enJOY it

It's week twenty-eight and I'm caught up with the album but a bit behind on blogging it.

click the photo to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.

Week of : July 8 – July 14.

What happened this week? Paul came home from deployment for good! Hooray!

Anything special in the spread? I played a lot this week with the Midnight Edition (I love it and adore that it meshes well with Seafoam) and Kelly Purkey's Project Life kit for Simon Stamp.

Techniques this week : Nothing. This is a classic Project Life spread for me with labels and text directly on the photos to help tell the story.

Overall thoughts : Love having Paul back at home. The real goal now is to get him more active in taking the photos. Paul, I know you are no longer reading this blog, but let's make it happen.

Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 7 to 4.

Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : All Elise and one by Paul's uncle, Alex.

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Midnight core kit, American Crafts letter sticker, Kelly Purkey badge, letterpress card & label stickers, Freckled Fawn wood veneer arrow.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.

It's week twenty-seven and I'm still playing catch-up.

click the photos to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.

Week of : July 1 – July 7.

What happened this week? My mom and I were home with Ellerie. My Aunt Carol and dad came to visit on July 4 and stayed through the weekend.

Anything special in the spread? I included Ellerie's birth announcement and the onesie that she came home from the hospital in because this was the week she grew out of her tiny newborn clothes. This is something I saw Ali Edwards do with her daughter's onesie and I just loved the idea.

I slipped the onesie and a transparency into a 12×12 pocket page and used a binder clip to hold it in place.

To the backside of the onesie page, I included a 4×6 journaling card from the baby edition with a short note.

Techniques this week : Nothing too special. The photo of my mom, Ellerie and I was so important to me, but because it was a tiny bit out of focus I converted it to black and white. I often do this with blurry phone photos.

Overall thoughts : Still the Ellerie Show in the album…I know. I have gotten a few questions about if I am doing a baby album for Ellerie. I do not plan on it, but I am going to make a hardbound book of my weekly letters to her as well as various photos from her first year. That will not happen for awhile though. This album is our family Project Life album and will return to our new normal soon and include more than just baby E.

Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 3 to 6. 

Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : All Elise and one by my Aunt Carol.

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Midnight core kit, PL baby edition, Evalicious here tab, Kelly Purkey badge & arrow sticker, Paislee Press heart, "E" printable, calendar, Elise Joy stamps (shop to reopen in mid-August), Elle's Studio tabbed 3×4 card.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, 5×7 pocket page, 12×12 pocket page, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.

It’s week twenty-six and I’m still playing catch-up.

click the photos to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.

Week of : June 24 – June 30.

What happened this week? Paul headed back to his deployment on Monday and I was home with Ellerie. My mom was here and my dad and brother visited as well. We left the house just a few times. Again… this spread is mostly the Ellerie show as I expect all of these next few weeks will be. Life has to balance out. I am confident that it will.

Anything special in the spread? Not really. I played with a lot of the same colors for the embellishments this week. Loving the look of orange, white, kraft and black. Playing with the color story is often my favorite part of Project Life.

Techniques this week : I added the journaling from this post to a 5×7 insert. The front photo is the photo that accompanied it in the blog post.

Overall thoughts : As I write this, I am exactly four weeks into being a mama. In those early days, I wondered how on earth I would work Project Life back into my life now that everything felt so exhausting and upside down. I am so happy to report that while I’m still tired and totally sideways, this project is still my favorite. I feel happy when I work on it and love that these weeks will be documented.

 

Ratio of iPhone photos to “real camera” photos : 5 to 7. 

Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : All Elise except one taken by my dad.

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Kelly Purkey Project Life kit, heart sticker and letter stickers, Paislee Press hello card, Chic Tags love tab, Studio Calico “Always Be You” card, Elise Joy stamps (shop will reopen mid-August), Paper Source cardstock and circle stickers.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, 5×7 pocket page, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.

It's week twenty-five and this was the week Ellerie was born.

click the photos to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.

Week of : June 17 – June 23.

What happened this week? Paul was home. We waited for baby girl Monday and Tuesday. My labor was induced Wednesday, June 19 and Ellerie arrived 28 hours later via c-section. We spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the hospital. Saturday night, we made our escape and Sunday was spent at the house.

Anything special in the spread? I decided to just focus on photos of the baby girl and then journaling from that "I want to remember post." More happened this week but everything (obviously) pales in comparision to her arrival.

Techniques this week : I added a month divider into this spread to set it apart within the album. I lucked out that the June divider was yellow and matched the other embellishments. I stuck the "20" stickers on there to mark her birthdate.

I also added the 8.5×11 page of text about our hospital stay. On the backside I included the certificate the hospital made with her footprints. Eventually, when I write her birth story, that will get added to this week's spread as well.

Overall thoughts : I feel like the addition of the baby makes this a whole new ball game. I have loved documenting my life as a single woman, as a married woman and now I begin the documentation as a mom. It's a different task now that I actually know the little person who will someday pour through these albums. My Ellerie girl changed everything.

Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 3 to 6. 

Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : 7 to 2.

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Seafoam month divider, Kelly Purkey letter stickers, Paislee Press &/E, heart and mama printable, Studio Calico "3" card.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, 8.5×11 pocket page, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.

It's week twenty-four and I'm playing catch-up.

click the photo to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.

Week of : June 10 – June 16.

What happened this week? It was a long week of waiting. I choose not to use an assortment of photos and focus instead on two big things – I hit my due date and Paul came home.

Anything special in the spread? I printed 2 iPhone photos 12×12 and cropped the photos to fit into the pockets. I left an empty space on each to add a journaling card.

Techniques this week : You can see how I print photos 12×12 for cropping on a home printer in this video.

Overall thoughts : Love this spread. Love that I finally had an event in 2013 worthy of the full page photo. Love that it's done and in the books.

Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 2 to 0.

Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : 1 to 1. (Paul took that arm stretched out one. And actually my mom took the "ripe" one.)

Supplies used : Seafoam core kit.

Tools used : Design A pocket pages, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.

Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.