Blessed, Grateful, Amazed - best of 2016

Blessed, Grateful, Amazed -

these were the feelings welling up inside of me as I looked back at our 2016. Indeed God has blessed us and carried us through twists and turns, and gave us much, much to be thankful for. We give all thanks and praise to Him. I wish I can share more, but these days I have to be more private on the blog, especially at the request of my teens :)

But I can share through some of my layouts!

Year in Review

I don't know how non-scrapbookers do it, but I reviewed our year by looking through our project life album :) and picked out anything significant or memorable or just note-worthy for this layout. It took some time narrowing them down, but finally I have 18 highlights selected.

Following Ali Edwards' prompt in her December 'Review' Storykit, I completed statements starting with 'This is the year .......'  and here is our 2016 in review:

Highlights of our year include many firsts:

Jared and Ryan entering college and university respectively 

Ryan taking the family out with his first paycheck..

Ryan and me studying Revelations with BSF (Bible Study Fellowship)

Ryan's first mission trip (can you tell a lot is happening with this young man!)

My learning how to surf (well almost)

Hubby picking up guitar

My mom in law's step in faith in Baptism (praise the Lord!)

Me 'coming-out' from my semi-wig after 1.5 years suffering from alopecia (yay!)

Us conquering the 'best day hike in the world' in NZ (Tongariro Alpine Crossing0

and so on!

Some close-ups of this hybrid layout:

First I did all the photos and journaling in photoshop (psd template download link below). Then printed it out on A4 Canon Pixma photo paper. Finally added the giant numbers (from Ali's store) and the acrylic 'review' and 'life in review' chipboard piece from the storykit. You might notice this year I've caught onto the hybrid train and love that I can still have the ease of digital scrapbooking plus some of the lovely touch and feel of physical embellishments. Most of my physical stuff are from Ali Edwards because I just get so inspired by her and the ladies in her facebook group, and most of my little stash are from her store :)

Here is the free photoshop template for anyone wanting to try this out! (click on image to download)

Memory Keeping Year in Review

This year I have scaled down my posting on this blog due to my now full time work, and to respect the greater privacy my kids want. I do miss sharing and chatting in this space! But this has allowed me time to enjoy and complete a lot of memory keeping of my own. So at this end of year season, let me share a bit more of my pages and projects, like a scrapbooking year in review!

Project Life Layouts
I still love documenting our lives through PL and these are some of my favorite layouts this year that I've not posted before: (I do post more on instagram @yin_dgs)

May and June Stories - as you can see I have gotten into the habit of writing a lot of stories down that I do not have photos for - love capturing stories!

Another story focused layout for our short island resort trip

Trip to London in June

October staycation to celebrate hubby's big birthday

From our trip to New Zealand in December (not much journaling as those were captured in my travelers' notebook)

And finally New Year's Eve!

Day in the Life 
In July I joined in with everyone to document a Saturday in our life (blog post here)

And again in October where I recorded a day in each of our lives (blog post here) - this was so cool as we spend much of our days separately nowadays

Trip layouts
This is getting the lowest priority this year but I will continue to document our trips digitally and get some templates out of them :)
As you can see I'm venturing away and trying new styles - to satisfy my creative curiosity - might go back - or who knows where my fancy will lead!

London layouts (various posts see here )

Krabi layouts (link to post here)

Japan layouts (various posts here and here)

Mini Albums/ Projects
Of course I couldn't stop at just PL and trip layouts! LOL

30 Days of Lists 1
Printed my digital lists from last few years into a minibook (link to post here)

30 Days of Lists 2
Did my 2016 list in physical format (posted more on instagram @yin_dgs)

London Travelers' Notebook (link to post here)
Nowadays I always bring the notebook to journal on the trip and add photos when I'm home - really love this way of documenting my trips!

New Zealand Travelers' Notebook (link to instagram here)
In our most recent trip I journaled and added memorabilia on the trip - you can see the video flip through of it on instagram here
Am in progress of adding photos to the notebook and will make a post of that some time soon  :)

I'll post the video here too but the resolution may not be so good

MILK moleskin photobook
I made this photobook of our June trip as a gift for my mom. The quality is amazing! I will have to find time to share this is a post soon!

Scrapbook Layouts (see post here)
Also quite a few layouts like this one inspired by Ali Edwards' hybrid class

Now isn't that quite a shocking amount of scrapbooking in one year? I am actually quite shocked, I must be spending too much time on this! But definitely enjoyed every minute of it. But best of all, just the other day, I left my PL album on the table and when I came back, found my nearly twenty year old laughing and reading the album - I'd say this proves it is all worth it!

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