Project Life Share - January 2013

I just realized that I shared February with you before I shared January!

So, without further ado, here is some of our January!

 

 

I chose to stay pretty neutral for the cover page this year, just depicting a few things about our family.

 

 

 

As you can see, this month I have a lot of journaling going on and I chose many different forms of it. Predominantly, for the more wordy posts, I tend to use the computer however and print either directly on the journaling cards themselves, or on a separate sheet of paper, which I then trim to size and adhere on the journaling card.

 

 

 

 

I used Cathy Zielske’s templates for the “conversation with” pages. It’s such a fun way to make a snapshot of where the kiddos are at that point in time!

 

 

 

Excuse the blur please, my DSLR seems to be on it’s last leg and it goes through fits where it just won’t do any photos quite right. Hopefully you get the idea though!

 

 

The blank spot is where the invitation to a party is kept. Rather than blurring it all out, I just took it out before photographing this page!

 

 

More weird blur - sorry!

 

 

And that was January! Now I just need to catch up and fill in the gaps on March and April and then I can share that with you too!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

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My favorite Project Life ingredients

In yesterday’s post I covered the tools that I love first and foremost because they ensure a smooth work flow  for Project Life.

Today I want to continue that theme with some of my other favorite Project Life “ingredients” that I love, but that don’t necessarily stand out because of their practicality!

 

1. 6x6 Paper Pads.

I almost exclusively use these smaller paper pads for my Project Life.

 

 

Not only is the pattern smaller, which works much better for the smaller “layouts” and cards, but cutting those papers is quick and easy. I tend to go about it in much the same way every time.

Line up my 6x6 paper at the 4 inch mark of my Fiskars paper cutter to cut a 6x4. Then I have a 2” strip of that paper left to make a border on another card. If I need 3x4 cards, I cut the 6x4 in half.

 

 

If I look through my stash of papers, I find that I mostly have My Mind’s eye papers, closely followed by Studio Calico and some Teresa Collins pads. I find that most of the My Mind’s eye papers coordinate throughout collections and it helps with the cohesiveness throughout the album! AND I love their colors and patterns!

 

2. Mini Alpha Stickers.

I love to use a variety of chipboard stickers and alphas on my Project Life inserts, but my current favorites are the Basic Grey Micro Mono Alpha Stickers. I only just found them recently and I have since gotten them in every color I can find available. They are the perfect size for the smaller size cards!

 

3. Wood Veneer Embellishments.

Uhm, yes, well I have confessed to an ever so slight (ha!) obsession with Wood Veneer Embellishments before. I just love, love, love them! I could put one or more of those on pretty much every photo or card I put in my album (I do restrain myself from doing that though!) But yes,  I have a LOT of those and I love them. Have I mentioned that I love them?!

 

 

4. Office products.

Yes, I like to use office products too. They are easily accessible, usually inexpensive and they are a great thing to use in Project Life.

For example, Return Address Labels.

Love them for adding one sentence journaling to photos! Sometimes I use them plain, in the typewriter, or I first run them through my printer and print a faint grid pattern on them and then type or write on them! It’s also fairly easy to print other thing on the labels, like borders, icons etc. by using the corresponding template (I use Avery) that is available on the web. Easy customization, for not a lot of money considering that those labels go a LONG way!

 

Large Shipping Labels work really well too for the strip journaling that I love to do! I bought a pack of these many years ago for shipping purposes for my business and I’m still using them now!

 

 

Parcel tags.

Love using parcel tags, as you can see! They are quick and easy and add little (or larger depending on what size you use) areas for photos, journaling, stamping or embellishments. I tend to use the this size and this size the most.

 

Index cards.

Another quick and easy card for journaling can be made out of index cards, be they gridded or lined. They are inexpensive, easily available and also tend to go a long way! The only draw back that I have found for index cards is that the line or grid pattern is usually a lot stronger than I would like, which works for some things, but not as well for others. But I do have both on hand and use them regularly!

 

5. A few assorted punches.

As many of you are well aware, I have a Silhouette Craft Cutter, so why would I need punches?

Well, as awesome as the Craft Cutter is, sometimes I’m left with a little square of something and it’s just a LOT easier to punch a quick circle out of it, rather than design it in the software, align everything just right (which can be tricky) and then have the machine cut it. So, I have an assortment of circle, label and corner punches to make things easier!

 

5. Silhouette Craft Cutter.

Ah yes, I love that little machine . It’s great to be able to cut just about anything I might want or need for my project Life! What can I say - it’s an awesome machine and not just for project life, for all sorts of arts and crafts projects!

 

 

6. Sewing Machine.

 

 

A lot of my journaling cards have machine sewing on them. It is usually very simple, just a straight line here and there. That’s how I like it best. Sometimes I like to branch out a little with some more involved decorative stitching, but I like simple the best. Not only does it finish off the cards in my opinion, it also helps with adhering things, so it’s a dual benefit!

 

 

7. Various Shapes and Sizes of Photo Pocket Pages.

Last, but by no means least, I LOVE to mix up different shapes and sizes of Photo Pocket Pages in my album. It makes the whole thing a little bit more interactive and fun, AND it gives you more possibilities of fitting your cards and photos in just the right size and orientation slots that you need!

 

I also love the big envelope pages in the back of my album to collect special kid’s drawings, report cards, assorted school stuff, rewards and all the other things that I want to keep in the original and that are too large or too many to fit into the album itself!

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Current Project Life - February 2013

Since I now have my Project Life friendly, organized space, I am much more able to do a little bit every other day or so, which keeps me pretty current with my Project Life album! Yay! It’s a brand new feeling and I like it!

Since I have things also more accessible and out in the open, I find myself using a lot more of my embellishments and many an PL insert ended up as a simple mini layout! I like that too!

I’ve been having a lot of fun with it this month and want to share! There will be a lot of photos, so bear with me!

 

As you will see, I also used lots of different sized inserts again this month! To make it easier to see which is which, I took the album pages apart this time!

We start out with this 4x6 one. I love those!

First the month title card, which I always make, even though I also have monthly dividers in my album. It just gets me into the mood of the month a bit! You may also notice that I’ve gone a lot more “flowery” this month. It was initially meant to be a Valentine thing, but now I’m really starting to like it, so I think I might weave in more flowery papers here and there as I go!

 

 

In the middle card I have the journaling behind the photo. I secured the photo with some washi tape and then some machine stitching. When you flip the photo open, the journaling is revealed underneath.

 

 

 

Moving on to the back of that first plastic insert. I have a photo of the family watching the super bowl. I put the embellishments straight on the photo as there was a) room, and b) most of the superbowl journaling was already on the previous insert.

I also did a layout on our usual bedtime routine at the moment. I really love writing a little about our daily routines and how they change through the years as the kids grow!

Lastly, there is a layout about the first signs of life in our garden!

 

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Next I have a larger card insert, just to keep things interesting!

 

 

The back is pretty much all dedicated to Valentine’s day and it even spilled over into the next page a little. I also have an big envelope in the back of the folder where I collect drawings, cards and such I get from the kids for special occasions, so they don’t all need to be in the slots here.

 

 

 

Here’s another smaller insert again. I really liked those this month! I don’t really tend to plan out my layouts in advance, I go with what I need to write about and make it fit somehow!

 

 

Love those little month/date pockets for stashing various things. This month I put the February Lottery ticket and some other little misc. bits and pieces in there!

 

 

Moving on to the next insert now, with more “hidden” journaling.  Incidently, this is definitely my most used and favorite Pocket Pages (Design G) !

 

 

The card with the “this” arrow actually flips open to reveal a vellum pocket I sewed onto the card underneath. In it I have accordion folded a little printout of my blog post, describing my Project Life organization around the office!

 

 

I might still want to add a few notes or embellishments to that empty space under that flip card. Looks a little bare now that I took a picture of it!

 

 

It might look quite work intensive, but really it isn’t. For example, with this blog post, I went and saved the blog entry as a pdf, which I then opened in Photoshop. With the “print” feature I have on my blog, you can even specify which pictures you want included and which you don’t. So once saved, I right click the PDF file and choose “open with Photoshop”. Before it opens in Photoshop, I can then specify what size I would like the  finished documents to open as. I had measured my vellum pocket and determined that 2.5 inches in width would do it.  After they all opened in Photoshop, I just stuck them together and printed it out on regular printing paper. In this case the post was longer than a regular sheet of printing paper, so I had to stick a few together to make a continuous sheet, but that is optional. You could also just add the pages loosely or stapled together.

 

I love doing this kind of thing for long journaling or for incorporating some of my blog posts!

 

And then we move on to the next page! Somehow I ended up doing a lot of journaling this month. I don’t always have the time to do it, but I do enjoy it when it does happen as it’s so nice to look back on the stories and descriptions later on!

 

 

 

Which brings me to another journaling insert. I did it much the same way as the blog post insert, only this one isn’t so long. Since the journaling is a bit more of a personal nature, I didn’t want it to show straight away, so I folded this one the other way around, with one of Ali Edwards words I cut in the Silhouette stuck on the front. All of it pulls out from the sewn vellum pocket and slides back in.

 

 

 

This brings us to the last insert for this month. These are new inserts for me at a new size and I’m really enjoying doing some 4x4 cards! Just for a change! These are Photo Pocket Pages - Design I.

 

 

And the last page of inserts before March starts!

 

 

And that is February! I have to admit, I spent a lot more effort on the individual cards and layouts this month, but I really enjoyed it. And going by the increase in embellishments, having things organized, easily accessible and the small stuff out in the open is really benefiting my Project Life work flow! Yay!

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Project Life - Catching Up! (December)

 

And here I am with the December Spread. Since I was very much behind on Project Life throughout the 3 months or so prior, I thought it might be fun to make an effort to do something every day for December.

Since I love Advent anyway and there is actually a lot to record around this time of year it seemed the perfect month to do it! Hence the December Daily.

On this spread I seemed to have a pretty good balance of pictures and journaling - wish that would always work out that well. The only thing that is maybe different, is the journaling behind the doily. It folds open when you pull out the card to reveal all the journaling.

 

As you can see I finally used up the rest of the journaling cards I made way back when. I wrote about them here.

 

 

 

Love it when the kiddos contribute drawings or their stories!

 

 

 

A cutout filler card I cut with the Silhouette.

 

 

 

 

On this next spread I have actually a lot of journaling going on, but it’s mostly hidden behind the photos. All of them pull out and either have a card type layout that folds open or have  a long piece of paper taped to the back to reveal the journaling, which is then folded up accordion style.

 

 

At the bottom left I sewed a vellum pocket on the card with some silver thread. The folded up paper that tucks  inside  the vellum pocket, lists the gifts each of us got for Christmas!

 

 

As you can see, I’m still missing the journaling to summarize Christmas Day events. I have written a fair bit about it already in other places of the album, but I wanted this as a quick summary.

 

 

And I’m also still missing some journaling here, as well as a photograph.

 

 

 

And this is pretty much December, once I caught up on the two missing items and journaling the New Year’s Eve photos.

Why am I showing you unfinished spreads? Because one of my next posts will be about catching up with Project Life. From mildly behind to totally, overwhelmingly behind!

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