Archives: Project Life 2014 -- Weeks 11 and 12

Originally published on March 29th, 2014

Week 11

Family Album: This week I chose to go back to using one of my "older" kits -- WRMK Tangerine.  My idea is to rotate my various kits to get a different color/design scheme each week.  I like the little pops of design with the Tangerine kit.  I added some cute labeling tags to help highlight a few of the pictures.

As to the pictures and events, this week is very Arthur heavy.  Oh wait... It's always Arthur heavy.  Anyway, I chose to include some adorable candid shots and eating shots.  I love the face he makes while eating.  It always looks like he hates it, but he eats everything.  The right hand page has a few random shots and his 5 month pictures.  I always have to include the stats insert.  My favorite shot of the week is the one where he's crawling towards me (left side, bottom left picture).

Supplies:

• WRMK Tangerine
• Labels from Studio Calico kit
• Random stamps
• PL Neutral Baby (monthly stat insert)

Arthur's Album:  This week I added in some of the new cards from the Baby for Him kit.  I love the cool blues and greens of this spread. The left side is a wrap-up of our week.  The right side is all about his 5 month pictures and milestones.

Supplies:

• PL Neutral Baby Kit
• PL Baby Boy Kit
• Random stamps
• Labels from Studio Calico Kit
• Recollections stickers

Week 12

Family Album: I changed up my kits yet again and went with some of the random cards from my Studio Calico kits (Sept. and Oct. 2013).  I kept the cards a cool blue and gray with pops of pink.  I especially love my pink enamel dots and my new camera stamp (thank you Michael's $2 bin).

The pictures from this week came from two big events.  The left side highlights our morning at Washington Park.  Arthur had a great time crawling around.  And I had a great time taking some pics and reading in the sunshine.  The right side highlights Arthur's first official playdate.  I grabbed a few cute pics and stole a few from the other moms.  My favorite is the pic of Arthur and his friend Luke and their dueling grump faces (right side, top left).

Supplies:

• Studio Calico Kits -- Sept and Oct 2013
• Michael's stamps
• Basic Grey enamel dots
• Random stamps and alphabet stickers

Arthur's Album: Arthur's spread focused on lots of pictures.  I decided to use the back side of the inserts from the previous week.  Those were reddish so I picked two more reddish inserts for the right side.  I've realized that most of Arthur's spreads are light on embellishments and heavy on pictures.  And I'm okay with that!

Supplies:

• PL Baby Boy Kit
• Random stamps

Archives: Project Life 2014 -- Weeks 7 and 8

Originally published on March 1st, 2014Week 7

Family Album: This week was a combination of regular activities, Valentine's Day, and Arthur turning 4 months.  I decided to split the spread.  The left side focuses on our regular activities.  I used a nice orange and turquoise palette to add visual interest.  Instead of adding another picture, I chose to use a 4x6 pocket as my weekly highlights insert.  I didn't add much embellishment: space man stamp and piece of washi tape was all.  The right side was heavy on Arthur's milestones.  The red is a bit overwhelming, but I still think it looks nice.

Supplies:

• WRMK Tangerine Journalling Kit
• PL Holidays Mini Kit
• PL Neutral Baby Kit
• SU Stamp (space man)
• Random embellishments

Arthur's Album: Arthur's album is split between Valentine's Day (left side) and 4 months (right side).  I wanted to create some type of balance in the spread.  Other than the hearts, I didn't add any embellishments.

Supplies:

• PL Neutral Baby Kit
• PL Holiday Mini Kit
• Random embellishments

Week 8

Family Album: Somehow I completely lost the right side picture of this week's spread.  Oh well.  I'll get it finished soon.  I kept the embellishing at a minimum.  I relied on some alphabet stickers to add some interest to the track pictures.  I love the visual interest of this week's page.

Supplies:

• WRMK Tangerine Journaling Kit
• Random stamp and alphabet stamps
• Camera charm

Arthur's Album: Arthur's album is missing one picture that will have to go onto the next picture order.  No embellishments this week, but I did a huge amount of journaling.  I am getting better at storytelling; capturing those little moments.

Supplies:

• PL Neutral Baby Kit

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: Cards #29

Originally published on January 19th, 2014 Before getting to the actual crafting, I wasn't able to get my SU order for December before leaving for Indiana.  I completely forget what I even ordered.  I was able to collect it at January stamp club.  Oh yeah, and December was my hostess month.  Lots and lots of goodies.

At stamp club, we made some cute cards.  It was also the start of our new 6 month round.  We drew hostess months and I got February.  Just in time for Sale-a-bration.  Now what should I order?

On the PL front, I finally got everything organized to put together the weekly spreads for the holidays.  I also got some great ideas from my Studio Calico class I joined for January.  Can't wait to put some of them into my spreads.  And I decided to do a monthly wrap-up page with my books read, life goals and progress, and photo a day pics.  I didn't want to have to include every photo a day pic, so I thought to combine some of my features into a monthly wrap up page.  Each month has one side (two months per page protector) using design F.  I have room for eight photo a day choice pics.  I went through and picked title, books read, and life goals inserts for each month.  I tried to play with some color schemes.  I plan on adding embellishments as I do the months.  In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of January's page:

Shopping Scores: Lots of new things!  I picked up some Project Life supplies online: G and H page protectors (for inserts), Seasons Mini Kit (had Holiday, wanted general seasons), a WRMK 3x4 and 4x6 kit (Tangerine), and some random cards from a fellow PLer (from Honey and Kraft kits).  And then I went to Michael's for snail and ended up buying a corner rounder punch (mine is horrid!) and a 2in circle punch.