tracy larsen blog

some days – and weeks – just feel a bit uninspired. a bit plain jane. kind of quiet and uneventful. and that is how i have been feeling lately. i have not really picked up my big camera very often. lots of my photos for these weeks are from my iphone. i didn’t write down very many details about our days and weeks. just a few quick notes here and there. just plain old regular days around here.

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’m changing things up a little bit with my project life pages. i am trying something a little new + different for me. i’m going square. yep, square photos + square journaling cards.

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.