I'm really loving the soft rainbow colors of this spread. There have been a lot of rainbow pages out there lately, and I've been dying to make of for myself. I'm not sure this qualifies, so you may expect more in the future!
Hey there! With September drawing ever near and along with it the next round of 30 Days of Lists, I thought it would be a good time to finally share my completed album from March's round of listing.
To be honest, I'm surprised by how much I loved doing this project. The lists were fun to make, and the pages were a great random creative outlet. You know, the kind of project where anything goes and there are no rules, and you're free to be as creative as you want. Yeah, it was a fun project.
So I have to upfront and say that I did NOT complete this album in the 30 days. I did make my lists on the appropriate days, but I just kept them on a sheet of notepaper in my planner until I had time to play with supplies and make the daily pages. There's no way I could complete something like this in real time!
So if you're curious to see my finished work, here's a quick flip through:
A while back I wrote a series of posts about my Project Life process (you can see them here and here), and I'm surprised to say that my process hasn't changed all that much. I still use the PicTapGo app and iPhoto, although I now print mostly from home instead of sending my photos off to a printer. I still prefer to work with kits, although most of my kits these days are ones that I've purchased rather than ones I made myself. And I still go through the same general steps when putting my spreads together, although it definitely doesn't take me as much time as it used to.
But today I wanted to talk to you specifically about catching up when you're behind on Project Life. I wish that I had some magic answer that made this process easy and painless, but I don't. Really it comes down to setting aside time and doing the work. But since I am habitually behind on my Project Life spreads, I have found a few things that help me get this done.
The first is batch processing. When I'm trying to get caught up, I always do the steps in batches. That means I'll edit photos for multiple weeks at a time before moving on to the next step with any of them. I do the same with printing, dating, and trimming. Once all of this is done, I store each week's photos together in a plastic bag. That way when I have a bit of time to be creative, I can pull out a bag, choose a kit, and get busy.
In the video below I walk you through the process I use to prepare multiple weeks at a time.
The second tip I have is to work with a kit. Having a limited number of supplies in front of you helps narrow your choices and allows you to work faster. If I spent time digging through all of my supplies for each week's spread, I would never get caught up. So I choose one kit to work with for each week and only pull other items from my stash when I need something to fill a particular need (like an alpha that still has E's).
I hope you found this helpful. Here's to all of us getting caught up on our Project Life albums!
Some weeks of our lives are better than others. Some weeks are downright awful.
Week 24 was not a great week for me, and I struggled with how to document it in my album. I considered skipping it altogether, but I knew that someday when I look back at this time, I will want to know my thoughts and will wish I had taken the time to document them. So I decided my best strategy would be to stop thinking about it and just do it.
I printed the few photos I had taken that week and picked out some supplies from the June Citrus Twist Kits Pocket Life kit and just started.
It didn't turn out great. I'm not really a fan of the color palette I chose or the layout of some of the cards, and the pictures are far from stellar. But it's done. It's documented and in my album. I don't think I'll ever regret that.
The video for this week is super long because I was struggling. It had been weeks since I'd done a page in my album, and my mojo was gone. Plus the subject matter was just hard to deal with. So I took my time, but I got it done in the end.
I actually created this album about a year and a half ago, but I had never shared it here, so I thought the easiest way to do so would be to do a quick album walkthrough. Scroll down to see the video.
I used a bunch of different supplies for this mini. The cover is cut from a plastic placemat that I bought on clearance at Target. I just cut it to slightly larger than the 6x8 page protectors, then used my Crop-A-Dile Power Punch to punch the holes for the binder rings and the Corner Chomper to round the corners so they wouldn't be sharp.
Inside there's a combination of bits from old Studio Calico documenter kits, A Beautiful Mess Messy Boxes, Pebbles Lakes collection, Pink Paislee Outfitters collection, Studio Calico Atlantic collection, and Crate Paper Open Road collection.
The page protectors are a variety of Simple Stories, Echo Park, and Becky Higgins. I used my Fuse Tool to cut and seal some of the page protectors to fit some of the pieces of ephemera I brought back with us.
Once again I decided to use an alpha from my stash for the title card instead of the one that came in this kit. The pink alpha is so pretty, but I'm having a hard time using it on my spreads. I'll have to make an effort to use it, because I definitely don't want to hoard it.
I'm really loving all of the soft colors in this spread. That pastel plaid card just make my heart pitter-patter. I knew I had to use it with the picture of the rose I tried this week.
I'm starting to worry that my album is becoming an ode to my sleeping pets, but it's just so hard not to include their adorable little faces when I have pictures of them! :)
I'm slowly catching up from my little project life hiatus, however, this video was one I actually filmed before things went crazy.
For Week 22, I decided to keep things pretty simple. The June Pocket Life Kit from Citrus Twist had some really cute muted rainbow elements in it, and I knew I wanted to use as many of them as I could in one spread.
I'm also in love with the floral pattern card that I used for my title. It's just so beautiful! I want an entire sheet of that pattern.
I used the filler card sentiment in the middle of my spread to set the tone for the whole page. It's kind of acting as my journaling, since all of the pictures reflect little moments from the week where I took time to enjoy the people (and animals) around me. It actually turned out to be kind of perfect.
This month's kits from Citrus Twist are so stinking gorgeous. I ordered my usual Documenter kit, as well as the Travelers Notebook stamp and a few other goodies. You can see all of the beautiful bits in the video below.
My niece, Brilli, is three and super freaking adorable. When I visited her earlier this year, she was obsessed with taking Snapchat photos. She kept coming up to me when I had my phone and saying "Let's Take a Silly One!" How could I say no to that face?
For the layout I chose to try a little mixed media on the background. I am definitely a mixed media novice, but I don't think it turned out too terribly bad. Although it's hard to see here in the photos and in the video below, I added a screen-printed bit in white on top of the watercolor, and I LOVE how this turned out. I will definitely try this again in the future.
For supplies, I kept things really simple. I wanted to use the Dear Lizzy Lovely Day 12x12 paper pad that I had in my stash, but had never used. And I grabbed my Dear Lizzy Sticker Book for embellishment.
For the title, I used a combination of an old Dear Lizzy Thicker set (from Polka Dot Party) and a Freckled Fawn alpha designed by Jen Schow. I really like the way these two look when combined.
I'm back! I took an unexpected break from crafting over the last couple months, but I'm back with new layouts & videos. (Be sure to check out my update video to hear more about my break, my plans for the rest of the year, and to enter a little giveaway.)
Week 21 was not one of my best moments. It was a rough week, and for me that means lots of comfort food, furry snuggles, and a few too many margaritas. So to document it, I grabbed the A Case of the Blahs collection from Pinkfresh Studios. Its sassy sayings were perfect for my not-so-great week.
