Project Life Week 21, 2012...keeping it simple with alphabets

Hello there. We had a fun weekend of softball that ended up with the girls' team winning the Midwest World Series Class C championship title. There were 24 teams from 6 states and the girls went 7-0 for the win! Josey also snagged the Best Defensive Player MVP award. It was SO HOT but the scrappy girls that came together from 4 little tiny towns took home the trophies. Talk about rooting for the underdogs! So proud of them all and I definitely got some scrapbook worthy photos. Today we're back home enjoying the AC and the company of Charlie. We're in definitely lounge mode.

Sidenote: Thank you for all the nice comments on my projects lately. They're always nice to receive and I've been enjoying getting back to creating more cards, gift packaging, notebooks, etc.

Project Life Week 21:

For today how about little Project Life updating?

Thoughts:

I just finished Week 23 this morning which means I'm 5-6 weeks behind. But you know what, it's okay. This is a project that I've stuck with unlike many others that go by the wayside. So as long as I'm enjoying this process, I'll keep trucking along. I'd love to be caught up...and hope to knock out a few more weeks this next week....but enjoying the process along the way is my focus. I'm taking photos, documenting our little stories and gathering them all in one place in a creative way. That's what Project Life is all about for me.

Keeping it simple with alphabets:

This week was completed during a busy time. The girls were just out of school for Summer, we were knee deep in basketball and volleyball Summer league games, we just had a family reunion and Josey went to the State track meet. I wanted to knock out this week quickly so I stuck with a few little embellishments....mainly alphabets in the form of small letter stickers and larger chipboard letters. This is my 2 page spread for Week 23.

The left page. I used chipboard letters + small alphabet stickers to create a title of sorts for my top left photo. I like to use a theme photo here if possible so that it kind of creates the mood for the entire week.
Using pre-made journaling cards:

I can't tell you how much time this is saving me when it comes to actually completing a week of Project Life. For this week I used 5 of my already made journaling cards and it was such a time saver. What used to take me on average of 2 hours to complete a week now takes me about an hour. I create the journaling cards at separate crafty sessions and I like to consider them kind of like warm up exercises. You can see the results of two of those crafty sessions here and here.
Here's some close-ups of this week's inserts. The first photo which has a title noting that Summer is here. Most of my alphabets I get are from Studio Calico kits. You usually get a chipboard alpha of sorts and a sticker alpha in the kit assortments. I love that each month I get kind of a grab bag of fun supplies. I just organized all of my sticker type embellishments so I'll show you that system later this week. :)
Here I used a Project Life grid journaling card side by side with a photo on a 4 x 6 insert. I still love to use the PL cards when I want quick and simple. I typed on the card then added a piece of washi tape above with sticker letters. The sticker letters help create titles on any inserts because they are bigger and make more of a presence.
More stickers and chipboard on a fun hay rack ride photo. Notice that the blank spaces of a photo like grass or the sky make for a great place to add the letters. I purposely look for these these "white spots" when I'm editing my photos. I like to crop photos rather tightly but always leave space for embellishments, etc.
More letters that were stitched, along typewriter journaling. Tip: Use photos of kids' t-shirts that have their events printed on them. Sometimes you get all the information you need right there.
Here I used a photo of Josey running in the State track meet along with a corresponding text that sent me. Using my iPhone I take a screen shot of the text, then Instagram it, then email it to my big computer....then save and edit and print. The girls hate when I do this but I'm the mom....so.there.
These are my 2 favorite 3 x 4 inserts for this week of Project Life. I pulled these 2 pre-made journaling cards from my stash and didn't worry one bit about them being mixy matchy with my photos. I used more of the stitched on sticker letters to make the "hayrack ride" title then typed my journaling. For the little "I love this" circle embellishment I stamped it using the Summer Stamp School stamp from Studio Calico. The stamped word "photograph" is from Studio Calico's Heyday Thoughts Stamp.
2 more pre-made journaling cards that saved me SO much time. I simply adhered my photos and little journaling.
Okay, Week 23 is in the books. So happy to have another week completed.

Your thoughts:

For each completed week I most generally have an inserted page protector that will feature a back and front layout using additional photos from the week. I would like to do some more traditional scrapbooking with these photos or perhaps just put them in more PL divided protectors with some journaling. My dilemma is whether to take the time to complete those inserts or move on to a new week. So far I have just added the photos and stuck in sticky notes with the stories and details and moved on. What are you thoughts? How do you approach the inserts? I'd love to read your ideas and suggestions in the comments section. :)

Coming up:

*More Project Life pages

*How I store my stickers and letter sheets

*What can you do with all those Studio Calico paper sacks?

*New shop items

*Gift packaging for jars using Washi tape + a new shop item