the answers to all your Project Life questions.

Project Life is a system for documenting everyday life created by Becky Higgins. I created weekly spreads for my album in 2012 and am continuing again in 2013. Every Sunday, I share an update to my album on the blog (you can see all of them from 2013 so far here). I have created this page to answer some of the questions that come up weekly. Hopefully, you’ll find the answer to your question here. 🙂

How much time do you devote to this project a week?

It varies. I can put together a spread in a half hour or I can spend a bit more time depending on the number of photos I have an if I want to create an insert to share more about a story. I will say this though, I spend more time taking photos of the album and sharing it on my blog each week than I spend acutally working on the album. That should be a good indication of how little time Project Life can take. 😉

How do you tackle this project?

Currently, I work on the album throughout the week. In 2012, I had my weeks run from Sunday to Saturday, but will be switching to Monday to Sunday for 2013. I like the idea of keeping the weekends together and this way I am able to share the following Sunday on the blog and don’t have to rush to finish on Saturdays. I will be working primarily from the Seafoam kit in 2013 and I expect that it will help me to simplify the process (as well as help cut back on buying extra stuff) greatly.

What supplies do you use?

What tools to you use?

pen / Zig Millennium 0.1
corner rounder / Fiskars
paper trimmer / Rotatrim 15-Inch Professional Cutter
stamping ink / exclusively black StazOn
adhesive / Tombow Permanent roller adhesive.

You used to share quotes on each spread. What font is that quote font?

The quote font I used is a free one called BEBAS. I created a free download of all the quote cards that you can access here.

How do you take your photos?

I have a Canon XSi
that I use for all of my normal shots. I recently purchased a Canon 35 mm f/2 lens and I shoot with that 95% of the time. I also take a ton of
photos with my phone because I always have it with me and it’s so much
less conspicuous. I’d say this album is about 60% camera photos, 40%
phone.

I do very little post processing for my photos. Most are straight out
of camera. This is mostly because I have no idea what I am doing with
photo editing, but also because I like the look of normally lit shots.

When I do use iPhone photos, I use them in three ways. First, I print
them exactly as they were taken. On the spread above you can see three
photos right from my phone that were just cropped to the appropriate
size (3×4 or 4×6).

I also use my Instagram photos in the album. Above are two examples.
In one, I kept the square ratio of the Instagram photo and left a white
border when I cropped it down to fit on the 4×6 paper. And in the other,
I cropped it in PSE to 3×4 before printing. I
use Instagram when the original photo on my phone wasn’t that great –
dark, grainy, etc – and the instagram filters made the photo more
interesting.

And last, I process a few of my iPhone photos using the PictureShow
app. This app keeps the same photo ratio – 3×4 – but adds fun filters to
make the shots a bit more interesting. Sometimes if an iPhone photo is
fine, but needs more “pop”, I’ll apply a PictureShow filter before
emailing it to myself and printing for the album. (The three other
photos on the page above were taken with my normal camera.)

How do you print your photos?

I print all my photos at home. I do this because it’s convenient and I
can play around with custom sizes and when I mess up something, I can
just reprint. I have an HP Photosmart 2575 printer
that Paul had when we moved in together. I love it. The reviews online
are terrible, but I have never had any problems with it and love the
photo quality. It’s expensive partly because it’s so old I think. I
always get asked if it goes through ink fast – I don’t have anything to
compare it to, but I don’t have any complaints.

printingphotos from elise blaha on Vimeo.

The video above shares how I print 4×6 and 3×4 photos at home.

dividing up a 12×12 photo for printing at home. from elise blaha on Vimeo.

The video above shares how I print large 12×12 photos in pieces to fit into the pocket pages.

I print exclusively on Office Depot brand semi-gloss paper. It’s
expensive, but AWESOME and I usually stock up when it’s on sale or I
have a coupon. I much prefer matte photos over glossy and this paper is
perfect. I do think that printing at home is more expensive than
printing in a store or online. But to me, it’s worth the ease and I appreciate the time I save not going into a store or waiting for a photo order.

As mentioned above, I am including Instagram photos in this book. I
talked a bit about the larger sizes, but when I want them small (like to
fit in a coin protector page) I print them using the contact sheet printing option in iPhoto. (You can see the video of my process in this post.) I adore having them together in this grid format because I think they make a much better statement than one alone.

Tell me about the inserts.

When something big happens or I have a lot of text and/or photos to
include, I usually add an insert to the two page weekly spread.

Usually the text that gets included on inserts comes directly from
posts on this blog. I do enough writing here that I don’t need to write
MORE for the album. In addition to a big pack of Project Life Design A
protectors and a variety pack,
I went a little bit nuts on amazon and purchased all different sizes of
page protectors to add inserts. I have the following sizes :

I like having different options for adding more photos and text each week. I included my “day in the life” documentation
right into this album as an insert and plan on doing Week in the Life
the same way this year with a baseball card protector for each day.

How do you photograph the album?

For blog updates, I take pictures off the album on the ground near a
window. I avoid direct sunlight, but make sure there is enough natural
light to get the colors to come through correctly. I shoot directly
above and don’t have too much trouble getting decent images.

the answers to all your Project Life questions.

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