December Daily Pages: Days 27-31

Read my first post here. Days 1-13 here. Days 14-21 here. Says 22-26` here. I condensed Days 27-31 into one page. We mostly hung out at the house and enjoyed the warm inside.  Al three boys played with their new toys. It was a very nice relaxing week. The picture in the middle is of Arthur watching the ball drop. So much fun!

The last page in the 2014 is my wrap up page. I included a lot of blog wrap up stats and a few ideas about my 2015 plans. I love the color selection of blue and gray. Very calming for my last page. I'll be back next week with the first pages of my 2015 PL album.

Project Life 2014 W15-16

Week 15 This week was huge!  We flew back from Indiana and had our mom's group's Easter social.  We had so many great pictures that I had to include an insert page (design H).

In terms of my design, I went simple yet colorful.  I pulled out a ton of spring themed cards from the Seasons Mini Kit to accent our colorful pictures.  I grabbed the kit on clearance thinking I would like a few cards.  I found that I love the entire kit.  A great investment. The embellishments stayed on the cards.  I didn't want to alter the pictures.  My favorite added feature is the plane and heart stamp on the first page.  I've used that stamp at least 5 times already and love love love it!  Overall, this spread is a great example of my style: clean and simple.

Supplies:

• PL Seasons Mini Kit
• PL Days of the Week stickers
• SU Travel Themed Stamp Set (retired)
• Stickabilitiies alphas
• Recollections stamp set
• My Mind's Eye die cuts
• Michael's camera stamp
• WRMK Dreamy Kit

Week 16

Week 16 is all about Arthur turning 6 months old and fun Easter pics.  We didn't do much, but I still managed to get some pics from our week.

I went with a yellow, blue, and gray color scheme for the week.  Seafoam was the first kit I purchased and yet it gets pushed to the side in favor of others.  I need to remind myself to use it more often.  I do like the simple geometric card design.  I accented the pictures with a few stickers.  Another clean and simple layout.

Supplies:

• PL Seafoam Kit
• PL Days of the Week Stickers
• Studio Calico Alphas
• Basic Grey Enamel dots
• Heidi Swapp stickers
• PL Baby Neutral Kit
• Recollections I Love You stickers

Archives: Project Life 2014 -- Weeks 1, 2, 3

Originally published on January 25th, 2014

I'm starting a new weekly feature highlighting my Project Life pages.  My goal is to stay on top of the weeks throughout 2014.  Making these posts a weekly feature should hold me accountable.  So here we go...

Many project lifers create a new album for each year with a title page, etc.  I started PL in October with Arthur's birth, so mine is going to look a little different.  I am hoping to keep Oct. - Dec. 2013 and all of 2014 in one album.  We'll see how that goes.  I decided to start my 2014 weekly spreads with the week of Dec. 30 - Jan. 5.  Yes, I included Dec. 30th and 31st in Week 1's spread.  I think it will help me stay organized.

Week 1

Family Album: It's another case of the missing photographs.  Darn Walgreens!  I hope to get them printed sometime this week, so I can add them in.  For the left side, I went with a winter color scheme of gray, blue, and white.  We were still in Indiana and there was almost 2 feet of snow on the ground; the colors seemed appropriate.  I went back to the day by day journaling using the PL day stickers.  For the right side, I wanted to highlight the start of 2014.  I used three inserts from the Holiday mini kit and added some silver stars.  The number chipboard stickers were from a Studio Calico kit I bought on Black Friday.  I love their silhouettes.  The "Explore" insert was a Google image that I downloaded.  I chose "Explore" as my word for 2014, so I wanted to highlight it in this first week's spread.

I added two different inserts in this week.  The first insert is my "State of the Blog" wrap up.  I added journaling cards from the PL Sunshine kit and a screenshot of the home page of my blog.  I love the bright colors and simplicity of the inserts.

The second insert highlights the rest of my Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day December pictures.  This was the first time I tried one of these challenges.  I finished it, but learned a few lessons along the way.  I used two PL Seafoam inserts as a title page and a journaling card.  To designate each day's theme, I wrote on top of a washi tape swatch adhered to the photo.  They look much better in person.  Now I really need some more washi tape to use this technique more. (Side note: I'm missing the Dec. 31st picture.  I have to get that one printed and inserted.)

Supplies:

• PL Seafoam kit
• PL Sunshine kit
• PL Holiday mini kit
• PL Day stickers
• Random stickers from stash
• Random paper from stash
• Various washi tape

Arthur's Album

Week 2

Family Album: Another week of photos speaking for themselves.  I wanted to get the rest of our vacation pictures into the album.  To highlight the crazy Midwest weather, I cropped a picture from The Weather Channel.

Supplies:

• PL Seafoam kit
• PL Baby kit

Arthur's Album

Week 3

Family Album: This week I tried to incorporate some insert cards other than the Sunshine and Seafoam kits.  I bought some random sets and partial sets online over the holidays.  I love the lighter blue and orange color combinations.  I also tried to play with pattern cards instead of using just simple designs.  Finally I decided to add "Week __" to the date cards.  (Note: I only did this for the family album.)

Supplies:

• PL Seafoam kit
• WRMK Tangerine kit
• PL Day stickers

Arthur's Album: On the left side, I did a few journaling cards and a random insert all in yellow.  I love the clean look.  The right side is all about Arthur's 3 month pictures and inserts.  The photo heavy right side balances the cleaner left side.

Supplies:

• PL Baby kit

Archives: Project Life November and December

Originally published on December 16th, 2013

I've only been at this for a few weeks, but I've already learned so much about what to do and what not to do.  My main realization is that I need to make PL work for me and just me.  I've looked at so many different examples of styles and usage and they all look amazing.  But, I can't get too wrapped up in copying some other's design.  I need to make PL work just for me.  It comes down the fact that I like simplicity.  I don't like a lot of clutter, a lot of layering, a lot of embellishment.  While it can be very pretty, that's just not my style.  My simplistic uncluttered style is evident in my pages so far.  I like clean photos and relatively clean inserts.  Although I am experimenting with adding some washi tape accents in the coming weeks.

Secondly, I really loving taking a bit of time each Sunday or Monday to do my layouts.  I figure out what pictures I want, where to put them, and which inserts to use.  Then, I journal and put the inserts in the pages.  The photos will be printed later, but I've already got each spread 90% done by Monday night.  As an extra bonus, working on my pages is a nice break from mommy duties.  I can focus just on me for 30-60 minutes.

Thirdly, while I would love to have my pictures printed instantly, I have accepted the plan of printing monthly instead.  I just don't know if home printing is worth the money and hassle at this point.  I save up my pictures until Walgreens or Snapfish or Shutterfly have a good deal and then print them.  So far, so good.

Fourth, I have added a ton of PL related products to my Amazon wishlist.  While I love everything I see, I have limited my list to my favorites.  I just need to remember to not get too stash buying happy that I over supply myself.

Fifth, taking pictures of my pages while in their plastic sleeves is tricky.  To get better pictures, I've resorted to taking the pieces out, laying them on the desk, and then photographing them...  Much better looking on the blog.

Finally, I joined a Studio Calico class starting in January for extra motivation and inspiration.  I've heard about so many people losing momentum at some point in the year.  I want to make it all the way.  And having a bit of extra help will certainly be a great idea.

Nov. 4 - 10

Highlights: This week was all about hanging out near the house...  As for the design, I stuck with my basic design of 4x6 prints and 3x4 inserts.  I added the day of the week stickers to my weekly highlights for the family album.  I'm trying to add more embellishments to my pages, but haven't quite figured that out yet.

Nov. 11 - 17

Highlights: Arthur turned one month old this week.  I made sure to add the special 1 month inserts to his pages to highlight the occasion.  For the family album, I stuck more toward the pictures speaking for themselves.  A little bit of embellishment on these pages.

Nov. 18 - 24

Highlights: A couple of trips outdoors this week.  Arthur and I went to two new parks.  I love discovering new places around here...  The holes you see were pictures that somehow didn't get printed by Walgreens.  I have about 10 different photos that didn't print, but were clearly on my order.  I had to call, complain, and get them to reprint my photos.  I just haven't stuck them back into the albums yet.  I added a few word stickers to the family album.  I don't want to over embellish my pages.  I like the cleaner look.

Nov. 25 - Dec. 1

Highlights: Arthur and I started our weekly walks at Shoreline with the mom's group.  Shoreline is a gorgeous park with gorgeous views.  We are really loving the walk, socializing with other moms and babies, and lunch at the cafe afterwards.  I caught some great Arthur expressions in this week's photos.  For the family album, I started including my photo-a-day challenge photos.  When they don't easily fit into the spreads, I have collecting them into their own inset page for the end of the month.

Extra bonus: I added in a Thanksgiving insert for Arthur's photo shoot with the turkey hat.  I didn't want to lose out on including other photos just to get these adorable ones in...  An insert seemed like the perfect way to go.  I plan on doing another insert for Christmas photos.

Dec. 2 - 8

Highlights: A pretty quiet week at home.  For my photo-a-day pics, I added each day's theme on washi tape.  I love the look and it utilizes more of my craft stash.  The cut out heart was a random chip board piece that was lying around.  I love how it stands out against the dark background in that picture.  Plus, lots of regular day-by-day style journaling.

Dec. 9 - 15

Highlights: Arthur turned 2 months old this week!  I had to include his 2 month photo shoot pictures.  If you look closely, the monthly stats insert isn't filled out.  I finished doing that yesterday.  I wanted to get his stats from the doctor's appointment.  Since we didn't do much this week, I condensed my day-by-day journaling inserts into one weekly highlights insert.  This allowed me to include more Arthur and photo-a-day pictures.

Archives: Project Life October

Originally published on November 7th, 2013

With my new method of scrapping, I journal and lay out the spreads every Sunday, but don't print pictures every week.  Instead, I will be printing them monthly for convenience and hopefully to use some of the printing deals at Snapfish and Walgreens.

I started the weekly spreads with Arthur's birth.  Overall, his and the family album are very similar.  I usually only have a few minor differences (I don't think he will care what I was blogging about in any given week or what I was reading).  I think I'm going to stay pretty constant week to week with the family album.  I love the idea of having inserts for each day that I can use to jot down what we did.  I can always change the format, but this seems really appealing right now.

Oct. 14 - 20

The big highlight of the week was that Arthur arrived, of course!  The first two photos are the weekly spread from Arthur's album.  I added the week's dates stamped onto an insert card (I will continue to do this for every week, I love the look!).  I also added some informational cards about his birth our journey home.  The second two photos are the weekly spread from the family album.  I used many of the same pictures, but instead of random inserts, I did a card for each day.  I wrote a quick list of what we did each day to remember the week better.  I love the colors on the Sunshine kit inserts and went with a fun collection of colors for this week.  Plus, I added some baby related stickers to one of the inserts to give it some more character.

Oct. 21 - 27

The highlight of the week was lots of visitors!  Arthur met his first people outside of mom, dad, and hospital staff.  He looks like he's crying in the picture with Auntie Cecilia, but he's actually yawning.  They caught us right before nap time.

Again, I did a bulleted list of weekly happenings.  I also added Arthur's inked footprint.  The ones they did in the hospital were horrible and the ink bled throughout the entire paper.  I did mine using the standard Stampin' Up ink and paper.  They're not super dark, but I still got them.

Oct. 28 - Nov. 3

It's Halloween!  Not that we actually did anything with a two week old baby, but still I had to add some Halloween themed inserts.  I bought the PL Holidays Mini-kit.  I love the insert designs and the fact that you get two large inserts and eight small inserts for each of the holidays.  I added the three dimensional Halloween themed stickers and the Happy Baby sticker from my scrapbooking stash.  For the 3x4 pictures, I just printed a regular 4x6 and cut it down to the right size.  Thankfully I had a few pictures that could be cropped to fill the slots.

Until next month...

Archives: Project Life Transition

Originally published on October 24th, 2013

With the birth of my third child, I realized that my previous method of scrapbooking was not going to work.  Mainly it took too much time and thought.  I would also let it go for months and then have to do a marathon session to catch up.  I'm sure events and commentary were lost in the process.  To be fair, I started scrapping in 2007.  I went back to scrapbook the twins' lives from their birth in 2003.  I also went back and scrapbooked my entire life in an attempt to decrease the boxes of random memorabilia and photographs.  It worked well, but I won't be able to keep up with four different albums at one time.

I started seeing more and more bloggers using the Project Life method.  I did a bit of research.  I thought about it.  And I finally decided that this method would work better for our new life.  Although I do have a few modifications to fit our life.  The twins' individual albums will stay the same.  As I don't see them everyday, it makes sense to focus on events rather than a weekly time table.  The family album and baby Arthur's album are transitioning to Project Life.  My goal is to create a spread a week or at the very least biweekly. I want to focus on meaningful moments and journaling our lives.  I love the idea of small events.  I love the idea of flexibility with PL.

In preparation, I bought a few kits to get me started.  I picked up the Baby Edition for Arthur's album (gender neutral edition full of grays and yellows), the Seafoam Edition for the family album, a mini Holiday Kit for both, and the Sunshine Edition (designed by A Beautiful Mess) for the family album.  I wasn't planning on buying that many kits, but the Holiday mini kit seemed like a good investment, plus I snapped it up for 40% at Michaels.  The Sunshine kit was just released and I love their designs too much to pass it up.  This means that I am stocked with paper inserts for probably a few years (at least a year for each album).  I also bought a Seafoam and a Baby designer paper pack to cut at my discretion.  This seems like a lot of supplies, but I keep reminding myself that this is almost all I need to create interesting scrapbooks.  I won't be randomly picking up stickers, paper, and embellishments.  I plan on using scraps and already bought supplies to doctor some of the inserts.  Some will go in as is.  It's all about customization, but I do love a clean look without lots of embellishments or layering.

So, I am officially embarking on the Project Life adventure this month.  I plan on starting the weekly spreads now that the baby has arrived. To prep, I have created a few transition/introduction pages to start the albums.  I made a nice introduction page for the family album with journaling about the transitions and my theme for the album: Change and Growth.  I journaled a bit about why we are changing scrapbooks and our family.  I added pictures of our current (before baby) family and some facts about them.  For Arthur's album, I used the same idea with different papers and inserts.

I then added in a page highlighting all my ultrasound pictures to document that part of the journey.  I duplicated that page in Arthur's album just with different designer paper.

The next pages highlight the nursery and baby shower thrown by my crafting friends.  I also inserted a few of the handmade cards I received from friends.

Overall, I am really happy with the flexibiloty of the PL system.  I can make spreads that fit our events or weeks.  But I also have a limited supply of inserts and page dividers.  It forces me to make decisions instead of getting lost in the possibilities.  Slowly, it is coming together.  I can't wait to start highlighting our weekly adventures.  I plan on sharing them on the blog on a monthly basis.  Look for them soon...

Supplies used:

• PL Seafoam edition kit
• PL Seafoam designer paper
• PL Sunshine edition kit
• PL Baby edition kit
• PL Baby designer paper
• American Crafts D-ring binder (black and lime green)
• Corner rounder
• Date stamp
• Random baby stickers from stash
• Black marker