goodbye, twenty fourteen.

Twenty fourteen has been the most turbulent, eye-opening, joyful year of my life. To use the cliché, "it was a roller coaster" would be so unbelievably accurate. I started the year in a completely different place than I am now. I'm so different, I can barely recognize myself, but looking back on my goodbye to twenty thirteen and the he + she breakdown, I remember the hopeful girl who wanted twenty fourteen to be a year of growth and change, and man, she got her wish in both happy and sad ways. I began the year as a girl in a loving relationship, hopeful for an end to long distance (I cringe at the he + she post now because I am so not that girl anymore), but instead it just ended altogether. I began the year as a nanny, knowing that I would probably start to apply to teaching jobs again in the summer, and then my life totally changed, I realized what I want to do in this life, and I did it, leaving nannying behind, one of the hardest things I did this year. Amidst the craziness was every day life, and every day life was good:

// I documented my entire year using the project life system, and it was amazing. I'm so pumped that I have this huge album to look back on all of the tiny things that happened this year, and I plan on doing it again this coming year.
// I spent what I know (positive this time, guys) will be my last year at home with my parents, and though some days they drive me nuts, it's been a good year.
// I landed my dream job at BuzzFeed, and decided with certainty that writing is what I want to do with my life, and it will be the core of everything I do from now on, presumably.
// I had another great concert year: The Script + One Republic, One Direction, Ed Sheeran, and The Script again, for free!
// Though the year in blogging didn't go exactly as I had planned (I still have 13 followers on bloglovin' doesn't look like that's changing anytime soon), I still feel really connected to this little internet space, and feel excited about its future. I'm thinking of a makeover, some new features, and a bunch of little tweaks on how I do things from now on.
// I went to six countries in two weeks, California for the first time, and went on a bunch of local trips in between.
// I set a goal to do 25 things in my 25th year, and because I'm a March baby, most of the completed items happened this year, and I still have a couple months left to complete as much as I can. It was a fun project, not necessarily the type of thing I'd be upset over not completing, but a good way to keep small goals ingrained in the things I do all year.
// I didn't exactly keep up with grow, my one little word for the year, in the ways of the album, I definitely did some growing this year. While I feel that I may be a little too busy for OLW in the formal sense (album and monthly updates) this year, I still want to pick a word and execute it in another way on my blog, a way that is more attainable and easy to keep up with.

My most important takeaway from this year is most certainly that while there were highs and lows, I am still here, I'm still motivated, and I still feel that fire under me, encouraging me to do more, be more, and love more. That being said though, I am more than happy to be kicking this year to the curb and starting fresh. Goodbye, twenty fourteen, and hello, twenty fifteen, you beautiful thing, you.

december playlist.

This month was another slow month for new music, and super repetitive. Even my dad picked up on this playlist this month because on a few crafting days he said both, "I see you like this song", and, "Well I guess you're into this playlist". So when he notices, that's when I know it's a worse than usual month for repetitiveness. But it's a pretty good playlist, I will say that. It's a little bit more upbeat in general than a few of the past months have been, which is a nice change.

Listen to this playlist on Spotify here.

project life 2014 // week forty.

September 29 - October 5. Still chugging, and setting a goal to finish out the year by the last week of January 2015. #prayersforalessia.What went on this week: This was the week that I found out I got the BuzzFeed internship that I interviewed for, so it was a week of celebrating, but also a week of intense reality once it hit me that I would have to stop nannying in just two short weeks. Not that I had been taking Max for granted before, but I really wanted to make sure that every minute with him counted, and every minute with Sky as well. Another exciting thing that happened was that my best friend and I both won a set of two tickets to see The Script in NYC, and it was the first thing that either of us had ever won.About this spread: In terms of colors and stuff, this spread was completely all over the map between the pink everything in Skylar's photos, and the reds and blues in Max's, so I kept everything else black and white and neutral. Though it wouldn't really be a spread of mine if I didn't have some minty blue thrown in there.Details + interesting tidbits: I included the three photos of Max and I because we took about 40 that morning, and I knew that I wanted to pick a bunch to kind of capture who we are together. Photo breakdown: phone photos: 10 // canon t3 photos: 1 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes. (The two photos of Skylar were taken by her daddy).
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: PL core kits: seafoam core kit (week card, "true story" card, striped card); midnight core kit ("you are so very loved"), design A pocket pages, studio calico monthly kits: penny arcade (wood banners, right now sticker); poet society (wood September), elise joy calendar card, xyron create-a-sticker, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

project life 2014 // week thirty nine.

September 22 - September 28. Still chugging, and setting a goal to finish out the year by the last week of January 2015. #prayersforalessia.What went on this week: This week I had one of the cutest days of my life because of Skylar's newborn photoshoot. I finally met her on Monday, and then on Tuesday her parents and I took her to a friend's house, and she has a whole room set up for photographing children, with backdrops and props and everything. She was so amazing with Skylar, and the photos came out to die for. Max joined us after school for some big brother pictures, and my heart literally burst into a million pieces. He is a natural with babies and it's amazing. My week was basically taken over by Sky and her tiny cuteness, so that's most of what this spread was about.About this spread: Like I said, it was the Skylar show. I can't get enough of this tiny little lady and I can't believe how much I love her, so I wanted to make sure that this spread had photos and journaling that really captured those feelings. I used one of the professional photos to stretch across the top of the right page (THOSE LEG WARMERS CAN YOU EVEN?!), and it's my favorite thing to ever happen to this album. It's so beautiful and perfect. The rest of the right page was all from the Tuesday shoot, and then the left page had another from that, plus a couple of general photos of me, Max, and Sky.Details + interesting tidbits: I used a lot of my SC kit stuff in combination with the core kits, which again, is because everything is all organized and accessible. One of the stamps I used was the words "I love you more than all the stars", which I stamped over and over onto a 3x4 grid card.Photo breakdown: phone photos: 9 // canon t3 photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes. (The top right photo of Skylar was taken by Jamie of Handful of Magic).
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: PL core kits: midnight core kit (week card, "right now" card); dreamy core kit (Tuesday card, plain 3x4), design A pocket pages, studio calico monthly kits: penny arcade (wood veneer banner, "I love you more than all the stars" stamp); walden (<3 stamp), elise joy stamps, less is more stamps, xyron create-a-sticker, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

a beautiful mess happy mail!

Two of my favorite bloggers, Elsie and Emma from A Beautiful Mess, finally have a shop opened, and it's full of amazing products for crafters. I happened to meet them right after the release, and they were so excited about it, so that night I ordered a few things to test out.I got the white alpha stickers because I knew that they would be awesome for project life, and the capitals are perfection. The two ink pads were something I was on the fence about because I love my staz-on inks, especially the jet black, but I really love the quality of these. I got the hot pink because I thought it was funky, and the cement because I figured it would be a nice alternative to black from time to time. I also got two messy pens (fine and medium tips) because I can't get enough of writing utensils, and because Elsie has the most amazing handwriting and has talked about the pens she uses before, so I figured these would be amazing no matter what. I love the pens, and in fact, one of them had exploded in the mail, and they sent me a new one right over as soon as I contacted them, so yay for awesome customer service! I love buying products from other bloggers because I know that they are going to hold the quality of their products to super high standards, and of course these girls are no exception.

a weird post about scarves and self-timers that happened because I wanted to use my new tripod.

This post came about because I honestly just wanted to use my new tripod somehow, but everything kind of went to shit when my shutter remote (which I highly recommend if you have a camera without infrared capabilities, I think I just need a new battery) stopped working. So I kind of taught myself how to make the best of the self-timer on my camera, plus continuous shooting, which on my camera can take up to 10 consecutive shots. I learned a few random things along the way, so I'll use these awkward scarf photos to talk about it.The self timer on a camera is a huge pain in the ass. Maybe it's just my camera, but it was really hard to get the focus right without a subject in the frame because the subject was me, who was trying to focus the nonexistent subject. Catch 22/Inception kind of? So what I had to do was take the photos more close up, rather than far away (I realize I could have put a chair where I would have been standing and focused on that, but it was all very in the moment), and focus myself at an arm's length.Another thing that I learned was that continuous shooting of ten frames gives you just about enough time to move your body into three different positions. The pictures in between the first, middle, and last will be blurry, but the others should be focused if you're quick. Again, with the shutter remote this would be simpler, but obviously not everyone has/wants a shutter remote, so this is a doable alternative.

I wish I saved some of the awkward in between shots (the one above is kind of awkward because of me and my face, not the camera, so there you go), but I kind of deleted things as I went so I wouldn't have hundreds of photos to import onto my computer, but I promise, there were at least a hundred blurry shots for the maybe 20 focused ones I got (out of which maybe three or four were actually what I was looking to capture).So basically, if you're looking to take photos of yourself with a tripod, and you don't have a working shutter remote, and no one is around, you can. It's a production for sure, but coming from someone who really doesn't know much about their DSLR, it's doable and actually kind of fun once you get the hang of it.

project life 2014 // week thirty eight.

September 15 - September 21. Still chugging, and setting a goal to finish out the year by the last week of January 2015. #prayersforalessia.What went on this week: This week was the week I waited all year for - I became a nanny of two with the birth of Skylar Fallyn, the most beautiful baby girl in the world. I fell in love with her immediately, and even though she had a bit of a rough start, she came home on Sunday and got to meet her big brother, which is the best thing that I've ever seen (though it was only through video). I got an iPhone 6 on Friday, which means that photos are going to be a lot better from now on for the most part, and on Sunday I went on a wine tour for two of my best friends' birthdays, which besides the arrival of Skylar was the best thing to happen all week.About this spread: This is the first spread that I used the Dreamy core kit on, and so far I like the way it meshes with everything else. I used a bunch of stamps and stickers and wood veneer, because I'm finding it so much easier now that everything is all organized.Details + interesting tidbits: I included all of the photos that I got of Skylar in the hospital in a little bunch with the most perfect card from the midnight core kit, a little "hi" sticker, and included her birth details on the larger photo of her. She's so damn cute, the pictures in spreads to come are even better.Photo breakdown: phone photos: 11 // canon t3 photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes. (The two photos of Skylar were taken by her daddy).
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: PL core kits: seafoam core kit (fold-over card); midnight core kit (striped card and "hello there perfection" card); dreamy core kit (week card), design A pocket pages, studio calico monthly kits: sandlot (arrow wood veneer); walden ("yes to" card); office hours (cork "hi" sticker), a beautiful mess alpha stickers, less is more stamps, xyron create-a-sticker, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

Merry Christmas eve, everyone!

christmas jamz.

Because I worked in retail every holiday season from age 14 to 22, I have strong feelings about Christmas music. I know what I like, and I know what I would dread hearing over and over again starting November 1 every year. These songs are the narrowed down extent of the music that I can handle hearing for the few weeks before Christmas, plus a few here or there that are classics regardless of how annoying they are to hear too often. To listen to my playlist on repeat for the next few days, follow it here.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

vanilla peanut butter protein cookies.

This recipe comes from one of my favorite YouTubers, Anna, who made a video of the recipe here. She calls them, "healthy-ish" cookies, and I think that's kind of accurate because to call something a cookie it really can't be that healthy.You need:
// 1 C no sugar added peanut butter
// 1 egg, 1 egg white
// 1 C blended oats (you don't need to blend if you don't want to, but it'll make a crunchier, more rustic cookie)
// 1/2 C truvia/stevia
// 2 Tbsp. agave/maple syrup (I didn't realize I'd run out of agave or I would have used it instead of maple syrup)
// 1/4 C vanilla protein powder
// Chocolate chips to taste1// Mix the wet ingredients until well combined. You can put the peanut butter in the microwave for a few seconds if it's really thick, but the no sugar added PB is usually more of a liquid consistency because of the oils that rise to the top.
2// Blend the oats, if that's your jam.
3// Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.
4// Add chocolate chips if you want, I made a few without chips and found them just as delish.
5// Scoop into balls (pushing them down is optional, but definitely stops them from spreading like crazy in the oven).
6// Bake for 8 minutes at 350*F.I found this recipe to be super simple, and the cookies were perfectly cooked with crunchy outsides and dense centers. They are definitely an overpowering peanut butter flavor, though you can tell the vanilla is in there. I think with chocolate protein powder they would be great, too.
These are addictive and I'm not saying to eat them for breakfast, but I'm not not saying to eat them for breakfast.

project life 2014 // week thirty seven.

September 8 - September 14. Still chugging, and setting a goal to finish out the year on time (aka the whole year by the end of the first week of January. #prayersforalessia). UPDATE: I realize that ordering pictures will take longer than my actual execution, so this date will likely be pushed back. Ah well.What went on this week: For the most part, this week was all about the weekend. I had a nice coffee date with my dad one morning, Max started school again, and I wore my fall coat for the first time, all of which I loved, but everything else revolved around the weekend. On Friday night I drove out to Montauk with my best friends and we spent the weekend soaking up the last of the summer sun, eating and drinking (a lot), and spending time relaxing before the cold weather and busy season of the year had time to hit us square in the faces.About this spread: The photos had a lot of greens, blues, and browns, so I kind of just kept going with that theme when I added in cards. I kept all of the weekend photos as 6x4s and then the photos from the week were all the 3x4s. I like that this worked out because it kind of separated everything in a way that made my Type A organizational mind happy.Details + interesting tidbits: I included the "In Review" card to sum up the summer, and the five Ws card to sum up the weekend. I used the "8" card (the came in an August SC kit to represent the month) to represent September 8, which was my half birthday and marked the halfway point of my 25 Things project, and also was Max's first day of the 3s at nursery school. I didn't include the picture of us holding up a sign on that day, which I kind of regret (just overlooked it by accident when I was ordering photos, I think), so I included it in this way instead.Photo breakdown: phone photos: 11 // canon t3 photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes. (Full group photo taken on my friend's phone using a selfie pole, the best/funniest/most awkward invention ever).
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: seafoam core kit, design A pocket pages, studio calico monthly kits: sandlot (8 card); penny arcade ("in review" card), less is more stamps, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.

organizing/downsizing my studio calico project life kits (plus my three core kits).

I started subscribing to Studio Calico's Project Life kits back in March, and it's definitely one of the best decisions I've made for project life. The kits come with 3x4 cards, 6x4 cards, usually some kind of sticker, stamp, embellishment, or a variety of other things. The only thing that starts to get daunting, is trying to look at all of the stuff you have at once. They come in their own little box every month, and after seven months of little boxes, it started to create a lot of clutter.Finding what I needed, whether it was a particular embellishment from one kit (and there's no way I could remember which kit I was looking for from week to week), or just looking for a card that matched a color scheme of a spread, was getting impossible. I decided that I needed to get all of my kits more condensed so that I could look at all of the cards at once, all of the stickers at once, or all of the embellishments. I bought a plastic bin from Michaels, and separated everything into categories (heeeeyyyy, type A Alessia), which made the chaos seem so much less intense.I still labeled everything by what kit they came from, because when I do my weekly spread posts, I like to try and note which kit something came from. This is a step that is totally unnecessary, but I think it's nice to know which kit you're working with and when.Once I had all of that stuff separated into the plastic bin, I used two of the studio calico magnet boxes to sort the 3x4 cards from each kit, and the other to sort the 6x4 cards, alphabet sheets, and other items that were too big for the plastic bin.I didn't combine the cards together for the same reason I labeled all of the stickers and such, but I organized each kit in color order so that I know if I'm looking for a bunch of black and white cards they'll be at the back of the pile, or a yellow card, it'll be behind the pinks and oranges of a particular kit's cards.Everything just feels so much more coherent, and so much more put together. Now when I go to do my spreads, I don't have to take out seven boxes, plus the other essentials that I normally use.Because I was on a bit of an OCD cleaning and organizing high, I decided to organize my two core kits (midnight and seafoam) as well, because when I went to get the plastic container at Michaels, I got another kit (dreamy) for half off with a coupon (and a free album for next year in a BOGO sale #win) and knew that I would need to sort out all of those cards.I used to have the seafoam kit in it's original box and midnight in a wood photo box that I had laying around at the beginning of last year, but after almost a year of PL down, I knew that I could definitely fit all three kits in the wood box by taking out a few types of each card.I took out a few of each card from all three kits, separated them within their kit by striped, patterned, grids, lined, and plain, and put them in the best type of color order I could so that every card is super easy to find. I was then able to fit all of the leftovers from all three kits into one of the original kit boxes, so that when I start to run low I can replenish what I have. I now have more than enough cards to work with for the next year, plus the studio calico kits that are still to come. And my type A personality is so overjoyed that most of those little studio calico boxes are gone.

project life 2014 // week thirty six.

September 1 - September 7. Still chugging, and setting a goal to finish out the year on time (aka the whole year by the end of the first week of January. #prayersforalessia).What went on this week: This week was another week without camp for Max before school officially started, so we had more play dates and looooong days of sunny fun. I went down to Maryland over the weekend to see my friend Cecelia from Scranton, because we had tickets to Ed Sheeran on the Saturday night. We also went to a cider mill, read in her pool for hours, and found a huge sunflower field.About this spread: I loooove how this spread came together. While the photos have zero colors coherent with each other, the cards are all black, mint, white, and grey. I like how they all meshed together, and if you've been checking out these posts for a while, then you know that this type of color combo is my absolute fave. Details + interesting tidbits: Rather than including monthly currentlies, I used a 'currently reading' card to talk about reading in Cece's pool over the weekend. I used a bunch of stamps as well, and journaled a lot on photos because there was a lot that went on this week.Photo breakdown: phone photos: 11 // canon t3 photos: 0 // polaroid photos: 0. Taken by me, the self-timer, and shutter remotes.
Materials, supplies, and tools I used: midnight core kit, design A pocket pages, studio calico monthly kits: poet society ('take it easy' card); sandlot (currents/reading); penny arcade (6x4 polka dot card, 'life is always better with a smile' card), less is more stamps, elise joy calendar card, fiskars corner rounder, fiskars paper trimmer, staz-on jet black ink, hp everyday photo paper, smash date stamp, zig writer for vellum marker in black (on photos), zig writer marker in black (on journal cards).

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Project Life is a simplified solution to scrapbooking created by Becky Higgins that helps you to record the memories of everyday life. Document your story either physically or digitally along with me and so many others. Find out more here, how to start here, & see all of my PL 2014 posts here.