Week 4

Week 4: January 23 - 29, 2012

Compared to the first three weeks, I hardly took any pictures this week. The only big "event" we had going on was some voluteer work that my step-daughter and I did on Saturday. Volunteer work is not conducive to picture taking because we were BUSY the entire time. Which means this week I did not have an insert!

During a random visit to the grocery store I bought a pretty bouquet of flowers - just because they were pretty. Claire LOVED sniffing them. I got an email from her teacher at preschool about her progress so far this year so I printed a section of it out to include (I smudged out the teacher's name and the school). And on Monday I took her to school and snapped a quick picture of her with her bag before walking her over to her teacher. Which worked out nicely with the email from the teacher.

I used a couple more of the cobalt pennants that I made in photoshop to write notes about a couple of pictures, things that didn't really require an entire journaling card, but I wanted some context as to what was going on.

And that's pretty much it for this week. The first 3 weeks have seemed really BUSY and full of things - this week seems more like a normal week for us.

I decided to be a follower and link up to TheMomCreative.com this time!

Week 3

Week 3: January 16 - 22, 2012

I ended up using a couple of different methods for journaling this week.

Last week as I was doing some other computer work, I went ahead and added my journaling to the picture of my daughter & I making a cookie cake for her birthday. I took the picture using the self-timer on my camera & setting it on the counter on the other side of the kitchen. The framing isn't what I would've done if I had been able to see what I was actually aiming at, but it worked out well to have so much of the pantry in the view so that I could put my journaling over it. I also used a SMASH sticky for a note about sitting on the floor in the hallway using the iPad during bathtime (directly outside the bathroom door, but it keeps the iPad out of the splash-zone).

I had some journaling already typed up for the pictures of Claire painting, so I just used a journaling printing template that I made in photoshop and then held the journaling card up to my screen to fit the text around the decorations on the card. I ran out of places to put journaling again this week (in fact the journaling on the other 3x4 card is about how many pictures I took in one day) so I ended up cutting down a grid card to add some journaling about taking "semi-professional-but-mostly-amateur" pictures of Claire using a sheet and lots of natural light in our diningroom. And I used one of the cobalt pennants that I made to add a note on the trampoline picture.

I also have an insert this week. It is an 8x8 page protector. The front will have a collage of pictures from some shopping my mom, sister-in-law and I did on Saturday - I decided to order it from Persnickety because I was ordering other pictures and it was cheaper to just add the 8x8 on to that order instead of ordering from Target. The back side is Claire's painting with one of her hand-prints on top of it.

Goodbye 2011

I finally finished up my 2011 Project Life album.

I'm already liking 2012 more than I like 2011. Possibly because the pictures are better with my new camera, however most likely because I am putting more thought into what my layout will look like through out the week.

Tonight, I did FIVE weeks worth of 2011, which was pretty much standard for last year. I would wait until I saw SnapFish was having penny prints and then I would order 5-6 weeks worth of pictures. Then spend an evening clipping the corners & putting pictures into the correct slots in my book. Then I would pull out my journaling cards and figure out stories to fill in the blank areas.

So excited to have this done(-ish). I was just looking back through the few weeks prior to what I finished up tonight and realized there is one week in November that has a few open spaces. I'll need to check to see if I have pictures or if I need to do something else. There are probably some other weeks earlier in the year that need to have some filler, but I think for me - this is good enough.

Cobalt Pennants

After seeing some of the pennants that people have been using on their Project Life layouts, I wanted some. I went to Michaels and found a few that were nice...although not exactly what I was wanting. I went ahead and bought a couple of packages of them in hopes of deciding they were good enough for now.

Tonight I opened up my digital elements in Photoshop and made my own awesome Cobalt pennants.

Used bits and pieces of some of the cobalt digital paper pack and the font is SS Play Font Words.

Week 2

Week 2: January 9 - 15

It definitely feels like I am spending more time on Project Life this year than I did in previous years.  I don't necessarily feel like that is a bad thing - I am putting more effort into my journaling.  In previous years it has been more of a let's just get it all in the album type of thing.  And usually I would have about 4-5 weeks worth of pictures, about 6 journal cards total and be trying to figure out which pictures went to each week and something...anything...to say about our life.  I like it better this way - the week is fresh in my mind and I can write something that matters, not just something to fill the space.

I'm actually quite happy with the two new journaling things I did tonight.  I had a ton of photos that I wanted to include this week - we had a really busy weekend and once I got all the pictures in, I realized that I had ONE 3x4 spot open for journaling and I already had a specific story from Monday that I wanted to include there.  That meant nowhere to put even a highlight card of what was going on (a trip to build-a-bear, riding the carousel, my little girl's birthday party, my older girl's pretend "modeling" session).

After looking through some ideas I had bookmarked, I decided on a 6x12 journaler.  I didn't buy her template since I have some experience with Photoshop, instead I just made something of my own.  I already had a picture that I wanted to use printed, so I use an 8.5x11 sheet of cardstock to print my journaling, then I attached the picture to the top.

Then I wanted a 6x4 journaling card to fill in the spot that I empty by using the picture on the 6x12 page.  I wanted one that matched my Cobalt kit and it drives me insane that there aren't any 6x4 journaling cards - the bifold ones are just a little too small.  Which brings me to why I am so happy that Jessica Sprague has digital project life elements - particularly the grid journal card.  I downloaded the (FREE!) 3x4 card, opened it in photoshop and made a pattern of a 2x2 grid section of it.  Then I opened a new canvas that was 6x4 and filled it with the grid pattern.  A little text and a couple of lines in colors that match Cobalt and I have a new journal card to matches my kit AND fits in the pocket correctly.

Since I don't have any 6x12 page protectors yet, I haven't put my long journaler in, nor have I figured out which pictures will go on the back of it.  But here is what the layout looks like without the insert.

Thanks everyone for coming and looking!

January 1st & Week 1

January 1st
As I said in my set-up post, January 1st got it's own spread so that my weeks would run Monday thru Sunday. The first page is full of pictures of the kids playing in the morning. The journaling is about my daughter's Christmas present that she got from her aunt on Sunday. My sister-in-law accidentally mailed it to her brother with all the presents for his kids. We figured it out on Christmas Eve, but it was too late to do anything about it. My sister-in-law was so irritated about making that mistake, but it happens and when Claire did get the present she was THRILLED. The second page shows our belated New Year's Eve Celebration. The journaling on page two is all about why we had a belated celebration and what we did to celebrate (drink sparkling grape juice, throw poppers in the garage and we each got a blower/noise maker to play with).




Week 1: January 2 - 8
I had a ton of pictures for this week. I think I have taken more pictures in the first week of January this year than I took in the entire month of January last year. I got a digital SLR for Christmas and I just don't put it down.

This week was supposed to be a pretty boring week. The kids were going back to school, we had one doctor appointment for Claire to check on her ears, but other than that - NOTHING was planned.

We went to see the Dr about Claire's ears and ended up in out-patient surgery early the next morning to get tubes put in!! She ended up staying home from her first day back at preschool to give her a little longer to recover.


This is one of the larger scored journaling cards. I ended up writing on two parts of it and plan to order a pre-surgery picture that is on my phone to put inside with her name bracelet.


Since I had SOOO many pictures, I decided to do an insert with a few extras. One side shows two of our cats, the other side has some pictures from Claire playing with her dolls at my mom's house.

Why I do this scrapbooking thing...

I just remembered WHY I used to scrapbook so much. It's not for the fun stuff...it's for the memories. Like so many other people I started trying to design too much. I got too caught up in the embellishments and the toys and the techniques and forgot about the most important part...the memories.

One of my projects for 2012 is organizing my house - mainly getting what used to be my scraproom in the basement cleaned up and converted into some other type of room. I hate the basement, it is cold and smells like cat pooh (it's where the litter boxes are), so I've moved some of the scrapping stuff that I actually use up to my bedroom (not cold or stinky!). Since I haven't been using the basement room for it's purpose, my husband as slowly piled things in there (computer parts, painting supplies, legos, etc). Now that room is a mess. I can hardly even walk into it to get other supplies that I left down there.

Unfortunately, one of the things that got left in the basement were all of my scrapbooks except the one that I was working on at the time - my little girl's baby album. Which means the basement has been a mess for at least 2 years! As part of cleaning up & organizing, I decided the scrapbooks needed a new home. Somewhere that people COULD look at them, but not somewhere where the almost 3 yr old would tear them up. Tonight I cleared off the bottom shelf of my bookshelf on the landing at the top of the stairs and moved almost all the scrapbooks from the basement to that shelf. Easy access - but not somewhere she normally plays.

Back to my original thought - the memories, not the scrapbook industry fluff - as I loaded the books onto their new shelf, I wanted to put them in chronological order. Flipping them open to figure out the dates lead me to flipping through the entire album. The one of my senior year of college. The year that I moved into an apartment, got married, gained a step-daughter, bought a house - all in ONE year. The trip we took to Atlantis in the Bahamas. The scrapbook that I made for my step-daughter of things she did while she lived with us. And all the memories in between - until 2007 because in 2008 I got overwhelmed with the scrapbook industry fluff. In 2009 my baby girl was born and the only album that I worked on was her baby album although honestly, I only made it to her 9 month page - that was the year that I attempted to scrapbook in the stinky basement.

In 2010, I started Project Life. In 2011, I did it again. This year I will again.

And I'm going to go back to 2007, 2008 and 2009. I have two PL albums Cobalt for 2012, Clementine for the past. I didn't get the core kit to go along with Clementine because I have so much stuff left over from the Original Kit & Turquoise and now I have the Cobalt Core Kit.

I'm not saying that there is a problem with all of the scrapbook fluff. I still LOVE some of the fluff - but for me it was overwhelming.

Project Life 2012 - planning & title page...

I'm doing Project Life for my third time. My 2011 book is almost complete. I only need to print out & place my December pictures. So excited to have it finished! I still have blanks in my first one (2010) and I think at this point I'll probably just leave it unfinished.

So...on to 2012...

My plan for this year is to continue creating weekly layouts. During 2011, I gradually progressed from picture-a-day to weekly and I definitely prefer the flexibility of weekly. My weeks go from Monday to Sunday - having the weekend all together creates a better flow for me.

Since January 1st was a Sunday (the end of my "week"), it gets a spread all to itself - also worked out this year since we had a sick kiddo on New Years Eve, we did all our celebrating on New Years Day Evening (fake bubbly, poppers, blowers, ect).

As far as this blog and Project Life go, I am hoping to update every Tuesday with the previous week's layout. Next Tuesday, I should have two layouts one for January 1st and one for week 1 (Jan 2 - 8).

Now...my 2012 title page!

It's is amazing! It's exactly how Becky Higgins suggested according to the back of the cards!

I may eventually pull some of the cards out to replace with family pictures. I think on my January 1st layout, I'll probably include stats on all of us (current age, grade, job, something, etc). I had everyone fill out a 2012 Now & Goals sheet on New Years Day so I may include those.