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I don’t really do resolutions - I know it’s magical thinking to believe ‘new year, new me’. life + home Even though we are sliding to the end of January, this week felt like the beginning of the new Just for funsies. shannanpages shop I released this new template to my shop last weekend - Log It. Our strategy has been to mix up gluten free versions of our favourites with brand new recipes. YouTube video that says “I bought an abandoned cottage…” (we watch this one every week and this is a new

I plan to mostly use photos I already have but will add new ones as needed for the stories I'm putting

This year my main scrapbooking project was my digital journal, a 10x8 photobook called 'Digest'. It was a mix of project life, art journal, full page photos, layouts, notebook, bullet journal and smash book and I love how it turned out. It's probably one of my favourite things I've ever made. I have a video walkthrough of the finished book on my YouTube Channel and if it looks like something you might like to try, I have the digital templates available in my shop in 6x8 and 8x10/Letter sizes. When that was completed (October 2021-October 2022) I started a little 5x8 book that just pairs a photo a day (ish, it's OK if I miss) with a caption and that's it. I'm still going with that and plan to keep it up in 2023 for as long as I'm enjoying it. (I also have digital templates for this project in my shop - Daily Delights). Mine will end up as a 5x8 trade book at Blurb when I'm done. But I needed a main project for 2023 that could follow my simple parameters: > digital > ultimately printed as a photobook > one-project-fits-all rather than multiple albums So my plan is to make another 8x10 book that is sectioned by monthly dividing pages and covers all of 2023. I really like that size - not too big, not too small and perfect for the bookshelf. This time, I want a bit more structure than last year where I started with a blank slate every page (but had a common style). I want to include some theme pages that are recurring each month, like regular features in a magazine. These would be things I would like to track over the year and I'll end up with 12 pages on that theme over the year. Topics I'm thinking of including would be: cooking/eating, health/self-care, house (we are renovating this year), reading, watching, listening and intentions for the month. Not sure if they'll follow the same template each month. I also love project-life style grid pages for all of my little everyday photos and stories to live so I will include either a single or double page 3x3 grid per week. This is Week01 so far (the numbers I'm using for the weeks are from last year's digital December Daily variety number pack and I am obsessed with the retro vibe of the vintage set). If the grids are the only thing I end up getting done this year, then that will be fine. A grid a week sounds like a lot but it's a great place to use up journal cards, digital elements, selfies, not-great-photoes, collected memes and all of that ridiuculousness. The rest of the month can be filled out with regular layouts (I've gotten away from those and look forward to getting back to that), drawings, full page photos and some longer journaling pages. I like the idea of some structure as well as lots of freedom. I'm not great at envisioning projects until I have real-life stories and photos so I'm hoping once I do January, I'll have a better idea and some kind of roadmap for the album. I'm also not locking myself in and every month doesn't have to include everything. I also mentioned last year that I would be offering classes in 2023. I've been working behind the scenes and hope to have the first two ready soon: Digital Scrapbooking for Beginners and Minimalist Scrapbooking. Thanks everyone! Let's make some stuff!!

quick update here on the blog in case you missed anything over on Instagram (which is where I post the new There needs to be a lot of white space around a photobook page in case of cut off and some of these newer On to the shop stuff...newest to oldest. Mine is cooking (I'm making 52 new recipes this year) but you could use this for general favourites, Or use the set to document 52 Stories (or more or less).

I've always added little stories from my childhood & younger days to my scrapbooks, but this year I really wanted to tackle that in a more organised way. I scrapbook my own story all the time so it's really the pre-scrapbooking days that are missing. I started playing around with ideas and think I've come up with a way that will work. The keys to completing a long-term project for me are (1) a simple and repeating design (2) an overall structure to organise my pages and thoughts. I really just want to pair a photo with a memory and move on to the next one. This project is all about the documenting and not about being creative or looking pretty - I might not even add in any scrapbooking products. I'm calling it Little Life Stories. I really want to focus on the stories so I'm going to keep it very minimal and pared-down following my usual photo on one side, story on the other formula. 8x10 spreads to become a Blurb book when complete. I don't need to be super-creative. I want to make it easy to open up and just add a story or two each week. I don't plan to do this in a set time-frame, it might take a year. Or two. It doesn't matter. As someone who needs structure, I'm planning to split the book into chronological sections that make sense for my life so I can have a place where each story will fit: Childhood Teens 20s 30s I won't have photos for many of my stories and a lot of the photos I do have won't be great quality (hello 1970s!). I was also lucky or unlucky (I think the former) to live my teens and twenties in a world without camera phones so I don't have photos to go along with a lot of the crazy stuff we got up to. I'll just make do, use what I have and add in memorabilia, google images and current photographs if they work for the story. I've started a notebook (real & on my phone) to jot stories down - once you start going down those memory rabbit holes... I'm also planning a good sit-down with my box of old photos. Jennifer Wilson at Simple Scrapper (HERE) is currently running a perfectly-time class called Before Your Story for her members, so I hope to get some great ideas from that. She suggests making a timeline and I've found that really helpful to just get a handle on what year things happened. I have also been listening to a lot of The Scrap Gals podcasts (HERE). I really enjoyed the episodes where Tiffany and Tracie looked back at their memories of school, Summer and television - sparked so many stories for me. I'm really looking forward to this. I think. #LittleLifeStories #Plans #Photobooks #DigitalScrapbooking

If you haven't finished your 2018 projects but feel inspired to start something new this year, do it.

Further to my last post, I've made a few pages to start off my new 5x8 commonplace book project for 2019 I've used the new Joy Story Kit from Ali Edwards on the left. When I have an idea for a new project, it really helps me just to get in, make a few layouts and see

Cooking and scrapbooking are my 'things'. My passions. I guess I would also include listening to music here. I am the kind of person who has a huge cookbook collection. I am the kind of person who gets excited when I find a hard-to-source ingredient. I am the kind of person who starts thinking about what I can cook for dinner when I wake up. I am the kind of person who makes everyone dinner when we are away with friends. I am the kind of person who makes her own almond milk. I don't mean to sound like some domestic goddess, it's just what I love. Today I was reading an old cookbook while waiting for my kids at guitar lessons (I am the kind of person who takes cookbooks to read while waiting for my kids). Rachael Ray: My Year in Meals is part food diary/part cookbook and documents everything Rachael cooked and ate over a year period with all photos taken by her and her husband. She has a monthly calendar with all the meals in it then goes day by day with recipes and notes. It's so cool to see what she whips up after a busy working day. Sitting there, I got the idea to make my own My Year In Meals book. That might seem like a huge undertaking but I'm already kind-of doing it. For years I've kept a dinner diary (on and off) of things I'm cooking, inspired by Jenny Rosentrach of Dinner: A Love Story. Her food diary is amazing - here's her post about it. (I also LOVE her mother's Post Feast Analysis System. These are my people). I also take a lot of food & cooking photos. I even have a separate instagram account just for food (HERE). So it's just a case of bringing the two together in a simple way. It would be a lot of work but also really valuable to me. I started sketching out some simple template ideas when I remembered I'd already made a template that would work well for this - my abandoned Project Life template. So I started putting in some words and photos this evening and I think it will work. My plan is to try and do a digital spread every week to be printed as an 8x10 photobook. I'm not going to note down every single thing we ate in a week, but I'd like to document the main things I cooked (or ate out). My regular food diary with some photos added in. I'm not including recipes either. Adding another year-long project to my workload might seem a bit bonkers, but this really is a passion project. I will love this book forever if I can pull it together. I'm starting this week - I don't believe year-long projects have to start in January or even on the first of the month. Rachael's book starts in April so she obviously says it's OK :) I'm calling my project "My Year In Food". Love it when two hobbies collide!

planning to add my finished layouts to the book more regularly, so I made a short video as I set up my new

I made this simple 6x8 digital layout this morning about our family roller-skating adventures. It is a simple design - a black and white photo, a journal card (cut down to just the title) and two elements from the kit. I've had this photo since Christmas - I love when you open a kit and know exactly the story you want to tell. TIP FOR THE DAY: It's easy to cut down digital elements like journal cards in Photoshop Elements. Just make sure you have the element selected in the layers palette then use the Rectangular Marquee tool to select the part of the element you don't want and hit delete. ( I cut this card off just under the Totally So Awesome tagline). ITEMS USED: #DigitalScrapbooking #AliEdwards #6x8 #DigitalTips

I'm OK with having 50 weeks documented instead of 52.

Happy New Year! I'm not back at work until next week so this is a good time to get myself organised for the new year You will find most of my back catalogue of products there and new things going forward. posted on Instagram when new stuff comes out. This involved new flooring and carpet, lots of paining and new furniture.