Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, friends!

I've got plans for this blog this year.  I've been spending a little bit of time on a Project Life facebook group, and I like to answer questions from newbies.  But as I've come back to link them to the blog, I've realized how sadly out of date a lot of it is.  I've also realized how much I love having my Project Life pages posted.  So I'm planning to start posting my spreads again.  For 2016 I'm doing a monthly approach, though.  I did that in 2015, and I like the flexibility it gave me.  So I'll be posting my pages monthly as well.

I got a new calling in Church this year.  I'm the Personal Progress adviser in Young Women's.  (Don't know what any of that means?  Learn more about Mormons here.)  I'm going to work on my Personal Progress while I help the girls, and I'm planning to journal about that here.  I'm also planning a scrapbook/journal/smashbook to record it in, and I'll share about that as I go.  I'll be designing some printables for that, so look for those as well.

I have other plans and goals for the year, but more about those later.  Here's to new beginnings and fresh starts!

Project Life | Weeks 51 & 52 and Final Page (of 2013! Finally!)

Friends, this draft has been sitting here untouched since March.  I had the photos edited and uploaded, and I just haven't taken the time to say Hi and hit Publish.  So here's the last of my 2013 spreads.  I (clearly) don't plan to post weekly spreads for 2014, but I'm also not intending to resume in 2015. 

I do intend to resume blogging, though.  That's right, my unplanned, unscheduled, and unannounced hiatus is coming to an end.  I plan to still post PL spreads occassionally, but just my favorites.  I've written a few book reviews for my sister's blog, and I plan to share those (and any future reviews) here as well.  I'd like to resume posting some crafts as well, but probably I won't take the time to create tutorials.  This is going to be totally unstructured, but hopefully I'll share some things y'all are interested in.

So look for some new posts in the next week or so, and in the meantime, check out some LATE holiday spreads.  ;)

Week 51.

Week 52.

 

Final Page.

Project Life | Weeks 45 - 50 (Catch-Up Part 1)

I have a problem.  I can't seem to find a happy medium with taking pictures.  The last 3 months or so, I either have so many pictures that I'm paralyzed by indecision and can't pick which ones to use in my layout OR I only have 2 or 3 pictures for the entire week.  Either way, it's incredibly difficult to make myself sit down and make things happen.  Does anyone else do that?  Any ideas for finding that balance?

So, here's catch-up part 1:

Week 45. 

Week 46.

Week 47.

Week 48.

Week 49.

Week 50.

Thanks for looking! You can check out my other Project Life pages here.

(I'll be linking up to Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative. And for more information on Project Life, click here.)

Project Life | Weeks 42 - 44

Three more weeks photographed, and I feel like I've gotten my rythym back.  There were a few rough weeks in there for me, but I pushed through, and I'm glad that I did.  I'm making plans for 2014, but I think the only major change in the works is that next year I'm planning to do two albums rather than just one.  I do very few inserts so that I can limit the year to one album, but I'm going to experiment with inserts more next year.  Any words of advice?

Week 42 Full Spread.

Week 42 Left Side.  Second half of our road trip to Utah.  I included a few journaling cards (on the opposite page) and other than that let the pictures tell most of the story. 

Week 42 Right Side.  The "life is beautiful" card is recolored from the Sunshine edition.

Week 43 Full Spread.

Week 43 Left Side.  Talk about picture heavy.  I didn't realize until I was taking pictures that this is a picture-only spread.  But I love how it turned out.  Our yearly trip to Tate Farms is a fun tradition for us, and I think the pictures tell that story best.  I used photomerge-Group Shot to create the sequence of Lincoln on the big blob in the lower left.  It's not perfect, but the effect is good.

Week 43 Right Side.  I used a lot of white space in my collages to try to keep it from looking too busy.  So many pictures, but honestly I just couldn't leave any of them out.

Week 44 Full Spread.

Week 44 Left Side.  More went on this week than Halloween, but I decided to just focus on the holiday.  I included some pictures of the crafts Lincoln did at school.  Lincoln combined "Happy Halloween" somehow and called in Happyween all the time, which I loved.

Week 44 Right Side.  Tyler "carved" the angry bird pumpkin with Lincoln and then he carved the Spider-man pumpkin by himself as a suprise for Lincoln.  The spiderweb is a free printable from Paper & Stitch.

Thanks for looking! You can check out my other Project Life pages here.

(I'll be linking up to Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative. And for more information on Project Life, click here.)

Project Life | Weeks 40 & 41 (+ a freebie!)

I'm caught up on my album!  I'm not caught up on photographing it, but I'm caught up on the pages.  The long weekend was wonderful; I got in the zone on Friday and finally resurfaced sometime yesterday.  So, 2 weeks for today, and then next week I'll have 3 or 4 for you.

Week 40 Full Spread.

Week 40 Left Side.  After putting all the pictures in, I realized that this side features the boys 100%, so I made a little printable of a quote I saw on pinterest a while back (keep scrolling to grab the file!).  I printed it 3x4, but made the file 6x8 in case I ever wanted to print it larger.  Then I just used glue-dots to mount it on some seafoam paper.

Week 40 Right Side.  I had 2 groups of pictures I wanted to put on 4x6 pictures together, so I copied the look that Tracy Larsen rocks and made some templates of my own in Photoshop Elements.  The two printables are images that DeseretBook pinned (1, 2) regarding General Conference. 

  (Free for personal use.  Click to enlarge, then right-click and save.)

Week 41 Full Spread.

Week 41 Left Side.  This spread was all about our road trip.  We didn't leave until Wednesday, but I pushed all our other pictures to previous or later weeks so that I had two full spreads to dedicate to our trip to Utah.  It was brutal to edit and not use every single picture I had, but that's been one of my goals this year, and I'm really happy with how it's turned out.  Again, I took a page from Tracy Larsen's album and tried to include more white space.  I included the picture of the front seat to illustrate that I wore my snuggie the whole drive.  Tyler's always burning up and I'm always freezing, so it was perfect.

Week 41 Right Side.  Again, lots of pictures.  I wanted to draw the drive, so I made the USA card in word, then printed it to pdf and opened it in photoshop elements.  Word art, then pdf, then png.    If anyone has a copy of Illustrator that's collecting dust, I'd be happy to take it off your hands.

Thanks for looking!  Stay tuned next week for the second half of our Utah vacation.  You can check out my other Project Life pages here.

(I'll be linking up to Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative. And for more information on Project Life, click here.)

Project Life | Weeks 37 - 39

Sorry I've been pretty much MIA the last month.  We drove out to Utah and back, so the weeks before that I was completely consumed with trip prep, and I didn't attempt to work on my album while I was gone.  I didn't bring my laptop, and in fact I went pretty much off-line the whole trip.  I checked my email occassionally, but other than that I tried to stay unplugged.  But I'm steadily catching up, and I'm hoping to be up-to-date in the next week or two.

 

Week 37 Full Spread.

 



Week 37 Left Side.

 

Week 37 Right Side.

 

Week 38 Full Spread.

Week 38 Left Side.  If you haven't tried it, download the Duck Dynasty beard app.  Hilarious!

Week 38 Right Side.

Week 39 Full Spread.

Week 39 Left Side.  Yes, you're reading that right.  It's a Dr. Who Virtual Run.  It goes through November, and there's a 5k option, so check it out if you're a fan and want an incentive to run.

Week 39 Right Side.

Thanks for looking! You can check out my other Project Life pages here.

(I'll be linking up to Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative. And for more information on Project Life, click here.)

Project Life | Weeks 34 - 36

Well, I hate to say it, but I'm losing steam on my PL album.  Luckily I get sufficient motivation every few weeks to play catch-up, so I'm only about 2 weeks behind.

Week 34 Full Spread. 

Week 34 Left Side.  The boys started school, and Tyler and I had a weekend trip to Nashville.

Week 34 Right Side.

Week 35 Full Spread.

Week 35 Left Side.  Mason's birthday was Friday.  We actually did the cake the following Sunday, but I decided to include that picture with the rest of the birthday festivities.

Week 35 Right Side.

Week 36 Full Spread.

Week 36 Left Side.

Week 36 Right Side.

Thanks for looking!  You can check out my other Project Life pages here.

(I'll be linking up to Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative. And for more information on Project Life, click here.)

Project Life | Weeks 30 - 33

I caught up with my album over a week ago (I even took pictures then!), and yet uploading the pictures to my blog has been too much work.  What's that about?  I think my main problem is actually thinking of something new to say, since there's not much more than pictures and journaling.  So, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, and try to provide links as necessary.

Week 30 Full Spread.

Week 30 Left Side.  The "you are here" card is one I made using this Kelly Purkey geotag digi stamp and the xiomara and bebas neue fonts.  The "it's a prince" card is one I found here.  I found the pictures of Princess Kate and the baby using a google search.  The "this makes me smile" card is from the Honey Edition of Project Life.

Week 30 Right Side.  The pioneer day infographic is one I found using an internet search.  I think it was published last year to the LDS Church's facebook site, but my pinterest pin just links to a .jpg here.

Week 31 Full Spread.

Week 31 Left Side.  "Let me explain" is from the Kraft Edition of Project Life.

Week 31 Right Side.  "This makes me smile" is from the Kraft Edition of Project Life.

Week 32 Full Spread.

Week 32 Left Side.  I got the idea for a picture of keys as a filler here.  Luckily, it worked perfectly with the pictures of Mason on the move.  (Sorry for the blur!)

Week 32 Right Side.  The "snapshots" and "lucky stars" fillers are both from the Honey Edition of Project Life.  The "hello there" and polka dot fillers are both from the Midnight Edition.

Week 33 Full Spread.

Week 33 Left Side.  The "LOVE" filler is from the Jade Edition of Project Life.  "Today is the Childhood Our Kids Will Remember" is an Etsy print available here.

Week 33 Right Side.  The arrow and the "here" filler cards are from the Honey Edition of Project Life.  I recolored the arrow card, and I can't recall if I recolored the "here" card as well.

Thanks for looking!  You can check out my other Project Life pages here.

(I'll be linking up to Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative. And for more information on Project Life, click here.)