tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78977682137893106372024-03-14T01:32:10.955-07:00Everyday Van RijMelaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-10137241500330336692013-01-31T11:57:00.001-07:002013-01-31T12:01:06.712-07:00Project What?Nope. Didn't fall off the wagon. Just decided to re-work my ideas. First off, I somehow just noticed the awesome stuff SuzyQ Scraps has in her store that she designed with Project Life type projects in mind. I don't know how I missed it, but I love it. So I started all over. Yeah. But that's me. It was bound to happen at least <strike>once</strike> <strike>twice</strike> three times. And then I got to thinking about how it would be awesome to do the journaling in my handwriting. But then I remembered how craptastic my hand writing starts to look after about 2 seconds of writing. And then I remembered my awesome friend/favorite designer has a font service and she's getting me the hook-up! Oh yeah, I'm gonna get my own font! Happy Birthday to me :D (Want your handwriting in an awesome font? Check out Wendy's service - there's exclusive and non-exclusive options! Click <a href="http://scraporchard.com/market/WM-squared-Designs/" target="_blank">HERE</a>
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So until I get my font, I'm holding off on finishing the journal cards, but I did get my title page done (again) and actually went ahead and printed it! I was just dying to see how the cards were going to turn out printed. And guess what? I love it! I've been working on getting my photos and filler card for each week set too, so when I get my font done all I have to do is the journal cards to be caught up. I think I might wait to print more until I get the pages though. Maybe. We'll see ;)
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So here's a picture of my printed cards, lined up they would be in the page. Yay!
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So, no I didn't fall off the wagon. I've got all my photos lined up - even if I have been sick all week - and I'm right on track as far as that goes. Now I just gotta get the pages caught up too ;)
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Are you doing Project Life too? Still looking for the perfect design/supplies to make your album rock? Then head over to Suzy's store and check out her awesome collection, Memories & Moments (just click <a href="http://scraporchard.com/market/SuzyQ-Scraps/" target="_blank">HERE</a>). I'm in love with it and I think you will be too!Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0Bullhead City, AZ, USA35.1477774 -114.5682982999999834.939977400000004 -114.89102179999998 35.3555774 -114.24557479999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-43724968760626457122013-01-16T11:19:00.002-07:002013-01-31T12:01:54.811-07:00Project Life - Week 2That's right! I'm right on track - still! I finished up week two last night. I created several of the journal cards myself this time and had a lot of fun playing with the different designs. I guess once a designer, always a designer right? Anyway, here's this week's layout.
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Week Two
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I love it, don't you?
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-45867096186773678372013-01-10T11:32:00.000-07:002013-01-16T11:33:37.877-07:00Happy Birthday Bailey Ann!My sweet baby girl is two! I can't believe it! She is such a bundle of fun, drama and sweetness and just too cute to stay upset with for very long. She loves Minnie Mouse, playing with her brother (sometimes), snuggling with her Dada and sleeping in late. She likes her sippy cup full and her playtime unlimited and will always tell you what's on her mind. She drives me nuts, but I love her so much. She's our little Miss Bailey Ann and can't believe we are so blessed to have her in our life!
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Happy Birthday Bailey!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-31555143919456585682013-01-10T11:05:00.000-07:002013-01-31T12:01:18.144-07:00Project Life 2013I'm so excited to be doing Project Life this year! I've tried Project 365 in the past, but never got very far. I was unorganized and really unsure of what direction to go with it and I think that's a big part of what lead to my fail each time. This time, I've been planning out how, what and everything else since early December and I've been doing great!
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For starters I headed to the Project Life headquarters, <a href="http://www.beckyhiggins.com/products/" target="_blank">Becky Higgins.com</a>, and started reading, browsing and planning. I ended up purchasing the digital version of the Turquoise Core Edition, but in the end went with a different color scheme (which has meant a lot of recoloring!) I decided to take a hybrid approach to this, so I'm making each individual card in Photoshop and then I will print them separately. I plan on getting Becky's album and page protectors and then inserting the cards into the pages once they are printed. I can't wait to get the pages!
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Next I decided to tie in the One Story Down's photo a day prompts with my daily photos. A big part of my past failures is getting bored of things I was taking pictures of. Or just not knowing <i>what</i> to take a picture of. By using the prompts, I have an idea of what to look for through the day. So far, I've been able to tie in the prompts with the day's activities. But if something comes up and I can't, no big deal. The day always trumps the prompt. The prompt is just there to help.
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Most of all I'm telling myself to not get stressed, or worry about what other people are doing with theirs. This is for my family, not anyone else's. I am part of a group on Facebook where we all share ideas, tips, freebies and most important, our pages with each other. It's fun to be a part of and while I admire the other people's pages, I'm super happy with mine!
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Which brings me to my pages! Even though I haven't printed anything yet since I don't have my page protectors yet, I've been arranging them on a 12x12 layout in Photoshop so I can share them with friends and family. I love how they've turned out so far. I've got the cover page and the first week done (see? on track already!) and ready to print as soon as I get some pages!
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Title Page
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Week One
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So there you have it! I plan on sharing my pages like this until I start printing, at which point I will start taking photos of the printed pages! Thanks for checking them out!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-76753159729873176042013-01-07T10:41:00.000-07:002013-01-16T10:43:33.175-07:00Roscoe's Adventures, Christmas 2012Christmas was fun, busy and one of our best yet! Roscoe arrived the day after Thanksgiving, right on schedule, and brought yummy doughnuts again this year! Mason was so excited about looking for him each morning before school. Bailey even picked up on the fun of looking for him each morning. These are by no means all of his fun hiding places, but they are some of our favorite. He had lots of fun this year!
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We tried to find some fun Christmas fun to do throughout the month and I'm currently working on an album of my 12 favorite Christmas moments, so hopefully I'll have that ready to post soon.
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School didn't get here until just a few days before Christmas, so we didn't get to pick up Tori until then and she wasn't here for a lot of it. She was okay about it though and we still found lots of fun stuff to do while she was here. All in all, it was a great Christmas break and even though I was anxious to get back to our normal routine, I cherished every minute of our holiday time together. It was definitely the best ever!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-65934397608186435252012-11-29T10:00:00.000-07:002012-11-29T22:33:56.264-07:00Our New Furry FriendRecently, our hearts were broken when our sweet Gracie got out and went missing. We were pretty sure she was sick and we sadly think she went to find her final resting spot. She was, hands down, the best cat we've ever adopted and we miss her so much. We knew we would want another kitty in our home, but we're worried about how it would turn out. We saw this little guy on Craig's List and decided to message the owner to see if he was still available. I also found out that she was posting about him in a FB group for people locally adopting out pets and selling pet related products and services. Someone had been interested, but never came to get him. So long story short, I went about 1:00 am to meet with her and bring him home. So now, without further back story, meet Toby:
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The first few nights were a little rough. He was really scared and he meowed that loud, high pitched kitten meow a lot. But he's finally starting to warm up to all of us and I think he's going to be a great fit for our family. Welcome home Toby!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0Bullhead City, AZ35.1477774 -114.568298335.0439104 -114.72622679999999 35.2516444 -114.4103698tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-62632605060861520642012-11-25T13:22:00.001-07:002012-11-25T13:22:57.487-07:00A Little Early ChristmasSo I kind of already knew, generally, what I was getting for Christmas - a new camera. I've been wanting one forever and Nick found the one I wanted at a good price. Well, then last night he found exactly what he wanted at an excellent price. So he went ahead and got it. And since we both knew what we were getting, and it just happened to be the 25th of the month, we decided to exchange presents early! Here's what we got each other - I'm so excited about my camera!
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And I love the pictures I'm getting already - and I haven't even figured out how to use the manual settings yet! The super photogenic little boy helps too :)
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So now I've got no excuse to not be taking pictures - and the perfect tool to finally complete a Project 365 next year!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0Bullhead City, AZ35.1477774 -114.568298335.0439104 -114.72622679999999 35.2516444 -114.4103698tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-80921130116993103122012-11-24T11:00:00.000-07:002012-11-24T22:17:08.613-07:00Oh Christmas Tree!In the years past, we have always done real trees. Then one year, when this little apartment in Vegas, we bought a cheap artificial tree. It wasn't the most gorgeous tree, but it served it's purpose. Since that year we've done 2 trees - one real tree that served as the main tree and the little artificial tree that I would decorate in a matching color scheme. Until last year that is. Last year, to save money, we just used the little artificial one. But with our big living room, it just seemed so tiny. So we made a vow that we would hit up the Black Friday sales and get the perfect tree. Imagine when, to our delight, we saw the ad from Home Depot with this gorgeous, 7 1/2 foot Martha Stewart, pre-lit tree that was going to only cost 1/3 of it's normal price! I said I would get up early and go down to get it, but after my adventures on Thanksgiving night with Target and WalMart, Nick offered to go instead. I was pretty glad he did since 1) I was just tired and sore and 2) the box was huge and would have been pretty hard for me to carry. Not impossible, but hard.
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Long story short, Nick got our dream tree and we got it all set up last night. I sat for probably an hour fluffing all the branches. What looked like a main branch was actually a bundle of 3 branches that had tons of little branches coming off of it. My finger tips were numb from the scratchy branches and I did suffer a couple of flesh wounds, but I would definitely say it was worth it. What do you think?
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Later today, our plan is to get it decorated and the rest of the Christmas decorations up. Yay for Christmas!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0Bullhead City, Arizona35.1477774 -114.568298335.043872900000004 -114.72622679999999 35.2516819 -114.4103698tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7897768213789310637.post-71736446553759922192012-11-23T11:00:00.000-07:002012-11-24T22:17:26.746-07:00Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!Things have been changing around the Van Rij house, so I figured it was time for a blog change. Ya know, new changes, new year, new blog - or something like that. One of my big changes is, as of the end of November, I will no longer be designing. Mason started school a couple months ago to help with his speech issues and we're hoping to get some outside speech therapy started soon too. Plus, Bailey will be 2 soon and I really want to spend more time with her. Taking the time to teach her all that she needs to know right now. It was a hard decision, but definitely one I think was the best. I'm excited to be going back to being a mommy, a scrapbooker and a blogger again!
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One of my last blog posts on my last blog was this one and I loved it so much, I wanted to repost it here to kick off the new blog. Check out, save the blog and be sure to keep checking back!
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So I've been going through my Pinterest boards <a href="http://pinterest.com/melanie2781/learning-through-play/" target="_blank">Learning Through Play</a> and <a href="http://pinterest.com/melanie2781/great-stuff-for-the-kids/" target="_blank">Great Stuff for Kids</a> and making a list of little things to help keep Mason engaged during the day. Here's what I came up with:
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By no means is this complete. I've thought of 2 or 3 things to add today alone, but it's a good start. And today went pretty well - though we were gone a good chunk of the day running errands and having a Mama + Mason lunch date...
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Anyway! This afternoon I took some time to make our colored rice while Mason did some water play in our highchair (keeps the mess contained as much as possible!) This is a super easy way to make a tub of great sensory play. Here's what you need:
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- bag of white rice<br>
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- cookie sheets (how many depends on how much rice you make - I needed 4)<br>
- a little sunshine<br>
- small bowls, plastic cups...anything to mix the rubbing alcohol & food coloring in
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So this is, like I said, super easy. First off, you're going to mix the rubbing alcohol and food coloring together. What I read said to do 2 Tblsp and a few drops. I had a lot of rice though, so I ended up doubling the rubbing alcohol and food coloring.
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Next I divided the rice into the 4 gallon sized ziplock bags. They weren't perfectly divided, but I wasn't worried about it. I just got it as close as I could.
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Then, one bag at a time, I poured in one of the color mixtures, closed the bag (pushing out most of the air first) and then squished, shook and mixed it all together. I did this until the rice was totally covered.
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Then I opened the bag and checked the color. They were all lighter than what I wanted, so I just dumped more food coloring in (no rubbing alcohol, just food coloring). Then I closed the bag and squished, shook and mixed the color around again.
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Once I had all four bags colored, I covered each of my cookie sheets with a piece of wax paper and dumped the contents of the bags on a tray each. I used a spoon to spread it out in a layer that covered the whole sheet. Okay, I used my fingers on the green tray before I got smart and used the spoon. My finger tips are still a bit green now...
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Now here's where the sunshine comes in. Take your cookie sheets of rice outside and set them in direct sunlight. This dries out the rice pretty quick. The instructions I read said a couple hours. Yeah, here's where being in the desert is helpful. It was 110 today, so those bad boys were dry in less than an hour. Score 1 for the desert.
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Once they were dry, I took them inside and dumped them all in one gallon sized baggie, shook it up and set it where we can dig in (literally) this weekend.
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<a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=http%3A%2F%2Feveryday-van-rijs.blogspot.com%2F2012%2F11%2Fthings-have-been-changing-around-van.html&media=http%3A%2F%2Fi275.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fjj316%2Fmelanie2781%2FBlog%2520Photos%2FDSCF7273.jpg&description=DIY%20Colored%20Rice" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="horizontal"><img border="0" src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" title="Pin It" /></a>
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So what are you waiting for? Get some rice and get to coloring. Your kids will love you for it!
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<img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj316/melanie2781/Blog%20Design/sketchy_sig-2.png">Melaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14924264888784358500noreply@blogger.com0Bullhead City, Arizona35.1477774 -114.568298335.043872900000004 -114.72622679999999 35.2516819 -114.4103698