HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Halloween Projects

I've wanted to make a Halloween Costumes album for about a year now. Actually, even before that, when I saw Cathy Zielske's version in her book, Clean and Simple Scrapbooking, the Sequel, I thought about scraplifting it, but never got around to it (and, frankly, didn't really see the point since my kid[s] had not yet celebrated [m]any Halloweens).

Well, this year, Cathy the Great posted templates on her website. I know, she is very generous. Sadly, though, these templates don't work for me because I don't have PSE. But did that stop me? Heck no. Here's my cover:

My first design challenge was size-related. I'm currently on a scrapbooking supplies purchasing moratorium, so I had to use only supplies I had on hand. I wanted to use a black-spined 8x8 album, but I don't have one, so I opted for a grey-spined 8 1/2 x 11 one instead... not a choice really, since it was my only spare album... so that was that. Then I searched for and pulled out all my Halloweeny paper. (Please note: I have never intentionally purchased Halloween-themed paper. I don't generally like themed paper. But I have purchased a few DCWV fall stacks over the years, and these feature some Halloween pages.)

My next challenge was color-related. All the stark orange/black/white Halloween paper clashed badly with the grey spine. But there was a small assortment of Halloween paper that had these other colors and I happened to have some coordinating ribbon. Yippee! I printed my title in grey to tie in the spine color and that was dandy. (The ribbons cover a clear rubber handle on the edge of the album.)

Now we get to the innards. Taking my cue from Cathy, I kept the design simple. Here's the title page.

Then we have a mood-setting page with a quotation from Jerry Seinfeld I thought was funny (thanks, again, Cathy.)

Now we get to the real meat of the matter. I wanted to do one 8 1/2 x 11 page per year. This was easy for years one through three, since we only had Jills. I designed the title strip on my computer (just using text boxes in Word), and can simply type over the words every year and print a new strip for consistency of design. Here's Year 1:


And Years 2 & 3:

Year 4 (this year) will be the first layout in the album to have 2 pictures. (You'll see them when the time comes.) I designed a template to use this year and in future years, that accommodates 2 photos. I put the template and all the Halloween-themed papers in a 12x12 baggie and stuck it on my shelf where it will await this year's entry and ones for years to come. Updates to this album will take fewer than 10 minutes a year. YAY!

I never could have pulled this together so quickly if I weren't a graduate of two courses I took online last year at BPS. Cathy got my design going on in Design Your Life, and Stacy got my process up and running in Library of Memories. LOVE THAT.

[edited to add: Blogger is driving me nuts. My hyperlinks are wacko and I can't get spaces between some of my paragraphs. Sigh.]

One Year Ago

October 23, 2008 is #5 on my "Best Days of My Life" list. (Our two wedding days and the birth days of our two daughters are numbers 1 through 4, of course.)

One year ago (yesterday), we made signs...

We prepared surprises...

We waited and waited...

We cried with hysterical joy...

I became uncharacteristically patriotic...


And our family, as it was back then, was whole again...

I wrote recently about everything that has happened in a year, so I don't need to rehash that. But I also wanted to offer this up for consideration. SO MUCH can happen in a year. In less than a year from now, for example, my friends from Germany will be going through another Ridiculously Long Business Trip (RLBT). Can you imagine celebrating the anniversary of the homecoming, knowing that within the year there would be another bleak departure day? I cannot.

I am beginning to understand how my friends Rachel and Laura felt when our guys went on the RLBT and their husbands didn't. A sort of mix of relief and guilt and sadness and a deep, deep desire that my friends would never have to face an RLBT again. My husband's employer insists that gone are the days of 15 month RLBTs. This one, for my friends, should be only 12 months. Only.

Speaking of 12 months, my friend Mom on the Move also wrote about this powerful anniversary recently, quoting one of my favorite broadway songs along the way. Check it out. Watch the video. Sing along. How do you measure a year?

In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches? In miles? In laughter? In strife? How about love?