June 16, 2013

the week in review basics set q + a

some questions + answers about the week in review basics journaling card set…

how many different designs are included in the week in review basics set?
there are three different boarder options/designs – one with a color bar on the top and bottom, one with a color bar around all four sides and one without the color bar.

also, within these three boarder options, you can choose to journal your week with or without the days of the week printed within the text layer.

can you explain why there are two different file sizes of each week in review design?
the week in review basics set comes with both a 4×6 file and a full page 8.5×11 file for each boarder design. there are two different file sizes for different printing options.

how do you use the 4×6 file to print?
i have included a 4×6 file for those who like to arrange more than one journaling card onto an 8.5×11 paper to print. you simply copy + paste more than one 4×6 journaling card onto a blank 8.5×11 document, print and trim.

how do you use the full page files to print?
i have also included a full page file that has the 4×6 journaling card design on a full 8.5×11 sized file. this allows you to print individual journaling cards. when i first started project life, i found the best explanation of how to print individual journaling cards in this post on paislee press. she explains it so well and it is the only method i have used for printing my project life journaling cards.

my journaling cards are not printing out correctly. can you help?
you might find that your journaling cards are printing too big for the 4×6 cards and not fitting with in the print guide. be sure to check the printer settings as described below.

how do you change the color of the cards?
simply pick a new color, then click on the layer with the color bar or the frame color (depending on which template design you choose) and use the paint bucket tool to change the color.

can i change the font + text color in these templates?
yes. you can use any font and any color of text that you would like.

 

have anymore questions? please let me know…

posted in: project life | shop
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June 15, 2013

the simply white collection q + a

a few questions + answers about the simply white collection of photo collage templates…

i am new to photoshop. how do i use the simply white templates?
you can use these templates in photoshop or photoshop elements. click here to visit cathy zielske’s blog to view a fantastic video tutorial on using a layered digital template. and that is just what the simply white templates are. {and while you are on cathy’s blog, check out everything she does – i love her clean + simple style!}

why did you include a template with a white border for a 4×6 photo?
i like my photos to be printed with the exact dimensions that i crop them. what i found was that all of the ways to add a boarder onto photos in photoshop actually chopped off the outside of the photos in order to add the boarder but still keep it sized as a 4×6. so i made a simple template that fits a 4×6 photo (or a 2:3 cropping ratio) inside without losing any of the photo. there might be an easier way to do this, but i have not found it. for me, this is what works. and because it is a template that i use each week, i included it in the simply white collection.

how do you print your photos?
anything with a picture on it is printed at my local costco. this includes just photos and photos + journaling together. anything that is just words is printed on my printer at home.

can you explain the cutting guide on the 4×6 templates included in the simply white collection?
there are two templates (#6 and #7) that have a cutting guide line. you can choose to keep the cutting guide line visible when you print as a 4×6 photo and then cut it to fit in the 3×4 photo pockets for project life or you can turn off the cutting guide line layer and print as a full 4×6 photo. it is your choice.

can i change these templates to reflect my own style?
you certainly can! i simply adore white space, so i choose to always use white as my background color for these templates. but you can change the background color or add in some digital paper to put your own twist on these templates. have fun with these templates and make them your own!

will you be releasing more photo templates?
absolutely! stay tuned….

posted in: project life | shop
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Jacqueline R - Tracy – thanks for all this great info! I was surprised to read that you print at Costco. I do too, but I have issued with them cutting off my borders. It is almost like they expand the picture a bit to make sure it is all in the frame. The result is that the borders are cut off around the edges, even the ones I had printed this week using your templates. Have you ever had this occur? Is there some setting I am missing when I order them? Thanks!

Janet - Great q&a Tracy. Thanks. You have inspired me to get back into my albums! I am currently organizing photos onto one computer, trying to get them all to one place…. Then I will buy elements and simply white!

melody - Thank you for sharing of this. Your process and product are so lovely and inspiring. Your work is fabulous. Could you talk about how you print the 3×4 white journal cards with text only? Do you use cardstock or photo paper and do you print more than one at a time, or each individually?

fiona - I just love this collection, Tracy! So much white space, and I think my photos looks so much better because of it. Thank you, and I look forward to whatever you bring out next!

Pedroza - Love your work and templates. I am hoping you design the 6 x 12 template and the template featuring the Daytona photos, that would be great!

June 14, 2013

project life 2013 | weeks 21 + 22

i noticed that my project life album is filling up. we are almost at the halfway point in the year. can you believe it? so i took a few minutes to look back through some pages from earlier this year. and i realized something. i always say that project life is a great way to help my boys to remember their lives. that it helps them because they are so young and probably won’t be able to remember everything that happens. well, as i was looking back over the first half of this year, i noticed that there were things that i had already forgotten! but thanks to project life, i got to laugh and smile as i looked at all of these memories documented in my hands. so i guess it helps all of us to remember.

all 4×6 photo collages used in my project life pages are from my simply white photo template collection.

weeks 21:  two big events this week – quinn’s preschool graduation and our family reunion trip to the beach.

left side: our week in review card, photos from quinn’s preschool graduation, umbreallas on a rainy day and quinn’s face painted like a ninja turtle from his class party.

an iphone photo of quinn and his new duck and something tate said this week.

quinn with a silly grin in his cap + gown.
a side by side comparison of quinn on his first + last day of pk4. i love how you can see how much he has changed.

right side: this side is all about our big family reunion trip to daytona beach. i took so many photos that it was hard to pick only a few for this page. i included a black + white photo of everyone (the official count was 79 people – all of whom i’m related to in some way or another!) and a few other family photos on the beach. (click here to see more about this trip.)

i journaled directly on this photo of the beach. i love how you can see the cars in the bottom of this photo because daytona is one of the few beaches that still allow people to drive on the beach. it is part of what i remember the most about daytona beach when i visited as a child.

just a few photos of my boys and the hello beach brush over a photo of the ocean (from ali edwards’ hello summer life boxes). i simply adore these stamps and brushes from ali!

a favorite photo from the weekend. me, my sisters and my cousins photographed at the same place on the daytona beach boardwalk 33 years later. my dad really wanted us to recreate this photo – and i’m so glad we did. it is priceless.

insert:  as i said, there were so many photos that it was hard for me to choose just a few. so i made an 8×10 collage insert to include some more photos from this weekend. i’ll probably make a little 8×10 photo book to print all of the photos from the weekend, but this is a great way to capture just a few in our project life pages. i love the flexibility of inserts. and i really love the quality of becky higgins’ project life page protectors to hold these insets. they really are great.

on the back of the insert, i cut down a finger painting that tate did with my mom this week. my little budding artist…

week 22: not very many photos this week, but it is all still worth documenting.

left side: i had very few iphone photos to choose from this week and no big camera photos, but i still found some gems. and really, you only need a few to tell your story.

true story. we really did randomly run into my good friend who lives 4 hours north of us while we were driving home from our daytona beach trip and she and her family were driving back home from visiting family near our house. it was so crazy! right before we said good-bye, i had my sister take a quick iphone photo of our families together to prove that we really did see each other. i love this one!

tate’s rare nap in a shopping cart and what he calls mcdonald’s.

right side: an iphone photo mark took of tate naping in his car (two naps in one week? must be summer already), a rainy week photo, more of tate’s words and our weekly iphone photo collage. the shot of the bathroom is because quinn started taking showers by himself this week. he couldn’t reach the hook on the back of the door so he hung his towel on the door handle. i love that he made the effort to clean up after himself. (and i have no delusions that this will continue, but i’ll enjoy it for now.)
tate was all about wearing quinn’s jerseys this week. he kept changing and was happy to model the new numbers for me.
tate and his bowling pins and another brush by ali edwards from her family sentiment boxes.
insert: quinn colored some angry birds pictures, cut them out (with some help from my sister) and pasted them onto another paper. he was so excited to see his paper in our project life album on the dining room table this week. this is an 8.5×11 becky higgins project life page protector.
on the back i slipped in a ninja turtle drawing that quinn made. he has really been drawing a lot these days and i love it.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

my project life pages were created with these supplies:

the simply white photo collage template collection

the week in review basics journaling set

project life photo pocket pages design a

project life 8.5×11 page protectors

project life 8×10 page protectors

ali edwards’ family sentiment boxes

ali edwards’ hello summer boxes

 

posted in: 2013 project life creative team | project life
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Vanessa Biggs - Beautiful as usual :) would you consider making the 8×10 collage for sale? I am enjoying using your other templates so much. They are making my PL pages look so clean & ordered. Would love to see you add more templates to the collection.
Kind regards
Vanessa

Solgunn Finnesand - Your PL album is so inspiring. Love the clean look and the white space. Yes! Please consider making the 8×10 collage for sale.

Jen - Love this spread! You have SO found your niche with the clean + simple. It’s so beautiful and elegant. Inspiring! Love you! :)

rachel @ open~heart - The sky photo made your week 21 layout for me :) and you’re totally right – the week with fewer photos made more space for your stories. I gotta remember that!

June 6, 2013

project life 2013 | weeks 19 + 20

some weeks i get behind on printing my photos and putting together my project life pages. but since i am always taking photos and naming them with the date, it is so easy to get caught up when i do have time to work on project life. and that is also why i am able to go back into my 2011 photo files and start putting together a project life 2011 book. and i’m doing it digitally! (i will post more about this later and share some of my pages too.)

i am all about simplifying the process. and in weeks where i am behind due to preschool class projects, slideshows to create, preschool graduation and a family vacation then sticking with the basics + keeping it simple is what works the best for me. and that is why i can keep up with project life.

all of the photo collages that i used in these two weeks are from my simply white collection.

so here are another two weeks printed and documented. go project life!

week 19:

left side: the first of many underwater pool photos to come this summer, giving tate a haircut, a melty bead project that quinn made, quinn bringing me breakfast in bed on mother’s day and the usual week in review card. (i just released my week in review templates that i use here in my project life pages every week.)
a journaling card for our anniversary (fonts used are avenir and savu) and an iphone photo.
i took an iphone photo of a little desert rose plant that my mom got me for mother’s day. there was enough white space that i was able to journal about how i spent my mother’s day right on the photo. (i did this in photoshop and then had it printed as a 4×6 photo at costco.)
right side: a photo of me + quinn from the mother’s day tea at his school, tate falling asleep at dinner and some more iphone photos.
tate has been writing the letter t a lot these days. he likes to make a “big t” and a “baby t”. so i cut down one of his papers and put it in a photo pocket this week.
a photo of the boys playing golf with mark (he took the photo for project life and sent it to me) and something that tate says to us at night when he goes to bed.
insert: this week i used a project life 8.5×11 page protector to hold a drawing quinn made for me at preschool. 
on the back, i slipped in a paper that mark helped quinn fill out about me – complete with a drawing of me in the pool.
week 20:

left side:  new herb plants, sleeping tate, an ice cream truck fundraiser at preschool, our week in review card and a shadow photo of me holding tate.
i found quinn wearing a steak ‘n shake hat and cooking dinner. you bet this one was going to make it in this week. and a funny thing quinn said.
an iphone photo of the boys at a friend’s birthday party.
right side: basketball team photo day, and yes i was there with my camera. i got a cute photo of tate too. after all, he thinks he is on the team too. the boys painting, tate helping me shop and our weekly iphone collage (template included in the simply white collection).
a photo and a story about a spilled bucket of water.
insert: a 6×12 photo collage of my monthly 15 on the 15th photos – but this month i forgot to take photos on the 15th, so i took my photos on the 16th. i’m a rule breaker. it still counts!

click here to view all of my project life posts.

my project life pages were created with these supplies:

the simply white photo collage template collection

the week in review basics journaling set

project life photo pocket pages design a

project life 8.5×11 page protectors

project life 6×12 page protectors

posted in: 2013 project life creative team | project life
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ee k. - Sigh. I so adore the clean lines of your PL. But I like being crafty too. So many decisions ;) ! Thanks for sharing.

Chrystal - I can’t WAIT to see what you’re doing digitally! I purchased and love your Simply White Collection. Thank you so much for making it available! If you’re making templates for your digital pages, I’m sure they would be a hit (hint, hint!).

rachel @ open~heart - the crossed out 15 on your insert is halarious. Your all white layouts blow my mind just a little :) thanks for sharing!

Angel - I am loving your templates!! Thank you so much! They have completely changed the look of my Project Life, but I am loving it. Is the template that the “Birthday Party” photo is one in the set? I love the single image template, but only seem to see a square option or the full size option with just a border.

Thank you so much. Can’t wait to hear about your digital project. I am thinking about going back and doing previous years digitally as well. Can’t wait to see how you do it. :)

Angel

Amy - Love how clean and simple your pages are. Love the journaling on your desert rose picture. Would love to learn how to do that in PSE.

Elizabeth Rosemond - Love all the white space! And the “Girl on Fire” comment is priceless!!

heathyr - dear tracy,

you rock.

…no, but seriously, your PL is one of the best out there. all the clean white space? LOVE! why can’t I accomplish that. I just love your simplistic approach. you’re such an inspiration to me- thanks for putting yourself out there!

xo.

June 5, 2013

all wet

today was day three of potty training for tate. the weather has been absolutely dreadful + gloomy around here this week. combine that with two young boys and a third straight day of being cooped up in the house all day long and it is ultimately a recipe for disaster.

well, we finally reached our breaking point this afternoon and we all needed to get out of the house. so after a successful trip to the potty (yay tate!), i put some training pants on tate, quinn grabbed his one-size-too-small rain boots and we walked across the street to our neighbor’s house with a nice rain puddle in their front driveway.

i let the boys jump + splash + run their hearts out. they ended up soaking wet from head to toe (which probably had something to do with them dumping boots full of water on themselves and each other), but oh how they needed this. we all did.

now back to potty training…

posted in: mine | photograph
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Fiona - What fun! I love the expressions on their faces!

June 4, 2013

the week in review basics set

first let me just say a big thank you to everyone who has purchased my simply white collection! i received an overwhelmingly positive response to these templates and i am so grateful. and because of all the amazing feedback (yes, i read each + every comment here on my blog, emails, facebook posts and instagram comments), i am excited to be sharing my week in review basics set!

document your week in words with these week in review basics journaling cards. there are three different designs and two different text options – with and without the days of the week. all templates are fully customizable layered psd files, so you can easily change the color of the border and text. you can also choose any font to customize these cards to fit with your own style. this set comes with each journaling card sized as a 4×6 and each journaling card layered onto a standard 8.5×11 paper for different printing options. the week in review basics set is compatible with the project life system created by becky higgins.

posted in: 2013 project life creative team | project life | shop
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June 3, 2013

these days | may 2013

telling quinn that his basketball practice keeps getting cancelled because of the rain. (hello south florida summer weather – heat + rain!)

planning some big cleaning + organizing projects with the help of some pinterest inspiration.

changing up our daily routine as we say goodbye to school and hello to the lazy days of summer.

reading some great cookbooks like meatless and relish. i can’t wait to try out some new recipes.

feeling more relaxed and happy.

buying new shoes for quinn. he is growing like a weed.

listening to tate play his favorite bowling video on youtube while he plays with his bowling pins. he loves the song. me too.

watching the little couple, long island medium and old episodes of law & order: svu – especially when i’m folding laundry.

loving that quinn is really into drawing with markers these days. his drawings are getting more elaborate and detailed. and he prefers to draw on blank paper instead of color printed coloring pages. i just love his imagination.

growing herbs outside my front door in pots. so far so good. oh how i love fresh basil!

trying to balance it all. no one is perfect.

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posted in: these days
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Liza Lake - Tracy, I love this post. So simple. So sweet. I don’t have time to always comment, but I always enjoy your posts and it’s nice to keep up with you and the boys.

Pedroza - Enjoyed reading your journaling and how you began each sentence. Very nice!