Project Life Tuesday: Featuring Sarah from Arena Five

Welcome to Project Life Tuesday 2013 If you are new to The Mom Creative, welcome. I hope you will stay awhile. I’m Jessica – wife to Matthew, mom to Elias, a silly and spirited five-year-old, and Adeline, a spunky two-year-old. I’m also a marketing professional, savvy deal finder, photo lover and memory keeper trying to juggle it all.

Each Tuesday, I share my most recent spread as well as host a linky for readers to link up their pictures/layouts. Some links are affiliate links.

Today I am thankful to Sarah for guest posting, as I have been traveling for the past week. Thank you Sarah!

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My favorite thing about Project Life is that I can record the memories of our family without feeling overwhelmed.

Because Project Life makes it so easy to capture all the photos, details, and experiences that occur every day, I have adopted a weekly approach to assembling my albums.  Like Jessica, my albums have developed from the “photo a day” approach to the Sunday – Saturday concept.  I take tons of photos, organize them in photos on my computer, and keep a stack of ephemera on my counter that I want to slip into the pockets of my page protectors.  Ideally speaking, I would spend an hour or so each week with my printed photos, assembling my layouts.

But life rarely happens in an ideal manner, I’ve found.  Jessica wrote recently about how to tackle the problem of falling behind and today I’d like to share with you the approach that I have taken to working on playing catch up in my Project Life album.

Usually I have a very hybrid approach to my album.  I incorporate some super-simple digital techniques, but then I use the printed photos and the physical kits to create the finished product.  When I realized it was October and my album was only done through the first week of August, I decided to switch to full digital in the name of catching up.  Plus, it was just a whole lot of fun to try something new!

While I’m definitely not a full digital gal at heart, I have loved using this method in this situation because I can work on my album without having to bust out my bin o’ supplies, flipping through Core Kit cards, or worrying about keeping my good scrapbooking scissors out of my toddler’s reach!  Once I’m ready to have a big “Assembly Session,” I’ll print out all these digital files as photos and just slip ’em into their spots in the page protectors.  Easy peasy!

Week 34:

Products used – Design A digital template, Amy Tan Cut & Paste Kit

The Amy Tan Cut & Paste Kit is very versatile!  I used it in a pretty girly layout last week, but was able to keep it much more dude-friendly this time by choosing different cards and changing the colors a bit.  For example, I added the yellow stripes to the first 3×4 journal card for a pop of color.  The journal card on the far right represents something I really like to do with my Project Life albums, documenting events that are happening in the news or in popular culture. When I heard about the acceptance speech that Ashton Kutcher made at the Teen Choice Awards, I was blown away.  I knew I had to put it in my album!

Left Page:

Right Page:

I monkeyed with a few more things on this page with my limited digital skills.  For the card in the top left spot, I changed the border color to blue and added the arrow with a brush.  I really like how the pops of pink on this page add a burst of color without making the page too feminine.

By the way, am I the only one who has ever let their kids play in gutter water?  Who needs a pool??!!

Week 35:

Products Used – Soccer Theme Pack,  Kraft Edition, Summer Theme Pack, Design A digital template,

The Kraft Edition is one of my favorite Project Life kits.  I love the vibrant colors, the fun designs, and the versatility the kit provides.  I did change the colors of several elements on this layout and I added some drop shadows to some of my photos and text, but that’s really the extent of the digital maneuvers I used.

Left Page:

Confession time – Every single photo on the page is from my iPhone.  I love having it handy to snap shots throughout the day and my favorite app for editing those photos is Pic Tap Go.

Right Page:

For the soccer card in the top left corner, I used a 4×6 journal card from the Soccer Kit, but I changed the color of the journaling section from the stark white it is designed with to the cream color of the Kraft Edition.  That is one advantage to digital – if you don’t like the color of something….you can just change it!

Zoo Insert: 

Products used – Summer Theme Pack, Design A digital template

When I print this out, this layout will actually go back to back in a single Design A page in the middle of Week 35, but it was easiest to show it to you this way for the sake of BlogWorld.

For this insert about our trip to the Milwaukee County Zoo, I kept things very simple.  My 4×6 spots are mostly just straight-up photos and the 3×4 spots are dominated by journaling.

Side A:

I suppose it’s kind of weird to be featuring the Summer Theme Pack when it’s getting colder by the minute outside, but it’s nice to relive those beautiful days!

Side B:

There you have it.  Thank you again to Jessica for allowing me to come share with you all today!

Your turn to link up! Also, just a friendly reminder to please remember to link back to The Mom Creative in your posts. Thank you!