project life :: January

A month in, and I am obsessed with this project. The first couple of pages were hard, until I found my groove – I’d gotten locked into the idea that I needed to burn through my kit first, but once I left go of that idea, and got the filler cards working for me and my style, rather than me trying to force my page to fit the cards, the weeks started to come together a lot quicker, and a lot more cohesive.

MY PROCESS AT THE END OF MONTH ONE

I work on a Saturday to Friday format – this gives me the space to focus on the fun stuff first, and centres our week about prioritising life and adventures, with work coming second, rather than forcing the fun to fit around work. Don’t get me wrong, our work weeks are LONG – Mr Barefoot does 60 hours on a quiet week, the three bigs have four Shiftwork jobs between them, and I’m just trying to fit home education and house work in around everyone else. But even in all that busyness, we can choose where the work fits in our mindset. It’s honestly been so good for me to take up space with weekend adventures first; in previous years I always felt like I was running out of space by the end of the week!

On Sundays – my screen free days – I pull up my photo app and scan the week that was. I work out what photos I want to print as 3x4s, and quickly whip those up in the project life app. I then do my 2×3 prints, also in the app. Once the phone photos are prepped, I take a look at my big camera and see if there’s any photos there I want to include. It does tend to be a bit hit and miss on big camera photos, since the phone is just so convenient to grab and snap as we are going about our days. If there is camera pics, I download them to my phone and run them through the same collage process as my phone photos. The final step before printing is to annoy my family. “Have you got any photos on your phone I need to include?” The answer is invariably “no”, but I still like to check. If they have been doing something I know I want to include, I will ask specifically. “Did you get any photos while camping that I could use please?”. (He gave me one and one only).

From there, it’s just a matter of turning on the Selphy and letting the prints run while I pull out my current paper collection, check I have enough white cardstock trimmed to insert size, and have a squizz through my filler card stash to see if anything jumps out as usual. A quick trim of my prints, and I am ready to play!

JANUARY STATS:

Phone photos: 49
Camera photos: 6
Photos by my family: 1

Page designs used: Design B, Design Y, Design C, Design A x2

Papers: Cards and add on papers from March 2015 Studio Calico Documenter kit, a couple of stash cards, plain card stock from Stampin’ Up

Embellishments used: chipboard and flair from Freckled Fawn, gold heart from a coastal LSS, Kraft tag made with Stampin Up punch, kit embellishments, thickers from Lime Tart kit circa 2012

My Sunday scrapping sesh is working well, and I am excited to watch this album develop over the year!