Project Life catch-up | Weeks 5 & 6

It's about time I shared some of my Project Life spreads...it's been far too long! I've got many many weeks to share with you as I've been keeping pretty up-to-date with my album, just hadn't got round to photographing and sharing them here on the blog yet!

But I've been snapping away on some of my spreads, so I've got a load of weeks to update you with over the next couple of weeks. Let's kick off with weeks 5 & 6...

Week 5

This week included:

- Feeling pretty exhausted from the first few weeks back at school (on reduced hours).
- The most painful physio session for my whiplash so far!
- A Nandos dinner date with my dad.
- Babysitting my 3 favourite little girls.
- A lazy KFC lunch with my sister after crawling out of bed on Saturday.
- A super cute Facebook message about love and dating from my bestie, Matt.
- Enjoying watching Paperman for the first time.
- Philosophical ramblings from my sis.

Products used:

- Project Life Blush core kit
- Paislee Press calendar card
- Studio Calico wood veneer and chipboard stars
- Dear Lizzy roller date stamp

Things I learned from this week:

- I can make another style of photo pocket pages work for me when I've chosen it for the B side of a previous week's spread...with this style F one here, I trimmed my 4x6 photos in half so they were spread across the pockets. Simples.

- It's perfectly acceptable to go back and re-do a week if you're not happy with it...Now, I'm all about keeping this simple and easy but I had previously done this week with other products and was really unhappy with the spread every time I looked through the album. So I gave myself permission to go back and change things up. Sticking to one core kit and just a couple of simple embellishments made it a quick and painless process.

Week 6

This week included:

- A trip to the Minor Injuries Unit for an x-ray for a suspected broken finger. No, it's not just little kids who manage to trap their fingers in doors.
- Dinner and drinks along the Southbank with my lovely, awesome, beautiful friend Danielle. I was so happy to hear she was in town again and of course I jumped at the chance of a much-needed catch-up. We chatted away like old friends as usual. Love that chick.
- A coffee date with a work colleague which included a Vanilla Cream Frappucino AND a chocolate brownie. Oy.
- New Bare Minerals goodies...officially in love with this make-up now!
- Re-organisation of all my make-up.

Products used:

- Project Life Seafoam core kit
- Freckled Fawn wood veneer
- Paislee Press calendar card
- American Crafts glitter tape
- Staples striped paper clip
- Basic Grey for Studio Calico mini letter stickers

Things I learned from this week:

- I LOVE the Seafoam kit...I love how clean and graphic it looks.
- Including memorabilia (in this case, a business card from the restaurant where Danielle and I ate) is super fun...I should do it more.

And the winner is...

Thank you SO much to everyone who took the time to enter the Project Life giveaway below...it makes me so happy to see that there are lots of people outside the USA getting excited for Project Life!

The winner is...

Lukasmummy2 May 2013 21:12

Thanks for the chance to win, I hope to learn how to scrap my memories without stressing over element placement or paper choice, sometimes done just needs to be good enough for at least the everyday moments. Crystal, Oxford, UK

Congratulations Crystal! That big Project Life prize pack will be on its way to you as soon as the lovely people at Scrapbooker's Inner Circle get the new goodies into their warehouse! Please send me your email address so I can get in contact with Tammy and let her know that you won.

I'm planning on catching up on some PL spreads today, which will then mean I have LOADS of spreads to post here on the blog. Like 12, or something ridiculous.

I hope you're enjoying the NSD weekend wherever you are :)

A little video from the Project Life Creative Team...

Just a fun little video full of tips for Project Life in aid of National Scrapbooking Day on Saturday from the Project Life Creative Team...hope you enjoy!

I'm too ashamed to tell you how long and how many takes it took me to get that tiny little clip that you see in this video!! I have kept the outtakes...maybe I'll share them here on the blog at some point for your entertainment :)

A huge Project Life giveaway!

First of all, apologies for my prolonged absence. Because of my illness, I've really had to cut down on all the activities I do, both regular and one-off...so the blog has been one of those things that I've had to withdraw from for a while. As I get a bit stronger, I can start to pick things up again. So look for an update post soon...I have a few photos and Project Life spreads I've been itching to share :)

Now on to the good stuff...

You may know that this coming Saturday (4th May) is National Scrapbooking Day. To celebrate, the lovely Tammy from Scrapbooker's Inner Circle (international distributor for PL) has been hosting 12 days of Project Life giveaways. (Which is SO great because usually it's only US residents who get to enter giveaways like this!)

I am so thrilled to be able to give one of my lucky blog readers from Europe or Canada this awesome prize:

Yup, that's right...you will receive the Honey Edition Album, Core Kit, Big Pack of Photo Pocket Pages, Designer Paper, Dividers and 3x4 and 4x6 cardstock. Awesome, right?!

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning this fab prize is leave me a comment with your name, email address and one thing you have learned about doing Project Life or, if you haven't started yet, what you hope to learn through doing it. You have until 4th May to enter. Please remember that you have to have a European or Canadian address in order to qualify for this giveaway.

And the giveaways don't stop there...

If you have pre-ordered some of the new goodies any time between 1st March and 4th May, you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to win YOUR WHOLE ORDER FOR FREE!! How amazing is that?! Go here for more details.

All that's left for me to say is that I literally cannot wait for all the new goodies to start shipping...I've got my eye on quite a few of the kits, I can tell you!

Project Life update & Thoughts on Project Life | February edition

Wow. I've been a bad blogger recently. I know it's not really a good enough excuse, but with the illness I have at the moment, it's making me dread sitting at my computer and typing for long periods of time. So I tended to avoid posting on here.

But that makes me sad, so I'm going to try and do something about that. 

The only way I can make this MAHUUUUUSIVE update as painless as possible is if I just pick a couple of my favourite weeks of 2013 so far. So here goes...

Week 3:

Lots of Seafoam goodies here, mixed in with a couple of other cards that I printed from the Project Life digital kits. I love that you can alter them to what you want as well. For example, I cropped the 'This was amazing' part from one of the cards in the Baby Edition For Him digital kit, coloured the background white, pasted it on to a blank 3x4 canvas and typed some journaling underneath. I could easily have used the card as is for regular journaling, but since I wanted to include part of a screenshot of my Twitter feed with it, this was the best way to go. Super fun.

Week 4:

Similar to Week 3 in that there's lots of Seafoam goodies, mixed with a couple of cards printed from the digital kits. The 'small moment big story' graphic is an extra element from the Cobalt digital kit...it was perfect to go underneath my photo!

And now for my latest thoughts on Project Life. I know it's not technically February any more, but I can promise you that it was February when I had these thoughts!!

I need to take more photos. In recent weeks, I've become very forgetful when it comes to taking photos. I've ended up having hardly any to choose from for some weeks and this stresses me out! I'm having a hard time with finding the right balance between taking photos to capture the memories and making sure to be properly experiencing things without the distraction of waving a camera around. Case in point...on Saturday, my lovely friend Elle and I had a small murder mystery party with our closest friends to celebrate our birthdays (hers was last Thursday, mine is this Thursday). I took a few photos on my DSLR, but not very many at all. Well, not as many as I'd like, let's say. One the one hand I am sad that I don't have more photos but the other part of me thinks that had I spent much more time with my camera, frantically snapping photos of everything, I wouldn't have enjoyed the party as much. Do you ever feel torn like this? I guess I'm coming to the conclusion that if I have at least a few photos from something like that, it's ok. And I've always got my journaling to keep the memories alive as well. But I still feel I need to take more photos. As in, remembering to pick up my camera (or, most likely, my phone) and just take a few photos throughout the course of the day. I also need to get less self-conscious about taking photos when I'm out and about. Who cares if I get funny looks while photographing my plate of food in a restaurant or the vegetable aisle in the supermarket, right?!

The camera on my new iPhone 5 is AWESOME. Ok, so this isn't specific to PL, but I thought it was worth mentioning here. I recently upgraded from the 4 to the 5 and my word, the difference is huge. I love love love it.

I am starting to develop a consistent style to my albums. This is helped by the fact that I'm trying to limit myself to the apps/filters I use with my photos. Most often, I will use something from VSCO Cam. But I recently purchased PicTapGo and I have a feeling that a couple of filters from there might be making an appearance. I have worked out that I like to include a mixture of full photos and photos on white canvases in my weekly spreads. The photos that get displayed on a white canvas I now pair with journaling in a font called Signarica. I love the handwritten look. (You'll be able to see this development when I share later weeks in future blog posts.) I then try and limit myself to one other font, which I use to give captions to some of my photos. I also want to try and remember to use digital brushes on my photos, since I have an ever-growing collection!

Typing my journaling on the cards frustrates me. It takes a long time to get everything just so and lined up, and half the time it prints wonky anyway. It annoys me. I am battling with the switch to handwritten journaling, however, because I hate my handwriting! I am so envious of Project Lifers whose handwriting I love. I know I just need to suck it up and deal with it. I already have for a couple of my most recent spreads and I love how quick it made putting the week together. I got my photos through the post, slipped them in, chose my journaling cards, wrote on them and BAM...I was done! Loved that. So I will probably continue with doing this, even though the sight of my handwriting makes me cringe a little bit.

I love the simplicity of this project. I think this is what is definitely keeping me current. I sometimes add literally a couple of embellishments here and there (e.g. a piece or two of wood veneer, a sticker or something simple like that) just to shake things up a bit and keep it interesting. But really, my spreads are super simple. And that's good for me, definitely.

I cannot wait for the new editions. Don't get me wrong, I love Seafoam an enormous amount, but I'm am SO EXCITED to get my hands on the new editions to mix them up with what I currently have. I'm on countdown. Can May just hurry up and get here already?!

I need to take better pictures of my spreads. Which is difficult, since the only working lens I have for my DSLR now is my 50mm prime lens. SO not conducive to photographing PL spreads. I need to work out a way to take decent shots of it. Any thoughts?

I think that's it for now. I promise I will try and be better at blogging my spreads regularly. I'm thinking maybe a post on a specific day of the week might work well. We'll see.

Happy Monday!

InLinkz.com

Happy V-Day from me and Project Life HQ!

Truth be told, I'm not into Valentine's Day. Yes, I'm sad and alone and it reminds me of it. HAHA. But also because I think it's a waste of money. 

But...I did want to wish my blog readers a very Happy Valentine's Day. I hope you like my little card I made using the digital Olive edition of Project Life.

Talking of which, here's some special news...

Go here to pick up the Olive Edition core kit. Be sure to check out Becky's blog as well...there's been some amazing inspiration from some of the Creative Team using the Olive kit.

I'm working on a big Project Life catch-up post to go up in the next few days, so be on the lookout for that, too!

Happy love day x

Thoughts on Project Life | January edition

I wanted to share with you some of the things I've been learning about Project Life recently, and had this idea that I could do this on a monthly basis. So welcome to the January edition!

First thing's first...I know everyone who blogs about Project Life seems to start off every post by saying that they love Project Life. There's a reason for that. This is an AMAZING project and I really do honestly love it so much. I love that I can capture my everyday life in a way that I have never been able to before. It's such a blessing to be able to do that.

Having said that, I am very much aware that, for me anyway, this project is a huge learning curve. I haven't been doing it for very long at all, so I am still getting to grips with it, taking quite a while on each spread and still finding things out about how I want to approach my album and what I want to include. So here's a few of my initial thoughts...

I need to put my week together at the end of the week. Because I've been so so excited about PL since starting my album on 1st January, I've tended to spend time uploading some photos as I go and start making some sketches of where I'll want them to go in the week's spread, editing them and typing up some journaling to go on the cards. But by the time I get to the end of the week, I might need to re-jig some stuff to make everything that I want to include fit on to the spread. This might also mean that I need to re-crop photos, re-write journaling, etc. which means I wasted the time spent on it earlier in the week. Not the best use of my time at all! So I'm going to have to curb my enthusiasm just a tad and leave the photos well alone until the end of the week and I can see everything I've got for the week in one go. I will start that with this coming week's spread and see how it goes. I suspect it will be a lot easier and quicker!

It's taking me a while to find my groove. As well as me wasting time as stated above, I do also think it's taking me longer than it should to put spreads together because I'm new at it. I think I spend too long deciding over which journaling cards or fonts to use, which pockets photos should go in, etc. I'm hoping that as the weeks go by, it'll get quicker...firstly, because I'll have settled more into a routine with it and secondly because I'll be properly embracing the simplicity that is Project Life. Which brings me nicely to my next point...

I need to accept that it's not going to look perfect. With all the incredible inspiration out there from other people's albums, I think it's very easy to fall into the trap of comparing your album with other people's and start wishing that yours looked like theirs and all that other stuff that comes out of comparing yourself to others. Of course it's absolutely great to be inspired by other people but it's important to remember that this is your album. Your life. Your stories. And your way of putting your album together is going to be just as good as the next person's because you're making the effort to document your life. But it is not going to be perfect. Nothing in life ever is. So we just need to embrace the imperfection, as Ali Edwards would say. Haha...look how good I am at giving that advice. Taking my own advice? Not so good at that.

I still have decisions to make. There are things about my album that I keep going back and forth on. Embellishment vs no embellishment. Handwritten journaling vs typed journaling. Lots of journaling on photos and less journaling cards vs less journaling on photos and more journaling cards. Lots of stuff that I actually consider to be fundamental to my album. I just can't decide. And while in an ideal world I'd have had all that stuff figured out before I started so that my album would look completely consistent, the reality is that I am still finding my feet and learning about what I like and what I don't in my album. Which, again, brings me to my next point...

I want to try different things in my album to discover what I love. There are lots of different fonts, digital stamps and brushes, journaling cards, different mixes of photo pocket pages and other things I want to try out in my album to see what I like the best and what works for me. So I think I will just have to resign myself to the fact that each week might look a little different. But again, that's ok because my memories will be documented! I'm actually really inspired right now by how Catherine Davis uses a different main font each week. I think that's a really great way to incorporate lots of different fonts that you love without each weekly spread being overloaded with different ones (which can end up looking like a big old mess). I might give this a try in my own album because there are LOADS, and I mean LOADS, of different fonts I am loving on right now!

You can't include everything. I'm finding it difficult coming to terms with the fact that not every photo or story will make it into my weekly spread. I don't want to have an insert every week, so I need to find a way to be ok with culling some of the photos from my week. As weird as this will sound, I actually think this comes from the fact that I'm not taking enough photos during the week. If I was taking say around 30 photos each week, I think I would find it easier to leave some out than if I took 10 but only had room for 7 or 8. I think ditching three photos is actually harder because I feel obligated to include them all if there are only a few to choose from. Does that make any sense to anyone other than me?! But basically, I think I need to take more photos so that I have more choice so that I can just choose the photos I absolutely love and tell the story of my week the most, rather than feel obligated to include every one of the few photos I took. I also think I need to get better at choosing what to put on my weekly review card, as I seem to always run out of space on there. Maybe I should exclude the things that will get there own journaling card from there, so that I've got a place to talk about the things that don't have a photo or journaling card to go along with it. I might try that this week.

I need to take more landscape photos. Or actually, I need to remember to take photos of stuff in both orientations. It just seems that I'm always lacking in landscape photos and I actually think I might prefer them in way (even though I love Design F of the Photo Pocket Pages with all its little vertical 3x4 pockets). I find that I'm always saying to myself, "If only I had that photo in the other orientation." So maybe I just need to remember to take an extra snap of each thing. 

Even though I hate photos of me because I'm so unphotogenic, I love it when I include a photo of me in my album. I will admit that I hate being in front of the camera. Good photos of me are a rare occurrence. But I am so aware of the importance of having photos of me in my album. The album is about me, for goodness' sake! So it seems ludicrous to not have photos of me in there! I have a couple of ones that I'm happy with in the first few spreads and I love the fact that I've included them. I'm thinking of challenging myself to include at least one photo of me every week. Any tips for capturing selfies?

Although I want to try different pocket pages, I think the one I love the most is actually Design A. When I first started PL, I decided I didn't want to pigeon-hole myself into using the same photo pocket pages all the time so I got the big variety pack that has all the different styles in. And while it's great to change things up once in a while, I am finding that I love Design A the most. And I'm ok with that.

I hope this has been interesting/useful and not just a case of me rambling on endlessly! It's actually good for me to put these thoughts I've been having down into words...I think it clarifies things a bit more for me, which is good.

And because I hate to write a post with zero photos, here's a sneak of one of my Project Life spreads that will be going up over at Studio Calico on 28th for their February reveal...

I've seen some absolutely wonderful spreads in Project Life land just recently...I'm currently preparing a post showcasing a few of my favourite pnes, so be sure to pop back for that...lots of amazing inspiration, for sure!

Happy weekend!