My process is basically the same whether I'm doing a recent week or a catch-up week. I have a fairly streamlined system that works for me regardless of the time period I'm capturing, though I'm rarely up to date, so I am most often catching up. The week I'll be sharing today & tomorrow happens to be week 2 of this year.
Basically, OhLife is just a way of journaling your day. After you sign up, you'll receive an email once a day reminding you to journal about what happened. All you have to do is reply to the email and OhLife automatically adds the entry to your online journal. It's completely secure, so there are no worries about privacy, and you can easily download your entries to print or simply access them in your online journal. I prefer to download and print my entries for each week, and I usually do this several weeks at a time (because I am rarely fully caught up with my album).
Once I have my journaling for the week, I make note of the photos I have for each day. I use my iPhone 5 almost exclusively for taking photos during the week. From there, my images are automatically downloaded to iPhoto on my computer via iCloud. This is a HUGE timesaver. It used to take me much longer to sort and upload my photos. I'm also able to import any photos that J may have takes through our shared photostream. I love that I'm able to very easily add his perspective on our week this way!
As you can see above, all the images are organized by month in my iPhoto events folders, so I only have to click on the appropriate folder, scroll to the dates I'm documenting, pick which photos I'd like to use, and make note of them on my OhLife printout. I write down the file name as well as a short description, that way
I almost always edit my photos before printing them. Because I use my phone 99.99% of the time and because I am certainly no photographer, I rely on several photo editing programs to help make them presentable:
- Pictapgo is an iOS app by Totally Rad. This is definitely my favorite way of editing my photos. There are tons of filters, but mostly I just use it as an easy way to lighten dark iPhone images. I highly recommend this app if you're an iPhone user.
- When I want to do more work with my photos, I use Photoshop. I have CS5 on my computer, and while I am certainly no Photoshop expert, I'm capable enough to do some basic editing. I have several actions installed, but the ones offered by The Pioneer Woman are by far my most-used.
- I recently discovered the PicFrame app and have fallen in love with how easy it is. I've always wanted my photos to have a white border, but was put off by the extra work it requires. Thankfully, this app makes it super easy! It's also an easy way to make photo collages, which is perfect for getting more photos into a spread without adding inserts.
Once I have all of my photos edited, it's time to get them printed. I used to print a lot of my photos at home, but my printer isn't a designated photo printer, and the quality was starting to bother me. So lately I've been sending my photos out to various printers. I have printed with Shutterfly, Snapfish, Walmart, Walgreens, Meijer, and CVS, and other than a small fiasco with my most recently printed order from Walgreens, they all seem to be pretty equal to me - not the best in quality, but better than I can do at home. I'd love to be able to print all of my photos with Persnickety Prints, but it's just not within my budge. So when it's time to print, I usually go with wherever there's a sale.
So that pretty much covers my journaling and photo storage, editing, and printing methods. There's one more thing I wanted to mention before I leave you for today, and that's how I deal with all of the little bits and pieces of ephemera that I include in my spreads.
For each week of the year, I make a file. I use regular ol' office supply store files and label them with the week number and the dates it includes. I usually do this months in advance. Then, as the weeks go by, I fill them with al the little pieces of our lives: receipts, coffee sleeves, food labels, name tags, etc. When I create the OhLife printouts, these go in the file too. And when I print multiple weeks worth of photos, I date each one and put them in their respective file folders as well. That way when I'm ready to complete a Project Life spread, I only need to grab my file for that week and I have everything I need.
As I said before, I'm rarely up to date with my album, and I am often doing all of the above steps in batches. To keep track of what's been done for each week, I keep a binder with a checklist. As I print the OhLife file or edit the photos for that week, I check each task off on my checklist.
Without these systems, I would never know what still needed to be done, know where my ephemera or photos for that week were, or remember many of the stories I wanted to record. I've actually started making these folders for previous years as well in the hope that at some point, when I have the time, I can go back and easily put together Project Life albums for most of our years together.
Wow, that is one wordy post! Be sure to check back tomorrow when I'll be sharing the more fun parts of putting together my Project Life spread! :)
**ETA: The Part 2 post is now live! You can find it here.**
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