Week 18 was a busy one for us, and once again we failed at photographing it. I really need to figure out a way to fix this bad habit.
But until then, I'll have to be okay with documenting these things via journaling.
I used the May Citrus Twist Kits for this week's spread, and I really love all the pinks. It's not a color I normally use very much in our family album, but this week it worked.
If you watch the video, you'll see that I stamped the wrong week number at first. I ended up stamping the correct number on a piece of scrap paper, fussy cutting it out, and gluing it over my mistake. If you look closely you can see it, but I'm learning to be okay with these small imperfections.
I'm back in my Traveler's Notebook today with my February spread for 2018. You can read more about this notebook and see my January layout here.
This month's spread is all about our new (to us) dog, Foxie. We brought her into our family in February of this year after many, many months of debate and discussion, and I'm so glad that we did. It hasn't always been easy, and things definitely haven't been perfect, but she's such a sweet girl, and we can see how happy being here has made her.
I'm using a traveler's notebook insert from Freckled Fawn, and most of the supplies come from the April & May Citrus Twist Kits Pocket Life kits.
Today I'm sharing my Week 17 spread with all of you, and I have to be honest. This is not my favorite layout. It just didn't come together in the end like I had hoped it would. I mean, it's okay. It's not terrible. But it's not great.
Still, it's done. The photos are printed and the memories are recorded.
If you watch the video or look closely at the photos, you'll notice two rather large errors. The first one I caught immediately. I misspelled the word "friend" in my journaling. *Facepalm* How do these things happen? It's like I revert back to third grade every time I have to physically write something down. Ugh. Anyway, I caught it right away and used a white gel pen to cover my mistake. (I forgot to make the correction before taking the photos below, but rest assured it is corrected and living peacefully in my album as we speak.)
The second mistake is in my typed journaling, where I missed the word "the" in "be in the moment." Again, I don't know how these things happen. And this one I didn't catch until long after the photos were taken. I decided to just leave it. Maybe the future will need proof that I wasn't perfect. :)
So if you want to watch me make all of these mistakes (and many more), here's the video:
And feel free to have a giggle at the imperfections in the close-ups below.
This week I'm going back and filling in a week I skipped earlier this year. Because I don't have a kit for this month, I decided to grab an old one from my stash.
To round things out, I also grabbed a couple pieces from my stash, including an alpha and a set of phrase stickers from other Studio Calico kits and these puffy star stickers from Pinkfresh Studio.
Week 16 was a busy one for us. There were concerts, birthdays, lectures, and book readings. As with most of my busier weeks, I forgot to take photos of most of them. Thus goes life.
So instead of photos, I chose to do some simple journaling to document some of these events. Which means that for once my spread is journaling card heavy as opposed to photo heavy. And I really like how it turned out.
I used products from the April Citrus Twist Kits Pocket Life Kit almost exclusively, with the exception of the Thickers I used on my title (available here) and the washi tape I used to add some hidden journaling (available here). Both are older products from my stash, so availability may be sketchy.
Since we are currently in the midst of documenting our Week In The Life for this year, I thought it would be fun to share my album from last year in a quick walkthrough.
Last year I decided to purchase the WITL kit from Ali Edwards, mostly because the majority of my supplies were boxed away or still at our other house, and I didn't think I would have the time to pull together a kit of my own. Plus, I loved Ali's kit.
During the week, I took pretty extensive notes every day and of course, I tried to photograph as much as possible. Some days I did better than others, but I still feel like this album gives us an accurate picture of our typical week at the time...which is the whole point of this project.
Although it was my intention and I was well-prepared to do so, I did not finish this album in a timely manner. In fact, I didn't finish this album entirely until this month. But I am happy that I was able to complete it before this year's WITL began, because having two albums "in process" would likely have been too much for me (and one or the other would have been a failure).
All the playing I did in a traveler's notebook for 30 Days of Lists made me really want to start using the format more for documenting, so I decided to start a TN insert for 2018. My goal is to do one spread each month that documents something memorable from that month. I'm specifically focusing on my own experiences for this insert, rather than the stories and memories that will get documented in my Project Life spreads and 12x12 albums.
It's not that I expect this to be the only thing I document in a TN; I just want to give myself a reason to consistently use this format this year. I'm hoping it will be the beginning of a new habit, and that I'll continue to do more documentation in the TN size, since it's smaller and much easier to deal with, both as I create and after they're full.
So here's my try at a spread for January. I knew right away that I wanted to use this mandala-style paper from the Maggie Holmes Flourish collection that came in the March Citrus Twist Kits Pocket Life Kit for this page. It's an absolutely gorgeous print, and I wanted to let it shine.
Most everything I used for this spread came from the March kit, with the exception of the puffy coffee sticker from Freckled Fawn (no longer available) and the black ink splatters from Studio Calico (also no longer available). You can see my entire process in the video below.
This week's spread came together pretty quickly. I really love how working with a kit limits my supply choices and helps me get these spreads done faster than if I had to dig through my stash for each little element. For this spread, I used the April Pocket Life Kit from Citrus Twist Kits.
Week 15 was pretty busy, and like most busy weeks, I forgot to take a lot of photos. What's not pictured is the small insert I added along with this spread with some of the bits & pieces of our week (programs and invitations from some of the events, etc.). I just used a 6x8 page protector to add them into the album. No embellishments. No fuss.