Last year I bought my daughter, Elaina, a Zentangle book and some pens for Christmas. I bought myself a book, too, and discovered that I was zentangling when it was called doodling.
It turns out that doodling is good for you and produces some pretty cool looking art, too.
The problem was, I didn’t have any place to put my zentangles. I Googled for notebook templates so I could make my own notebook using my Zutter binder, but couldn’t find any. You know what they say about necessity! Microsoft Word to the rescue. I downloaded and installed this script font and block font for the initial. I then created a cover and inside page template, copied them onto acid-free cardstock, added an acetate cover and bound the book with silver coils. The finishing touch was some black and white ribbon I had lying around.
My daughter saw me making my notebook and begged me to make one for her, which I promptly did. We zentangled the front covers of our notebooks in pencil first and then used acid-free black marker to go over the design. The inside pages allow you to add four zentangles each.
If you need a gift for a kid or someone who’s at all crafty (not artistic, because no art skills are required), you’ll love a zentangle notebook. It’s fun to make and would make a great accompaniment to a zentangle book and pen set. If you don’t want to create this yourself or if you don’t have a binder, you could have it put together at an office store.
You can download the cover for the zentangle notebook here and the inside page template here. You will have to download and install the fonts referenced above to edit the cover. If you like this, I hope you’ll share it on Pinterest and Facebook. If you do Project Life, you may enjoy this post where I share free weekly cards. I will be linking subscribers to this year’s cards soon!
I’ve been scrapbooking off and on since I was a girl. I really got into it when I had my first child and loved going to Creative Memories crops with friends.
It didn’t take me too many children to determine that keeping a scrapbook of every good photo for every child wasn’t feasible. I started making digital photo books and found it was a huge timesaver (I love Creative Memories’ software and Shutterfly). But my friend, Marilyn, convinced me that paper scrapbooking could be quick, too.
What’s Project Life?
Becky Higgins created an approach to scrapbooking that eliminates the need for lots of supplies, decisions, and time. Using photo pages with sleeves sized for 4×6 and 3×4 photos, Project Life scrapbookers can slide pictures, journaling cards, and embellishments into place in a jiffy.
But Project Life isn’t just about saving time; it’s about saving the memories that matter. Before I started Project Life, I only thought about memorializing the holidays, trips, and big activities. I never thought about capturing the ordinary, everyday stuff and people that make my life meaningful. My Project Life album now has a screenshot of my blog, a photo of the hairdresser I’ve seen for 15 years, and a mini poster of a movie we saw.
Project Life can be done digitally, but I’m so glad I’m using paper. Sitting in front of a computer isn’t the same as scrapbooking with a friend. My friend and I spend time together once a week on our albums. My nine-year-old daughter also joins us for some girly time (which she desperately needs in a houseful of boys!). She is doing her own version of Project Life in an 8×8 album, but it’s even more precious than mine. She will look back on her memories and be so glad she has them preserved! In a few hours a week, I enjoy quality time with a girlfriend and my daughter and capture the moments that mean the most. My husband absolutely loves the results!
What You Need to Get Started
Becky Higgins’s website offers kits, but you can find what you need at craft and other stores. An album. I recommend a 12×12 large ring style. Photo pocket pages. You will need a few 12×12 pages if you’d like to include calendar pages, but the rest will be various configurations of sizes.
A photo printer. I really see this as a must. Even having to order photos and run up to my corner Walgreens was too much of a bother for me before I started Project Life. I use an Epson PictureMate Charm Photo Printer. I can quickly print 4×6 or 3×4 photos for my album as I scrapbook. You can print directly from your photo card, but I print from my laptop. My daughter and I pick out the photos we want to use after viewing them in a larger size. Journaling cards and other inserts. As this style of scrapbooking becomes more popular, you will find many kinds of these cards, from those that are purely decorative to those that guide your journaling.
Something to organize your supplies. If you’re a scrapbooker with stickers and other embellishments, you can use them with Project Life. You can also add memorabilia! No longer does everything have to be matchy-matchy. Somehow the format makes everything look great. Marilyn found these white organizers at Michaels and they are perfect for keeping all of our supplies organized and within reach. We each have three of them. The matching friends-don’t-let-friends-scrapbook-alone sweatshirts are optional!
How About Some Free Weekly Cards?
Most Project Life scrapbookers use cards that indicate which week of the year they are documenting. We’ve made our own with letter stickers, but you run out of W’s, E’s, and K’s pretty quickly! As it’s something we need every week, we’re pretty surprised that you can’t buy them. I found one set for sale online using a woman’s landscape photos as backgrounds and cutting files for cards, but not exactly what I wanted. So I made them!
You can use them as is, journal on them, use markers to change the letter colors, or add stickers to completely change the look of them. Marilyn customized hers to the max! You can use the cards some weeks and not others. Perfectionism is NOT allowed.
I have 52 weeks of 4×6 and 3×4 weekly cards for you to print on white acid-free cardstock for nada! Just subscribe to this scrapbooking newsletter below. You’ll receive the cards and occasional updates on scrapbooking only. Please share this page with your scrapbooking pals.
***Update for 2015***
I kept having trouble remembering what week it was, so I added the dates to a new set of cards for this year. I kept the number on the left so these can be cut and used as a 3 x 4 or left as is for a 4 x 6 card. To download the full PDF file, subscribe below. You can also subscribe at this link. Once you have confirmed your subscription, you will receive a welcome email with the link to all the journaling cards and other Psychowith6 freebies. If you do not receive it, check your spam folder. Sometimes it takes a while for the email to arrive. Happy scrapping!
I recommend printing on white acid-free cardstock. Hope you enjoy them!
What do you think? Would a Project Life style scrapbook work for you?
I was expecting my fourth child as a mother of three sons. At the time, I had a number of online friends who also had boys and only boys. One of them shared that she had prayed about the gender of the child she was expecting and her son then had a dream that she would have a girl. The ultrasound revealed that he was right. I decided to pray about my child’s gender, too. I knew I would be happy either way, but this time (for what I thought was for sure my last child), I wanted to know.
I prayed and opened my daily Bible to the date my ultrasound was scheduled. The passage for that day read:
Genesis 35:17 And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.”
Now, I was pretty sure there wasn’t a passage in Scripture that said, “Guess what? You’re having a daughter!” But I was still so struck by the direct answer to my prayer that I believed come ultrasound day, I would learn that boy number four was joining our family.
The ultrasound technician confirmed what God had already told me through His Word.
That evening, I had arranged to go out for dinner with my Bible study friends to give them the news. They were dying to know and not long after we were seated, a family with four boys sat behind us. I just gestured to them and said that my family would look just like that. After my friends were sure that I wasn’t upset about not having a daughter, they began deciding what I should name our son.
I had given my three sons biblical names, so that made the decision easier for them. Names were written on a paper napkin and then the debate started. Finally, after much discussion, they told me his name ought to be Benjamin. As I considered this name, I thought about the Scripture God had given me predicting another son. When I got home, I read further in Genesis:
18 As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.
Of course, I hoped I wasn’t going to die in childbirth! But I knew that my son’s name would be Benjamin and that God had known him even before he was conceived.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of my dad and me. I look like I'm about two and he has that same patient, teaching look he always had with me.
My father's family was twice the size of mine, but unfortunately wasn't twice the fun. His father was an abusive alcoholic. Dad was sent to live with and work for an abusive uncle at the age of four. He quit school after the eighth grade to help support his family. At eighteen he was drafted and was sent to the German front lines in World War II. While there, his life was in constant jeopardy and he watched many of his friends die.
Dad came home to discover that his father had drunk up all the money he had sent home from the service. He eventually married twice and was left twice. When he married my mother and became a father to me in his early forties, he was ecstatic. I can't tell you that he was a perfect father. Years of trauma and mistreatment took its toll on my dad emotionally. But I can tell you that he wasn't an alcoholic, nor was he ever abusive to me. He told me he loved me and was proud of me all the time. He constantly made me laugh. He was one of the most humble men I've ever known. He taught me how to fish, fast pitch softball, and basic carpentry skills. He loved beating me in cribbage. When I was on my own, he bailed me out of several financial jams I got myself into and wrote me precious letters. In one letter he wrote, "I've been thinking of you all week, so I thought I'd better write."
My dad's parenting is a testimony of God's faithfulness in my life. He was the father I wish he had had.
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children… (Luke 1:17)
Several years ago, I was inspired by these verses to create a scrapbook of God’s faithfulness to me that I’m calling my Joshua Journal:
5 and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” (Joshua 4)
I recently took stock of the huge number of scrapbooking projects I want to complete and reluctantly admitted that I will never be able to complete them all. So I asked myself which projects I would really regret not completing in my lifetime and this particular one was number two (my youngest’s baby book is #1! I just have to do the journaling :-). I want to have an 8×8 digital photobook that I can give to each of my children that is like the pile of stones in Joshua, testifying to the amazing things the Lord has done for me. I dream that they will read it to my grandchildren and maybe my great-grandchildren, too. I also want to have a copy in my purse that I can use in sharing with people I meet the reason for the hope that I have.
I realized that if I blog each story, I can not only share these testaments of God’s faithfulness with all of you, but it will motivate me to finish the book! If a particular story is meaningful to you or if I fall off the wagon and quit posting them before I announce that volume 1 is complete, will you please comment? Thank you so much! I would love it if I inspire you to do the same. Please link up to your own stories!
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
