Last year, I ended up with three full albums, each with four months of spreads. This year, I am planning on breaking things up in the same way. To answer a common question - the albums I use are 2 3/4 inches thick. They hold a lot of pages protectors, but I always end up adding thicker embellishments and extra page inserts and there is no way I could get an entire year into one album. Most likely, I could not squeeze it into two. This does not bum me out.
But it does mean that I end up with three title pages and three end pages over the course of year. Usually, I use these pages to play with 3x4 embellishment cards and highlight a few fun photos. I like to keep the pages similar (and neutral) but they are never identical. In the photo above, the right side of the album is holding a big pocket page that has cards from P, invitations to wedding and other bits of "stuff" from the past four months.
For the end of my first album I included a photo of me from the past month and as soon as I see Paul in June, I'll snap a similar close up of him to get in place. This is our last album of just two! How crazy. And awesome. I used the two 4x6 card from the Seafoam kit that are "meant" for the last page in the top two pockets.
And into the four 3x4 pockets I tucked (from left to right) a cut down piece of 12x12 Seafoam paper, a piece of kraft cardstock stamped with a guy and girl stamp (coming soon to the shop!), a card from the April Studio Calico Project Life kit and a journaling card from the Seafoam kit with a THIS IS LOVE stamp on a kraft circle sticker.
My favorite card is that boy and girl one. I added a bit of washi tape and hand-wrote "this is the end of just us two" below because the little one will be joining us in June.
SO simple. But fun to play around with something like this because there is nothing (photos, thoughts from the time period) that "has" to make it in. You just get to use what you want and can't go wrong.
For the second album's title page, I was able to play with paper, but made the decision to wait on photos. I want real family photos (not me taking a picture of Paul on Facetime) to start off the album, so for now, I am using just paper placeholders until we are able to get a few fun group shots. I recovered the plastic thing that comes in the albums with Seafoam 12x12 paper and a flair badge from Ormolu.
I used a normal title card to hold the months that this album will hold (May-August). In the top right slot, I put a quote from this article in the New York Times about sharing your family's stories (via Becky's blog). I loved the article and found it so relevant for Project Life and this time in our lives. The font is Ariel Bold and I just printed it on kraft cardstock.
My four 3x4s are super simple again. From left to right, a 3x4 Seafoam journaling card, two cards from the Studio Calico Project Life kit and a Seafoam journaling card with text about where we are now and these upcoming four months.
On top of the first three 3x4 cards, I layered an embellishment : a wood veneer hello from Freckled Fawn, a flair badge from Evalicious and a printed transparency from a Paislee Press digital element.
I cannot believe we are nearly 1/3 down with 2013. The best part is really yet to come. So excited to keep up with this project.
Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. You can see my 2013 title page here and find answers to common Project Life album questions here.
