PIP Day....Project Life In Progress..Week 3

It's PIP Day for Week 3 of Project Life. Can you believe that January is almost over? If you've been keeping up with your Project Life you can now see the photos turning into pages. Isn't it wonderful to see your album filling up? These are the days.

Here's a shot of this week's Project Life in Progress. First thing you might notice is the rainbow sherbet color palette. I'm loving a little more white + some fresh color for the new year. I worked last night while watching tv on getting all my journaling cards in place + gathering a fun pile of embellishments.

Product Picks:

This week I mixed journaling cards from Marcy Penner's shop with cards from the Clementine & Cobalt Project Life Core Kits. From my stash I pulled several stamp sets including my Label Basics from Papertrey + some Ali Edwards stamps. I also pulled some fun Washi tape, Basic Grey 6 x6 paper pad, and some printed grid paper + grid labels(my printer has a feature that allows me to print grid + notebook paper, so fun). The fun days of the week pads are from Target, some happy little finds that made their way home with me.

Challenge:

1. Keep my embellishments fairly flat. I'm really trying to keep my albums down to 2 like I did for 2011.

2. Use a week in review insert.

3. Use more 4 x 6 photos.

4. Make my own stamped labels.

Chit Chat:

I'm finding that I have a lot more photos lately. It will be interesting to see if this continues or perhaps we're just particularly busy right now. I'm definitely having to plan my pages when I have the extra photos. I don't like to have extra photos sitting around so I just print what I need for my album. On the flip side, sometimes you don't have enough photos for week. Check out Jennifer Hufford's Project Life week over at Elle's Studio to see how she makes up for a lack of photos this week.

Inspiration:

This week's inspiration comes from 2 great blogs I found. First is Ann-Marie Morris. Her pages are full of color, fun embellishments, lots of photos and great insert pages. Leena Loh's blog is another blog full of eye candy. I immediately fell in love with her beautiful Instagram blog header and was very happy to find this inspiring page of Instagrams. I just took a bunch of household photos and will definitely be using this for inspiration for a fun collage page. Leena's PL pages are full of fun photos, beautiful finishing touches that seem so simple but perfect, lots of hand journaling and good use of white space. Thanks for the inspiration ladies!

Your questions answered:

1. I'd love if some week you could explain what sizes you choose for your pictures, since I noticed you used all small ones this week. The sizes of photos I use all depends on how many photos I need to squeeze into that particular week. If I only have one photo for a day then it's usually a 4 x 6. If there are two photos I usually turn them into Instagram squares or smaller rectangles that fit into (1)4x6 slot. If there are even more photos for a day I will start fitting them into the 3 x 4 slots. The more photos I have, the more I really have to plan my weekly layout.

2. How do you photograph your spreads? I'm struggling to get good photos of mine. I have a bench that sits right below 5 windows in my dining room. I photograph all of my layouts on that bench usually around mid-day when I have soft, natural light shining through. I scoot my table around if there happens to be any glare which can pose issues with the shiny page protectors. Natural lighting is your best friend.

3. How do you print the smaller photos you put in your 4x6 slots? Do you use a certain computer program? For any square photos I use Instagram on my iPhone. You can see this post for tips. I print all my photos at home using my Epson Artisan 730 printer. It has a great program for printing multiple photos on one sheet. I can customize the photos sizes to be whatever size I want. No Photoshop needed.

4. May I ask which photo album pockets it is you are using? I use Project Life's Design A Pocket Pages with an assortment of the other page protectors mixed in for insert pages.

5. I was wondering if you could discuss the process of getting your phone pics to your computer how you print them. How do you get them to have the white border like Polaroid pics or are those usually Instax pics. Can you make your iPhone pics look like Instax when you print them? This blog post is a good resource for your questions. For the white borders on my photos, I have a setting on my printer that allows for borders.

6. What kind of camera do you use? I am using a Canon Rebel XSI and I have an old Tamron zoom lens too. A lot of my photos lately are taken with my iPhone too, it's sooo handy vs. the big camera.

7. Will the area where the title page has chipboard letters get bulky? How does your nearly complete 2011 album(s)look? I'm worried that that corner of the album will start to get huge and puffy. I ended up using (2)12 x 12 binders for my 2011 Project Life pages + insert pages. They are pretty full so I'm paying close attention to my use of dimensional embellishments this year. I'd like to keep 2012 to 2 albums also.

8. I am curious about your vintage typewriter and wonder if it is manual or electric? My manual typewriter is a pretty little gem from Good Will. I paid less than $15 bucks for it and had to re-thread a new ribbon (from Staples) onto it's existing spools. I use it each week as my hand journaling is rather large and loopy and takes up a lot of space.

9.I'm curious where you got the letters you are using to spell out words. Those are chipboard letters which can be purchased at most stores that sell scrapbooking supplies. Most of the ones I've used lately come in the main kit from Studio Calico each month with my paid subscription.

10. I have noticed that when I turn my pages the cards are falling out, how do you stop your album from falling out everywhere? Hmm, I'm not having these issues with my Design A Page Pockets. Not sure if that's what you're using. For any pockets that have the opening on the side instead of on top, there is a little movement. I simply add a little sticky dot to keep photos in place.

11. Are you able to share money saving tips on starting PL and how to maintain the project without spending too much money? There are several options. You will definitely need some sort of page protectors. Lots of options from Project Life. From there you can use your existing supplies to create journaling cards, etc. If affordable, the Project Life Core Kits are great if you want to add in a year's worth of journaling card inserts. For this, all you would need is to just add photos + journaling to page protectors. The rest of the embellishments are fun but not necessary if you looking for simple, easy and affordable.

This week:

The girls are all better and back in school. Both basketball tournaments are over so it's a tiny bit less hectic than usual this week. I'm working on some fun new vintage kits for the shop + I'll be posting some cards I made using leftovers from Week 2 of Project Life. My Project Life Week 3 will be up on the blog later this week also. Have a great day everyone!