Hey everyone! I thought I would be posting here sooner than I am. I had a fairly low key weekend, and actually managed to get a few vacation days squeezed in this week, since a few of my daycare kids were going to be home with mom for spring break. I feel like I've been doing a ton of stuff the last few days, while doing nothing at all at the same time. Weird how that can happen.
Anyways. Let's talk about digital journaling cards. I've already shared a few weeks of my Project Life album, and have made mention of how I decided to do my journaling, as well as mentioning where I'm getting lots of my digital journaling cards from. But after sharing these two photos on my Instagram, over the last few weeks, I had some additional questions/comments about them. So I figured I would toss a post together about it all.
First up, I mentioned that I have a few digital journaling card sets that I've been pulling from. I don't want to overwhelm myself with too many choices. And as much as I love color, I decided to stick with all black and white journaling cards. It's just simple and easy, and they look good alongside the weekly title cards and monthly calendar cards that I'm adding to each week (which are also black and white). I don't even have to worry about a journaling card matching my photos, so that saves me a ton of time. I should note that a few of the sets I'm linking too below look very colorful! You can totally use them in color, or make them any color you want to match your photos, but I'm using them strictly in black and white at this point.
I thought I would share the digital journaling card sets that I've been using. Some of these are sets that I already had in my digital stash, and a few were purchased recently during a couple of sales. The sets from In A Creative Bubble are ones that I just purchased this past weekend. She has tons of great journaling sets to choose from, but the all black and white sets caught my eye. I think they'll mix in nicely with the other sets I've been using. It's not to say that I won't add additional sets to my mix at some point, but I think the following ones give me a good selection to chose from – without overwhelming myself with having TOO many to chose from.
Check Cards 1 by CZ Designs & Frankie Journal Cards 01 by CZ Designs
Life List Cards No. 02 by CZ Designs & Check It Cards No. 01 by CZ Designs
Life Sentiment Cards Vol. 2 by Ali Edwards & The Story Of Today by Ali Edwards
Days Journaling Cards by In A Creative Bubble & Recorded No. 1 Journaling Cards by In A Creative Bubble
Recorded No. 2 Journaling Cards by In A Creative Bubble & Recorded No. 3 Journaling Cards by In A Creative Bubble
Recorded No. 4 Journaling Cards by In A Creative Bubble & Recorded No. 5 Journaling Cards by In A Creative Bubble
I received a few questions on Instagram about my process for working on my journaling cards, so I thought I would recap a bit here.
I start my weekly spreads by slipping in my week card ("week one", "week two", etc), and my calendar card, and then adding in my photos. I leave empty pockets for journaling cards and a few filler cards. Once I get all of my photos added in for the month, I move on to the next step. I tackle the journaling cards next, and then once those are in, I work on adding any additional filler cards and any embellishments I feel are needed.
Since I will almost always have 4 weeks set up in my album at once (as I print photos just once a month for this project), I simply flip thru the weeks and start typing up journaling cards. I don't necessarily do them in order, or one week at a time. I might type up and print just a few for one week, and a few for another week. I slip them into the pockets, even if they might need something added to them later. From there, it's easy to see where else I'll need journaling cards, and where I want to put my 2-3 filler cards for the week. One thing that I try to do is make a good mix of journaling cards, as far as what designs I'm using. I don't want to use the same design twice on the same weekly spread.
I use Photoshop to open up the journaling cards and type in my journaling. Some of the cards are super easy, since you're literally just adding your journaling. Like the one above. It's set up so that you simply start typing, and it spaces it out on the lines perfectly, moving on to the next line when you're out of space. It's a no-brainer to use.
I also try and do a mix of journaling cards with lines on them (for the text), and some without the lines. Not that it really matters, but I like to have a good mix. The design above is also easy to use. I simply typed up my text, and then positioned it where I wanted it to fall within the card. If I wanted to add a little something below the "she said", I could just move the journaling down a bit to give a little extra space above it.
I've also used this card with totally different sayings up top. I simply deleted the words at the top (for example, "she said" on this card), and did a little tweaking to add back any lines that got erased in the process. Hopefully that made sense. Then I used digital brushes/stamps to add in whatever word/s fit my journaling.
I've also created a few journaling cards simply using digital brushes, stamps, or even PNG images of cut files. Like the card above, for example. I used a digital brush from Ali Edwards ("game on"), along with a digital stamp from Kerri Bradford Studio ("rain or shine"). You can resize them as desired, and move them around to get the look you want.
Some journaling cards take a little more time. This one for example. If you're familiar with Photoshop, you'll notice I have a lot more layers in my layer palette (on the right side). I used a digital journaling card from Ali Edward's, removing the day of the week that was actually at the top of the card. Then I typed in "first birthday", using a fun brushscript font. The "1" circle is from the digital version of Ali's Story Kit: Numbers.
When I went to type my journaling on this card, I ended up having to do each individual line as a separate layer. It was the easiest way for me to space the lines out the way I wanted, and also work around the "1" circle. It's not hard to do, but has a few extra steps.
Once I finish a journaling card, I save it as a PSD file. Just in case I need to go back to it. Because belief me, I've had too 😉 There's nothing worse than having to start all over, so always save your working files as you go. All of these digital cards are sized to print as 3×4's, so you don't have to worry about sizing them.
The one thing that I do, however, before adding them to my page to print, is I go in and add a small grey border around the edge of the card. Because if you put several white journaling cards on a full sheet and print them out, you'll have a hard time knowing where to cut to make them all 3×4", and have everything where it's supposed to be. Unless you're super cool and don't need markings to know where to print. I'm not that cool 😉
I can fit 5 journaling cards on a sheet of 8.5×11" paper. I started using the Epson Premium Presentation Matte Paper to print journaling cards or anything digital on, and I'm liking it so far. I used to print all of my journaling on cheap white cardstock from Michaels, and it would shred when I ran it thru my trimmer. Glad I tried a higher quality paper, and my trimmer is much happier too.
So, I think that's about it. For me, this is working. I love the idea of using up more of my Project Life cards, especially all of the cute journaling cards. I just know, that for me personally, it would take me forever to get my journaling lined up right and printed on those cards. Maybe if I had a typewriter, it would be more do-able. But I don't. By limiting my choices with these digital cards, and keeping it all simple, I can whip these journaling cards out in no time.
If I missed anything, or if you have any other questions, feel free to ask in the comments 🙂
Laura Vegas 
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