Project Life 2012...Week 39 + What I like for PL 2013

Happy New Year everyone! Today I awoke with 5 teenage girls sawing logs & scattered about our basement.  Some of them stayed up to nearly 4am and I think they just dropped and fell asleep at some point.  I stumbled into a disaster of a kitchen with 5 gooey crock pots, cups everywhere and lots of dishes.  I spent an hour cleaning that up just so that we could fix a triple batch of pancakes, sausage and juice for the little sleeping beauties when they awoke.  Then it was clean up time again in the kitchen & off to basketball practice.  They'll all be back here this afternoon to gather up their things and then I'm kicking them all out.  Ha!  Josey made sure to clean up everywhere else so I'm looking forward to an evening snuggled in by the fire.  Life is so good.  I'm looking forward to another year of good times with my little family.

My online shop has re-opened today and I'll be adding in new items very soon.  Until then I'm sharing more of my 2012 Project Life spreads.  Today it's Week 39, a favorite of mine for many reasons. There's many things in this spread that I want to continue for 2013.   

First I love the colors I used this week.  My photos were fairly neutral so I just chose papers and embellishments in my favorite colors of robin's egg blue, a yellowish Chartreuse and a few bits of orange.  

Secondly, I love that this week's spread stayed pretty flat but still had some embellished touches.  My goal is to keep my Project Life 2013 to only 2 albums, which includes ALL of my scrapbooking.  To do this I'm going to have to be conscious of of bulky, dimensional embellishments and the number of inserts I add to my albums.

Third, I like that I used what I wanted this week as far as product picks.  I particularly remember taking time to select a few favorite patterned papers, tags and just a few embellishments for this week's spread.   I was Project Life-ing just for me.  No assignments, no specific products that I had to use....I just sifted through my stash of products, looking for just the right creative touches.  I'm looking forward to a lot more of this in 2013 and will be posting some new ideas on getting creative with PL pages. 

Lastly, I like how clean, fairly simple and straight lined my spread looks this week with the full intention of keeping the focus on the photos.  I like to try to keep my photos as large as I can if space allows, keeping the full 4 x 6 and 3 x 4 sizes if possible.  I always want to keep this goal in mind of keeping the photos as the focus of my albums.  I want my family to remember the events, not that I crammed as much product onto my pages as I could.  They don't really care about all the products, I really feel that that part of the creative process is just for me.  

The photo below starts my 4 x 6 inserts.  Love this one which uses some favorite patterned paper, a pre-cut embellishment and a doily from my shop.  I typed the Week 39 using my typewriter and added some stitching.  I'll be changing this insert up a bit for 2013 and will post more on that soon. 

More patterned paper from this beautiful My Mind's Eye collection, typewriter journaling + a photo created with the Diptic phone app.

Moving on to the 3 x 4 slots, I have a Week in Review card + a 3 x 4 photo of Jordy & Charlie.  I've loved having this Week in Review card but it gets a little tedious to create at times.  Plus I feel that I might need that 3 x 4 slot more in 2013 to prevent extra inserts which could lead to a 3rd album.  So I've got plans for the Week in Review.  I'll try it out on my first Project Life spread for 2013 and show you my ideas.

Here I used a strip from the bottom of a piece of MME patterned paper for a journaling card topper.  I really love the look of the white grid cards from Becky's Project Life + adding my own embellishments to create my own 3 x 4 journaling cards.  I'll be trying out a few different kits for PL 2013 but I want to make sure that my album doesn't get taken over by kit products.  Since my Project Life pages are the bulk of my scrapbooking, I want them to reflect my own style.  I'll be sharing a new idea on this as well in an upcoming post.  I think this idea could be one of the things I'm most looking forward to for my 2013 crafting.

Maybe 2 of my favorite 3 x 4 cards for 2012.  On the left I used some packaging from some My Mind's Eye product.  Their packaging is really pretty and totally recycle worthy. I added typed some journaling on some MME patterned paper, adhered it to the back side of the square opening and then stitched on the card.  Date stamps, what can I say?  Love them and they'll be making a come back in 2013.  On the right I created my own pocket card using patterned paper and a stiff vellum.  I love using my manila parcel tags for pocket inserts.  Just trim them down and they nestle right in.  Some washi tape, a sticker and a wood veneer asterisk finish off this pocket.

Another typed journaling card + a photo of my goofball Jordan.  One thing I'm going to keep up for PL 2013 is adding in the "real stuff".....if my dog swam in poop or my daughter poses with balloons as boobs, that's my life.  I'm keepin' it real. So if I offend anyone with a little family tackiness...well it won't be the first time. ;)  Real life is what Project Life is all about.

This week also had a few inserts.  It was Jordan's 14th birthday and those special occasions usually mean more photos that are certainly deserving of an insert page.  Below you can see the smaller 5 x 7 horizontal insert + a full 12 x 12 insert.  I like to keep my inserts smaller than 12 x 12 but this one slipped it's way in.

 A simple 5 x 7 photo of Jordan and her three best friends.  I kept it simple because that's all that was necessary.  Four best friends, no makeup, mis-matched Sunday afternoon clothes and none of them probably brushed their teeth.  And all of them are beautiful in their own way. Who could ask for more?  My eyes are getting all moist at the message this photo conveys.....true friendship, no strings attached.  Oh, the power of scrapbooking.  

The back side of the above 5 x 7 insert features a mini layout with journaling that goes with the insert below this photo.  Jordan and her friends love to take the buggy (Gator) down this old lane with antique cars.  They found a what must have been a dumping spot because they find treasures each time they go there.  They have designated a spot in my old locker bin for a new treasure each visit.  On this day, they found the motherload.  I snapped a photo and them told them to pick a few items cuz not all of this crap treasures was coming back to my lockers.  

What I love about this small 5 x 7 insert is that it packs a punch.  It floats my boat.  It rings my bell as far as creativity goes.  I was able to create a mini layout using a photo, some journaling and some creative accents like the stitched patterned paper, the washi tape and sticker arrows & stamps.  I've found that I don't need to create a 12 x 12 collaged layout with one photo to fulfill my scrapbooking desires. I can do it all within my Project Life pages and that's like icing on the cake for me.  Wrap it up, I'll take it!~

The insert below has all the photos from Jordan's birthday celebration with her friends + their little adventure.  I like just dropping the photos into page protectors sometimes.  Sometimes photos are worth a thousand words.  Why mess with that?

And the back side of the above insert has photos from Homecoming week.  The big parade in our small town is pretty exciting stuff.  Plus Charlie got to ride on Jordan's Freshman float & he got to dress up as a buffalo.  A big BBQ in the park always follows and this is the first time I've captured that photo of all the kids.  Capturing hometown traditions is good.

And with that, the girls are back basketball practice.  Gonna go give all the girls a hug and a Happy New Year wish before I shove them out the front door before they want more food.

Thanks for visiting today.  I'm looking forward to sharing more of my Project Life with you in 2013.  More of the good stuff about scrapbooking....not just my layouts....but the guts of why we scrapbook and finding ways to make it more fun and interesting.  Ways to really capture life in between the pages. Ways of keeping it real. I hope you'll join me!

Hey, what about One Little Word?  I've found my word.  Not sure what I'm gonna do with it but it might just find it's way into my blog posts this year.  What about you, do you have One Little Word?