Category: project life

Here we go, first real spread of this year!

This might not be exactly representative of the way the album will look from here on out, because I printed the photos before Liam was born and before I had nailed down the aesthetic for the album. But here you can see some of the things that I intend to carry out.

For example, you can see the plain white date cards and how I’m not rounding corners anymore. I like the squared off look, it’s one less step that I have to do, and I’m not using as much of the core kits anymore so it’s not a big issue for consistency.

I’m also using these week in review cards from Paislee Press. I’ve decided to type them so I can fit more on it, and with this extra journaling I have to do even less embellishing on the photos themselves. Simple and fast is the name of the game!

Hey, remember when I was super pregnant? It’s so weird for me to look at pictures of myself with that huge belly now. Below you can see an example of how I’m going to use vellum for journaling.

Overall this spread is pretty neutral and moody but I like it! In the future I want to try bordering some of my photos with white, and doing some circle photos as well. I’m going to continue the plain date cards and week in review journaling, too. More soon!

Hey, so I am actually totally caught up with Project Life now, but I am behind on posting! The reason for that is because I put it all together in just a few days, and the title page was the last thing I completed. First I want to share it with you, and then I want to talk about my plan for Project Life this year.

I’m really happy with this title page! The big “2014” and the “hello twentyfourteen” printables are from Caylee Grey. As for the photos, I wanted pictures of us but I’m not very good at making posed portraits look anything but cheesy so I decided to take pictures of each of our hands, which is also personal but a bit unexpected. The only one I really struggled with is Meredith’s because she wouldn’t cooperate, so I grabbed this photo when she was distracted. I don’t love it, so I’ll probably replace it when I can get a better one where the focus is her hands and not the toys.

So now for my plan! Even though when I go back to work soon I will have more time than before, lately I am all about simplifying. I don’t want this to be the ONLY creative thing I have time for in my life. Therefore, I’m embracing the minimal approach, and it’s lucky that I like the look. Here is what you can expect from this album:

>continuing with two weeks per spread

>consistent plain white date card

>typed week in review cards

>no rounding of corners

>lots of photos with very little embellishment

>including white space like borders and circle photos

>no new core kit, but using filler and journaling cards from the ones I have left over, plus extra printables I find that I like

Tomorrow I’ll be posting my first real spread of the year, so you’ll be able to see what I mean regarding some of the above! After getting caught up I can say confidently that I love this new approach (even though it’s not TOO different, but every little change matters). I think it’s going to be pretty easy to keep up with and so far I love the way it looks, too!

I’m done with my 2013 album! I have to say, even though I’m still like 9 weeks behind, I feel way better about this project now.

Okay, so this spread was December 23 – 31. I had photos from Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and a wedding we went to. All my other photos from this time went in the holiday minibook. I was really just trying to get this done and somehow include everything. I kept the journaling cards neutral because of how many photos there were.

I actually had an insert too for all the family pics we took on Christmas. I had one extra that I just had to put in, and I wanted to keep all the Christmas stuff on this side, so I made a little flip card.

On the back of the insert I cut down some paper and adhered this photobooth strip of my sisters-in-law and me at the wedding directly on top of the page protector. It was perfect.

Right side is simple photos and journaling about the wedding and NYE.

And here is my end page! I really, really did not want to spend much time on this so I just put in a bunch of cards from the seafoam and midnight core kits.

I did one stamp and the “goodbye twentythirteen” from Caylee Gray. Plus just a tiny bit of journaling summing up the year.

At the end of each album I am including a big 12×12 pocket envelope and I put inside all the cards and memorabilia that I want to keep but that didn’t fit or didn’t quite make it into the album itself. Since I don’t do a spread for each week there is plenty of room in the album for this, the envelope is heavy duty, and I have a perfect place for this extra stuff! Highly recommend this idea.

That’s it for 2013!

More Project Life catch up!

This is from December 9 – 22, so basically the buildup to Christmas. I’m really glad I did the holiday minibook, because it allowed me to focus on the everyday stuff here and not be overly full of holiday stuff.

I did include a couple of holiday things that were also in the minibook. The completion of my niece’s stocking was a huge deal to me. I also put in a picture of Meredith at her Pappy’s nursing home Christmas party. The rest of this side is just extra fun stuff.

On the right side I started with my overview of the week with all the extra stuff that I didn’t have photos of. Then there are a couple pictures of my shopping trip with Dad and Meredith, some of her being adorable, and all the little baby boy clothes that we finally put away.

I always mean to include more quotes from Meredith, but then forget to. At least I have my “Meredith lately” blog series to refer to. :)

I haven’t given up on Project Life! It’s still totally in effect, and I’ve finally started to work on catching up. Expect to see several updates on it over the next few weeks.

This spread is from the weeks of November 25 to December 8 which included Thanksgiving.

On the left side are all photos from Thanksgiving, a journaling card about the holiday, a movie ticket stub for a date night, and an iPhone screenshot of the weather when it finally got cold.

The right side had the rest of everyday life stuff. We decorated for Christmas, the Starbucks red cups came out, I went to an event with my mom, and Meredith came with me to a doctor’s appointment due to a power outage at her school. The only journaling I did on this side was a little about that day since it was out of the ordinary, and a week in review card for all the other stuff that happened.

I made this spread extremely quickly and it’s not a favorite but right now I really, really just want to get 2013 finished. I’m hoping to spend a bit more time on 2014’s spreads but the most important thing is just to do them!