. To know who they were, not just by images in the photos but by their words. I think about that often and feel a great sense of accomplishment when I do scrapbook a layout that is story centric. These are the layouts I pause on when I flip back through my albums and feel the most proud and excited about. So I am trying to keep that in mind sign forward. 

I am using Evernote to keep track of the stories I want to tell. I have it on my computer and my phone so it[s easily accessible and I can jump right into it if I have a moment to scrap. I am sure I will change up the size often, but for right now, 6x8 is working really well for me. 

So with a  smile still on my face for what I accomplished at the crop yesterday, here is what I was abel to finish

Brave - Using Ali Edwards acrylic word from the Brave Story Kit and word stickers and Felicity Jane Papers

This one is also Ali Edwards  and Felicity Jane. I wanted to capture a glimpse of my son right now and all of his favorites and the cute things he says. I just want to add a date at some point, maybe with a stamp. 

The You word and Life is Good element are Ali's. The paper and other elements are Felicity Jane. I cut the You Say, You Play, etc on my Silhouette Machine.

This one if a story from my youth. I had gone through some photos from my childhood and flagged a few that I wanted to journal about at some point, using the photo as a story spark! This one was the first photo I had written anything about.

This one is also Felicity Jane and the Good Times sticker is Simple Stories.I was given the acrylic word and heart in a grab bag so I am not sure where these originated from but I thought they worked really well in the "white space" provided on the photo.

And last but not least, The Many Faces of David. I knew I wanted to document what a character he is! These photos turned out to be the perfect opportunity! This one is all Felicity Jane papers and elements. The template was a resized Cathy Zielske Template No. 161

Now I off to create more!

Loving Me Some Felicity Jane!

I had the rare opportunity to go to a scrapbook retreat a while back and actually accomplished quite a lot! I found myself constantly drawn to my Felicity Jane kits, which I have so faithfully hoarded for months. I can't express how much I am loving their kits! I now only subscribe to them and Ali Edwards' Story Kits and I am tickled pink with just that!

Here is one the layouts I cranked out at the retreat using the November Kit and the January Sophie Kit.

And the final outcome with the title added, also from the January Sophie Kit.

There are a few more I have to add finishing touches to and then I will post those also!

Printing Photos for your Happy Planner on the Canon Selphy

Ever since I was bitten by the planner bug, I have obsessively thought about how I want to use my Happy Planner. After a couple of months of just decorating it and not wanting to soil it’s beauty with my hand writing, I knew I wanted to use it functionally with typed out appointments or stickers of events, but definitely nothing with my writing. But I wanted that extra pop for going back later and admiring it all when the year is over. So I decided I “needed” a small printer for downstairs in our house. I have a Canon Pixma MG7720, which I LOVE!!! And I have a large format HP Printer, which is fairly old and hard to get ink for so I only use it for 12x12 printing now. The problem is, they are upstairs in my craft room and I rarely get time up there. Most days are spent downstairs or outside with my son, so I wanted to find a compact alternative.

NOTE: I am not affiliated with any of these companies and I am not posting any links just to make sure there is no issue or concerns about advertising. This is just my personal opinion and experience!

A co-worker recently got the HP Sprocket and loves it. She tested a few photos on it and showed how the size is bigger than the weekly Happy Planner slots, which I thought might bother me, but I figured I could just trim it down. Once I started shopping around, though, I found that the Sprocket (and other min-printers of that size) were somewhat pricey, especially for the paper. Now, I did consider that you don’t have to buy ink, but I wanted a little more versatility and hopefully a little more affordable.

So for my anniversary, my awesome hubby bought me the Canon Pixma, which I now have set up downstairs in our guest room. When I want to print something from my phone, I just run around the corner, turn it on and print. Tada!

So I ran some test prints to see what size would fit the Happy Planner squares and after a few test runs, I wrote up a tutorial for  a few of the ladies on the Facebook Happy Planner group that I thought I would also share here. 

This is going to be long but hopefully helpful for anyone looking at the Selphy that wants to easily print from their phone for memory planning.

So I am using my iphone to print photos to the Selphy and used the FramePic app to utilize a template. I am using the 3:2 ratio in the pic frame app. The template is on the 4th page, 3rd row, 3rd over. It has 4 across and 2 up slots.

Here's my lessons learned. First, pic frame puts in a border so they were printing too small for the classic boxes with the frame, once cut. So I removed the frame by going to Style, then sliding the width bar all the way to the left and I saved it and reprinted.  

That ended up printing perfect 1.5 x 2 photos that work great with the weekly boxes IF you have a thick washi. Photos to follow.

Here's the issue - the paper that came with the Selphy is perforated. While the Selphy is printing 4x6, the paper perforations make it shorter than six inches and cuts off each edge, probably to make it sized to true digital is my guess. But the problem it creates for me is I can't fit 8 photos on one sheet like I had hoped because the 4 photos on the outside slots get cut off.

I also wanted to try and find a size that would fit the full weekly box so I did some playing around. PicFrame allows you to manipulate the boxes a bit so after some trail and error, I used the same template and found if I dragged the middle frame bar down until it measured 165, (a number shows near the bar as soon as you hold your finger on it and start dragging) and then removed the width of the frame so there is no white in between the photos, and that made perfect 1.5 x 2.5 photo slots in the first row. Problem again is that the outer two photos get cut off by the perforation.

So I did find the perfect box size in PicFrame is 98x165 but I have yet to find a template that I can manipulate that gets three boxes that size that will fit within the print range of the perforated paper. I will definitely post if I find a solution. In the mean time, I either have to accept that the outer ones are smaller, or accept that I will waste some paper by only printing in the middle two sections of the template. My other solution is to possibly cut my own photo paper to fit or see if I can find non-perforated photo paper that will fit the Selphy cartridge. I am hoping that latter option pans out but at least I know I have options if needed.

Here is a shot of the difference in the width between a photo in the middle of the print and a photo on the outside that gets cutoff by the perforating. Not huge, but enough to show white around the edge in the Happy Planner box. 

And here is a photo showing the height difference of the original template height on the right and the stretched template on the left for the longer version.

And a look at how each fits into the Happy Planner weekly boxes.

To me, the $100 price tags with cheaper refill paper and still being able to print a few photos per sheet was still A better deal than the sprocket or other mini printers I was looking at. I am still really happy I got it and I am sure I can make it work!  

I've Been Bitten....

Yes, I have been bitten by the planner bug!

I started a new job in January where two of the four ladies I work with are planners. I had no idea such a trend existed! Within a few weeks, I had caught on to their enthusiasm and HAD to have my own planner! I started decorating in March and got the whole month decorated (monthly spread and four weekly spreads) in one sitting.

I still hate my writing so I haven’t quite found my groove yet in how I want to utilize it for actually daily/weekly/monthly scheduling, if at all. I may just add little photos later and utilize it as a memory planner rather than a day to day schedule keeper.

But I must admit, it helps me get my creative juices flowing playing with all the washi and stickers. And I just LOVE that I have a pretty “sticker book” to put out on my desk every day!

Here is a glimpse at my first ever planner spreads!