where has the week gone?

A week has gone by without me posting a single post. So much for blogging three times a week.

I started a post about how Week 2 without sugar went, but then it got long-winded and started to get into arguments with myself about what I was doing. So all I'll say is the experiment is continuing and if I get through today, I'll have been three weeks without sugary treats or (as far as I can control) added sugar in anything.

Juniordwarf returned to school. It wasn't the big emotional event it was for me in 2011 and last year. In fact the holidays flew by so quickly, the return to school almost caught me by surprise. I didn't really have time to think about it, or even do anything to mark it. I took a couple of photos of Juniordwarf in his classroom and that was about it.

I did some work on my Project Life album. 

As a temporary fix, I moved my November and December 2012 pages that were overflowing from last year's album into a new album, where I've also set up my 2013 pages.

I'm still debating whether to keep doing Project Life in the hybrid way I did it last year, putting the physical photos into an album as I do them, or whether to load everything into a digital photo book and print it once. The main obstacle to doing that is deciding what to do with all the chunky memorabilia that's difficult to scan. It would also mean that I didn't have a physical book until next year some time.

So what are this year's pages looking like? 

I'm glad you asked. 

This year I'm not using any of the core kits. I'm using various digital papers to create background cards for the photos, journal cards and title cards. 

I'm sticking to two fonts - one for titles and the other for journalling - and will mainly be journalling in black or white text. I'm also going to try journalling directly onto my photos, so that I can free up the journal card slots for more photos.

I did that a bit last year, but I plan to do it a lot more this year as I think it looks great. I was inspired by some of the lovely pages from Windy Willow, who is creating some gorgeous spreads. 

So this is what one of my pages might look like when I print out the photos and slot them into the page protectors. It's basically six 6x4 pictures, with the middle row able to be cut into the 2.9x4 size that slots into the smaller pockets. (Yes, I forgot about the slightly smaller width for those "cards" when I was putting this together, so the gaps aren't very even. But this is just a mock-up to show the general idea.)

Because I'm doing a monthly approach, rather than weekly spreads, I don't have title cards for pages where the photos are just random things that happened. Only the spreads where all the photos are of the same subject will have their own title card.

As you can see, some of the 6x4 "cards" have journalling and photos, and some are just photos. I have a 3x4 picture on one 3x4 "card" and the rest of them are devoted to journalling. (I had quite a lot of journalling on this page.)

So that's how it's looking at the moment. I'll be able to see what I think of it when I've printed the photos and put them in the album. 

I've kept it simple, with no embellishments at this stage because I know if I started looking for the "perfect" embellishments I'd take forever, and never get these photos done. And getting them done is my main objective. So the "added extras" aren't being added. I might look into this a bit later in the year if I get time.

This year I'll be linking up with Nightwolf's Den for my Project Life posts, so I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of inspiration over there.

Now it's on to February.