The Best of 2012

Instead of my normal monthly round-up for December, I thought I would do a look back at the best of 2012 for MightyCrafty. I love that I can share projects here on this blog - it helps to document these kinds of things so you can see how much you truly get done over time. It's something to be proud of.

My all-time favorite past time will probably always be scrapbooking. I love photos. I love paper. I love embellishments. I love playing with glue. Most of all, I love documenting all those little moments in life - they are so fleeting. So, I'm really proud to say that I've complete a total of 235 scrapbook pages this year. That's 132 paper pages and 103 digital pages. That's a whole lot of scrapbooking. Craziness. I really feel that taking Stacy Julian's Finding Photo Freedom was the key to getting more out of my photos and scrapbooks. I highly recommend it for any memory keeper.

For projects around the house, I've shared those here on this blog. Here's what was most popular this year...

Top 5 Projects of 2012

I've got so many things planned for 2013 - I can't believe it's finally here! We'll be continuing the MightyCrafty Mondays Pin-Up Party. If you haven't been participating, make it your New Year's resolution to do so. :)

Don't forget to enter the Happy New Year Giveaway too at I Gotta Try That. So many great prizes are up for grabs - good luck!

November 2012 Crafty Round-Up

December is already here, bringing with it all the holiday fun of the season. Halloween is my favorite holiday, but as I grow older, Christmas is taking a very close second and might overtake it soon. It's bittersweet to celebrate the holiday traditions with my boys as they grow up - the traditions mean more to them and to me. I'm enjoying so much doing all those little things with them...

But we're supposed to be rounding up November, right? So, to get back on track with that...

Here on MightyCrafty, I shared a few projects for my home this month. First, there was the Giving Thanks plaque:

And the quilted fall runners:

A fall porch:

And our fall mantel and decor:

I did a few other small home decor projects - like sew a curtain or 2...

...and decorated a couple of bathrooms.


I also did a ton of paper scrapbooking this month - all thanks to the Kiwi Lane designer templates I've been using. (So in love with those.) All told, I created 23 12x12 pages in November. That has to be a record for me. A few examples...


In November, I created and printed an 8x8 photo book from Shutterfly for our 2012 California vacation. So glad to have that done and able to share with our family.

I also created a storage system for our family's memorabilia that I really like. I'll share that on the blog this month. For now, I'm just happy that I've got all those little pieces of stuff that I want to keep organized and stored away.

I'm still working through Project Real Life at Big Picture Classes. I'm surprised at how much I'm loving it, since I didn't want to do Project Life again for 2012 (I'd already done it for 2010 and 2011). But I'm really enjoying documenting our life in our new home, since we've been living here just going on 3 months. I'm thinking about doing it again for 2013...

So that's my round-up for November 2012. Have you done yours? Please link it up in the comments so I can take a look and give you a pat on the back. :)

October 2012 Crafty Round-Up

So October got away from me pretty quick. I spent most of the first 2 weeks just unpacking from our move. I was able to get our Halloween decorations put up...

And our front porch decorated...

I was also able to get a bunch of paper scrapbooking done once I had my craft room set up again. I completed 11 pages in all. I have a few projects from that batch I'll be sharing over the next few weeks. In the meantime, here's a very quick layout I completed, using the Boys Rule kit from August 2012...

Yes, that's me and my dad at the beach in Florida. I had some cute pudgy baby legs...

These lovely woodgrain thickers came with the kit - love them.

Here on the blog, we've continued growing the MightyCrafty Mondays pin-up party. I have to say "thank you" to you for that - I so appreciate everyone sharing their projects each week. I truly love seeing what everyone's doing in their own crafty endeavors. Thank you!

And that's it for my for October...have you done your round-up yet? :)

September 2012 Crafty Round-Up

Since September was a month full of moving preparation, I didn't the chance to do many crafty projects. Instead, I worked on a few scrapbooking projects that I had been meaning to finish up.



My biggest project was to finish the boys' sports album - or least get it up-to-date. I have an album dedicated just to their sports photos, and it had been lingering for quite a while. So, over the course of 2 weeks, I created 20 layouts. It feels so good to have these finished. And the boys loved seeing their sports teams over the course of the last 5 years.

Another big project - I finished rating / purging my photo library. I've been working in Lightroom to organize my nearly 10-years of digital photos, and 2010 was the last year I had to do. It had 5,184 photos in it - more than twice any other year - so it was more than a little daunting. Finally, this month, I was able to purge and rate every photo in that year, bringing the total photos down from over 5,000 to half that - 2,508. Now, I just have to categorize all those.

Finally, I created 15 digital scrapbook layouts this month. I forgot how much I loved digital scrapbooking - no mess, easy to start and stop, simple to size your photos, and so many great scrapbooking designers and kits. I pushed myself to use a few things I had in my stash that I had been wanting to use - and I love how everything turned out.

Quick page from Heather Ann Designs

Quick page by Shabby Princess

Created with the Scrap It Actions 2 by Wendyzine Scraps

All Halloween quick pages by Jen Wilson

Now that we're all moved and settled into our new house in Colorado, I'm hoping to get a few projects going to share very soon. In the meantime, I'm decorating for my favorite holiday - Halloween...

August 2012 Crafty Round-up

I feel like I just finished up my July round-up and it's already time to write one for August. Probably because I did just finish up my round-up for July - and also because August has flown by in a whirlwind of activity.

So the big news for us - we're moving to Denver, Colorado. It's all happened pretty quickly, but hubby was promoted to a new job based in Denver. Since we just moved to Lincoln from Kansas City about 18 months ago, I wasn't all that thrilled to think of moving again. At all. (In fact, I may have thrown a fit or two.) But the opportunity for Byron was a great one, and the move means we can stay put for the long-term instead of possibly moving from Lincoln a few years from now.

So, we're relocating to Denver - actually, just a little south of Denver to Castle Rock. After a crazy weekend of house-hunting, we've found a wonderful house in Castle Rock that's just 1 block away from the elementary school we wanted. We've already sold our house in Lincoln. Now all that's left are all the last-minute details leading up to closing.

I'm not anticipating a ton of time to be crafty this month - and I'm already mourning the loss of the month of September to put up my fall / Halloween decor. But I know that we'll be settled in our new home by the 1st of October, so it will all be worth it in the end. It might be a little quiet here on the blog from me this month. Just know that I'll be back...

So - what did I get done in August?

I did some paper scrapbooking...


I blogged 2 quick tips for making your own cleaning wipes and Box Top organization.


And we've kept going with our MightyCrafty Mondays link party which is growing each week, thanks to all of you...

So that's it for August. I'm looking forward to lots of change for our family by the end of September...

July 2012 Crafty Round-up

We're already midway into August and I'm just now getting my round-up done for July. Oh well. We've been crazy busy with a relocation to Denver in the works (crazy!), so I haven't been able to do too much crafting over the last few months.

I did do some paper scrapping this month...


I posted some Lightroom tips...

I recovered an old, stained ottoman for our family room...

And finally, I started MightyCrafty Mondays here on the blog. It's been really fun to see everyone's projects each week. If you haven't been linking, I encourage you to do so. And share it with your followers and friends too.

That's it for my crafty endeavors. What have you been up to this month? :)