January Project Life Blog Hop

Hello friends! Welcome to my blog and this month's session of the Project Life Blog Hop. On the last Saturday of each month, a few of us get together to link up our blogs and share how we are using Project Life.

I am still recovering from the "great move" (You can read more about it here). Just before sitting down to write this blog post, I found my Project Life box and started to unpack it, so needless to say, I have not done much physical work using Project Life. However, I have been clinging to the digital aspects of Project Life and marrying the digital app to My Digital Studio (MDS).

Sometime in December, Becky Higgins announced Project 52, and I clung to the idea of documenting life each week. I've been using the Project Life app to create layouts on the go and then exporting these layouts into MDS to add more embellishments, journaling, and other details. This way to, I can also keep all my pages together in one MDS file and at the end of the year get it printed through Stampin' Up! So far, I'm three weeks behind. Go me!

I would like to share a spread from my first week of Project 52. Both of these pages originated in the Project Life app and then exported to MDS to add the finishing touches.

I completed this first layout before I decided that I want to do all my journaling in MDS, so I did the journaling through the Project Life app. Once exported into MDS, I added the cute little tree to the title card.

I did a lot more in MDS to the second layout. When I exported this page to MDS, all it contained was the pictures and the decorative cards. I added all the embellishments (trees, ribbon, flower) and the journaling in MDS. The Project Life app doesn't allow you to put things other than journaling on the cards, so I like how MDS allows me to add stamps and embellishments.

Thanks for hopping by my blog this month. I'm hoping that within a few more days my craft room will be in a condition where I can spread out with my Project Life and continue working on my physical album, now that I actually know where that album is.

Hope on over to Katina's blog to see what Project Life awesomeness she has.

Happy Stampin'!
~Carmelita

January Project Life Blog Hop

 Hanna Wilks - www.stampinbyhannah.co.uk 

You are Here:  Carmelita Wasson - Www.carmenacita.blogspot.com

Katina Martinez - www.lovinglifeslittleblessings.com

Mismatched, but Functional

This is the current state of my craft room. I have a lot of work to do on it, but I'm so excited to start getting items out of boxes and plastic wrap and putting it all together.

We picked one of the bigger rooms in our new house to serve as the craft room/office, although my husband and I both know that it's going to be 90% craft room and 10% office. Even my daughter has started to refer to this room as the craft room and is constantly asking if we can go craft yet. I am excited to tell her, "soon."

As you can see, my craft room is going to be quite mismatched. In Albuquerque, my office was birch and white, but before we left town, we sold our old desks and I took this black desk, which was in my daughter's room. It's been fun trying to fit our old house into our new house, which is quite smaller, but completely capable of being home. I'm embracing my mismatched furniture because, well, it's completely functional. And I'm super excited to have such a great space to craft and create. I can't wait to get things started.

Since starting to set up my area, I have been spending some time on Pinterest getting ideas and looking at other people's craft areas. I've gotten some great ideas, and I would love to see the space where you create. Head on over to my Facebook page and post a picture of your craft space.

Happy Stampin'
~ Carmelita

When Life Doesn't Go the Way I Planned

At the beginning of October, I bought tickets to see excerpts of the Nutcracker Ballet with the booger and hubby on December 1. We also decided what we were going to do for Thanksgiving (go out of town) and for Christmas (stay home). I started to plan and advertise all my Christmas classes and was extremely excited about offering several stamp-a-stacks, a gift card holder class, and lots of Project Life nights.

And then in the middle of October my husband came home once again disgruntled about work. 

After much discussion, we decided that he should try to find another job. I figured nothing would really amount to anything until after the holidays, and I've known for awhile that he was not content at work. He applied for several jobs that weekend and opened a flood gate of changes. At the beginning of November, my husband accepted a job in northern California and then started working there at the beginning of December. 

If you would have told me at the beginning of October that by the end of December I would be living in California, I would have laughed at you thinking you were cray-cray. Now, I'm thinking we are cray-cray for moving 1200 miles away during the holidays. These days I'm constantly thinking of Proverbs 19:21 - Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.

I spent Thanksgiving in Las Vegas, NV as we stopped for the night on our first drive up to California. We moved my husband to Nevada City, CA that weekend, and I flew home that Sunday to spend the next few weeks packing up my house, preparing for the biggest move I have ever made.

We hit 100,000 on our car during our trip to Nevada City

Hoover Dam.

The closest we got to the Vagas strip. After 8 hours of driving, we were exhausted. 

Two days before Christmas, with the help of many of our wonderful friends, we packed up a huge trailer, emptied our house, and said goodbye to Albuquerque. We spent Christmas in Alamogordo with my parents and then on December 26th, we said goodbye to New Mexico as we once again made the drive up to northern California with our second car, our daughter, and of course our precious Flower dog.

Had to pack up all the craft supplies. See you in California, DSP. 

Moving day. All our crap went into this truck. 

Flower and Bella saying goodbye to our house.

I'm going to miss my house. 

Amidst all the sadness of leaving Albuquerque, I loved spending Christmas with my parents. 

So now, I'm here in Nevada City, California, trying not to get lost because I don't have the Sandia Mountains to tell me which way is east; trying to find all those things I had figured out in Albuquerque - gym membership, preschool for the booger, where to go to church, where to go grocery shopping; and trying to establish a new normal because everything is new and different now. It's overwhelming at times, but also exciting. I know, that in time, God will provide everything my family needs, including the community I crave right now.

Stamping will resume in a few weeks, after we unload the truck and get our new house in order. I can't wait to start stamping here and hope to find some great stamping buddies.

I'll try to keep you posted as we get settled. It's been an adventure so far!

~Carmelita