i lived my dream job. and it was an amazing experience. i was the full time sports nutritionist for the nba dallas mavericks (professional basketball team here in america). and it was even more than i could ever have hoped for in a job. i worked with some genuinely great people. i had an office right in the american airlines center where the team played. i traveled around the country with the team on their private airplane. i attended all of the games for the three seasons that i worked with the team. i visited every single nba team’s home court. i even got to put my master’s degree in sports nutrition to good use. and i still have some lasting friendships from those fun days with the team.

i took some photos when i worked with the mavericks. they are not the best photos because this was before i really knew what to do with a camera. i always had a love for taking photos and i just knew that someday this would all be over and i’d wish i had photos to document it all. so the photos i took are not the greatest, but they still tell my story. a story i’d like to share with my boys. and that is kind of difficult to do when your photos are all on random external hard drives.

so i decided to honor this time in my life. the time when lots of hard work finally met with the right opportunity. it was time to print these photos and tell my story. this was over 10 years ago. and life has taken me beyond this experience in my life. i know that today i’m exactly where i want to be and yet i’m so grateful for all the things that have happened in my life. it was time to print out my photos and document this part of my life.

i used becky higgins’ mini album in midnight. i added some journaling cards from the project life midnight edition core kit and printed some quote cards from elise. putting together the album was so simple and fast. i printed out my photos and slipped them in the pages along with the journaling cards. that was it. i was done. this entire project only took me a few hours total.

and i’m so happy to have this mini album to add to our collection of family photo books and memories.

i found some of my old business cards and slipped one in the cover and put one on the first page. i also printed out a card with a little about my story along with a few photos for the first page.

i love that i took these photos of the things that i saw and the place where i worked everyday. like the practice court, me at my little desk and the food area in the locker room that i was in charge of for the players.more photos of the locker room, the training room and the rehab area. the team airplane. i logged many miles on this plane and must admit that it was a fantastic way to travel – especially when you were the person in charge of ordering the food for the entire airplane. you never had to worry about not liking the meals. on the road practice before the games. clearly not my best photography work, but still some great memories. doing my job and taking care of the players. love + basketball. i met my husband during the 2003 play-offs and these are some photos from that time. (and a stamp from ali edwards’ hello life stamps.)some photos i took in the many cities i visited with the team. scaramanto, houston, chicago, new york city, salt lake city…one unforgettable experience for me was my very first visit to new york city. i went with the team in january of 2002. just four months after the attacks on 9/11. i went with a few of the players and coaches to visit the site where the world trade towers had fallen. i had never seen these massive buildings, so i could not fully comprehend the emptiness that was left behind. but i will never forget standing on the special platform for the families and seeing the twisted metal, the cranes and the american flag. and the wall of dedications to the loved ones that were lost that day. it was a day i will never forget. there are pages in my album filled with photos from games and with friends. all memories i will remember for a lifetime.

project life is still going strong around here…

earlier this week i shared my simply white collection of 4×6 photo collage templates that i use every week in my project life pages. and these weeks below were no different. all of my photo collages were made using the simply white collection.

week 17: everyday life around here

left side:  photos of the boys watching tv in the playroom, tate smiling in some beautiful light and my week in review card. this week i recorded my little video clip for a special video from becky higgins creative team for national scrapbooking day. i recorded the video horizontally and this is what the preview looked like on my iphone in my camera roll. so i just took a screen shot and printed it as a 3×4 image. and i also printed a card with tate’s new way of saying milk.i love this quote because it is so true. especially with project life becoming such a big part of my everyday. and an iphone photo of dinner. tate enjoying an ice cream cone in three simple photos. it is going to be a long + sticky summer.right side:  quinn reading to tate (love this!) and some 3×4 photos + words from this week. these are the little spinach veggie bites that tate eats every single night. my kids don’t eat vegetables (call it the curse of their mommy being a dietitian in her former life!) but tate will eat these. he apparently has no idea that they contain veggies. and they are good for him. i wanted to document this because it is such a big part of our everyday right now. i just love documenting the little things like this. (these are the dr. praeger’s spinach littles that i buy at whole foods and they are good.)we all went to see quinn in his preschool letter parade this week. for our weekly iphone photo collage this week i used 6 photos of quinn and his growing duck collection. (template included in the simply white collection.)

week 18:  mark’s 39th birthday and more everyday life.left side: photos from mark’s birthday – the cake we made with the candles from the dollar store that quinn picked out and a family photo from mark’s birthday in the evening light outside by the front door (hello timercam app!).my monthly calendar with the date for mark’s birthday circled and our anniversary with a heart around it. and my poor tate crying in my arms because he wanted so badly to play basketball on the court with his big brother. a collage of photos from mark’s birthday celebration this week, including his birthday breakfast in bed, lots of cake and the birthday checklist that quinn wrote – with a little spelling help from me. right side: flowers, food and more iphone photos. iphone photos + words.love this crazy light and the bokeh in this photo i took on our drive home from my parent’s house. and no, i was not the driver. i had to document the little article about my week in the life book that was published in a dutch magazine. (you can read my blog post about it here.)

click here to view all of my project life posts.

project life pages created with these supplies:

more of my project life pages. just keeping it simple as always…

week 15: mark + quinn went to a practice round at the masters golf tournament in augusta, georgia this week.

left side: i sent mark to the masters tournament with our little canon point + shoot camera and instructions to take lots of photos. and he did. yay! they met up with friends and had a great time. i printed the masters logo onto a 3×4 card and added a photo of all the boys with a few words about the trip. i love this photo with all the people, the trees and the golf course. it really gives a feel for the whole atmosphere. i lived in augusta for a year during my dietetic internship and passed this golf course everyday, but never got to see the inside. it was great to see what was hiding behind all of the tall trees. right side: mark dropped off me and tate in jacksonville to visit my parents again while they were in georgia. these are some photos from our road trip and some iphone photos from the rest of the week. well, actually these are all iphone photos. the proton therapy center where my dad is receiving treatment. amazing place with amazing people that took such great care of my dad. and that is tate on the couch waiting for my dad to finish his treatment.a little card with the way quinn says “tate’s” and tate watching mark mow the lawn. insert:  this week i added a project life 8×10 horizontal page protector with a photo of mark and quinn at the masters under some famous tree.  in the back i slipped in a picture quinn drew of the golf tournament. it is them in the stands watching the golfers play.

week 16: basketball, warm weather and family this week.

left side: quinn’s basketball game, pool days begin again and a little yoga for me. and of course, our week in review card. some small 3×4 photos of quinn and a filler card from the amazing project life midnight core kit. i love everything about this kit! right side: quinn’s preschool photos, a party with lots of cousins, girls night dinner and my weekly iphone photo collage.

mark got quinn a masters baseball hat. i took a photo of him and wrote a little something on the photo. (font is mank sans.)

tate finally started eating ice cream. he always used to refuse it, but now he loves it. (font is avenir and savu.) and this week was the boston marathon bombing. is is part of our history and our world, i wanted to include something about it. so i saw this quote on a news story and thought it was appropriate. and so true. insert: i included an 8.5×11 page protector with a drawing quinn made of the dinosaur dig and volcano day at preschool. on the back i slipped in quinn’s letter homework from this week. it was the letter q and he was so excited about it. click here to view all of my project life posts.

but when i took away the label of scrapbooking and started to think of it as journaling with words and photos, it made more sense to me. a much better fit in my mind.

so now here i am one year and five months into this journey of project life and i don’t even think about the labels anymore. family historian, memory keeper, mom with a camera – they all fit. and if it means that i end up with family memories big and small recorded forever, then i’ll take it. no matter what you call it.

so happy national scrapbooking day to you all! if you have not yet seen it, becky higgins put together a sweet little video of members of the 2013 creative team sharing some great little tips, tricks and favorite project life pages. yep, i’m in the video too…

watch the video here.

i was a little behind on project life because we were out of town and off our normal routine for almost two weeks while we visited my parents in jacksonville during quinn’s school spring break. but since i have my own project life system to help me keep up with the photos and happenings, it was no big deal. just finding the time to sit down and pull together my photos (because i had taken tons of photos) and pages was a bit challenging. but somehow i managed to get it done. pages finished for weeks 13 + 14.

i am starting to include more inserts into my weekly pages. i am even going back an adding some inserts to weeks past (more on this in a future blog post). i am using becky higgins project life page protectors in 8×10 and 8.5×11 sizes right now. i love the quality of these pocket pages. and they are perfect for holding some very important pieces of our story in our family project life album.

week 13: easter in jacksonville and almost every photo taken with my iphone. oh how i love you, sweet iphone!

left side: a perfectly imperfect photo of me and the boys driving to jacksonville, florida. (we visited my parents as they are living there for a few months while my dad undergoes some amazing advances in prostate cancer treatment.) and some of my favorite easter day photos like the bunny my mom used to decorate their apartment door, tate carrying his easter eggs, the boys playing with their easter legos and my dad chasing the boys around by the river.

an easter card printable by dunia and a cute little something quinn said about an easter cartoon he was watching.
right side: sleeping boys, a preschool easter party and the many faces of my sons.
i put a photo of the boys making necklaces at quinn’s school easter party and a photo of me wearing the necklaces on one 4×6 card. i didn’t use a template. i just made what i needed for the photos to fit in photoshop.inserts: i wanted to include lots of iphone photos this week since i had taken so many. i was inspired by these simple + beautiful photo collage templates by fellow creative team member, rebecca. i printed my collage as an 8×10 photo that i slipped into a becky higgins 8×10 vertical page protector. i printed out my march 2013 these days blog post. i used these templates from cathy zielske and sized them down to an 8×10 so they would fit in the back of the page protector. i love the idea of capturing my thoughts in my project life pages. i will be doing this a lot more.

week 14

left side: photos from jacksonville and the beginning of quinn’s basketball season.

i just love this iphone photo of the boys painting with watercolors.the blue bridge that tate loved to drive over, quinn riding on the luggage cart and a journaling card about our trip. fonts used were windsor hand that i found via design editor (who also happens to be a fellow project life creative team member), mank sans, avenir and amelie.i took my big camera to quinn’s first ever basketball practice. and i loved this series of him shooting a basket. so i made my own little 4×6 collage with some text. right side:  random bits and pieces from the week like a macro photo taken with my iphone lens of some grass sprouts that quinn brought home from school, a black + white photo of tate, the boys and their cousins playing with play-dough, tate and his sleep trouble on our trip and my reflection in the door to the restaurant where we had lunch. and of course, my weekly iphone collage. another funny thing quinn said and the boys playing mini-golf with mark. inserts: we went to the jacksonville zoo with my parents and my sister, so i made an 8×10 collage of all the photos i took. again, lots of photos from this little trip to the zoo and all shot with my iphone. i used these templates from cathy zielske and sized them down to fit in the 8×10 page protectors. why size them down you ask? well, to be honest it came down to printing for me. i can’t get 8.5×11 prints from my local costco and i’m just too impatient to order them online. so local 8×10 prints it is. and they came out great.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

another few weeks completed. and as elise says, i still love this project!

the deeper i get into this year, the more i can look back over my project life album that i made last year and really see how much my boys are growing and changing. i am so inspired to go back and capture more of our family story – the bits + pieces that live on my computer. so i am going back and working on our project life 2011 – a digital version. i will share some pages as i complete this album. i cannot wait to get it done.

in the meantime, here are weeks 11 + 12…

week 11: a visit with friends from dallas that we haven’t seen in years.

left side:  all iphone photos and a few journaling cards with things the boys are saying. and one more of ali edward’s hello life stamps for the hello good times journaling card. i choose blue for this stamp to coordinate with the photos this week. right side:  photos from our boat ride – and they were all taken with my iphone 5. yes, even the big photo of the ft. lauderdale intercoastal waterway. i love that i got a family shot of us and our friends to include on the bottom of this page. i love that my iphone 5 takes such great quality photos and they are good enough to enlarge to fit in a 12 x 8 space. i also added some journaling text to this photo.week 12

left side:  i used all iphone photos on this side. coloring at the park, a book i’m reading and a shot of me and the boys at the park. a visit from another friend that lives in dallas. i got to sneak away for some time to catch up. and then there is my child who got sick the next day. thankfully he waited until after i had some girl time. a photo of my first attempt at making gluten-free pizza for dinner. this is just an iphone photo of the pizza on the kitchen table. right side: we painted easter eggs this week. the boys always have so much fun. they love to use their fingers and mix the colors. i did use my big camera for these photos. and i put all six of the 4×6 photos on this side.i used two 4×6 photos that i split for the middle pockets.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

week 9

left side:  journaling printed on a photo of quinn, a march calendar card for the beginning of a new month, mark holding tate while he covers his ears at a high school lacrosse game, iphone photos of me + the boys making chex muddy buddies on one 4×6 photo and the boys in chapel at quinn’s preschool.

i used another one of ali edward’s hello life stamps for the this week journaling card. i just love these stamps! i also included a photo of quinn’s preschool. sometimes we forget to take photos of the things we do and see everyday. i wanted a photo of the school building so the boys could see where they went to preschool someday. (tate will be starting here in the fall.)

right side: everyday lego play, some small photos in black + white and a weekly iphone photo collage. an iphone photo of my boys and their cousin playing in my parent’s car – and my thoughts on this photo. simple words from the boys printed on journaling cards. i don’t want to forget these little things that are so much a part of our days now.

week 10

left side: a sunset light saber battle, little iphone moments from the week, quinn coloring ducks in his new easter coloring book with some text printed on the photo.

right side: makeing duck cookies, puzzle time and my weekly iphone photo collage. a small collage on one 4×6 photo. a cute story + a photo of tate.quinn + his duck artwork at preschool and a journaling card with a little something quinn says these days.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

left side:  our week in review card, valentine heart cookies the boys made, valentine’s day decorations, preschool party and a iphone photo of the boys.  i love this journaling card with how tate says happy valentine’s day and the iphone photo of the kitchen table decorated for valentine’s day morning. i cannot recall for the life of me where i found the cute valentine heart printable!photos of the preschool party heart shaped pizza and quinn’s star wars valentine’s cards that we made with glow bracelets on a 4×6 photo. right side: photos of the boys at the park, a visit from some family, me in the rare cold day down here and our weekly instagram collage photos.simple journaling cards with some cute little comments from quinn this week.

a 4×6 card with three small iphone photos from my parent’s anniversary dinner. (and i’m still having some issues with costco printing to my exact dimensions so they don’t crop off the white border around my photos.) insert (front):  i added an insert this week. it is a project life 8.5 x 11 page protector with a valentine’s card quinn made at preschool on one side.insert (back):  on the back of this insert, i slipped in a drawing from quinn and some other valentine’s cards. week 8:  this has been a star wars costume week for the boys. quinn and i had the milk battle of 2013 and more park days for everyone.

left side: iphone park photos, a journaling card describing what i have dubbed as the milk battle of 2013 (which ended up with us calling a truce and quinn agreeing to eat green beans instead of drinking milk) and some more star wars costume photos. love this iphone photo of tate taken with his cape tucked in the back of his shirt and blowing in the wind on the swing at the park. another instagram moment captured in words and a photo in the pages of project life.a photo of tate’s current favorite sneakers and a little 3×4 collage of photos of all the places the star wars costumes have been this week.right side:  quinn sleeping during our milk battle, my new mug (and a cute story about it here), a gift from mark, some me time, tate’s sick night and a little letter i wrote to quinn about how i love to watch him watching baby looney tunes on the ipad – just so i could capture how i feel about him at this exact moment in time. a sweet photo i captured of tate looking at our project life album as i was on a chair taking photos of the album for my blog post. i just love how he is in his clone trooper costume.

insert:  this is the insert i made for my january day in the life photos. i followed along with ali edwards and documented the last day in january. i took a lot of photos this day.  i made my own template so i could fit as many photos as possible. i kept it simple and just added a little comment about all the things we did that day on the front and back. i sized them as 6×12 and slipped it into a project life 6×12 page protector using both the front and back. ali has some beautiful day in the life templates too.

i originally planned to do a day in the life on the last day of each month, but i overwhelmed myself just a bit with all the photos i took. so i’ve since decided to do a 15 on the 15th photo project each month with my friend rhonda instead so i can limit myself to just 15 photos taken on the 15th of each month. i am working on my february insert now.

i used my iphone for all of these january day in the life photos. i do hope to challenge myself and use my big camera for my 15 on the 15th project from time to time.

but these days are still part of our story. and they are recorded like all of the other things in our lives. and having some plain old regular weeks is just fine. not having any super special layouts for our project life pages is okay. it really is.

at first i had some anxiety about not putting lots of thought into my page layouts for these weeks. i was critical of myself because there was nothing spectacular to include. i had to stop myself and remember that project life and my desire to document is not about putting out pages that will impress anyone else. it is about recording all the moments – big and small – that tell our story for our family.

sometimes it is just about getting it done. inspired or not. recording and documenting. and it is all still good.

so these are some regular days in our life documented in photos + little stories…

week 5:  a mix of big camera photos and iphone photos. on the last day of january, i joined ali edwards in documenting a day in the life. i am working on an insert with my photos from this day. (the insert is 6 x 12 and i will be ordering it from persnickety prints since my local costco doesn’t offer that size.)

left page:  some black + white photos. a calendar for the new month of february. an iphone photo of my dad, mark and quinn watching the superbowl. quinn showing me how he really feels about his preschool homework, a few photos from my friend’s visit and our week in review card.an iphone photo converted to black + white and a journaling card with something we hear tate say all the time these days. and yes, he does say stam instead of stand. so sad because he gets so frustrated, but so cute at the same time. right side:  all iphone photos except for the two big photos of quinn and tate. a screen shot of mark’s first real estate listing and my weekly instagram collage. sometimes i will go back to my instagram feed and copy whatever i wrote about the photo. (i wish there was a way to make an instagram book that included my original comments that i post with the photo!)i am incorporating my one little word into my project life pages this year. this month’s assignment from ali edwards was to create a vision board. i spent some time flipping through magazines to find photos +  words that inspired me. i ended up putting together a 20 x 30 white board filled with things that caught my eye. i took a photo for my one little word album and re-sized the photo to fit in a little 3×4 pocket. i also love this iphone photo of quinn getting in the car after school. it shows one of the things i do five days a week. it is so much a part of my everyday routine, but someday we will be past preschool days and i will be so happy to see this photo and all the memories i’m sure it will bring back. week 6:  another mix of big camera photos (mostly the full 4×6 photos) and iphone photos. left side:  i had my big camera with me in the grocery store so i took this photo of tate helping me shop with our little melissa + doug shopping cart. we bring it to the store and the boys love to help me do the shopping. i must admit that i used to be self conscious about taking photos with my big camera in stores, but i have gotten over that. i have lots of really fun photos of the boys shopping with me. and i love them all. especially since i noticed today that quinn is almost too tall to use this shopping cart now. i also included an iphone photo of some me time and one of tate in some yummy light on our bed.

i love this iphone photo of all four of us at the park. and another iphone photo of our family movie night. and yet another iphone photo i printed with my words from instagram.a little collage of the boys (using these photo templates from paislee press) working on a little valentine’s day craft (inspired by my lovely friend angie warren). right side:  i took some photos at preschool of all of quinn’s classmates and their dads for a special day called “doughnuts for dads”. since i’m the unofficial class photographer because i’m working on a year long project (inspired by the uber creative becky higgins), i’m lucky enough to get some random photos of quinn at school to include in our project life. like the shot of mark and both boys that morning because tate came too and played while i took photos. a photo of quinn’s slightly injured nose but even more sad face due to a wooden truck being thrown at him by tate. and a little journaling about it all.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

i did it. i dove into the wonderful world of digital project life! and i started with a very special book that i made for a very special little girl’s 2nd birthday – which just happens to be today!

my niece, brooke, was born 11 week early. and my sister allowed me to use my camera to document her stay in the hospital for the week before her daughter was born. she also allowed me to slip into the nicu and photograph baby brooke for the two months that she was there growing and getting stronger. (you can read more about brooke’s birth here and here.)

so brooke’s 2nd birthday was the perfect time to put all of these photos together into a book for her to keep for always. it is so amazing to see her journey in photos over those two months. to see how she had lots of tubes + wire to breathing and eating on her own.

i used the digital project life templates and the baby edition for her kit to make a photo book in photoshop. (i did mix in a few cards from the baby edition too. i just love the yellow + grey colors in this kit!) i had the photo book printed as a 12×12 book from shutterfly. the process was simple. the only extra little thing that i did was to personalize a few of the cards with brooke’s age + the date.

here are some photos of the printed book from shutterfly:

my sister in the hospital…

just an hour after brooke was born…the first days…getting stronger…going home! i love these photos of my sister through the nicu door washing her hands for the last time. i scrubbed in with her every time we went to take photos of brooke.a healthy little baby girl…i included the two blog posts i wrote about brooke so she can read them someday… i made two pages of the baby edition for her prompt cards and left them blank so my sister can write in the book and fill them out. who says you can’t write on the pages of a photo book?

here are all of the digital pages:

i’ve always loved the look of square project life pages and i’ve been wanting to try them. but since i’m such a creature of habit, i just stuck with the rounded corners because it is what i’ve always done. but after looking at all of the project life 2013 creative team inspiration on becky’s blog, i decided to just do it the way that i want to.

you see, i love clean lines and straight edges. and i love white space even more. so i not only went with square photos but i took it one step further and added a white border to all of my photos. i feel like this gives my pages a more cohesive look. and i think that i might even make my white photo borders a little thicker next time.

week 3:  these days, i’m capturing everyday life with both my iphone and my big camera.

left page: my week in review card is in the top left pocket, as always. i put some text on some photos and highlighted some iphone photos in the 3×4 pockets with little stories underneath.

right page: lots of photos and one journaling card.

a journaling card with a little something quinn said to me – it is kind of gross, but i want to remember all the little boy things he says. and an iphone photo of quinn sleeping on my lap at dinner.

i used ali edward’s hello life stamps for the everyday life journaling card. i also found a little drawing that quinn made for tate and taped it onto a journaling card and had quinn write his name on it.

this is an iphone photo of tate having a slow start to his morning. i love the angle and added a little text in avenir font.

week 4: keeping it simple with mostly photos again. some more text on a few photos to tell more of the story.

left side: little bits + pieces of real life this week.

right side: some field day photos, a quote that made a difference to me this week, a funny thing quinn said about his brother and my weekly instagram collage template.

moving the bike seats was a little thing this week, but those little things are what keeps our lives moving forward.

i split this photo and put it in the middle of design a pocket pages.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

why exactly is this important to me?
why i choose to spend so much time on these memories?
why exactly is this such a priority for me?

well, i finally found the right words to describe why i spend my time doing what a i do…

and my answer is yes.

it will matter to me. to my family. to my husband. to my kids.

taking photos of the boys all the time is just a part of our daily lives. it is something that show them that i care. their printed photos in a book show them that they matter. the photos i put on the walls show them that they are important. documenting our memories + our story is important.

so how did i get to this place? well, simply put, i let go.

i let go of needing to do everything perfectly for project life.
i let go of needing to edit to perfection every.single.photo.i.shot.
i let go of needing to take every photo with my big camera and embraced my iphone.
i let go of needing the most amazing design layouts for my photo books.
i let go of needing to get it all done in one night.
i let go of caring so much about what everyone else would think. would they  like it? was it pretty enough?

and what i gained since letting go has been so much more than i ever realized. all the time i put in to piecing together our story week by week in project life last year means so much. because my family now has our story recorded forever. and that will matter more than a year from now.

what are you doing today that will matter a year from now?

the biggest hurdle for me is photo editing. it is something i always get behind on. i have hundreds + hundreds of photos that have never been edited. and sadly, they probably never will get edited. so instead of getting all bummed out about that and trying to figure out how to find the time to go back and edit my old photos, i am putting my energy into moving forward with a plan to deal with today and how i edit from now on.

keeping up with project life last year, really kept me on track with getting my photos edited – at least on a monthly basis. i was not perfect and still have lots of unedited photos on my computer. but at least the best of the best – the ones that tell our story – those have been edited. so, no wasting time look back on what i have not done.

this year i am trying out a weekly routine for editing my photos on one day of the week – sundays. my project life weeks are monday through sunday so instead of trying to edit all week long, i am just going to wait until sunday nights to sit down and edit all of my photos at the same time. just like how i do laundry – all in one day to get it over with and not have to keep doing it all week long. works for me.

i’m also going to answer a few questions i’ve received about photos, photography and my project life pages:

- i use adobe lightroom and photoshop to edit my photos.

- i shoot my photos with a nikon d300 camera body, a nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens and a nikon 24 – 70mm f/2.8 lens – and my iphone 5.

- the fonts that i use on my journaling cards are avenir and amelie.

- i love cathy zielske’s week in review cards, so i created my own version of them to work with the design, fonts and color of my project life pages. here is a link to cathy’s week in review cards and a great video tutorial she made about them.

- to make life simple, i keep track of everything going on in our week with the day one app. i have it on my iphone and my imac – and both of these sync up nicely. when i put together my week in review card, i just copy and paste from day one onto my week in review card in photoshop.

- i make my own templates for all of my photos and journaling cards – including my weekly instagram 6 photo collage – in photoshop.

and now, welcome to my project life 2013!

here is my title page for my 2013 project life album. i wanted to keep it simple so i added some family photos, printed out the year on the 3×4 journaling cards and found a nice quote on pinterest that i printed in photoshop. (i used avenir and learning curve fonts.)

week 1:  the start of our new year. saying good-bye to 2012. a college football game (my alma mater). and more everyday life.i used my iphone at the florida state football game and the photos printed out great. i made a simple calendar journaling card with this 2013 calendar brush set. i love the little circle brush that came with this set so that i can highlight any important dates – like circling tate’s birthday in blue. i am also taking ali edwards’ one little word workshop this year and i included a journaling card with my word. (learning curve font used.)a little journaling card about the football game and a photo of tate covering his ears from the fireworks. due to the overload of photos i took in december, i pick up my big camera less in the beginning of the year. just some everyday photos and some cute things the boys said this week.

week 2:  tate’s big 3rd birthday week and our trip to disney + legoland.

tate’s 3 year old photos that i took at the park this week along with some instagram photos on 3×4 journaling cards. i love cathy zielske’s week in review cards and created my own version last year to coordinate with my project life pages. i decided to continue adding this card every week to the upper left corner of my weekly pages. i tweaked it a bit and changed the font, added the days of the week and highlighted some things from the week. cathy just posted this great video tutorial about her week in review cards – go watch it. i love how little moments are caught with my iphone. for our trip to disney + legoland, i only brought my iphone and my little blue canon point + shoot camera. we go to disney quite often, so i felt good about not dragging the big camera around with me. i ended up with lots of photos, so i put my favorites into my instagram 4×6 collage templates that i made in photoshop. (i will share these templates on my blog soon…) we met up with some friends and i was determined to get a group photo of everyone – even if we had to use the flash (which we did). it is not the best photo of any of us, but i love that we are all in it together. i love these “favorites” journaling cards that i made for each of the boys. it is a great way to capture what they loved the best this year. (avenir and amelie fonts used.)extra insert: this week i added an extra insert – design h – to put in the photos i took documenting tate’s birthday day. i designed the photo templates in photoshop myself, added the time and wrote a little about what he was doing.

click here to view all of my project life posts.

so i am caught up and ready to share.

week 49:  writing out christmas wish lists, bowling, lights and everyday life. this week i used ali edwards’ december daily sentiment box brushes to make the believe and hello magic journaling cards.left page: i included a little something tate said (he wanted some m&m’s), some photos of christmas lights taken with my iphone and i printed an email onto a 4×6 journaling card -  the email i received from becky higgins telling me i had been chosen for the 2013 project life creative team.right page: tate has been into the paul frank monkey lately so i took some of his monkey christmas stickers and made a little journaling card. (see the monkey on his shirt in the santa hat photo too?) a little instagram photo and story about how tate likes to take the ornaments off of our tree and a funny photo of how quinn likes to sit on mark’s back.week 50: rudolph quinn at preschool and christmas crafting this week. the merry and bright card was made using ali edwards’ december daily sentiment box brushes.left page: i love how tate says christmas and put it on a journaling card. (i also have video of him saying this too.) there are red + green christmas goldfish crackers, my cookie helpers and a photo of where stiller the elf sits everyday watching over the boys. right page: our finished cookies, pine cone christmas tree crafting, a funny thing quinn said, a make-shift apron and an instagram collage from this week. i could not let this week pass and not acknowledge the events that occurred at sandy hook elementary school. i found this quote card that cathy zielske used in her december daily and shared on her blog. i wanted to keep the design simple and in line with my white background, so i used the same quote and made a 4×6 card in photoshop.week 51:  the big reveal of the new creative team this week on becky’s blog, our santa visit, christmas bowling and my little duck.left page: i love that our local bass pro shops allows you to take your own photos of santa. and i’m happy that tate did not scream + cry this year. he was not thrilled when mark put him on santa’s lap, but the candy cane that santa gave him helped distract him long enough for a few photos. i also included photos of our trip to the bowling alley. the boys wore their santa hats and we called it “christmas bowling”. and an iphone photo with a lifelong friend in town for the holidays.a few journaling cards from this week… an iphone photo of my sad little boy and who did not want me to go out without him, a christmas edition of what tate is saying right now and a santa journaling card made with ali edwards’ december daily sentiment box brushes. right page: i wanted to document the big reveal of the new creative team, so i made a simple card with the new logo and photos of me that are on the blog. quinn’s duck costume and trip to the preschool play are documented as well as a little note from becky and my weekly instgram photo collage. this is a sweet thing quinn said and some photos of the project life childhood mini-kit that becky sent me so that i could make some pages for quinn (see my pages here) and a photo of my desk while working with the beautiful cards from the childhood mini-kit: bridegport edition. week 52: christmas week and there are lots of photos. this week was 8 days long because i made my week monday, december 24th through monday, december 31st so that would end my year nicely. and i could begin 2013 on january 1st. i just love when my dates don’t get split up.

left side: christmas photos, a star journaling card made with ali edwards’ december daily sentiment box brushes and a white 4×6 journaling card with merry christmas in amelie font. right side: more christmas photos and lots of instagram photos this week so i used two of my instagram photo collages. and since there were a few things happening this week other than christmas eve and christmas day, i included some small 3×4 journaling cards from a girls night out, quinn’s favorite christmas gift, tate decorating cookies at a party and new year’s eve. bonus insert:  the daily adventures of our elf on the shelf, stiller the elf. i took a photo of him every night involved in some sort of antics. because the photos were taken at night and the lighting was horrible, i just used my iphone and processed them with instagram. they are not the best quality by any stretch of the imagination, but the boys loved waking up every morning to see where stiller was. it was important for me to document this part of our month – even if the photos weren’t perfect. i used my regular design a photo pocket pages and printed them on 4×6 cards using a template that i created.left side: days 1 through 12 right side: days 13 through 24 and a closer look at the cards…

*** fonts i used for my journaling cards are avenir + amelie ***

my project life supplies:

i am ready. i am organized. i have a plan. and most of all, i am excited! preparations are now underway for project life 2013, so i wanted to share how i am going to get ready for another year of documenting my life and my family in words + photos.

for me, it all starts with a few basic project life supplies: a white signature binder, a big pack of design a photo pocket pages and white 4×6 and 3×4 journaling cards. that is all i need right now to get ready for january.

a few things about me + how i do project life:

i document in a weekly format. my weeks are monday through sunday so i get a full weekend into each spread.

i like to keep things very simple. the color white is my very best friend.

i am obsessed with having things in chronological order. i don’t know why. i can’t get over this. so i just go with this crazy quirk of mine.

i must have the week number and the dates printed in the same place every week. i put this info on my week in review card, which lives in the top left 4×6 slot in my design a photo pocket pages. call me a creature of habit.

i print out my journaling cards because i don’t love my handwriting and fonts are fun. (i’m working on that love/hate relationship…) go here to find the best tutorial on how to print on journaling cards. so easy.

i use the day one app on my iphone + mac to write down what is going on every day. i love the reminder that pops up daily so i don’t forget. i really need that.

this is my second year doing project life. and i love, love, love it!

the most important thing about getting ready for project life 2013 is preparation. yes, that really can make the year go so much smoother. by doing a few easy + simple things ahead of time, i can be ready to fill my pages each week.

here is how i am getting ready for a new year of project life:

i insert design a photo pocket pages into my binder. (i learned that the binder gets full and you will most likely need two binders to complete the year – at least that is what happened to me even though i don’t add very many extra inserts in my weekly pages.) then i put a little sticky note on the top left corner with each week number written on it. this helps me to keep things straight so i always know which week i’m working on.

i print out 52 copies of this design a photo pocket page blank template. (you can find blank templates for other photo pocket page designs here.) i write the week number and dates on the top of each page. this is how i create my weekly pages – with a blank template pages, a pencil and a big eraser.

i enter the project life week number on every monday on the calendar on my computer. it helps me to keep track of where i am at a glance.

i create a project life folder on my computer. inside of this folder, i create 52 new folders labeled with every week number. all files, journaling cards and photos for each week will go in the corresponding weekly file.

i create 52 folders labeled with every week number in my dropbox photo file. this lets me quickly upload photos right from my iphone. when i am putting together my weekly pages, there is no searching for which photos i took that week because they are all right there in one little file.

this might seem like a lot of things to do, but it is all pretty simple and worth the time spent preparing. i’ve learned that having a good system is the best way to keep on track with project life. it is, after all, something i want to do and not something i have to do. some of these tips might work for you. and some might not. but it is all about finding a system that works for you. do it your way. however that might look.

tell me what you are doing to prepare for project life 2013?

project life is a simplified system of memory keeping created by becky higgins.
click here to view all of my project life posts.