Project Life: Early January

This weekend I finally had a chance to get working on my Project Life album. Instead of doing a spread for every week I am doing a spread every time I have enough pictures to fill up the pockets. This particular layout covers January 2-9. Living alone and not having kids, I am afraid that my daily life spreads (i.e. when I am not traveling) are mostly going to be about food and this layout is no exception.

I purchased the Seafoam Core Kit of Project Life insert cards and while I love the color scheme, it didn't quite go with my photos for this spread. I think what I am going to do to give my album a cohesive look is to use the black, white and grey from the Seafoam Kit and then add in one other accent color for each spread based on my photos. For this particular spread, red seemed an obvious choice to add in.

Starting from the top left corner, I took a photo from a restaurant Frank and I visited and added the name with some foam letter stickers with a band of grey cardstock.

In the top right corner I used a grid 4x6 card for the background and added a title with washi tape and rub-on letters. Since the rub-on letters are not repositionable, I tore off long pieces of the red washi tape and placed them on a piece of waxed paper. Waxed paper works great as a temporary surface because the washi tape will easily peel right off. I added the words to the washi tape with the rub-ons and then was able to adjust the title exactly how I wanted on the card before trimming the excess tape.

Working across the middle row from the left, I made a title block with some letters sticker, metal letters and some black and white washi tape. Next, I wrote some journaling about a favorite place to go on Saturday nights followed by some masala chai teat that I made and my attempts to get my craft room organized.

In the bottom left corner I divided a grid card into quadrants with lines of black cardstock and used red foam stickers to add a title. The little grey icon is from one of the 3x4 Seafoam Kit cards that I cut out to use as an accent.

The bottom right corner has a simple strip of journaling with grey cardstock and a slice of one of the grid cards. The little red dots are periods from the red foam letter stickers I used on the previous pocket card. 

On the right page of the layout, I made an enlargement of one of the photos that I took at the Michigan vs. Nebraska basketball game. We got the tickets last minute and they were pretty far away so the picture isn't the greatest but I still like it.

I downloaded pictures of the Michigan and Nebraska logos and made a design with them and the score in Power Point. I then printed it out on one of the grid cards. Along the bottom I added some grey patterned paper and a strip of black cardstock to make a journaling space under the title block.

This is only my second Project Life spread but I am having fun so far. Hopefully I can keep up for the year!

Supply List
Project Life Core Kit - Seafoam Edition
Project Life 4" x 6" Grid Cards
Project Life 3" x 4" Grid Cards
Project Life Photo Pocket Pages - Design A
Project Life 12" x 12" Page Protectors
Large red letter stickers: Unknown
Small red and grey letter stickers: lily bee design, Picket Fence Collection ABC Stickers
Red foam letter stickers: American Crafts
White foam letter stickers: American Crafts
White rub-on letters: Making Memories
Red washi tape: Target
Black and white washi tape: Love My Tapes, White Diagonal Line On Black Washi Tape
Saturday cardstock sticker: Little Yellow Bicycle
Black cardstock: Bazzill

Have you been doing any scrapbooking lately? What have you been working on? 

Project Life: Outback Bowl

This past weekend I made my first layout for my 2013 scrapbook album chronicling our New Year's Day watching Michigan play in the Outback Bowl in Tampa. I had a lot of fun making this layout and hope to keep it up over the year. 

On the left page I enlarged a photo from the game, trimmed it to 12" x 12" and used a corner rounder on the corners. I made a title block with cardstock and letter stickers and printed the box score on white patterned paper to put underneath the title.

On the right page I just used a corner rounder on my photos and tucked them into the Design A pockets. Using some letter stickers and cardstock I added "Go Blue" in the top right corner. I also added a 6"x12" protector in between the pages. On the front I added my ticket and added my journaling.

On the back I made a map of our drive home (we went straight through after the game!). To make the map I drew a rectangle that was 6"x12" in PowerPoint. I did a screen shot of the Google Maps directions and then resized it behind the rectangle to fit the space. I then added captions with times for the points along our trip. I printed everything, then deleted the map and rectangle and printed it again.

I layered the copy with just the captions over the map copy and then traced the state lines with a black marker and the route with a red marker. I then used chalk to color in the map adding extra shading around the state lines.

Journaling
Frank is a huge Michigan football fan so there was no question about where we would be on New Year's Day - of course we would be in Tampa watching the Wolverines take on South Carolina in the Outback Bowl. Honestly speaking the Gamecocks were a better team than us but we had more heart and a lot of luck on our side so we were able to pull ahead in the fourth quarter for a second time with just a few minutes left on the clock. With just seconds left Carolina scored again and we lost the game. It was an emotional game and quite a heartbreaker since it looked like we could have beat the odds and won. January 1, 2013

Supply List
Blue letter stickers: Little Yellow Bicycle, Fresh Print Traveller
Large red letter stickers: Creative Imaginations, Be Merry ABC
Small red letter stickers: lily bee design, Picket Fence Collection ABC Stickers
White patterned paper: Basic Grey, Basics White Paper Pack
Blue and yellow cardstock: Bazzill

Are you making a 2013 scrapbook? What approach are you taking?

Scrapbooking for 2013

It has been years since I have done any scrapbooking on a regular basis. Once every few months or so I will try to motivate myself to make a layout or I will make a mini album for a gift but that is about where it ends. I used to love scrapbooking. It was a wonderful creative outlet for me and it makes me sad that I no longer keep up with my albums.

I stopped scrapboking for a variety of reasons. Initially I starting losing my motivation when I got divorced six years ago because I was depressed and struggling to figure out my life. Not long after that I moved to Japan, which was not conducive to scrapbooking with supplies not so readily available locally and shipping from the US very expensive. When I came home I struggled with adjusting to life back in the US and my living circumstances were different. In my scrapbooking heyday I was a small apartment dweller with no maintenance, but today I own a 1800s home that I have been working on remodeling. It is a ton of work which doesn't leave me with as much time as I once had when I used to scrapbook a few times a week. 

So what to do? I want to do more scrapbooking but I need something that fits better into my life as it is today. I decided to look into trying to make a Project Life Album this year. It seems like a lot of people use the Design A Photo Pocket Pages (page protectors with 4 horizontal 4"x6" pockets and 4 vertical 3"x4" pockets) and make a spread for every week but this approach didn't seem ideal for me for two reasons.

First, my life is not scrapworthy on a weekly basis in an even way. Some weeks when I am on vacation I would probably want to have more than one spread. When I am not traveling, my life is pretty boring and routine since I work a lot and live alone. Somehow, repeat weekly spreads consisting of me working 60 hours and eating spaghetti for dinner don't seem so interesting.

Secondly, while I like the idea of just slipping my 4"x6" photos into the pockets I have always loved using photo enlargements for my scrapbooking so using only the Design A Photo Pocket Pages seems like it wouldn't be ideal for my personal scrapbooking style.

I thought about it for awhile and decided to order a pack of the Design A Photo Pocket Pages and a pack of 12 x 12 Page Protectors. My plan is to have each spread consist of a pocket page on one side and a plain protector on the other side. I think this will give me the best of both worlds allowing me the simplicity of just slipping my photos in on one side and while also having the ability to use an enlargement with some traditional scrapbooking techniques on the other side. I'm also going to make spreads over the year as things come, not limiting myself when fun things are going on and not forcing myself to scrap every week. I'm looking forward to trying to some scrapbooking this year and am hopefully that this approach will help me do it.

Do you have any scrapbooking goals this upcoming year? Have you ever used Project Life for scrapbooking? If so, how do you use it?