Laura Vegas

Craft The Story: Ali Edwards – Read

November 8, 2017

Hey everyone! I wanted to share another 6×8 pocket page spread with you today. Back when I received the "Read" Story Kit from Ali Edwards, I have to admit I wasn't really sure what I would do with it. The great thing about her Story Kits are that while each kit has a theme, the theme can be used in SO many different ways. So while I knew that I didn't have to use it to do a layout about reading – it also made me want to do a layout about reading. If that even makes sense 🙂

The problem is, I don't read. Lol. I used to be a massive reader when I was younger. I would read a book a day, sometimes more. Ask my family. They'll tell you that I always had my nose buried in a book. Somewhere along the line, I just stopped reading books. It had to be around the time the girls were little, or maybe even right before they came along.

As I was digging around for photos for another project, I kept coming across photos I've taken of magazines, and even a few books. I keep this wire basket on the end table by our sectional in the family room, and it's where I keep my current magazines, catalogs, etc. I have shared all of these photos on Instagram, and they're all taken in the same spot, so they have a super similar look to them.

And it was then that I realized I could totally put the Read Story Kit to work. I was originally going to print out my photos as little 2×2" pics, and use one of the 6×8" pocket pages with all the little 2" square pockets. But I also liked the idea of a photo collage, since you all know I LOVE photo collages. I opened up a digital template from Ali's 2014 Week In The Life template kit, and dropped my photos in.

I wanted to use the "read" plastic word from the kit for my title. I picked out some patterned papers from Dear Lizzy that matched the filler cards and my photos perfectly, and created a 4×6" card to add my title too.

The collage template had both a small 2" square and a larger space where you could add journaling, or even some embellishments. The larger space was perfect for my journaling, which I typed up to fit the space. And for the smaller square, I trimmed a little square of patterned paper to adhere in the center, and then added a little chipboard piece from the Story Kit.

I picked out two of the 3×4" filler cards from the kit to add along with my title card. The aqua "this story" card actually came from a different Story Kit, and I can't remember exactly which one I pulled it from. I liked that it tied in with the aqua chipboard piece on the second page.

Love that I've got another spread to add to my 6×8" personal album. I need to do more of these simple pages, about everyday stuff.
Project Life 2017: Week Twenty Four

November 7, 2017

Hey everyone! I'm back to share week twenty four in my 2017 Project Life album. I mentioned that the last three weeks of June all required extra insert pages, as I just ended up with a lot of photos that I wanted to include.

For this particular week, I added a 6×12" pocket page insert, and I fit in an extra four photos. That's really not that many extra pics, and I could have honestly narrowed that down to just two photos if needed. But I knew that I wouldn't have room for those two photos within the regular pages, so I might as well add an insert and work in those extra photos, right?

Here's a look at the first half of the weekly spread, with the insert added on the right side. I've mentioned this a while ago, but I really do want to go in and add some tabs to any of these smaller insert pages, so it's more obvious that there's an extra page to turn. I haven't gotten to it yet, but it's something I do intend to do.

Random tidbit. I've mentioned that I aim to keep these pages pretty flat. Since I do tend to work in quite a bit of chipboard elements, I like to peel off a few layers of the chipboard to make them thinner. Now that I've officially finished up half of the year, I realized that I have plenty of room in my album. So I guess I could have added a little bulk here and there, and my album would have been just fine.

This week included my birthday, so I included a few photos related to my day. Including a selfie I took that day, showing what 47 looks like on me. I always appreciate Snapchat making me look cuter than I actually feel. Lol.

I need to get better about getting more tidbits about Joe into our albums. I think I've done pretty well so far this year, but I'd like to include him more. This photo of his hats that he cleaned out has a definite story to it, so it worked well to include it as a 4×6" photo.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I take a lot of my journaling straight from Instagram. A huge percentage of my photos (not the ones from my girls, as they don't share much on Instagram anymore) have also been shared on Instagram. So it's easy to open up Instagram on my laptop, and just copy and paste the text from my post and use it when doing my digital journaling cards.

On my regular pocket pages (the 9×12" ones), I never have an empty 4×6" pocket to worry about, as I usually only have one spot per week and it goes to a photo. But often times, when I include a 6×12" insert, I will have a 4×6" pocket or two that end up with a filler card. And that filler card usually needs a little embellishing.

I have a ton of these chipboard cursive words from Bella Blvd, and realized they were a quick way to embellish the card. One word adhered to the center of the card and I was done.

Alyssa sends me way more photos than Sarah does each month, which I totally appreciate. I'll usually ask her for info to go along with some of her photos, so that I can figure out the journaling. Sometimes she gives me a decent amount, and sometimes I get just the facts. Like she gave me for the photo above (and below).

So instead of the black and white digital journaling cards that I usually use, I went and found a digital card that had just a small space for journaling, since I didn't have much to say. I was going to add a little something to the top of the card, but then decided that it was totally fine as-is.

I also thought about adding something to this photo, like a label or tag in the upper right corner. But again, decided it was fine as-is. I had to remind myself that I have a lot to catch up on, so need to complicate things for myself.

Here's a look at the second half of my weekly spread, with the 6×12" insert on the left. Usually, when I add these inserts, my overall week still matches pretty well, from one page to the other. I had a shift in the colors on the second half of this week, due to a few of my photos.

Again, I thought about adding something to this photo, in the lower right corner. I tried a few things, but it just didn't feel right. So I went with it as-is.

These photos were taken when Alyssa went to tour the Grammy Museum in Southern California, and that was pretty much what she gave me as far as info. That "I toured the museum". Lol. So instead of a journaling card, I just went with filler cards.

Have I mentioned that I love that I'm finally using up my massive stash of alpha stickers? I know I have. They don't get used on layouts all that much anymore, since I love to die cut my titles and all. But they come in super handy for these PL pages.

I kept this last page pretty simple too. I only added a few stickers to one photo, and left the other photos as-is. The journaling card above covered both of the photos on either side of it. These were some watercolor prints that I found on Etsy, which I finally got around to printing out, framing, and displaying in my family room.

Awww. Such a cute little baby. Hard to believe that was almost five months ago! He's not so little anymore 😉

For this last photo, of my friend Deneen and I at the Brad Paisley concert, I typed up a journaling card, but I also wanted a fun filler card to add in. So I created my own. I did this on one of my previous weekly spreads, when Alyssa had gone to a few concerts. I googled the image, and found one that also showed his opening acts and the name of the tour. And then I just added the date and location to the bottom.
Project Life 2017: Week Twenty Three

November 6, 2017

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. That extra hour we gained was much needed, and yet I'm not sure I was able to accomplish anything extra this weekend. Lol. Soooo. I do still have two new layouts to share with you, but I thought I would switch it up for a bit and share a few more spreads in my 2017 Project Life album.

It's killing me that I got behind in my system, since the first four months of the year were going so smoothly. I set aside some time this weekend to work on my albums. I managed to get all of my June spreads totally finished up, and I also started typing up my journaling cards for July, August, and September. First up, I'm sharing week twenty three, which was the first week of June.

In some ways, I think I've simplified the journaling cards I do for each week's spread. I did a post back in March, seen HERE, all about my digital journaling process and the sets I was turning to the most. I love to keep a good mix of card style/designs on my spreads, even though I also really love sticking to mostly black and white designs.

But some are definitely easier to use than others. And there are two sets of cards from Cathy Zielske (THIS one and THIS one) that I've been including on every single weekly spread lately. I love them because you can simply type away, and they format themselves for you. As opposed to the cards where every line of text is a separate layer, and you have to space them our yourself.

I really should have made a journaling card to go with this photo of Alyssa and her boyfriend's family cat. Alyssa stayed at their house for part of the summer, and there were a few days a week where she was at the house by herself during the day. And she would send me these Snapchat photos of the cats following her around, sitting by her, curled up on top of her stuff, etc.

The thing is, we are NOT cat people at all. I would consider myself a dog person, even though we don't have a dog. I grew up with them, but we've never had one, since Alyssa is highly allergic to dogs. Cats don't usually bother her too much though. When I went to add a little something to the filler card next to this photo, "creeper kitten" just came to mind. I hope I don't offend her boyfriend's family if they ever see it. Lol.

There are weekly spreads were I add a lot more embellishments to the photos and filler cards, and some weeks were I don't add as much. It just varies. I don't always have a journaling card for every photo, so I'll often add a label sticker or something where I can add a little something about what the photo is about. It's kind of handy when I include Snapchat photos, that have a fun little caption on them.

Still loving the these Weekly Edition Journaling Cards, from One Little Bird, for my weekly title cards. I was already thinking ahead to next year, seeing as how we're only two months away from 2018. Crazy, right? Unless I come across something new and fun looking, I just might use these weekly title cards again. I just love the simplicity of them.

Random tidbit. I always slip my journaling cards into the pockets as soon as I print them out. A lot of the cards might have a little box that needs to be checked off, or a spot to add a date, etc. And I always have to pull them back out of the pockets to check off boxes, or scribble in dates. I got smart this weekend, and did all of my pen work on these types of cards BEFORE I slipped them into the pockets.

I still might need to pull them out to add any other embellishments, since I often add little enamel dots or stickers. Like how I added the little black and pink "happy" sticker to the card above. But on a lot of these cards, they're good as-is.

I do aim to use mostly black and white journaling cards in my albums, as it just simplifies the process for me. But every once in a while, I do add in a more colorful journaling card. I've actually used the one above in a previous week (it's from one of Ali Edward's Story Kits), but the colors just went so well with the rest of this spread, so I used it again.

I'll be back either tomorrow or Wednesday to share the next week in my album. The last three weeks of June ended up being busy weeks, photo wise, so they all ended up with additional pages added in.
This Is Real & Totally So Awesome

November 1, 2017

A while back, I received a comment on one of my blog posts, where I had shared a layout. It read a little something like this – "I like to see the "real" scrapbook pages you make rather than the project life pages – keep 'em coming". I could really appreciate the comment, and I totally knew it was meant in a good way. Just in case anyone thinks I took issue with it 😉 I remember responding to this person, and chatting a bit about how my scrapbooking as changed in the last year or so. What I scrap about, how I scrap, and how much I scrap.

And that is sort of what this layout is about. It's a layout about layouts, if you will. I wanted to document a little about how things have changed over the last year. Like how I look at it as "quality over quantity". I might be making less layouts, but the ones I'm making are all real and mean something to me. I was creating WAY more in previous years, but so much of what I made was "fluff" layouts – fake layouts that didn't really mean anything to me.

I decided to go with a 6×8" pocket page spread, to add to my person album. About two years ago, I started a 6×8" personal album, and did two spreads. That was as far as I got, as I then started a 6×12" personal album that I've been doing more in. After working on this spread, I realized how fun this smaller size is, so I have a feeling I'll be doing more of them.

I knew I wanted to have a full page for journaling. I resized a 3×4" digital journaling card to 6×8" and typed up my journaling to fill most of the page. I've seen other designers use this idea with resizing the digital cards and it's just genius.

I left some space at the bottom of the page to add a few embellishments. Everything on this spread (with the exception of the pink chipboard circle on the first page) is from Ali Edwards, from either her Story Kits or her digital brushes. There was a 4×6" filler card with a colorful diagonal stripe pattern, and the colors coordinated perfectly with my photo. So I used a thin strip from that card along the bottom of my journaling page.

Once printed, I cut a slit along the top of the striped border so that I could tuck two square "tickets" in. Yes, I used my least favorite tool of all – the exacto knife. Lol.

When I first started thinking about documenting this story, I had no clue what type of photo I would use for the layout. I knew I had several photos from over the years of stacked layouts, since I've shared them when I ended up with huge amounts of layouts to put away in albums. While I could have taken a new photo of some sort, I decided to do a little digging on my external hard drive, and came across this photo. It's actually about five years old, but I knew it would work just fine.

I cropped my photo to 6×8", and then added a digital brush to the center of it. I thought the "this is real" was a good fit, since my journaling is all about how what I'm scrapping these days is real and authentic.

After I printed out my photo, I added some simple embellishments to the left edge of the photo. I even used that exacto knife again, to cut around the edge of the "t", so that I could tuck the ticket under it. That's one tool that I'll never get used too. It makes me nervous to use it. Lol.

One last shot of the full journaling, in case you'd like to read it easier. I will most definitely be using this page design again, with one large photo and one full page of journaling. In the 6×8" size, it's a great way to get those stories down that might only have one or two photos, rather than trying to do a larger layout. There's just something fun about this smaller size.
Craft The Story: Ali Edwards – Lens

October 31, 2017

Hey all! I'm back to share another new layout with you. So, Snapchat. I'm sure I don't it like I should, as I mainly use it to entertain the daycare kids by taking funny photos with the filters. Lol. Alyssa has been really good at sending me Snapchats these last few months while off at college. Almost on a daily basis. And I started screenshotting them, since I love the peeks into her life when she's not around. And yes, she's totally fine with me screenshotting them 😉

I knew these photos would make a great layout. I gathered up most of the screenshots that I had taken over the first two months of her senior year. Actually, I guess she's in her senior semester, since she'll be finishing a semester early. I pulled out the "Lens" Story Kit from Ali Edwards for this spread, as I knew it would be a great fit, and the colors also worked really well with the photos.

I cropped and printed out all of my photos as 3×4's, and started arranging them around the outside edges of my two pages. It's a design that I use quite often on two pagers, especially when working with 3×4" photos.

I mentioned that I also get the digital version of the Story Kits, since I get both the Story Kit and the Story Stamp Kit. I love being able to pull up the digital version of the journaling cards, add my journaling, and print them out. This works well for me, since I'm not big on using my own handwriting on my pages.

I really liked the "we see" card. Alyssa is Snapchatting me what she's seeing/thinking in photos, and I often see a totally different thing while seeing her photos. If that makes sense.

A random thing. Have you ever gone to screenshot something on your phone, and the phone just turns off? Meaning you didn't get the screenshot. That happens to me all the time, but it's always so sad when it happens on Snapchat. Since I lose the chance to capture that photo.

I made sure to leave a few empty spots, to mix in some 3×4" filler and/or journaling cards with the photos.

The main 4×6" card, "through the lens", was perfect for my title card. I wanted to add a little subtitle, and ended up simply typing it up and adhering it in the bottom corner.

I wanted to include a few of the chipboard circles along the center of the spread, and picked out a few in colors that coordinated with my photos. Once I knew where exactly I wanted to place them, I made little marks on each side to show where they would meet the edges of the photos/papers. I trimmed off a piece so that I could adhere the circles and they would lay flush against the edge of whatever photo/paper they were butted up too.

I did add a strip of patterned paper along the center of the spread, to fill the space not being covered with photos, journaling cards, and filler cards.

I typed up my journaling onto two small journaling blocks, and then matted them on pieces of aqua patterned paper before adhering them to the page.

I usually like to add machine stitching to my layouts, but on this one, I really wasn't sure where I would add it. I kind of wanted to do a zig zag stitch along the edges of the filler cards, title card, journaling cards. But then I felt like I'd have to add the stitching along the edges of all of the photos as well. In the end, I actually just forgot to get the sewing machine out. So I ended up with no stitching at all.

Popcorn for dinner at almost midnight? Yep, I guess that happens. Lol.

I love the story that these photos tell when grouped all together like this. Can't wait to see what Snapchat photos I end up with for the last three months of her senior semester 🙂
Morning Coffee

October 30, 2017

Hey everyone! I've got several new projects to share over the next week or so, and I thought I would start with this 6×12" pocket page spread for my personal album. I actually started this spread earlier this year, to document my love of Starbucks, and just never got around to finishing it. I ended up changing just about everything I had planned out originally, only keeping two of the photos and the gift card. Sometimes, after so many months away from a project, you just need to start fresh!

I've mentioned this on a few Instagram photos recently, but I've never actually tried real coffee before. I'm not one for hot drinks to begin with. But I've had a slight obsession with the Java Chip Frappacino for many years. I can still call it my "morning coffee", right? It does have coffee in it 😉

I used a ton of digital elements from Ali Edwards to create my title card, journaling cards, and filler cards. There's one piece of actual patterned paper on this spread, and everything else was done in Photoshop and printed out on cardstock on my photo printer. I actually have some of these 4×6" and 3×4" cards in my physical stash, but I also have the digital files. I decided to print them all, since I was adding some additional digital elements to a few of them, and wanted them to have a consistent look as far as the paper they were printed on.

The 4×6" card above, along with the little label "ticket" are both from Story Kits, and the title was created using digital brushes. I adhered a piece of washi tape across the top part of the card, and added a few staples to either end of the tape. That little Starbucks frappacino piece? I randomly came across that (and the one you'll see in the photo below) at the Scrapbook Expo last weekend. No clue who they're from, as they were just in little baggies in a huge bin that we had to dig through. But since I was already working on this spread, I knew I had to get them to add in.

I have many photos taken while waiting in line at the Starbucks drive-thru, but this one is one of my better pics. And the days of the week 3×4" card was fitting, since Starbucks was a daily habit of mine until earlier this year 😉

I actually haven't had many frappacinos over the last year. But I recently decided to try my hand at making a healthier version at home. Not that it's "healthy" by any means. But it's a WHOLE lot healthier, and WAY cheaper, than the real deal.

I probably should have put the card above, with the recipe for my homemade frappacino, next to the photo of the homemade version. Didn't even dawn on me until I'm seeing it as I type up this post.

I created my own 4×6" journaling card in Photoshop. I took some ruled lines from a 3×4" journaling card and layered them together a few times to make the lines fill the larger journaling card. And since I wanted the green along the top to match some of my other pieces, I copied a strip of green off of another 3×4" filler card and sized it to fit along the top.

I'm not always great at using the color picker to get the color I want in Photoshop, so it was just an easy way for me to get the right shade of green.

I have saved quite a few Starbucks gift cards over the years, but this one matched my photos so well that I knew I wanted to include it. I adhered it onto a 3×4" piece of patterned paper (the only patterned paper on this spread). The card on the right came from a Story Kit, and I simply added some digital elements from Ali's kits to complete it.
Craft The Story: Ali Edwards – Eat

October 27, 2017

Hey everyone! Three weeks. Eek. It's been three weeks since I shared anything here on this little blog of mine. There's a few things that have gotten me inspired to create in the last week or so, so I finally have some new projects to share.

I've finally got a new addition to my 6×12" personal album. Confession time. I had these three photos printed over six months ago, and had something totally different in mind for them. I'm pretty sure it was a layout. I was playing around with some options, and realized that I love the way they looked lined up in the 6×12 pocket page.

I had totally different products in mind for these photos, and then realized how perfectly the "Eat" Story Kits from Ali Edwards would work for the spread. So I slipped a few of the 3×4" cards and one of the 4×6" journaling cards in the pockets, took out the three little chipboard accents, and then promptly put the spread away to finish later.

And here I am, six months later, finally finishing the spread. I can't even explain my creative process sometimes. Lol.

I wanted to document my salad obsession, and pulled together a few photos I had taken of my favorite salads this year. There's a reason I've been eating so much salad, and I'll be sharing more about that later. Let's just say that I've spend the last ten months working on a better me, a healthier me. And salad played a big part in that.

I have no idea why it took me so many months to actually adhere these chipboard circle accents to the photos. I had them tucked in the pockets, and would take them out from time to time. I had ideas here and there of adding something else under the chipboard pieces, and finally decided to just adhere them on their own. Simple and easy.

Totally random backstory. I detest my kitchen counter tops. They're tile, with grout that just never looks great. It doesn't make for a great backdrop when trying to photograph anything in the kitchen. I finally bought a decent size cutting board (a pretty cheap find at TJ Maxx), in a darker wood color that I liked. I have never actually cut anything on it, but I take it out and use it to photograph things on sometimes 😉

While it took me a full six months to finally finish this spread, I actually had my journaling typed up a few months ago. I subscribe to both the Story Kit and the Story Stamp kit, which means that I get the digital version of these kits as well. I love having the digital options, since I love to type up my journaling and the digital versions of the cards make that so much easier.

I thought these two cards looked good with my photos, color wise, so I had these picked out from the very start. And while I knew I would use some alpha stickers to add "salad" to the card on the right, it took me until this week to actually get those added on.

I debated over this 4×6" pocket many, many times. I tried a few options, thinking I needed a title card, but nothing ever felt right to me. I loved this 4×6" quote card that came in the kit, but I think I felt weird putting a picture of a tomato on a spread about salads – none of which contain tomatoes, since I don't care for them. Lol. I finally decided that it worked well with the colors and the theme, and the quote is fitting. So I went with it!
Kerri Bradford Studio: Food Glorious Food

October 9, 2017

Hey everyone! I didn't think it would take me this long to get a new post up. I was just saying the other day that I haven't done anything creative in at least two weeks. And while a part of me feels guilty about that, there's also a part of me that's totally OK with that. I've just had other things that I've been more focused on, most of it just things around the house that needed some attention. I always feel so much more at peace when the house is in order, so taking care of that stuff is always a good thing in my book 🙂

The good news is that I finally created something this weekend. Which means that I finally have something new to share! I've got a new pocket page spread up at Kerri Bradford Studio today. It took me way longer to create than it should have, but I'm super happy with how it turned out.

It's been a while since I've added to my 6×12" personal album (pocket pages) that I started about a year ago, so when I was tossing ideas around for what to create for Kerri this month, it felt like a good time to add to that album. I realized that I had shared quite a few "in the kitchen" type photos on Instagram over the last month or two, and I thought they would work perfectly to document one of my newest routines in the kitchen.

I've actually got a few ideas for things I'd like to document that revolve around food. I started this spread with one idea, and it somehow turned into something totally different than what I had in mind going into it. I've always loved this "food glorious food" design, that was part of Kerri's The History Project workshop, and finally had a chance to use it.

I started by picking out four photos that told the story I was looking to tell. I have taken quite a few photos in this same spot in my kitchen, with food/meals on the stovetop, so the photos all go really well together. I wanted to add a little something to my photos digitally, before printing them out, and settled on the fun labels in Kerri's Recipe Cards kit. I added the label to each photo, and then added text to the labels to specify what each meal in the photo was.

While I was digging around in the Recipe Cards kit, I realized the recipe cards themselves would be perfect for the journaling cards. I love how you can pick the background for each card, and then just plop on the filler card, which is the ruled part of the journaling card.

I created two cards that would coordinate with my photos – one 4×6" card, which I used for my journaling, and one 3×4" card, which I ended up using as more of a filler card. I used a digital stamp (the "{heart} food" stamp) from Kerri's Digital Stamps: Thankful set on the recipe label at the top of the journaling card.

Since I didn't end up needing to add any extra journaling to this spread, I used the 3×4" recipe card as more of a filler card. I like that it tied in with the recipe card/journaling card on the first page of the spread. I remembered these fun little wood veneer silverware pieces from one of Ali Edward's Story kits, and knew they would be perfect to add to this filler card.

Since I was already in Photoshop, adding digital elements to my photos and creating the digital journaling cards, I decided to just go ahead and create the rest of my filler cards digitally as well. I wanted to create a few 3×4" patterned paper filler cards and my 4×6" title card, so I used print and cut files from Kerri's This & That: Autumn and This & That: School kits to create my own "patterned paper".

I then added a brushscript word to each card, using the Tasty kit, as the "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner" words worked perfectly for my photos.

Once I had printed out all of my photos, digital journaling cards, and digital filler cards, all I had to do was add a few simple wood veneer embellishments to a few cards and slip everything into the pocket pages. If you've never though to try using Kerri's designs digitally, I encourage you to give it a try. I love that it gives you even more fun ways to use her kits!
Project Life 2017: Week Twenty Two

September 27, 2017

Happy Wednesday everyone! I'm back to share another week in my 2017 Project Life album, and this spread is all about week twenty two. Or the last week of May, first week of June, if you don't want to do the math to figure out what week that is.

Now that I reminded myself about the corrugated shapes I have in my stash from Jillibean Soup, I think I'll be adding them into my spreads a lot. They're not bulky at all, which is perfect, as I try to keep these pocket pages pretty flat overall.

I mentioned in my last post that I have come across some older alpha stickers that give me trouble and don't work as well as they used too. The same goes for rub-ons. I used some older Doodlebug alpha rub-ons to add "the" to the photo on the right, and then my "t" peeled right off, taking part of the "h" with it.

I gave up trying to get a few of the itty bitty black specks off the photo, since I was worried I was going to ruin the entire thing. I just picked out another "t", rubbed it on, and moved on.

Another photo of Joe that was sent to me, from one of the playoff games that he umpired at the end of the high school baseball season. I told him he needs to work with some shorter umpires that are more his size 😉

I just now realized that I intended to add a little sticker of some sort under "game on", on my journaling card, and it didn't happen. That was the reason I left extra space there, after all.

I'm getting some good use out of all the tiny little stickers in my stash. A lot of them are from Bella Blvd, but I also have a good selection from other manufacturers. They never got much use when I was creating mostly layouts, as they're just too small for my taste, as far as layouts go. But they're perfect for using in pocket pages like this.

I'm so glad that I decided to add in the monthly calendar cards each week, as it makes it super easy to what week the spread is about.

There's a big difference between the photos that Alyssa sends me and the photos that Sarah sends me. Alyssa has tons of photos from events at school and things that she has going on with school, work, and friends. Sarah sends me selfies and occasional photos of her with her boyfriend. She always tells me that she never takes photos, and I'm always trying to tell her to take photos.
Project Life 2017: Week Twenty One

September 25, 2017

Hey all! I finally got around to finishing up a few more weeks in my 2017 Project Life album this past weekend. Finally, something creative to share! Week twenty one was a busier week, as that was graduation week for Sarah. I ended up with a 6×12" pocket page insert, with allowed me to add more a few more photos that I just couldn't leave out of the mix.

Here's a look at the first part of the weekly spread, which shows the 6×12" pocket page insert added in on the right side of the spread. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I've been thinking that I might go back and add tabs to any of my insert pages, since they're usually smaller than my main pages. Just to help them stand out more, as an extra page to flip. I have the tabs – it's just a matter of adding them in. I'll get to it eventually.

Still loving the these Weekly Edition Journaling Cards, from One Little Bird, for my weekly title cards. I almost always have a filler card next to my weekly title card. I pulled out some older corrugated shapes from Jillibean Soup for embellishing, like this fun star that I simply adhered in place with my Tiny Attacher.

I added a little chipboard "you're my fave" piece to the photo of Sarah and one of her BFF's, Carly. I'm still peeling layers from my chipboard pieces, to keep them less bulky in the pockets. It's harder to see in this photo, but I also added some tiny alpha stickers above the chipboard piece that say "bff".

I love that I received several photos of Joe umpiring this past baseball season. I was just telling his today that I need him to somehow get me a photo or two of himself at work – his real job, I should say. I want to include pieces of all of our lives and our daily doing's.

I've mentioned this before, but I'm using the Project 52 Fresh Calendars from Becky Higgins (just in case anyone is wondering that missed that info before). I'm linking to the digital kit thru her site, but I'm actually using the kit on the Project Life app. I use the app to put two 3×4" photos on a 4×6", and then I send them to myself using Dropbox.

To mark the dates, I added a digital star "stamp" to the days of the week. I lowered the opacity, so that you can still read the dates thru the stars. Once I had the markers on there, I sent them back to my phone using Dropbox, and then added them to my photo order.

I've been using my alpha sticker stash a ton on these pocket page spreads and I love it. They don't get used on layouts much anymore, so it's nice to put them to good use. Sadly, I do come across some stickers (and even rub-ons) that aren't what they used to be after all the years of sitting around in their packages. Like the alpha stickers that spell out "visitor".

I'm not even sure why I used them, since they're not sticking at all. Lol. I guess I thought maybe once I put the card in the pocket, they'd stay in place better. But they keep lifting and falling. I'll have to swap them out and find something similar to put in their place.

I'm still typing up all of my journaling cards digitally. I shared a bit about my process for these cards in THIS POST. I still love that I'm keeping them all black and white for the most part. It just works for me.

Here's a look at the second page of the weekly spread, with the 6×12" pocket page insert on the left side of the spread.

I rarely use my own handwriting on my layouts, and the same goes for my Project Life album. Once I added the alpha stickers for "senior" to my filler card, I thought maybe I could just write out "sunset", rather than finding some tiny alpha stickers. I practiced it on a piece of scratch paper first, and it was fine.

But as soon as I went to write it on the label sticker, the pen didn't cooperate, and I had to write it a few more times. And I then said, out loud, "and THIS is why I don't use my own handwriting". Lol.

I also realized after the fact, that when I typed up this journaling card, I put that Sarah went to "senior sunrise" the morning of graduation. That was wrong. Senior sunrise is the first day of school, and senior sunset is the night before graduation. I should really go and fix that, but it would involve typing up the journaling card all over again, and I'm not sure that's actually going to happen. Lol.

I kept looking for something to add to the black and white polka dot filler card, but finally gave up and decided it was fine on it's own.

I will often take my journaling straight from my Instagram, since so many of the photos in this album are also ones that I've shared on my Instagram account. It's easy enough to copy and paste the journaling, by pulling up my Instagram photos on the computer, and then edit them as needed to fit the journaling card.

That's exactly what I did on the card above, which means that I ended up with a little mistake on this one too. The story goes with the photo below the journaling card, yet it reads "I was able to snap the photo above" – since on Instagram, my store referred to the photo above my caption. Minor detail, that I'm sure no one will ever pick up on. But of course, I feel the need to mention 😉

I have a few graduation layouts in mind that I'm hoping to work on soon. And that's where all of the photos will be included. But I definitely had quite a few photos from the big day that I wanted to be sure were included in our Project Life album as well.

I'll be back on Wednesday to share another week of my album. I'm making it a goal to work on my journaling cards for all of my July photos this week, and also hope to knock out a few of my June spreads as well. We'll see how it goes.

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