Project Life 2016 Archives - Page 3 of 6

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 26 | Dear Lizzy Saturday!!!!

August 30, 2016

Hi guys! I am working on Week 26 in my 2016 Project Life album, so have a look at my process today:

Here is the layout as I created it in the Project Life App, and then printed through Persnickety Prints. The cards I used in the App are from the Good Vibes kit with the exception of the date card, which is from the Project 52 kit.

Here is the completed layout, with journaling added by hand and embellishments are all from Dear Lizzy Saturday collection!

You have probably figured out by now that I really love Dear Lizzy’s products and I use them often. The Saturday collection does not disappoint! I ended up using the Saturday embellishments on the entire card here, and a small bit of journaling.

This week two of our kids were in Florida, and the other two are here fifty percent of the time, so that left us with a few days just the two of us. I made that the focus of my journaling and photos on this page.

I will let you guys in on a really awesome secret about my husband: he is a very successful computer expert and well-respected in his field, but he is also an amazing cook! One of my favorite things is when he makes chocolate chip cookies. This is one of those things Project Life is perfect for – to document our favorite things.

One of the reasons I chose the Saturday collection to embellish this layout with is because the collection has lots of black and white touches. When I created the layout in the App, I chose the Good Vibes collection and included the date card from the Project 52 kit, which is black and white. So I needed the black and white to tie this all together.

My thought process as I worked around the page was really quite simple: add just one or two small things to each card or photo. I took the time to trim the cut-apart sheets and some of those I used as embellishments as well.

I did not add anything to this photo collage. I created the photo collage right in the Project Life App and brought it into the layout just like any other photo. I love capturing our laughter and silliness, even right in the driveway.

One more look at this side of the layout:

On the opposite side I began with a photo of Nick and Natalie playing video games in the living room. This doesn’t happen often! But when the other two kiddos are gone, they find each other and play video games together and that makes me so happy to see. They do actually love each other!

Some of the decorative elements on the cards I ended up covering up. I love this flexibility and this chance to make these layouts my own. And of course, the chance to get to use up my stash in fun ways!

I wasn’t sure about placing this plain wood grain filler card, but I also knew by the time I embellished the layout I would know exactly what to do. Sure enough, I was happy to layer paper strips with floral stickers, washi tape, and rubber shapes. Sweet!

This little friend visited our yard during the week. I was happy to photograph him quietly and then leave him to find his own path, but it sure was fun seeing him! I think it is good luck when box turtles visit!

The turquoise circle on this filler card became the jumping off point for how to embellish this card. I decided to cut out the Dream circle and I added the round rubber embellishment, along with another flower sticker. The second filler card I realized I was completely not thrilled with, so I covered it up with the pattern and the words.

The final card on the layout just makes me so happy. The cascading hearts are adorable, but they did give me a tiny challenge how to layer on top without completely obscuring them? So I kept it simple with the camera, the word strip, and the rubber heart. Just a few stamps around the page as well, and this layout is complete!

One last look at the right hand side of the layout:

Oh, this layout was so much fun to create! There weren’t many photos from this week, so that meant a lot of filler cards and lots of opportunities to embellish. That makes me incredibly happy! See you tomorrow for Disney!!!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 25 | Amy Tangerine Oh Happy Life!!!!

August 23, 2016

Hi guys!!!! I am so excited about today’s layout and cannot wait to show you!!!! Have a look at my process video:

Alright, so I began my layout in the Project Life App, printed through Persnickety Prints, using the Project 52 cards available in the App itself.

I was so excited to start getting some of Amy Tangerine’s newest collection in my mail! This one is called Oh Happy Life! and I felt like it matched perfectly with the Project 52 colors!

In my process video I began with these watercolor resist cards. I simply added Tim Holtz Distress paints in random ways to the cards and let the resist do its magic! The colors I used are Wild Honey, Abandoned Coral, Twisted Citron, and Mermaid Lagoon.

I added the floral clear sticker from the Oh Happy Life! collection, cut in half, around the card for layering. Oh my goodness, I just love it.

We had the cutest visitor in our back yard, so I very gingerly snapped a few unobtrusive photos and we watched him wander away into the ravine behind our house. I combined journaling here with the turtle story on the top half and the photos below are journaled on the lower half. The sunglasses are adorable here to signify the separation!

Two of ours were away in Florida with their grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins this week, and these photos were sent back to us. They look like they are doing excellent! (Photo courtesy of Uncle Jeff Brown!)

My flower pots are growing and filling beautifully this week. Next to that photo I used another of the watercolor resist cards layered on top of the Project 52 filler card. And then I also layered a clear sticker and the -week portion of the foam sticker that also comes from Oh Happy Life!

I absolutely love these completely ordinary moments, and I promise you our life is exactly this uneventful. My sweet husband is here changing the sheets on the bed, and you can see that Zoe is clearly helping him by making sure the heated blanket is nearby and occupied. I also absolutely love that Project Life gives me this awesome place to not only take this photo, but to give it a little context. I didn’t need to write any journaling about this photo, but I still included it because this album is just the right place to include ordinary, every day moments just like this.

On the left hand side of this layout the date card takes the first spot. Clear stickers and washi tape from Oh Happy Life! make fun embellishments to this card.

Underneath is another of the watercolor resist cards, again layered on top of a Project 52 filler card. I love this simple layering of watercolor on top of graphic.

We took Natalie in this week for a check-up on her arm and she was at this point healing up great. I added the foam stickers and added just a tiny stamp to each one.

I even used the marketing strip from one of the patterned paper, along with some of the clear heart stickers. This photo is Zoe yet again, this time she caught me napping and climbed up into my neck to get comfy.

I am absolutely digging the clear stickers in this collection. Here I cut the word strips just to add a little something to this card. I also used another of the foam stickers to accent here. Note the repetition around the page: foam stickers, watercolor cards, and clear stickers appear in several places to create a unified look.

Our house in the dark. We water our yard almost every night unless it rains, and sometimes that happens after everyone has gone to bed. It’s comforting to me, to see the house lit up and inviting us inside.

Another look at this side here:

Well, I hope you have been inspired to use this new collection! I have been able to find pieces of it at A Cherry on Top, Scrapbook.com, and Paper Issues recently. I will see you back here tomorrow with my Disney series!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 23 | Dear Lizzy Saturday!!!!

August 9, 2016

Oh I am so excited about today’s layout! Last week American Crafts released like seven whole lines of beautiful products and I could not wait to start using them!!!! I absolutely have a philosophy that means when new products come through the door, I start using them right away while I am still excited and pumped about them. So have a look at my process video and at some of these pretty things in this collection!

This week’s Project Life layout was created in the App using the Memories in the Making kit available on the App. This is the layout as it was printed:

This is the layout completed, with journaling and embellishments added on top:

This week was the last week of school, so I had end of year parties and field day and graduation to document. The chipboard words in the Saturday collection made it so easy to embellish this date card.

I love the simplicity of hand-writing my journaling onto these layouts. I know the App has some awesome fonts and it’s tempting to just add it that way and be done, but whenever I write it myself I always feel happier about what I have done.

I did not do much to the photos on the bottom of the layout, just a bit of washi and a fun camera puffy sticker!

More journaling here and a little stamping on the heart. Yes, I totally changed up the ink color and I have found that those Dew Drop tiny ink pads from Tsukeniko stamp really easily on this photo paper, so I am trying to remind myself to reach for those instead of my Staz-on. If you have been following me with my stamping issues on this photo paper, throw some confetti because I feel like this issue has been resolved for me!

No embellishments on this photo of my son, just keeping it simple and easy to complete.

The right hand side of the layout is all about our daughter Emberlynn. Yes, these photos look familiar because several weeks ago I created another layout about her graduation using my Ali Edwards Believe Story kit. This story fits in here again, chronologically, so I made sure to include it again.

I added this fun banner so I could easily identify what this photo is about. These are the fifth graders, who are playing tug-o-war. Such a fun picture!

I adore this banner from the Saturday collection, and I popped it up using pop dots, and then added a chipboard heart.

I used another chipboard word on this photo below, because I am absolutely in love with them. I may need more of them……

I absolutely embellished each of the photos on this layout. On this one, I added a tiny bit of washi and some of the chipboard arrows.

I linked these two, the journaling card and the photo, together using the puffy stickers. One thing I really love about doing Project Life this way is being able to cross the boundaries between each card. Sometimes I completely ignore those boundaries.

For the photo of her receiving her diploma, I only added a few of these chipboard plus signs.

Are you loving these new collections? Did you pick any favorites? I will be using some of the others as well, so stay tuned! See you tomorrow for Disney!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 22 | Amy Tangerine Better Together!!

August 2, 2016

Hi guys! Welcome back to my 2016 Project Life album where I am continuing with Week 22. The layout is printed from the Project Life App and then embellished on top using Amy Tangerine Better Together! Here is my process:

There were three pages to this layout, and I did not get photos of them together before I embellished. However, here are the layouts as they were completed!

When I created the layout in the App, I chose the Memories in the Making kit within the App. The colors in that collection blend perfectly well with Amy Tangerine’s Better Together collection. The date card is located in the Project 52 2016 collection, and I added the floral transparency piece.

This side of the layout is about my daughter fracturing her arm. On Sunday of that week we had just mopped the kitchen floor and she ran across it. She fell and landed hard on her elbow, which caused her femur to fracture right beneath her shoulder. So we carried her to the ER to get her bandaged up.

I have you tell you that being in the ER twice this year with two children has been the most challenging and heart-breaking things in my life. I am incredibly thankful that they are ok and they absolutely handled their traumas with incredible strength.

This girl went into the ER and waited patiently the whole four hours. She refused any and all pain medications, both that night and the days after. She was a little bit worked up, poor thing, so eating was hard for her. We tried to give her all her favorite things, just to keep her hydrated and healthy.

This photo is from the following day, when we had her fitted for her cast. The ortho decided she only needed a temporary cast that was removable, and it was mainly to prevent re-injury. She was allowed to remove it to sleep, but she felt more comfortable leaving it on so she did.

I love Project Life for this reason alone, because if I did not do Project Life I might not have thought to take a picture of her cast and sling. I placed my wooden ruler next to it so we could remember how small it was.

On Monday of that week we celebrated Memorial Day, quietly at home in our own backyard. I used the remote for the camera and took a few snaps.

I created a title card for this page and used the Amy Tangerine alphabet, and then I added a few paper strips and the rubber flower as embellishment.

I love this die cut circle from the collection and I especially love just adding a tiny circle embellishment at the top of a photo. You have probably seen me do this in the 2014 album too!

These journaling cards make me so happy. They are so simple, and I left the embellishing simple as well.

Interestingly enough, this photo was not taken on this day, and I’m not sure why I included it here. But nevertheless, I really love this photo and am laughing at my scattered self for misplacing it. This was a few days prior, when we came home from the pool! I was trying to set up my phone camera for some self-timed photos and it accidentally took that one. I love that my hair is hanging over the top edge and I love the look on my husband’s face as he tries to help me.

Sometimes when I have the camera set up outside with the tripod, I ask my husband to grab a few shots with me too. I love that he is willing to step into the frame and I love that our relationship is captured in these frames too. These moments are so important to me.

Simple journaling about the photo, and an added embellishment directly on top of the polka dot card. Love.

For the third page of this layout, I am documenting Nick’s birthday. He just wanted to do laser tag and have cake this year. Simple request!

I have another title card here embellished with just washi tape and the xo puffy stickers. I also used some of the puffy stickers to addjust a little something to the photos. So fun!

I always love using washi tape to create lines for journaling, and the two printed tapes are perfect here. I alternated them just for fun, and then added my journaling.

For this photo I only added a rubber banner. Note Natalie’s sling here – she really did not want her picture taken where the sling could be seen, but I did sneak this one photo of her back.

And yes, there are absolutely two photos of us kissing in this layout! I hope you will humor us – we each have some difficult stories and have each been through some hardships in our life. In each other we have found so much joy and affection – joy and affection we did not receive from others who were in our life previously. For this I am so incredibly thankful, and I would not trade it for the world.

I hope you are able to capture some of the special moments in your family’s life today and every day! See you back here tomorrow for Disney!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Album 2 Introduction Layout | Freckled Fawn Embellishment Kit!

July 26, 2016

Hi guys! Today I am beginning to work in my Project Life 2016 album and will show you my process for creating the introduction layout. Have a peek here:

So this is my first year that I am having to split my Project Life album into two parts, and I am very excited about that! I don’t know that I would want to do this every year, but I am enjoying creating and sharing these layouts and love the ease of the App to help me stay somewhat current. Here is the layout as I completed it in the Project Life App. It is then printed at 12×12 and delivered to my door via Persnickety Prints.

I chose to work with my Freckled Fawn kit for July 2016, the embellishment kit. This is the completed layout here:

The photos I chose for this layout are a few candid selfies I took when we went on a date night several weeks ago. I love that it focuses on me and my husband. Although we have four kids, several of them tweens who aren’t so keen on being photographed any more, and I do include them and their stories (a lot!!), I still feel that the emphasis for me, for these albums, is actually us.

Yes, I am documenting our kids’ stories and many of them are also found within these albums. But these albums are the ones I will keep forever. They are for me, to help me remember my life and my perspective.

My strategy for the kids is to keep working on their albums separately that they will take with them when they graduate. Don’t worry. They will also probably want to take a few of their layouts from these albums too, and I am ok with that!

I absolutely love this project, and love the stories it encourages me to tell. My story, and your story, are all so very important to us and to our families. Yes, we should absolutely scrapbook for our children, but we also need to scrapbook for ourselves!

So here is to creating for ourselves today! Get in front of that camera today and tell just one of your stories. What is on your mind today? What are you thinking about today? I promise you, it wants to be told! I promise you the two people you see above are some of the most boring and imperfect people on this planet (ok, I am imperfect, my husband practically walks on water), so perfection and excitement are not requirements for this project at all. Have fun, kids. See you back here tomorrow!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Album Transition, Update, and Printing!!!

July 19, 2016

Hi guys! I am diverting from my normal process video in my Project Life album because it is time to transition into a new album for this year. This is the first year I have reached capacity in an album before the year is over (actually at the half-way mark!) but I find that to be a great problem to have. Here is a little chat video I made just to give an update where I am:

I don’t really have many photos to post on this day, and I promise next week I will get back to my processes so I can complete the pages I showed you in my video. I think it is important to talk about more than just creating pages in our scrapbook-worlds. Sometimes we do just sit down and make a layout simply for the sake of creating a layout, and I think when that happens it is awesome! I tend, however, to be more project-based, so my layouts always exist within a larger context – the album those layouts live in.

It is important to me, as I share in my blog, how my layouts come about not only by creating layouts, but also by showing what it takes to get to the place of creating those layouts. Planning, product choice, printing, all of these things are a part of what we do every day, some days without realizing it. Some days those peripheral things stop us from moving forward, too.

It is my hope, on my blog and my YouTube channel, that you are getting to see my process as a whole. That you are seeing how I approach each project from start to finish, even then there are no specific layouts being created. Even the part where we make a decision to call an album complete and start a new one. Even the part where we receive our beautiful shipment of prints. Even the part where we start to think about how we want to complete the next album.

I hope you enjoy seeing these parts of the process too. Yes, layouts are awesome and fun and they are the reason we do this! They are also individual pieces to a completed project, and my hope is to get you from individual layouts all the way to completed albums. I’m so glad we are doing this work. Thanks for sharing my journey!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 21 | Gossamer Blue Kits!!!

June 21, 2016

Hi guys, I’ve got a layout in my 2016 Project Life album to show you, from Week 21, using my Gossamer Blue Main and Life Pages kits! These kits never disappoint, and this month I decided to use the journaling cards in the kit along with the fun embellishments. Have a look at my process:

This is the layout after I printed it out from the Project Life App, leaving only blank cards where the journaling cards will go:

For some reason that looks really greyed out – the border is a very light turquoise. Here is the completed layout:

I began the layout with the date card, and a brand new stamp set I got from Kerri Bradford: Ashford alphabet stamps.

I am seriously loving these little tiny pink acrylic hearts that are Gossamer Blue exclusives. I just want hundreds of them, please!

These rubber shapes from Pinkfresh Studio are also pretty cool and I could have used all of them except that I have plans for them. Too many plans, not enough time, people. Seriously.

The stamp set had these really awesome longer dotted line and vine images and I could use those all day long! I am always on the lookout for those types of stamps because they make great journaling lines.

I couldn’t not use the watercolor journaling card – it is just too pretty and the quote is perfect. We spent the day at the pool the first day it opened for the season, and this is a great way to tell that story.

I did bring myself to use another rubber shape rather than hoard them. Also that hot air balloon? Adorbs.

These pictures from this week make me so happy. I realized I am in four of them. Sometimes the layouts are all about our kids, and sometimes it is ok to just include pictures of myself. Perhaps to some that may seem narcissistic, but one day our kids will treasure these moments of me and Alan enjoying life. Also, I look at these pictures and don’t feel quite so broken inside. Yes, parts of me are broken and in pain. But look at how I am plugging through, making it with smiles and sunshine regardless of whatever is going on in the background. Yes.

I repeated the three elements on the side of the photo of me and Alan, and added a simple banner to the other last photo. The kids are actually in the pool, you can just see their tiny heads popping up. So happy to have this pool and to be able to relax here.

That’s it for today. If you’d like to check out Gossamer Blue’s kits, head on over there (enabler alert!): Gossamer Blue. See you back here tomorrow!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 20!!

June 14, 2016

Hi guys and welcome back for a Project Life layout today! I’m working in my 2016 album, using the Project Life App to create my layout and then embellishing on top. I chose a variety of products today, including Ali Edwards, One Little Bird, and Pink Paislee C’est La Vie. Have a look at my process!

So this layout is from a travel week where my husband was called out to Boston from Sunday until Friday. I did something similar a few months ago, where we sent photos back and forth and then I used those photos to compare and contrast our weeks in the layout. It turns out I had four pages, so two complete layouts. This is the first:

And here is the second:

I also added two inserts for our journaling. I wrote about our week here at home and Alan wrote about his week in Boston. The first insert is my journaling overlaid on a scanned map:

That is the front side, and here is the back side:

This is the second layout. Alan wrote two pages about his week, and I was so excited that he wrote that much! He was worried it was too much, but seriously, there is never any such thing as too much journaling. Make room to accommodate those stories. I am so happy his voice is here:

This week turned out to be quite a process for planning and creating, but I am incredibly happy with the results.

I love that Alan is willing to contribute so much to help these layouts happen. Half of the photos on this layout are his, lovingly taken and shared by him in order to help create the stories of our life for this week. I love the contrasts – while we lived our normal week he lived a very different week.

I am loving the date cards in the Project 52 Edition cards in the Project Life App. I am loving having a consistent way each week to display the week number. I am loving highlighting the events of our lives in a weekly format. I am loving organizing our story, through our memories, one week at a time. I am loving choosing photos that tell our stories in this way, not over the top, not feeling obligated to use every single photo, just the ones that fit in the story.

I am loving the graphic nature of this layout, as I mentioned several times in the process video. The angles and the black touches and the large numbers pop.

Notice how I did not break apart the days, although I did include the day of the week with the time stamp on each photo. We did not send photos on a regular schedule – Alan’s schedule gave him little time to text or photograph and that is completely understandable. Not dividing by days made this more flexible so I could include photos that we had.

For the second layout all the photos and journaling cards are 4×4.

More of the stamping, more of smaller, simpler embellishments.

I know it is hard to get the overall from the photos, so I hope you had a chance to watch the process video all the way through. At the end of the video I did show the layouts in my album itself with the inserts, so you can see how it turned out as a whole.

So that is all for today! Tomorrow will be a Disney layout and I will finish up Day 1 on that journey, so I will see you then!

~Theresa

Ali Edwards Story Kit, Project Life 2016

Project Life 2016 Week 19 | Ali Edwards READ Story Kit

June 7, 2016

Hi guys, so as you know I am a Ali Edwards Story Kit subscriber and I love these kits every month. The physical products are beautiful and well-designed, and the class content is always amazing. So this month I decided to use my READ kit on a Project Life layout for Week 19. While my layout is not necessarily focused on reading (in fact, it never mentions reading!), there were a lot of elements that mentioned “the story”. Our lives are filled with stories and that felt like a great jumping off point for this layout. Have a look at my process video!

Ok, so I created the layout itself in the Project Life App, using Dropbox to bring my Ali Edwards digital elements into the layout, and also using Letterglow to add a few digital elements to the photos themselves.

Here is the completed layout, with journaling and embellishments from the READ Story Kit added:

I started on the left hand side of the page, which was mostly about two of our kids who were home sick this week. I also got a new hat and we took some fun pictures with that.

For the hat photo I simply added a speech bubble with stamped stars and a word strip.

Our knock-out roses also popped this week, but I only included the photo, no journaling for that. You will see that I used the speech bubbles throughout along with the word strips. Simple and easy!

Whenever the kids stay home, I like to take them out to lunch once they start feeling better. I used half of the journaling card below, because I really liked the “Your face tells me the whole story.” No embellishments added to this one.

I love the chipboard embellishments that come in the physical product kit, but I have found the widest chipboard banner is always a bit too wide for photos on the Project Life App. So I brought this white banner into Letterglow and placed in on the photo on a smaller scale. Then I added an actual chipboard banner on top, offset. I absolutely used pink across this layout, and in the end I am glad I did.

This journaling card looks almost like it could be divided in two, and if you wanted to it would be just lovely, but I decided to leave it as one and embellish the one side. Again just a speech bubble with word strips.

On the right hand side of the layout I began with my journaling and photo of our son being inducted into NJHS, National Honor Society. I am so proud of him – transitioning to middle school was excruciating and he was failing last year. This year we made a plan and he has worked really hard, and he has kept A/B honor roll all year. So very awesome!!!

For the photo I brought another word strip into Letterglow. I did not alter the color, but did dial down the opacity. This one is also a bit larger than the physical word strip, which is the fun part of using the digital elements!

And here is where the layout took an unexpected turn! If you watched the video then you probably got the whole idea of what happened – I went to use the silkscreen that came in the READ Story Kit, and it bonded with the photo paper! This is what that looked like when I pulled the screen up:

You can see the residue that sadly remained on the layout itself! At that point I had to just to take a lunch break and cry for a minute. And then I regrouped and figured I would just cover it up. Originally I had used the black numbers in the digital kit, but the physical ones I received were white. So I decided to use those with a pink patterned paper backing them. Here is where I was glad I had several other pink elements on the layout!

Also, our little birds that were nested behind our wreath on the front door hatched in their nest this week. We have been hearing them chirping and tapping on the door, and we have seen mama bird and papa bird watching from the tree in the front yard. Underneath I added the marketing card, trimmed down, on top of the plus sign journaling card and then I added the date. Of course, long after the video was finished I realized that is entirely the wrong date (!) so I may end up going back and changing that, but for now this is it. LOL

The last story is about my Mother’s Day gift – the kids got me some really sweet gifts this year, and one of them was this little white elephant. Before they gave it to me, they took it on an adventure and photographed the whole thing. Notice the “Stop for Elephants” sign they altered. I love it and I love them. And I love having homes for these little (big) stories!

That is all for today – I know this layout was packed with journaling and stories! This might be the most journaling I have ever put on a layout, and it makes me very happy. I hope you enjoyed seeing the READ Story Kit being used in this Project Life layout. See you back here tomorrow for a Disney layout!

~Theresa

Project Life 2016

Project Life/Project 52 2016 Week 18 | Maggie Holmes Bloom!!!

May 31, 2016

Hi guys, today I am working on my 2016 Project Life album and have a layout from Week 18 to show you! I created the layout in the Project Life App using the Project 52 cards, and then embellished on top using Maggie Holmes’ Bloom collection! Have a peek at my process:

This layout includes an insert, because there were quite a few photos and quite a few stories I wanted to tell from this week. Mostly I wanted to tell the story of planting our flowers this year and the first day of being able to play in the sprinkler. Also we had a date night, and we had lots of rain. Here is the left side as it was created in the app:

Here is the right side of the layout with insert:

And here are the completed pages, first the left side:

And the right hand side here:

Ok, so there are a lot of photos to show you and I just have to tell you that I am very much loving how this layout turned out. The Maggie Holmes Bloom collection is just gorgeous and working with it is so easy, but seriously layered over this layout from the Project Life App is almost perfection! This card right here might be my very favorite rightnow:

That alphabet from the Bloom collection is to die for. And layered on that barely textured Hello card makes my heart swoon. I used this card to highlight our shopping day when we were purchasing our flowers. The G almost looks exactly like my photo of the lilies below!

One thing I try to do sometimes is to capture the kids while we are out and about, as a group. We make quite a scene sometimes, because there are six of us. We are conspicuous, Alan calls it our own fan club, and it’s frequently loud. But this is who we are:

Beside that photo is the date card, from the Project 52 kit. I added the puffy floral (oh please, pretty please make more of these!) and a few stamped sentiments.

Up until this past few weeks, our street ended two houses down. Well, now they have built our cul-de-sac and finished the road going around the back of our neighborhood! So our kids can go all the way down to the cul-de-sac and we can watch them in three directions from our driveway. So awesome. I brought this photo into the Letterglow app so I could add my journaling and the Captured sentiment, which is from One Little Bird’s Currently edition digital.

While Alan and I planted that day, the girls played on bikes and scooters, and then they refreshed themselves with the sprinkler. I only added a few small embellishments to these cards, and the one photo of Natalie’s shirt says all it needs to say: “Believe in all the good things.”

I added all my journaling in the App this layout, and I am really happy with the outcome. I love adding my own handwriting to my layouts, but sometimes it is ok to journal this way in order to tell the details you want to tell.

Don’t forget, when adding your journaling to your cards in the app, to leave some space for some simple embellishments too. I love adding a few things in between paragraphs, like washi tape or these little glitter squares.

The last two journal cards on this side are so very simple, and darling. That chipboard bird is my favorite – he ties in my favorite journaling card and repeats a bird theme that I use often in my layouts. It’s a win-win!

Ok, so onto the right side, which tells several different stories. Notice how I don’t place my photos chronologically, or by date, on any of my Project Life layouts. I don’t photograph daily, or even every other day, and tend to select events or stories that I want to tell each week. Then I add my photos wherever they suit me around the page. I did try to keep the planting/outdoors photos on the first half of this layout, but even those are not in chronological order. I am more concerned with the overall look and feel of the layout and it makes things less complicated for me.

I took this photo of my husband’s hands while he was working that day, and took that opportunity to write a little about how hard he works and how our house and our yard look so pretty mainly because of him.

I know our yard and our flowers are quite simple and minimal, but it’s a big deal for me. We planted all our own grass and the tree and the bushes and we laid the bricks and we chose the locations for the flower beds – it’s the first time in my life that I have been interested and able to keep any sort of flower bed. I love what we are doing.

On this last page of the layout for the week, I included a story about our weird little date night that went quite quirky. Here is that story:

This panoramic photo is of the cow fields that are at the front of our neighborhood. The cows don’t really show up in the photo, but that is ok. This photo tells a story for me – how much it rained all week and we had just a small quick walk that night in between rain drops, and how much I love seeing our bovine friends in their pasture every day!

Just two more quick photos here:

And one more journal card, no embellishments here.

I know this was a lot of photos and information in one post! Thanks for hanging around, I do hope you got some ideas for your own layouts! I will see you tomorrow for my Disney layout.

~Theresa