Project Life 2013 - Week 5

February already!  I love this month, lots of fun stuff to look forward to and we are inching our way toward Spring.  I had a lot of great stuff to include this week so lets get too it.

Here is the full spread

And each side up close, remember you can always click on them to open them up larger.

I wasn't sure how to handle the date card this month, I couldn't use a calendar like I did on the past few weeks because we carried over to a new month.  After many starts and many deletions I ended up with this.  Its the first time I used a photo for the backdrop of my date card and I liked it a lot.  Its a shot I didn't have room for on the spread but it worked perfectly.  Have you jumped on the Vine bandwagon yet?  I did this past week, its a fun new app for short little 6 second video clips, the QR code is the first video I posted on the app.  I had a down day due to a migraine so I used a who, what, where Seafoam card to document that day without photos.  Simone is the worst to play games with, she only wants to win, I snapped several photos of her while we were playing and loved that I captured these two.  It's definitely a learning curve with her for sure.  The Insta Today card came in a Studio Calico class kit, love that card.  The Hello My Name is the same as the one included in the Studio Calico January Project Life kit but this one is digital, I wanted more so I purchased the kit.  A few random shots and of course the Superbowl.  A sad day for us and I wasn't sure how to capture it so I just included a shot of the three of us before the game started and then used another Seafoam card (digitally altered) to capture the essence of the day.  I really love how this turned out.

 

I'm so loving the Design D layout so very much and I'm so glad I stuck with this combo.  I love having a chance to highlight some key photos on this side of the spread and I'm totally over the fact that things aren't in order.  Yay for working outside your comfort zone!  And yay for no more rounded corners, the best decision I've made, such a time saver and I like it so much better with the white bordered photos.

 

This week at preschool the kids started working on recognizing and writing their last names.  I love this shot I snapped of Simone after she wrote it for the first time, even though its a touch blurry.  The best part of February for me is the Valentine's Day colored M&M's.  I look forward to them all year.  Groundhog day, means an early spring this year, who's unhappy about that, no one I'm sure.  I found this graphic online and did a bit of modification.  The original had a shadow that I removed and I added the sun and my own text.  We had a super great night out on Saturday to a local Crab Feed fundraiser, the spread finishes off with several photos from the night.  Initially they took our tickets from us so I asked for mine back so I could snap a photo of it, while my husband explained to the guy, "she's a scrapbooker" which based on the look on his face meant absolutely nothing to him.  Luckily on our way out of the dinner all of the tickets were just laying in a big pile so I grabbed one to include.  This scrapbooker will not be denied her memorabilia!

 

I hope you have a great rest of the week, thanks for stopping by.



Project Life 2013 - Week 4



I can't believe were are the four week mark already this year, crazy right.  I struggled a lot this week, spent way too much time on Monday on this and at the end I just sort of feel okay about it.  Happy to have some awesome stuff documented for sure but happy also to be moving on.



 

Here are the sides up close.

I used several of the newest digital items from Studio Calico that I picked up this past Sunday, you can find the sets that I used here, here and here.  The first slot is a digital image from one of the stamps coming soon in the kits, I love that I can use a stamp image digitally and make it as large or as small as I need it to be.  We celebrated our wedding anniversary this past week so quite a few of these slots are from that day.  The top right card is a digital version of the card I made for my husband.  We were married on my Grandmothers birthday and this year would have been her 100th.  The photo of her is from the 40's and its a favorite for sure.  Larry is plugging away on his bike and got the engine back in all by himself which was quite a feat.  I'm really trying to capture more of some of the funny things Simone says and she gave me a good one to include this week.

I ended up moving the title card to the right side this week, it just worked better on the 6x4 slot and I wanted to make sure I used the January calendar card before the month was over.  The This Week and Play Date slots both use the same digital file from Studio Calico, I just covered the text on the play date card.  I love the clean look of that file and know I'll use it a lot.  The hand drawn ipad card came in January's Studio Calico Project Life kit and I couldn't leave that one unused.  I took a screen grab of the game I'm playing non stop these days and placed it right on top.  The rest of the spread is just a lot of random bits from the week.  I don't want to spoil the show in case you haven't seen it yet but if you watch Downton, were you just completely messed up by Sunday's episode like I was.  OMG, I sure hope the writer/creator makes it up to us as I stated on the photo.

I hope you have a great week, thanks for stopping by.

Project Life 2013 - Week 3

This past weekend we were lucky enough to have a visit from some family members so it certainly made my week and gave me lots of good stuff to include from the weekend.

 

Here is the full spread.



 

 

 And the left side.

I tried my hand at printing directly on a journaling card and it wasn't hard at all.  I set up my 3x4 canvas in PSE and typed and formatted my text.  I printed a test on plain white cardstock to make sure my words would fit by laying the card on top of what I printed and holding it against my window so I could see how it looked.  It was find so I attached my journaling card to the top of what I had just printed out with just a bit of adhesive and ran it back through the printer again.  One thing that helps is when you print your test, make sure to turn on print with crop marks.  That way if it all looks good you have a guide so you can line up your card perfectly when you run it back through the printer. 

My title card is a few different digital elements from The Lilypad, both from Paislee Press here and here.  The Currently card is from the digital Seafoam kit, recolored to match the red of the Hello Card next too it.  This particular Hello My Name Is card came in the Studio Calico Project Life kit but you can purchase the file as part of a kit that you can find here.


Here is the right hand side.

I managed to get quite a bit of text into my spread this week, something I'm very happy about.  I'm totally fine eliminating pictures to make way for words.  This week I had a lot to say as you can see.  The top middle text card is digital Seafoam kit as is the Today is Good.  The bottom Good Times word bubble card came in a Studio Calico class kit.  I believe its meant to be a cut file but I used it as a journaling card.

My brother came in on Saturday and planned to drive into the Bay Area to visit our Dad.  Before we left that I day I grabbed a map image on my ipad from Google maps that showed our starting and ending points.  I knew I wanted to make a card showing the route somehow.  I thought about stitching it and purchased some bright pink embroidery floss and used a few of the Geotag chipboard pieces that came in the January Studio Calico Project Life kit.  I added the photos on top digitally from our drive in.  The slot flips out to the right, I used the same method I shared earlier this week just changed up the dimensions.

Here is the inside of the flip.

And some detail shots of the map and stitching.

One thing is for sure, I want to stitch on everything now!

On a side note, I have received a few questions on how I recolor images in PSE and this video tutorial says it better than I ever could, its a video done by Ali Edwards, its a few years old but its a great one and she shares many great digital tips, not just recoloring an image.  This is also another great instruction sheet from Designer Digitals that might help as well.

Thanks for stopping by.

Tutorial - Project Life Flip Ups

I would say the number one question I get asked when I post Project Life layouts on Instagram is how do you do the flip ups.  This post is long overdue and I hope it inspires you to do some flip ups yourself. 

These instructions are for the basic flip ups that I do.  I will do a separate post for the one I just made turning 2 3x4's into a 6x4 very soon.

Here we go!

1.  Depending on the pocket you are making the flip up for you will cut your cardstrock to either 6" x 8 1/8" or 3" x 8 1/8".  The extra 1/8" allows the flip up to sit all the way into the pocket and fold over flat.  I use 110 lb. cardstock for my flips, I wouldn't use anything thicker than this because it will only add bulk to your pockets and it won't lay flat.

I will say that in some cases the 3 x 4 slots are a bit tight if you use the full 3" width so if you want to shave off a bit here feel free.  I usually will take off just an 1/8" and it slides right in.  It's completely up to you if you want more ease or if you want your inserts to fit tight.

2.  Fold each piece in half and using a bone folder really press in the creases.

3.  You will have three sides to decorate with either paper, journaling or photos.  As you can see here, you'll have the inside top and bottom as well as the outside.

4.  Print out your photos and if you are rounding your corners do so now on all pieces, the photos and the flip up base you have created.  As you can see here, on one of the flip ups I made for Halloween, I've rounded the bottom two corners only of the piece that will go on the outside.  If you round the corners on the top edge you will see the white flip up.

5.  You'll then round the top two corners of the of the photo for the inside top and the bottom two corners for the inside bottom.

Here are photos of the same steps for a 3" x 4" slot

6.  Once you've rounded all your corners you will adhere the photos to the cardstock base; the outside, inside top and inside bottom lining up the rounded edges and sides.

7.  As you'll notice there is a very tiny gap between the inside top and bottom pieces.  This allows the cardstock base to fold, you'll want to keep a small gap here so make sure you trim your photos to the true size and do not add length here. 

8.  Once inserted into the pockets you'll see here that they fit inside exactly and that extra 1/8" is not noticeable at all.

One thing I want to add is since there are only openings on one side of Becky's protectors this method works best on the right facing pages.  In the past if I wanted to create a flip up for a pocket on the left facing page all I did was adhere the flip up to the outside of the page protector with double sided tape.

I hope you'll try it, it's a fantastic way to add more photos without having to create a whole insert.

Please let me know if you  have any questions.