Project Life 2014: Week 2

Okay... I'm getting there!  I think I'm beginning to find my style for this year.  I thought I wanted lots of white space on my pages this year, but I'm finding that I just can't do it (yet).  I like photos and lots of them, so I'm focusing more on them for now and using more elements on my pages versus journaling cards and papers like I did last year.

This is week 2, but I'm wondering if my #1 stamp on the top left is confusing.  I found an idea on pinterest, to take a photo in the same place every month to show the changes in both the kids and the area where you are taking the photos.  I used the #1 to denote that it's my first of twelve photos in this series.  I think when this is done, I might make a special insert to add to the back of the book with all of the photos in order.

Anyway... nothing much else to add this week!

Oh... the downside of my new style is the shear number of different items I use. I'm posting the previews below, but probably won't get them linked up like last week.  I will be pinning them to my supply board on pinterest, if you want to check that out.

Project Life 2014: Week 1

Okay.... week one is done....

I know the look that I want, but I'm just not there yet.  But... it's done!

  

Project Life 2014: Title Page

Here we go again!  For my 2013 book, this was the last page I did, so this year I decided it should be my first...

Last post I talked about what I liked about my 2013 plan.  This time I'm going to talk about some of the things I plan on doing differently in 2014.

1.  I plan on using different templates each week.  This actually frightens me just a bit.  My same template week after week was a bit of security blanket last year.  It didn't always fit my photos best, but it's what I had decided to work with so that's just what it was.  It made starting each week a no brainer.  This change is a little daunting.  I have to make a decision right off the bat when doing each week.  I'm excited though... I want some variety in my pages.

2.  I plan on using different background papers each week.  Another daunting change for me... the same background every week was another security blanket.  But I think I'm going to like this change.  Plus the templates I'm using this year show less background, so I think I'll be okay.

3.  I'm no longer going to have a 4x6 week card.  I like the look of it, but it took up a lot of real estate on my page with little benefit.  I would rather have that space for photos.

4.  I think I'm switching to a 3x4 calendar card for my "week" card.  I just bought a set and I'm not sure if I'm sticking with just that set this year, or if I want to pick-up another set or two for variety.

5.  I'm going to be more open with my page counts for each week.  I still plan on doing at least a two page spread for each week, but instead of trying to cram lots of photos onto two pages, I plan on spreading things out over extra pages if needed.  I liked printing two books last year and I'm totally okay with printing every quarter if needed.  I'm finding that this is more than just "project life", this is my family's scrapbook and I'm okay spreading things out a bit in order to fit more in.

6.  I'm switching from rounded corners to square. Nothing earth shattering here.  Just a new look... plus I feel the new templates I'm using are truer to the shape of 4x6 and 3x4 than the one I used last year.  

These next two are more blogging related...

7.  I'm going to try to be better about posting my supply list at the end of my posts.

8.  I'm going to TRY to post things other than project life pages on my blog.  Not sure if that'll happen or not, but I'm going to try :-)

Project Life: The Final Pages

 Since I started the year with a half week, I ended with one as well...

I am so happy to have seen this project through!  I cannot wait to have it printed and actually touch the pages!

So, with 2013 complete, I'm going to talk a little about how I felt 2013 went as my first PL year.

1.  I loved keeping it simple with one template for the whole year.  In order to be successful and not get overwhelmed right off the bat, this really helped.  Regardless of the photos that I had (or didn't have), I opened the same file every week and got started.

2.  I now have my family pretty well Project Life trained.  The photos on my pages didn't come just from me.  Jeff, Alex, Clara, dance teachers, other parents, grandparents, etc. all contributed to my pages.  None of them bat an eye when I ask for a photo to use for PL and some even just automatically send me photos.

3.  As much as I was disappointed at first, I really like printing two books.  It was really nice to be able to see my pages in print mid-year.  It was a big motivator at a time when my momentum was waning a bit.

4.  I also liked (for the first year) having the same basic layout each week with the title card.  Again, it simplified things at a time when I was figuring a bunch of other stuff out.

5.  As much as I resisted, I'm glad that through PL I have been in more photos this past year.  I even found myself planning a family photo for my 2014 title page.  Wouldn't have even dreamed of that a year ago.  Doing PL have made me realize how important to document the everyday, not just the "perfect" photos.  And with that... I'm in more photos :-)

6.  The times I thought I didn't have anything worthy of PL, I just wasn't looking hard enough.  Anything is fair game for PL.  Years from now, what I thought was a boring filler, is (hopefully) going to be a fun reminder of our everyday life.

7.  I thought about making a switch to a Mon-Sun format for 2014, but I have decided that I really like Sun-Sat and will stick with it.  It does break up our weekends, but I'm okay with that.  A lot of our activities happen on the weekends, so to me it takes the pressure off of the week days.  I can sandwich a few weekday photos between two larger activity days.  I'm afraid, if I did Mon-Sun format my book would morph into a year of weekends book.  On the occasions that we have a weekend trip or something else that I don't want to break up, I don't mind having a separate two page weekend spread.  Another bonus of the two books... I have plenty of room for extra pages!

Next up... my title page and my plans for my 2014 book!!

Project Life: Week 52

Finished up week 52....

Project Life: Weeks 50 and 51...

Just finishing up the second part of my week 52, then I'll knock out my "week 53" and my 2013 book will be done!

a very late christmas card...

With my parents' visit, Christmas, my birthday, Jeff's family's visit and the New Year, I've gotten very behind with blogging.  I'm still caught up with PL (december daily... not so much).  I'll post my PL pages next, and post a bit about my plans for 2014 soon.  I'm still trying to figure out my plan of attack to shake up my PL formula a bit without complicating things.  Wish me luck!  :-)

December Daily: 10th, 11th and 15th

Random days this post.  I've managed to stay on top of events, but need to go back and do filler pages to complete my book.

First up, we have Clara's party she had with her school friends at our house.  I was not allowed to take any photos of her and her friends (how embarrassing mom!), so I have lots of random detail photos to fill my pages...

Next is the photos from Clara's winter ballet show...

And finally, we have the photos from Alex's School of Rock show...

The videographer posted this to youtube this morning, so I thought I would include it...


Alex normally doesn't play bass, but they asked him to for this song.  I have more videos of the show, plus videos of Clara's dance performance, that I'll try to get posted at some point.

Project Life: Week 49

December Daily has been a struggle this week, some good days, and some I'm going to have to do filler pages for later.

Project Life, however, is still chugging right along!  I can't believe that I've almost made it through a whole year!

December Daily: 5th, 6th and 7th

Okay... so I redid day 5 and, although I don't love it, I at least like it well enough to post.  I've had to do some grasping lately for subject matter.  The weekend was okay, but today is going to be another tough one.

As usual, the templates are by Designs by Lili and everything else is by Emily Merritt!

Project Life: Week 48, Part 2

Finally got part two done!  I'm also still caught up with my December Daily project.  I won't be posting day 4, as it's about our Christmas cards.  I don't want to post anything too publicly about them until I get them mailed out.  Day 5... I just didn't like.  Lack of subject matter made for a so-so page so I doubt I post it.  But these, I like.... :-)

December Daily: 2nd and 3rd

So far, so good with this project.  Today is going to be a challenge, but I'll find something (I hope!).
The mantel needs work (and something larger to cover that hole!), but I'm pretty pleased with it for our first year in the house...

The page above bugs me though.  I really don't like the up close picture of the skates next to the skates in the big picture.  BUT... I do like that photo a lot and I couldn't get it to work anywhere else.  Oh well.

Wasn't sure what to do yesterday and then the kids insisted that we do our countdown to Christmas with books again this year.  We've been doing it now for about 11 years, I think!  I had put it off with all of the move chaos, but they insisted that it wouldn't be Christmas without the books.  So, here they are... (well... at least most of them, I ran out of wrapping steam - and tape - with about six left to wrap)...

Templates are from Designs by Lili and everything else is by Emily Merritt!

Okay.... I had a request for our book list, so I thought I would add it to this post.  It won't be complete until after Christmas as I'm not sure what books I have wrapped up. :-)  I'll try to link them to Amazon too so you can get more info on the books.

I have way more than the 24 books needed for a countdown to Christmas, but I like being able to switch books in and out over the years.  This is year 11 (I think) of doing this, so things have changed over the years.  We started out with several board books, which I think I still have packed away somewhere.  Also in the beginning, I needed a bunch of books fast, so I went to the used book store and bought a stack of cheap books.  Most of them were character type books (Barney, Elmo, etc.) and most of those have been donated.  Only favorites from the early years were kept.  We also used to live near the 75% off bookstore, so I picked up a lot of books there.  Some good, some odd... but some of those odd ones became favorites so they're still around.  After I had the bulk of our books, I continued to pick up books on clearance after the holidays.  I haven't picked up any in a few years, since I keep thinking that one year soon the kids won't want to do this anymore.  I probably should still keep adding books though.  My plan is to start adding in my December Daily books so we can look back on years past together.

December 1st:
The First Christmas (top left corner of the photo) - This has been our first book, every single year.  Yes, it's a board book, but it's tradition :-)

December 2nd through 23rd choices:

Dream Snow by Eric Carle
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss
A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles M. Shulz - not the version we have, but may be the same
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas by Emma Kragen - by far Clara's most favorite book of the bunch, ours came with a CD and we all belt out the song together as loud as we can :-)
Are You Grumpy Santa? by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis
Santa's Favorite Story by Hisako Aoki - beautiful little book that has Santa telling the story of the first Christmas
Kipper's Christmas Eve by Mick Inkpen - a LONG time favorite... and we will all be very sad when the little red lightbulb on the last page burns out.
Santa's Stuck by Rhonda Gowler Greene
Morris's Disappearing Bag by Rosemary Wells - one of my favorites, so sweet and so funny
The Latke that Couldn't Stop Screaming by Lemony Snicket - the title says it's a Christmas book, but it is a Hanukkah book with Christmas references.  It is a good book for our kids who have several Jewish friends and like understanding Hanukkah a little better... plus it's Lemony Snickets. :-)
Froggy's Best Christmas by Johnathan London - Alex absolutely loved the Froggy books when he was little, so this was a must own for us.
Jingle Jokes by Katy Hall - what kid doesn't like jokes and riddles?
Santa Cow Studios by Cooper Edens - strange little book, but more fun now that the kids get more of the movie references
Snowie Rolie - by William Joyce - Alex was a huge Rolie Polie Olie fan when he was little.
Phoebe Clappsaddle has a Tumbleweed Christmas by Melanie Chrismer
Little Red's Christmas Story by Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York
The Berenstain Bears Meet Santa Bear by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Christmas for 10 by Cathryn Falwell
Wise Old Owl's Christmas Adventure by Robert Kraus
Pieces of Christmas by Teri Sloat
Dumpy Saves Christmas by Julie Andrews Edwards and Emma Walton Hamilton
Emily's Christmas Gifts by Cindy Post Senning and Peggy Post - a Christmas manners book :-)
The Nativity Play by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen
Merry Christmas, Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood - almost forgot about this one because it's MISSING!  It's another favorite, so I need to find it!
A Yuletide Ice Cube Fair (Veggietales) - Another board book, another tradition.

December 24th:
The Night Before Christmas Pop Up by Clement Clarke Moore - Our Christmas Eve book has always been some edition of this story... first it was a board book, then a regular picture book and then finally (once the kids were older) I found this beauty for 75% off after Christmas one year.  They had no idea I had bought it and were so surprised when they opened it that year.

Project Life: Week 48, Part 1

This week took me a while to get started.  I have a ton of photos from the weekend and just a few from the beginning of the week.  Wasn't sure how to split things up so that it made sense over a four page spread.  I'm still not exactly sure how I like the split, but we'll see how part two pans out in a couple of day.

Most of the cards are from Emily Merritt and the photo collage templates are by Designs by Lili.

December Daily: the 1st

As if I needed another project :-)

I've been wanting to do a December Daily album for years, but never really got it started.  This year is underway and I hope I can keep up with it AND Project Life.

Templates by Designs by Lili and everything else is by Emily Merritt.