30 Days of Thankful - Day 9 through 13

 It's catch-up day!  Day 9 through 13.
And a look at my album that arrived a few days earlier than predicted.

The album is a WeRMemory Keepers 8 x 8 - 3 ring binder in Cinnamon.
Today I am thankful for being caught up.  How is your thankful/gratitude project going?

Moving on to 2012.....

I'm just now starting to think about what I'll change in my Project Life (PL) 2012 process.  I already keep my book out on a table in my craft room and have my supplies organized in a 2 shelf wire rack.  I like Margie's idea (see her post at  http://xnomads.typepad.com/blog/2011/11/november-12-18-project-life.html )  about date stamping memorabilila as I tend to leave these items on top of my book rather than taking 10 seconds to put it in a pocket!  I also will try to set my weeks up ahead of time so that I don't need to figure that out as I go.  I also want to be more thoughtful and selective about what photos go into my album.  The one thing I have found is that when I have quantity the quality of the album tends to suffer.  By this I mean that the journaling may be more rushed or less complete.  I don't feel as I've always told my stories the way I would like.  So I hope to have more emphasis on the journaling in 2012 and be a little more choosy about the photos I add.  I plan to do a Week in the Life and December Daily again next year so those will give me the opportunity to add the everyday in twice during the year.

Class supplies - the black 12 x 12 bin holds my various page protectors for Project Life and my class albums and papers I've set aside for those individual projects.



A close up my various albums
Black - Twelve, Cobalt - PL, Red - OLW 2011 & 2012 and Move More, Eat Well



Besides PL 2012 I will be doing One Little Word again and adding Stacy Julian's class, Twelve.  I will also be taking the yearlong class Move More, Eat Well with Cathy Zielske.  I plan to remain active with the Library of Memories Community as well.

Project Life and December Daily

Are you doing a December Daily album along with Ali Edwards?  Are you also doing Project Life?  Are you doing two separate albums or, like me, incorporating December Daily into your Project Life album?  Over the next few days I'll show you my progress in developing my December Daily pages in my Project Life album.  I'll also show you some of the items I've using.  This is so much fun!

I am starting with Ali Edwards' December Daily Layered Templates.  I originally purchased the 6" x 8.5" size but didn't like the size so I  purchased the 8.5" x 11" size as soon as Ali developed it.  I am not a digital scrapper so I like that Ali offers pdf files with some of her Designer Digital designs.  Above you can see that I printed them out on kraft 8.5 x 11 Reflections cardstock that I purchased at Michaels (one just opened up here a few weeks ago!).  I added a piece of printed paper (see next paragraph for details) to the rectangular box next to the number 1 and placed a wooden snowman that I found at Michaels (12 cents!) in the wooden products section.  So far I've done pages 1 through 13 so I have more to do.  Pretty easy so far! With the 8.5" x 11" kraft cardstock I have a variety of options for the  photos I put here.  I can get two 4" x 6" horizontally oriented photos in the space remaining.  I can place a 5" x 7" photo here or a cropped 8" x 10" photo (anything 8" x 8" or less will fit here).  There may be other options but I haven't thought this through any further.  I'll be checking out other options when I print my photos through Shutterfly.  I'd like a collage photo somewhere but that may be on 12 x 12 layout added in somewhere.  This is what makes Project Life so great - its flexibility and adaptability to what you have or what you want to do.

My second product choice was Simple Stories 25 Days of Christmas Collection.  I love the Simple Stories Collections.  They are perfect for Becky Higgins' Project Life page protectors and other We R Memory Keepers page protectors.  I use mostly Becky Higgins page protectors for my Project Life pages but since I have many vertically oriented photos I decided for this project to alternate this We R Memory Keepers (WRMK) page protector with Becky's Design A page protectors.  The WRMK page protector also has room for a 2" x 12" paper strip to the right of the holes.  The Simple Stories Collections come with 12" x 12" sheets that you cut apart for the pieces that you want.  There are various choices that you can make depending on what page protectors you want to use.  You can check out 25 Days of Christmas and the other Simple Stories collections at http://www.simple-stories.com/
I'll replace some of the items in the pockets in the page protector above and put in my 4" x 6" photos.  The item in the lover right pocket is a transparency that will go over the photo I place there. This collection allows me to move things around until I'm happy with what I have.  I will add more embellishments and journaling once I have my photos in place. 
Thanks for stopping by!  I look forward to your comments and hope you stop back or become a follower to see more of my December Daily process.

Projects update

Layout for Finding Photo Freedom and MotherLOAD
(photos are from 1975)

 

Photo Central has moved from dining room to living room



Dining room is now Layout Central

I'm keeping up with Finding Photo Freedom and MotherLOAD fairly well.  I don't get all of the tasks done in the week they are assigned but I'm working consistently on my digital workflow, still organizing straggler photos (like bunny rabbits more keep popping up!), and just getting a good sense of what I have, what's done, what needs to be done and beginning to work on creating layouts regularly.  Right now my 2009 photos seem to be missing (there's only 97 from that year but still what could I have done with them?  They should be in a storage binder but it ends at 2008 and I just realized this.  I have then on CD so I can reprint if need be but....I don't like mysteries like this!  Earlier this week I was having problems with Picasa and as typical I just needed to let it sit for a day and come back to it.  Problem solved and everything is sorted properly.  I was pleasantly suprised this week when I got all my albums in one place and went through them page by page that so many were actually finished and the others only need 2-4 things done in them.  I also found a large number of layouts that were completed but had no home - I hope to remedy that soon. I've made a list of what needs to be completed in which albums and where gaps in albums are.  I will be taking all my pages out of these albums and moving them to We R Memory Keepers Classic Leather 3 ring albums as time and money allow.  I just ordered my first 3 in cobalt.  We're in Week 7 in Finding Photo Freedom and we actually have 2 weeks for this task list.  MotherLOAD is in its 3rd week and is starting out slowly and will build as we get to the Marathon part in September.
So as things shift I've moved all my albums, my storage binders, category drawers, cold storage box, memorabilia box, family tree drawer, 2 piles of more things I just found this morning and a box with all my film cartridges, index prints and negatives are now in my living room,  Lily, our dog, is not happy as that corner is where her doggie toybox used to be.  The dining room (previously Photo Central) is now Layout Central.  The dining room table has all my Project Life and A Week in the Life stuff in the far end and this end is ready for layout making - I have 2 double layouts in the making right now.  I do need to do some catching up on my Project Life album. I just picked up some photos I was waiting for this morning and should be able to work on that tomorrow.  So that's where I am for now....

Project Life pages

 For those of you who are already doing Project Life you know that Becky Higgins has 2 sets of Project Life Page Projectors.  Design A are the page protectors that come with the kit although they are available seperately as well.  Design A has 4-4 x 6 horizontal pockets and 4 - 3 x 4 vertical pockets.  The 3 x 4 pockets were intended for journaling cards that come with the kit but I use them for photos as well.  Its easy to trim a 4 x6 at the top or bottom about 1/8" and the cut in half!  I like the look of photos in these pockets.  Design B has 3 - 4 x 6 vertical pockets and 6 - 3 x 4 pockets (horizontal alignment).  I'm mostly using Design A in my 2011 album as I didn't need other sizes/configurations.  This is because I was orienting my photos as I was taking them to fit in the pockets of Design A.  However, when I got the second Project Life Kit I had the problem of photos and memorabilia that did not work in Design A so that's when I started looking around for other page protectors.  In the top photo I have a Close To My Heart 12 x 12 page protector which I use for the layouts I'm adding.  Then there is a 8 x 1/2, 8 x 8 and 6 x 12 page protectors that I'm using for photos, layouts and memorabilia. 
The second photo shows two types of We R Memory Keeper page protectors.  The one on the left is their multi-pack.  I highly recommend this one particularly when you are first trying to decide what you may need.  I feel it gives me a lot of flexibility and allows me to create in a way I could not in a traditional album.  The pack on the left is great when I have  1-2 vertical 4 x 6 photos.  There are a variety of other packs - if interested in these check out Memory Works or contact me as I am a Memory Works consultant.  Next post I'll show you two other items I'm using in my Project Life albums that allow you to add more than one photo or journaling card to a space!

Memory Works

  Just wanted to share with you that I am now a Memory Works Independent Consultant.  Please check out http://www.memory-works.com/ for all the best in scrapbooking & crafting.  Tim Holtz, Cosmo Cricket, We R Memory Keepers, Ranger, Adirondack, American Crafts, Basic Grey and much more!  Check out Simple Stories - a simplified scrapbooking system.  This is great for anyone that wants to do a Project 365 or a photo a day project.  Email me (laew@aol.com for more information or to place an order.