project life mini album

In November Jordy and I went on a trip to Florida and 4 night cruise to the Bahamas. I knew I wanted to scrapbook our trip somehow but wasn't in the mood to do a traditional 12x12 album, so it was project life mini album to the rescue!

This album came together SO quickly, I couldn't believe it! I used Becky Higgins mini album in Rain and the travel themed pocket page cards by Me and My Big Ideas. I also bought the Mambi Card Pad in Designer Colors (also by Me and My Big Ideas) and cut some of it down to fit the pockets.

Even though I devoted an entire album to this trip I still wanted to document it in some way in my 2013 project life album. I had seen this idea pop up in various places and wanted to try it out myself of using a 12x12 picture and cutting it up to fit the project life pages. I sent my mom two high resolution photos that I wanted to use and she did her magic in Photoshop and then sent me back 6 pieces of the picture for me to print out.

Accompanying the large 12 x 12 picture I used I cut up some maps from Universal Studios, Magic Kingdom, and a brochure from the Kennedy Space Centre that I wanted to show.

We had such a great time away together and are already dreaming up our next cruise!

project life 2013

I have been actively working on a project life album for 2013 despite not sharing any pictures of it yet. Maybe actively is the wrong word, but I have documenting each week! You may remember that I tried project life for the first time in 2011 and you can see all of those posts here. This year I am doing a lot of things the same, but a few things are different this time around.
     - I am still using a two page spread for each week, but I am mixing it up with the different style of page protectors. The basic design A continues to be a favorite though.
     - I am not using the day stickers or date stamp in my album. I used those for a while in 2011 but discontinued somewhere around the middle of the year because they just weren't working for me.
     - I am not putting any 'traditional' scrapbook pages in my album, or at least I haven't yet and don't plan on it.
     - This year I am using the Olive edition designed by Heather Bailey. It is super girly but the colors in it are beautiful - greens, blues, pinks and oranges! Product available here.

Design A & D

This week I included a newspaper clipping that I was interviewed in about the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. I also included a screen shot from the online highway hotline showing all the roads that were closed near Moose Jaw from our awful weather.

Design F & A

I like to use design F when I am short on pictures for the week or have several small iphone photos to use.

Design A & C

Design C is great for when you want to include more pictures but don't have the space. I have used this pocket page to high light two trips to visit family as well as house pictures.

Design F & A

Again, just bits of life that make up why project life is so great.

Design A & D

This is by far my favorite spread from the year, the colors in the pictures just work great with the colors in the Olive kit!

Design F & A

Design C

This is exactly why I love project life - getting to document the big and small moments in life like buying our first home!

a week in the life: the album

Earlier I shared a couple of posts from my 'week in the life' that I was documenting and today I wanted to share the finished album. I used a red American Crafts 8x8 album and I loved working with the compact size. Ali Edwards, the originator of this series used an 8.5x11 and I think that would also be really fun to try some time.

(quilt post coming soon!)

I chose a really simple two page spread to use throughout the book because I thought that the consistency of it would tell the story the best.

On each spread I used the top of a note card that I cut off as well as a day of the week sticker. I didn't worry to much about color, I just mixed them up for a random look.

Also on each page I used the cricut machine to cut out a scallop and oversized brown numbers for the date. Again, I varied the scallop color but kept the same consistency by using the brown cardstock.

"Our life in a nutshell"

week in the life: part two

As a continuation from my last post, I wanted to share some more pictures of the latter half of documenting 'A Week in the Life'. I am happy I stuck with this project throughout the week and I think it will be fun to stick it all together next weekend at National Scrapbooking Day. Read some of my thoughts on the process below...

Total number of photos taken this week: 138 (plus a few duplicates and garbage ones)

I think that today was the hardest day for me to have the ambition to take out my camera. It's been raining the past few days and everything seems a little gloomy. Sunday's are super low key here usually so I was at a bit of a loss as to what to photograph. Like I mentioned earlier I am really happy I stuck with this though and when I look at all the pictures together I love how they capture a little glimpse of our life right now.

My plan for the album is to use an 8.5" x 8.5" and do a two page spread for each day. I am also planning on printing the pictures to be 2" x 3" and do a similar grid layout on each spread. I have quite a bit of supplies left over from my project life album and I am hoping on incorporating those into this album as well since the theme goes so well.

week in the life

I have always loved Ali Edward's 'Week in the Life' series that she does each year. I decided to take the plunge this year and attempt my own week in the life album. I take no where near the amount of pictures she does each day (she averages like 80!) but I am trying to be more intentional about taking pictures throughout my day and capture little details. Here are some of my shots so far:

One thing that I have noticed throughout this week is the lack of photots of Jordy and his own activities. He's been working a lot this week so maybe that's why I'm missing out on these photos but I am hoping to make up for it on the weekend!

I've also realized that I take a lot of pictures of food (lol).

My plan is to print off all the pictures and write up some simple journaling blocks so that I can assemble the album next weekend at National Scrapbooking Day. I will be sure to post pictures once it is complete!

Have any of you participated in a 'Week in the Life' before? What has your experience been?

scrapbook calendar: march

I just wasn't feeling it this month. I thought I should still continue the monthly theme of posting the sample layout anyways though! I don't know, what do you think, are any of you inspired by this layout? If you make a page using this, send me a link, I would love to see your interpretation of it!

scrapbook calendar: february

Whoops, I guess this post is a little bit late! Nevertheless, here is my layout inspired by my calendar for February. See January's post here!

Here is the original sketch and sample layout:

As you can see I stuck fairly close to the sample layout, I liked it a lot better than the original sketch. I thought that this layout would work perfectly in my wedding album that I am currently working on. It is the month of love after all!

I used the lacy labels cricut cartridge to make accents for this page, I would highly reccomend this cartridge, it is one of my favorites!

scrapbook calendar: january

For Christmas I got a fun calendar from my mom which features a different scrapbooking layout and sample page for each month. I thought it would be fun to try and do each month's layout as a way to try new things in my scrapbooking since it is so easy to get into a rut.  Here is January's sample layout:

I love the colors that they used in this page, but opted for something different in my layout. This page shows something that Jordy and I do alot - play board games. It is one of my favorite things to do together and we often take Ticket to Ride or Crib to the coffee shop and play while sipping latte's!

I used some little staple details on various parts of the edge because I thought it mimicked the train tracks in the game.

I already have February's layout done so I'll be sure to post that sometime soon!

project life: recap

Yesterday I wrapped up my project life album. I had fallen (quite) a bit behind so it was time consuming to catch up, but I am so so glad I stuck with it and finished, the end result is totally worth it. Some things I liked about this system is that it's simple. Shoot, print, write, and you're done. It is a great way to capture the everyday moments of life and pay attention to the details that you might have otherwise skipped over. I wanted to include a bit of 'normal' scrapbooking into my album so I ended up doing 3 double sided 12x12 spreads. I simply inserted the page in between the week's pages. See below for the finished pages:

What can I say, apparently I love kraft paper! Another thing that I included in this album was a newspaper clipping of the fundraising campaign I headed up. I simply cut the page to the size I wanted it, inserted it into a page protector, sewed up the side and cut off the excess, so simple!

The kit comes with pieces for the end page already in it, but I wanted to do something different for the other side so I cut down the Christmas cards we got and included them to. I thought that was a great solution since you realistically can't keep a stack of cards around all year, but I didn't want to just throw them out!

I hope you have enjoyed my 'project life' posts here on the blog, and would recommend this product to anyone interested in memory keeping. The possibilities are endless!