Project Life Tuesday [week three]

I know, I know, again with the Project Life? The idea behind Project Life is so very cool. And simple. And do-able. It feels very satisfying to be accomplishing something with my photos... It has been years since I have not only scrapbooked in a consistent way with my photos, but probably the first time I've been able to tell a story with them that is in the here and now. Half the time I scrapbook without completing the journaling because "I'll go back and do it later". Sadly, I rarely do.

(I am caught up on my Photo of the Day blog through last Saturday - this is where I post my photos that I'm using in this project, along with the journaling.)

I took some shots today of the first five pages in our 2010 album - I've done 2.5 spreads so far. I wanted each spread to run Sunday to Saturday, so the first page was a single page and only covers the first two days of 2010, Friday and Saturday.

I first want to say that I am so far pleased with the results. It was so great to just put my photos in for the week, journal and essentially be done. I also want to say that I'm still figuring out how I want to do things. For instance, I haven't labeled the title cards - I'm not sure if I want to use the included date stamp or if I want to use my own date stamps. There are other things which I'll point out as I share what I've done so far...

January, week one:

I used one of the decorative cards meant for the front and back pages of the book because I don't plan on using them for that purpose. Not sure if this one will stay, but its fine for now.

January, week two:

Page left ~ The bottom left slot is not complete - The bottom corner photo actually goes with the middle left photo directly above it. What I plan on doing is adding a filler paper or card where the white hole is.
Page right ~ I'm missing a photo on the top because the photo was taken with a friend's camera on the fly. I want to see that photo before journaling it. The bottom 4x6 slot will actually list our hopes and goals for 2010 as a family. Again, not sure how to put it there, but leaning towards printing something out on the computer instead of handwriting it. Not sure yet...

January, week three:

My most complete spread so far. I actually really love looking at this spread because its the most pleasing to the eye. Got in all my photos and journaling. I love the photos and how they came together. By this time I also was in the groove of writing out the journaling cards and figured out how I preferred to set the journaling cards up.

Some thoughts on the process... Still trying to figure things out. Still trying to figure out what I like, what's working for me and what's not. ~

I know some people choose their cards randomly and don't worry about colors going together. That's not me. Coordinating in color is less distracting to my eye. I so far have purposely coordinated the elements in each spread to match. Just my preference.

I haven't yet had a week where there is a photo for every single day. And I am totally cool with that. And this sort of lets me add more photos for the days where more is going on, like on the weekends. Also, its hard only choosing one photo on some days so you'll notice that sometimes I split the space to accomodate more that one photo for a single day or I put an extra photo in the smaller middle spots.

I'll be honest, I hate having to handwrite. Before actually putting my first pages together, I decided that I was going to force myself to handwrite because it would be important for my children to see it later in life. That it would be more meaningful. But it is a very painful process for me. And besides that, it is very distracting for me when I look at my pages. It looks too busy. I also find that the designs on the cards are distracting. I wish Becky had included some plain cards (grid pattern only) instead of all of them having a design. So that combined with my handwriting bothers me. Oh, and handwriting doesn't allow me to tell the whole story in many cases which also bothers me. Not enough room.



I found this blog post by Ali Edwards last night and I loved reading and looking at how she is doing her Project Life. She's just brilliant. She's typing her cards out, which I LOVE. So clean. She's also adding "stuff" like receipts, clothing tags, lists, etc. I save all that "stuff" too! I save it with the intention of incorporating them on my layouts. Maybe this is where I start doing that too...

I wanted to share one more thing that I've been doing... This is my next layout which was last week ~

I created a template of a spread in Photoshop with clipping masks. The template starts out with black boxes where the title card, photos, journaling cards, and filler cards will go. I place my photos in the spread, along with mock title cards and so forth, play around with placement, and then the page is set up for me.

Might be totally overboard for other people, but this is how my brain works. This helps me figure out how to size my photos for printing. I can place the cards exactly how I want them while waiting for my photos. Really I should also write out my journaling at this point.

Becky Higgins is also offering a digital book version of this product. The plan is that this book will be my hardcopy and then I will create a digital book version for each of the kids. I am so excited about this idea!

Oh my goodness, can't believe I did a whole post on this. I'm loving it. Truly truly loving it. And I know my family will too.