Tag Archives: scrapbooking

20/40 – on meeting Elke

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It all came down to this one little mini book, made out of literal trash and photos of me and my friends drinking the night before Thanksgiving. Talk about questionable young adult decisions, I really thought this would be the best “example” of my creativity when applying to Treasury of Memories, our local boutique scrapbooking store. Here is a video documenting the experience – and yes, I got the job which ultimately resulted in meeting my Heterosexual Life partner, Elke and a forever friendship that I hold incredibly dear to my heart.

Anyone that knows her (which to be honest is at least 82% of the entire Whatcom County population) knows about her infectious smile, giving heart and relentless pursuit of a good time, no matter how dull the current situation is. I am honored to walk alongside her through a whole lot of adult ups and downs and cheers to starting a new “prime” in our lives. At brunch yesterday, we talked about a question that I heard on my favorite podcast – what is the difference between “23 year old you” (when me and Elke met) and you now?

Our answers proved to be quite similar – looking inward for validation and the solutions to our problems, not others’ opinions or comparison to what others are doing. I would also add personally that something I have learned since being 23 and starting fresh in the professional world is that the many folks above your or “at the table” do not have it all figured out so trusting those systems or those folks in charge will not always result in a positive or healthy outcome, but with the right research, knowledge and values, trusting my inner guide toward the “right way” to do things can be trusted.

And because I made her dress up all sorts of extra for her birthday raincheck brunch (full of the most delicious mimosas – our fave), here’s a photo of us in our new prime….loving ourselves just as much as we love each other.

Happy happy birthday sweet friend!!! I love you so much!

A Year of Bests photo project – finally!

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One sunny afternoon after our friend Annie’s amazing wedding, us 5 soulmates concocted a crazy idea to document the following year together. We each would be responsible for taking pictures one week out of the month and then we would have a crazy fun book filled with our memories the following May 4th!Although we had a few mishaps during the year of documenting, the girls did amazing capturing and sharing pictures from their unique, but amazing lives. We lived in three different cities, added three new kids to the mix, and had multiple fun events all together to include throughout the book. I used the Project Life App on my Ipad to create the pages and then simply uploaded them onto empty photo pages in Shutterfly. It was super easy to do (although the addition of WonderGirl and WonderBoy in my house definitely slowed down my progress quite a bit – kids will do that to even an avid scrapper).
I absolutely loved seeing how our 5 lives intertwined at points (birthday parties/showers) and then showed drastic differences in other weeks. And all in all, I only made one typo and typed 2015 even though technically, that Halloween was 2013 (I’ll make a sticker for that bests – no worries!) – 58 pages and only one mistake that I’ve found so far….pretty good!My favorite pages to complete were the ending page with that fabulous quote from Dawson’s Creek and the teaser on the back cover (sound familiar? I tried to emulate a little Real World intro along with it). Shout out to things only kids from the 90’s would know and care about!
  Many people continue to be amazed that I remain such good friends with my ladies from high school (elementary school to get technical but who’s counting), but it is one of the amazing pieces of my life that I am constantly grateful for. When you have friends that have literally been through the worst (overalls with one strap….really?) and best parts of your life ALONGSIDE you for years and years, it leaves so much room for nothing but pure joy and celebration in each other, no judgement, and lots of silly stories that NO one besides your group cares about (sorry husbands). I hope this book adequately honors this friendship and I can’t wait to look back on it in 10, 20, 30 years to come! Perhaps it might even become a tradition we do every so many years – wouldn’t that be a fun collection to build for the coffee table/bookshelf?!?!

This project/idea could totally work with a family or any group that cares about each other – maybe everyone even just documents the same day each month and you put them all together in a book? You could make it as simple or complicated as you feel comfortable with!