Project Life - January - Part 1

My 2012 Project Life album is coming together quite well. This year I've stuck with my approach of working month by month, rather than using the "Photo a Day" approach, or doing a spread for each week. These are popular ways to use Project Life, but they don't really work for me.

What I do is make several pages of random things that I've taken photos of throughout the month - so usually some pages of Juniordwarf doing his stuff, one or two 'random' pages and then layouts that cover an event or a place that we went to - either a double spread or singe page, depending on how many photos I took.

At the end of last year I started adding in different sized page protectors so I could include things that are bigger than photos in the album as well. Mostly these are A4 and A5 sheet protectors.

For the first page each month I'm using the new Design F page protectors to include some small photos of random things, places and events that I might not otherwise have included. Most of these are from my Instagram photos that I have resized to 2" x 2".

January title page (R)

Instead of using the physical journal cards, I purchased the digital collection from Jessica Sprague. I simply add the photo to the card in Photoshop Elements, include any of the extra elements that I want (usually just the day sticker), and type in my journalling. I wanted to use the same fonts that are used in the Cobalt collection, but couldn't find out what they are. The closest I found for plain text was American Typewriter, which I really like.

Once I'm happy with the psd files I open up a new 6x4 blank file, paste in two of the 3x4 journal cards and then print them as a normal 6x4 photo.

For each month's title card, I'm using one of the digital 6x4 cards and typing in the title and again printing it as a 6x4 photo.

The reverse of the title is one of the digital bi-fold journal cards that I've resized to 6x4 (the bifold cards are slightly narrower than 6" so they can fit into the 3x4 slots). I've then typed in the "month in review", included the digital numbers to represent the dates of the most significant things we did during the month and then hand-written some journalling about those events directly onto the photo.

Reverse of January title page (L)

Then for the rest of the month, I continue the same approach I used last year.

January page 3 (R)

Pages 3 and 4 are a combination of digital and paper. Page 3 includes a lot more journalling than photos. I wanted to include the baked beans recipe and the story behind cooking them. This was another one where I used one of the resized bifold journal cards and added pictures and journalling.

January page 4 (L)

I love the new page protector designs, as they provide a lot more flexibility in terms of the photo sizes and orientations that I can include. Design D, with four portrait 6x4 photos and four horizontal 3x4 journal spots is one I think I'll use a lot.

January page 5 (R)

January page 6 (L)

For the journalling in pages 5 and 6 I used the 3x4 cards and turned them sideways. There are a few designs that have the grid pattern rather than ruled lines, so can be used either way.

A4 and A5 page protectors between pages 6 and 7

January page 7 (R)

I'm also mixing up whether the photos have white borders or no borders because I think it breaks the pages up nicely.

Where I include more than one photo on a 6x4 picture, as in page 7 (above) sometimes I will break the photos up (bottom left) and sometimes I'll keep them all together (top right).

January page 8 (L)

January page 9 (R)

Page 9 is an example of Design B, which I like because I can use one 6x4 portrait and one 3x4 landscape photo plus a journalling card to tell the story. I used it quite a bit last year and I'm glad it's included again this year.

So that's it for Part 1 of January, and my new approach to Project Life. Part 2 will show some layouts that cover specific events, rather than random photos over the course of the month.

Do you use Project Life? What approach are you using?