The first week of 2013 was mostly spent away with a bunch of friends camping. So I decided just to do the whole layout on this trip. I fluffed around with photos and how I wanted to do it for a while, but I think now, finished up to week 5, I'm on a roll and have figured out my style (for this year anyway).
So without further fluffing, here's my week 1 layouts.
As I used the Design F protector for my Title Page, I used it for the left of week 1 also. And the 'standard' Design A on the right.
I have been doing most of my designing digitally, in Photoshop CS5. I'm still learning how to do things, but I can do some basic digi scrapbooking, layering, resizing, and I've just learnt how to use brushes too.
In the first week of the year, I spent countless hours scouring Pinterest and other blogs finding and downloading free journalling cards and filler designs. There's literally hundreds out there from some super talented people! I've also coupled these with a few of the Becky Higgins digital kits I've bought - Baby for Him and Clementine - and have mixed things up a bit.
For this first week, I grabbed out the bits and pieces of alphas I have leftover from my scrapbooking days (that's about all I kept!), and added some words to the photos for dimension. This actually ended up taking AGES though, so I've scrapped that technique already and am adding all my text now in PS.
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Week Two was a bit of a mish-mash, and I'm still not entirely loving this layout. Its a little too busy. Too many bright colours maybe?
But because I'm aiming for as simple as I can (still pretty far from really simple though!), I'm choosing to move forward even when I don't love something. The idea of PL is to record and document, not to make it perfectly pretty. So I'm sticking with that. Otherwise I'll never get through.
It was school holidays, so we did quite a few different things - whether that's outings to the movies or just hanging at home going bike-riding or playing Lego or board games.
This is my favourite card for the week. I asked the kids each to write for me their favourite part of the movie we went to see as a family - Wreck-It Ralph. I initially intended to write a sentence from each child onto one journalling card to include. However Jaidyn wrote almost an essay for his favourite part, and the task got thrown in the 'too hard' basket with Eli. Lani wrote hers and drew a cute little picture at the bottom of the cinema screen. And so I scanned her writing sample in, lightened and edited it a little so it was easier to read the writing, and added it to a cute journalling card (from the BH Baby For Him kit).
I just LOVE how it turned out, and the fact that I now have a writing sample frozen in time!
I also made up a quick journalling card to record some of the bits and pieces Kai is doing at 4 months old. I'll try to include one of these each month in our family album - and may even just throw the same one into his baby album too (if I ever get to doing it!).
I went a little crazy buying some of Ali Edwards gorgeous brushes. She has such a gorgeous cursive, hand-scrawled writing that I just had to have it in a few different ways to add to my photos. So far, I've used them HEAPS! Love them. There's so many designs and sets available from www.designerdigitals.com.
Well there's Weeks 1 & 2. I'm up to date to Week 5 currently, so will come back soon and blog the rest.
So far I'm LOVING this project! I will admit I am probably in a little over my head with going weekly (when initially I was only going to do monthly layouts), but I couldn't resist, and was finding it hard to narrow down my January photos.
Hopefully I can find some time (between 4 kids including a baby and starting my new University degree part-time in 2 weeks time!) to go back and do monthly spreads of 2012 and 2011, and try and keep up to date with Kai's album - at least the monthly pages!
Are you doing Project Life? I'd love to see!! Link me to your Project Life please!!??
Love your pages. Perfect mix of photos and journalling!
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