Project Life 2014....Week 11 with inserts

Today I'm sharing Week 11 of my Project Life 2014 using the May Gossamer Blue kits. The main layout uses the Life Pages Kit only. I have purposely skipped over Week 10 of my Project Life as it features the week of the girls' accident and I just don't feel like sharing the personal details.  

I had several inserts for this week and you can see how those fit in between my main spread, below.

This is the two page weekly spread without any inserts.  I had lots of photos this week so it was easy to pull together this spread quickly, reaching for items from the Life Pages Kit.

The left page.....

The right page.....

I had a different page protector other than Design A for the left side of my spread.  I was able to use just a 3 x 4 journaling card for the weekly, dated insert.  When I don't have an alphabet that coordinates with my spread I like to type the week on a sticker like my Starburst Grid Paper Labels.  I use my office date stamp to fill in the dates.  The puffy camera sticker is from the Pink Paislee Hello Sunshine collection.

I used another Starburst Label Sticker to hold some stitches that Josey removed + a piece of glass that Jordan dug out of her head after the accident.  The arrow clip from Webster's Pages helped make a focal point to my journaling. I used Grid Paper Labels throughout this week's spread for more typed journaling.

Here I let the photos take front and center and I just used a flair badge designed by our own Traci Reed.

On to the inserts.  These two feature my husband's birthday celebration.

For the title card in the center of my layout I used the green glittery Heidi Swapp Favorite Things Photo Frame from the May Add-On Kit #2.

The letter stickers that I used on the card above and this border edge below are from the May Main Add-On Kit. To create this border I trimmed down the page protector and left about an inch of the plastic part longer than my photo inserts. I folded a piece of patterned paper and stitched it to create a border. When in the album, it creates a nice visual separation from the other pages.

The back of the insert features an afternoon I spent at the salvage yard going through the girls' Trailblazer after the wreck.  I had a moment that day when I had to reflect on all the trips we've taken in this vehicle and how oddly enough I was thankful that the beat up vehicle safely kept my girls inside during the wreck.  I said goodbye by documenting it in my Project Life album.

It was very hard for me to get back to working on my Project Life after the girls' wreck.  I knew I wanted to document that horrible day but each time I tried to print photos or do journaling I broke down.  I've made it through though and I still get very emotional right now when I work on my pages. I am just so thankful that my life with my girls continues on.  Each and every photo of of them is a blessing and I find myself just sitting and reflecting, sometimes with tears dropping all over my projects.

I guess my message for today is this....keep on going with your albums, keep taking photos, keep working even though you might be months and months behind.  The photos and the stories and the memories that are tucked into our albums are priceless treasures.  Also remember to keep the focus on the photos + the stories.  The embellishments and little pretties are definitely a fun part of memory keeping but I always try to keep the focus on the real reason I scrapbook....to document my family stories.

Also today I have a blog post up over at Gossamer Blue showing you how I created a flipper insert with a stitched pocket.  I'll be showing that full spread here on the blog soon.

Have a blessed day everyone. Life is so good, isn't it?